i live in a world
of sheets littered with
pen marks, used tissues and sweat

mind you, the pen marks are black
because i only write in
black ink, blue is too foolish,
if that makes sense,
although i'm quite certain
that it doesn't

i lay my head on torn
out pieces of poems, better
left unfinished
and i breathe deep
mostly because i love the
smell of worn paper
and a little because i
don't want these words
to feel unloved

i'm a writer who knows
her mediums better than
she knows her self

I promise you,
this chest cracks
from the force of my gasp
scrabbling every ounce of
frigid mist I can
warming it with time,
face turned black from pressure.

wait for the release, darling.

it may not thaw
the distance between poles
but I can whistle something sweet
just like you taught me
when the summer was a running river
and our hearts
were not these
frostbitten bird wings
strung out across the dunes

I burnt my harmonica
in the coals you left me
it could not play the blues

we are grey
with nothing between the static
a monochromatic flicker
on long-dead television sets
shattered-glass hope breath
sputtered out in the slip-shape of smoke

my wrists are broken
from digging you out of yourself
so

let’s take a minute to mourn.

let’s see if I can hold the soft silence
on my sharpened shoulders
and keep it from breaking

bring out your paints.
show me how the only thing I couldn't see
was your brushstroke
your choke-face
your pathways
your patched-up heart strings
those holy rolling white things,

I would give my backbone
for another look at your insides.

this cup of tea
is dedicated to her butterfly wrists
opened chrysalises
3 hours before the dawn
would have found her
spread-winged, imitating lotus.

they ask what
    little sisters should
        why the water is blue when deep
        how the stones skip uncaring
    on the surface

    on the surface
  we are tied through bloodline
vein to vein, spine to spine
retched to form through
a single woman in 45 hours
    of neonatal grace
        echoing anything but silence

         they are a quiet pair of scissors.
            mirrors, in perfect function
          balanced from present lifetimes
        of subtle practice
      shimmering in sequence
   one glammer, one smitten
echoes of anything but silence

I am that third thing
the cog on wings
mildly pressed between two
perfectly pounding structures
smiling in the buffer
I am drafting,
a stick on the ripple.

misplaced keys end up
in the space between
dusty floorboards
under forgotten childhood beds
squeezed into far away nooks
in attics filled with
hundreds of burnt out lightbulbs
in houses with endless doors
and not one single doorknob

i find myself within them
when i drift off under the universe
i wake with aching legs for
i can't stop hunting, though
i fear i'll never find the
secret passageway i'm sure
lurks beneath a stairway or
perhaps beyond a fireplace

there is a certain key that i
seek and although i can't recall
it's shape, or color, or size,
once it is in the palm of my hand
i will know it because it will fit
within my fist, which just so happens
to be the size of my beating vessel

i'll take that old, rusting key
and ever so delicately
stick it in the depths of my chest
i'll hear the creaking and cracking
and feel the sensation of a
sleeping beast awakened
and i will rise knowing
that i no longer have to wander
this wild world alone

it's the kind of thing
where you can't stop
singing beatles songs
or smoking too many
spliffs to stop yourself
from gushing all day
long

the kind of thing
when you feel as if you're
sitting over the edge with
your legs dangling and
every once in awhile
you're tempted to
jump

the kind of thing
when you memorize
irises and listen to songs
and you swear every
single one was written
to make you feel this
way

the kind of thing
that leaves you breathless
and too full all at once,
heavy and weightless,
empty and full,
grounded and
free

this is my favorite part

electric impulses knaw
at nubs formerly known
as finger tips,
worn down to bits by
the desire to drench
this world with one
simple thing that may
or may not be
everlasting

i'm in search of
a replacement for
flimsy false hopes
and finicky heart pokes,
for flat lined finite
chopped up bits
flying up nostrils
in hysterical hits

even escapists smack
walls from which
they can't slither
through silently,
walls covered in
mirrors full of
faces fueled with
hostility

all the faces are
my own and it's
time i find some grace
before i finally
pull my last astonishing
escape from this place

sloppy seconds turn into somber slumber
and i'm still spinning in a universe that's unsure
unrest becomes irreversible, irreplacable, irrevokable
slipping through cynical sunrises and statistically normal sunsets

grab hold to the ground, hug gravity tight as everything
tries to fling me from functionality and into so called "freedom"
find focus, find focus, find focus

hocus pocus hums under hymns spoken hesitantly
and i hesistate again and again, i hesitate
finding the magic within the madness is my specialty
sometimes so much so that i subject self to sinking slowly
into the muck that ***** my skin off of my bones

flapping floppy lips leak loosly limp ideals and i look
to my black widow for conviction, confirmation, and consistency
meditative mornings and deep dark evenings become the norm
housing imaginary friends and hoping to inspire intellectual integrity

family finds new meaning in full ****** up webs that spin
us all up and spit us out on the same ground, but we are safe
here in our humble, happy home, we are safe and we are
happy in the simplest sense of the word