now my veins are coursing with blood
taste it on my tongue
i can’t slow my pulse

he took my spine
and broke it in half
skipping heart inside my skin 
pounding
pounding
pounding
loud drums

the water towers i see from my bedroom window
to the storms you awaken in me
like bathing in chemicals
burning my skin
from within
why are his eyes so disjointed?
why do i sweat from my hands to my feet?
shuddering with anxiety
i’m so sick of having to give that disclaimer

do you feel my worry protrude from my speech?
the stuttering, the contemplation
i’m terrified i might say the wrong thing
so i don’t say anything
and hope the end passes
softly and—
i may have acted too hastily
shaking hands and paranoid and scared to bend my knees
cause someone might see
me
struggle
and then i’m ******* forever

and this attention, i’m not used to its hold on me
it feels threatening, can’t see the opening
at the end
of the tunnel,
vision is blinding me
what is a good moment to just say “no” out of the blue?
paralyzed with fear
maybe then you’ll know, it’s not worth it to even try with me
i hate hurting feelings, but this is hurting more than that
emails you sent me, just ask for my number
i could’ve given it,
but then i never would have texted
so you’d be
alone with yourself
and you’d have to be witty
i can’t see the future,
possibly
i might not want it to happen
so i try to push away
good things,
like they are mosquitos in the desert winds

but what are you attentive to on me?
for others have more than i do,
i’m poison ivy, i’m sticky glue
although once you have me,
i don’t want you
it’s like a burden, yet not how i treat you
is this too redundant or straight forward?
i’m sorry if this feels like torture to you
it feels much worse to me

maybe this is why i hate physics
the weird attractions
that happen
when you don’t even invite them in

you treat me like no one else ever has
some foreign way to the usual circumstances.

the audacity to call me, a stranger, spoiled
people i don’t know acting like they know me

i will get to the king, i will rip off his garments
i will fling him onto the wall,
i will rip the peasant’s sufferings from his brittle bones
he will fear me
and i will wear his crown

he has always tried to minimize me into an object
a hideous figure lurking in the midnight
i have been wrung out like a cloth

I BLEED THE BLOOD OF YOUR ENEMIES
WHAT KIND OF A SAVIOR ARE YOU,
YOU DEMONIC FORCE SQUEEZING MY FINGERS TILL THEY ARE SWOLLEN
YOUR QUEEN SHOULD TOPPEL OVER IN THE MOAT YOU’VE BUILT AROUND THESE WALLS
YOU STONE GIANT,
FALL,
FALL,
FALL

i am surfing on the waves of independence
so constructed, out of my own weapons
the fire burns and my legs keep aching
but i will get to the king

i will make him drink of the wine and puke out his guts
so his loyal servants can see he’s not perfect
i will whisk up a potion so deadly
he’ll forget the temptress’s melody
ringing in his ears;
where is Persephone?

she went to the churchyard and sat and screamed
in her puddles of self-wallowing

i will get to the king
i will rip his heart clean out
and place it onto the dining table where he was feared and fed by the same exact servants
i will scrape the blood from off my knuckles  
and dance around playfully

and his queen will survive
because she has no responsibilities, only looking pretty
which isn’t classified as a problem

i will schmooze with his friends
i will think of a ruse to manipulate him into losing his structure
bound by the future
he never will consider
and i will wear his crown
perched on his throne
in my white linen clothes
just a careful creature
creating plot lines with my ideas
he’ll fall like a feckless being
and i will be reigning supreme
over dreams, over kingdoms and avid
over gaining more power
yet i won’t let it devour
me into thinking i’m a
deity, poised like a particular person
who knows where to go when
the people don’t know
what has happened to them
or their (king)dom

i will wear his crown on my head filled with brunette hair
soft, strong, and explosive
deadly nightshade inside of his bed
while i stand in the corner
immune to his shivers
and quivering

               i will get to the king

i met you in the flesh of an early morning
swinging on rainforest vines
sparkling san francisco golden gate haven
sun, so radiant yet so tranquil

i met you, hazy with some byproduct of devotion
i was standing in rapture
an echo of aspiration
and restoration
an outline of a happiness that somehow seemed like closure

i met you, a symbolic glimmer
drunk in your joyousness
meeting as the morning dew barely dries from the damp grass
blue eyes like sapphires, like rubies, like gold

i was struck with akrasia
i forgot how to shake hands
i mumbled between my teeth
i met you, so shimmery, so wonderful
so full of mirth
     and
      i
      lost
      yet
      another
      thing
      to
      my
      greed
      and
      selfishness

do you go by some pseudonym at this moment in time?
i can’t find you in the rainforest trees, rains, or vines
you can’t be lost
forever

i am daft and i am dominoes crumbling
and i am
debris
from a rotted sea

and you are faithful and cheerful and jolly and dopamine rushes
and how dare i quell the moonlight inside you

if you have broken hands, i promise i will fix them
if you have died and went to Heaven
i dare you to send me
a safe haven of angels who all know my name
a safe haven of ballerinas loose on a stage
a safe haven of happiness where songbirds dance and dancers sing
a safe haven where violets bloom after the gloom
i hope your absence doesn’t contribute to the atrophy of my being

but if it does,
i least i met you for a little while
in the carcass of a morning apparition

there is nothing on this sinking ship except naivety and

(in my quiet solitude
though uninhabited, i see a force that wears the skin of a wolf
and it circles around me like a vulture to its prey.
there is yet to be found a validity
alive in this misfortune
obscenity has a spiteful home here.

have these bones grown too brittle?
have you turned into a surge of unnecessary memory?
the pressure folding my lungs like cards
the violence raising me as a scapegoat.
have you seen these ugly acidic tears turn the ground into a salt mine?
if you have looked for me, you have not seen me.
my intuition pulls and hides and repositions me
these conditions we instill are making us suffocate.
and these borders are making me unfamiliar
to the uproar i had grown so accustomed to.
to the sewer, we were flushed
and we lost the foundation that was hardly standing beneath our groaning feet.

the fury i breathe through my tired nostrils
entangles me
like a vine in a rainforest that only knows how to be sunny.
if you have looked for me, you would have seen a corpse instead.
a semblance of what used to exist.
a current swept over terrain that remains, that never
changes.
the barriers across miles of lands picked over, lands filled with dry tumbleweed, lands uncooperative with human life,
we rested upon.
in painful oblivion,
we lost the voice of the siren.
our qualms swelled
manically filling us with unease inscrutable to our undeveloped skulls.
we wear our burdens like unwashed clothes.
we walk within the hands of famine and loss and destruction.
we hear each other’s names, but all it causes is…)


pain.

these quiet soft bodies in the forest are suffering
there is an endless question in the mouths of the rivers
there are scoundrels dressed in foggy black smoke
making peace with themselves while killing everyone else
their canines sharp, their chilling howling winds making the spirits’ hair stand on edge

these quiet soft bodies in the woods are suffering
there is a constant pounding of war drums beyond the horizon
buried underneath silk-spinning spiders and fool’s gold
there are ghastly ghosts shrieking for eternity in their eternal vacant brains
their tepid seething souls scavenging the abandoned corpses like vultures

these quiet soft bodies in the darkness are suffering
there is a hazy fog that blinds the earth from the heathens that have been buried in vain
they have bulging eyes and stigmatic circumstances protruding through the silence
tempestuousness swirling beneath their feet as in a hurricane churns up the foamy water
they see red coals and embers in the cores of any sane soul
they will gag you with a temper, leaving anger imprinted on your skin  

these quiet soft bodies in the emptiness are suffering
their cries for help are being intercepted by the government that birthed them
leaving them to be swallowed by the jet-black monsters that lurk in the shadows
there is a mask that is worn over their heads before their sense gets scraped off of their skin
they never have to feel a thing, the gashes only give a sense of victimhood

these quiet soft bodies in the nothingness are suffering
they are getting eroded away, thrown up in flames, spewing out ****** teardrops
they are hunted down and shot, seasoned perfectly and oiled
the trees groan from the fumes exuding up beyond the sky line
their branches fall off as they look the other way, vapid in their deliberations

violent thrash of a sword
to the fortress
that i call home.
there is always some
silver coin
or biology
that takes from me.
i have no one, but…
individuality and religion.
each destined to be stolen from me
yet i will not surrender
like the blue girl
that lurks by the docks
resembling the runny river water.
i will not lose the lens
that formed me.
the end of the tunnel
is bleak and empty.
there is nothing to hold your flaky body
if you don’t have the lens.
what do you see in your reflection
if not an extension of what you dislike the most?
the inner workings of you
are strikingly wholesome
but the lights within you
are soon to be stomped out.
when you change yourself for the unforgiving blank void of life,
what is there left but a shell of fool’s happiness?
the point in feeling whole is
lost. my hands tremble, a stormy body
on the edge of today. and what is it worth
if not living for the truth? what is it worth
if my existence goes completely unacknowledged?
who will be themselves?

you know,
they say
when one door closes,
another one opens.
well, when
my door closed,
someone’s hands
came to my neck.
her eyes were so gentle,
gentle in a way that
is innocence masked.
she strangled the visible life
out of me.
she pinned me to the floor.
and when i tried slipping the story
out
into the world,
they laughed in my face.
so i thought this wasn’t normal behavior.
i was supposed to appreciate something unwanted,
some invasive beast.
i was supposed to accept my fate,
leave my life in the hands of a black swan.

you see, she crawled into my soul,
stuffed her face into my ribcage.
she lapped up every inch of me that was
left
standing
in the sun.
her eyes were bullets
yet it was always the same response of
“you’re a target, you should love the sound of gunfire.”
no, i am a gaping wound,
bleeding guilt,
bleeding out the remains of my foolish heart.
i bleed alone.
i am seeping blood.

she slammed the door so fast
and i could not look back;
there was not a new door to unlock.
i stood there helpless, stunned, shocked.
the fire violently grew
but somehow they didn’t see.
somehow they didn’t try to help,
they didn’t come to rescue me
from these depths.
they came to gawk and make jokes
at the expense of my life.
i couldn’t cry
because
the weakness would seep from my pores if i did,
it would show on my trembling lips,
it would put an end to my pride.
yet
what is pride
but a selfish desperate emotive response?
i am weak.
she pushed through my dry wall
and she
taught me how to unlearn careful choices.
she stole the human from me,
i was left as a naked, erratic wild animal.
yet she was always the one with bright white fangs
that pierced through my satin skin
and an apology was never exchanged.
i never wanted to shut the door
to my safety,
i never wanted to wind up in a creepy alley
beyond where i recognized the area.

and,
what did you call me
but a weak
and pathetic little creature
who can’t defend his honor?
why have you stripped me of my dignity?
i reel below your throne
coughing up childhood innocence and
disgust.
and they didn’t believe me
even when i clawed at my walls
begging to be saved,
they turned away.
they shook their heads.
they made me a liar.
they made me think i did the wrong thing
by being there
by not using my fists for power.
in my ravaging pits of darkness,
she blamed me.

you know,
they say
when one door closes,
another one opens.
but where is the doorknob
to my destination of
believing?
where do i turn now that you pillaged
the trust from my bones
using blunt force?
after you left me with my heart in my ****** hands
and the self that i don’t recognize in the mirror.

who did you leave me as?