'All glory and honor', to You, bathed me with yellowed fingers. Father.
Whips me across each molar for penance, offers me glue in the morning- the kind he uses on letters when saliva won't seal the deal.

I, the cliché, trim my fingernails with a knife and mostly miss target. Slide into various seas, daily, with tincan pupils.

Knock,
knock, its time again

I no longer believe you've left my head, I mean,

the idea of your fingers interlocked with my own

echoes at me in the most unproductive ways.

Leaves fell
          p
            er
              p
                e­
                  tu
                    al
                    ­  ly
                               as we
didn't,
BuT I (your ardent lo>er)
Choose to smite
                         the indigenous winds and
                         forests' unpledged palates with
: A Stony Subjection:

Willows weep
Shadows grin
Mothers lie
Daughter sin

Feelings bleed
Hyped minds spin
Colors clash
Mouths of tin

Sleepless nights
Shark's black fin
Cracked up bowls
Want to win

Roses red
Smiles of gin
No fix real
Unwashed din

Honeyed song
Prideless kin
Jesus waits
Pull this pin.

Ask what their favorite colors are

Check in with them in the morning

Check out in the evening

Make plans for the next day

Follow through with your plans for the next day

Choose walking paths away from busy roads or large falls

Learn all their most used phone numbers

Help them get dressed

Laugh when they ask you to walk with them while near busy roads or large falls

Call all their most used phone numbers

Hold their hand

Hold their hand tighter when they reach for things to **** themselves with

Laugh when they call you a bad friend

Label them. If you don’t, you’ll take it personally.

We were crazy.
he and i.
We'd cut ourselves with rocks to see
whose blood would run the fastest,
It was hailing and we went for a swim.
Nuts.
He said he had a rope. He said
there's two Smith and Wessons in his ******* closet.
I kissed him.
No favorite colors,
We'd lie in the shade of synagogues and under the blaze
of search lights, a couple of lost springs. Picking me
up around the corner so they wouldn't see, he'd
tumble his bike so that we'd fly and i'd scream.
Beautiful.
He said for us to run away. Never sweat. He said let's
run, let's ******* run. He said shut the ******* door.

I run. Run away. He doesn't like me to. He had a rope
and there's two Smith and Wessons in his closet.

Watch me diss a p
pe a  r     s
     o eas
y

li ke  s
     tr a nger
         sto a   ju ng
                             le

Fridays are for drowning.
Tipsy, tipsy, let me ~shell out my kidneys.
-Says he works at the smoothie bar, looks at me, has a heroic jawline, I

stumble.

Waves lash ankles, steer comatose foams - my waist is grabbed at as i slog into waters.

Smiles, nods, propels with wide eyes.

I ate with a fork.

Forget me.
I can only bring you down.
Forget me, and you will soar on
To light and liberty bound.
Forget me.
And your dreams will come true
Because the only thing I ever did
Was to make them impossible for you.
Forget me.
I rock at your wake
The love we shared is buried past
This smile for you I fake.
Forget me.
As you look into her eyes
Forget me, and she'll be the one
Your ransom from the skies.
Forget me.
As the ache of those days fades
As you share her kiss
I stare at my reflection in so many blades.
Forget me.
And all that could make you blue
But one promise I'll keep
That I'll never forget you.

Numbed spines, turn-table minds of froth and iron, we shook-
Holding the flashlight while he wrenched at engine and rubber in the rain. Ward of the physical touch. When it wasn't too wet, we'd paint the windshield to match infinity then get in and drive. Drive, just go! As we
Implode.

Or lie in feilds. How many they are, numerous as stars, grassbeds sprinkled with violets and clover. -So similar. So same. The roads (we'd race, tires screeching, screaming, outrunning, false) and clouds that look like bedroom windows.

Anything's better than home when you don't know you're sick.

I prefer swimming
because I feel the water
and the sand and shells
carrying my weight, my emotions
Waves rock me to and fro like a lullaby
to sleep, sleep with lights,
snow, and no-promises on the
other side. O brethren, pick
me up with the unwanted jellies
on the beach. and wash me
out, swirl, away/Let us roar
upon far shores and
dance with the sharks and stars,
forever fleeing the drying-up sun

Falling asleep to love songs i'll never hear
Knowing that I'm dependent on the one thing that I fear.
I wrote my skin a letter today
'I love you,' It said, 'but never again play.'
Looking outside at the bloodred moon
Wishing somehow for a deeper cocoon.
Feel the lines underlying my eyes
Each one fought a tear for a man in disguise.
Fingers made of ashes, heart made of lead
Can't seem to repay in gold, the one that for me bled.
Patterns prevail, vibrants on which to set my mind
But not even the pen, to me will be kind.
Gather up your children for I come around at dusk
May try to steal a precious gem to fill this empty husk.
Bed of fresh snow, sheet of ancient lanterns
Lying in numbness, whilst thought of being woman, turns.

Turns out- you were mostly whole with a few ruts, and I, a smattering of solids, was just enough to fill them in till they'd grown out.

'Kilt.'
'She's kilt for sure,' as the sparrows look down at us,
Bluegills pecking away toes, memories.

Tosses me with black eyes~ He,
flipping us onto our necks, whistles.

Devil, devil, look me in the face and LIE.
>.<>.<>.<>.<>.<>.<>.<>.<>.

Me again, (it's real, it's real) i can't help but tear out the zippers of my clothes for you, crunch on muscles, oil my teeth.

And the sun kisses the sky goodnight :my dear: with its evanescent arms trailing out over the waters, tickling the fish i'd bet. But,

Marbles. They're obsidian carved, best of the best. He puts them where his eyes were when we met and thinks i can't tell the difference. Well i know. Oh boy sure i do, do i know, do i.

I prefer that the adrenaline race alongside my bones rather than swim at an unpretentious gait and
I know it's short-lived but ,oh god, I love the feeling of no-tomorrows.

Last time I checked, there were arms attached to shoulders and teeth studded gums (yesterday). The sky was if one were to look ^up^, and, when passing food trucks in the alley, the nose would  envelop ***** scents with its own series of flares and snorts. Yesterday

I came across your bones in the backyard~ they'd been crusted over by small, cloud-shaped lichens. I fed them with holy water and met no response. The sky may have been purple but it probably wasn't ( I didn't look). With one deep sigh, I lobbed a femur to the neighbor's dog.

I made sure to /bruise/ your neck before you'd left me- your choker tattoo, compliments of cupid. I'd !******! and !!******!! and !!!******!!! but none of you had come out. I'd gnawed^.^. for your blood but my lips had burst and I'd been left with my own. With unflinching ease, you neatly grabbed me by the teeth and bent bone from gum.

Needless to say, no lesson was learned.

Steering wheels too. I grip and they slip. Zero-gravity throats and an acute awareness of how heavy limbs become when theyre unwanted. Flash past street signs ("Virginia", "Jefferson") and cars, those glistening hunks of destiny.

Dont criticize personalities, it kills.

sometimes the
stars seem to clink
like glass and then fall
out of place and drop and drop
until maybe I guess they land in some
farmers field in Armenia or Laos and then
perhaps a young boy will go out to play and find
a feat that will take away his boyish charm
but oh those boyish fantasies will
soar

This sea is non-believing, filaments unhearing. So, magic in hand, i become tremors in the waves, rust in the walls.

Doll snatcher, let me down.

even nights terrors visit me more , best friends ive ever had

I've been eating zebra cakes. Partly for the taste [creamed-up skies, maybe a swan or two reflected in a lake] but also for the animal on the package with his confetti and rainbowed smiles. Four days till Good Friday, lord.

In eveningtime, I sit inside myself and bang on the cockleshell walls with my ribs. Given time, the vibrations start to numb-up the cells of my nerves and lose effect -anyways. Sleep is with a machine who touches me through perfectly oiled axles and aching laughters. He doesn't hear me when i tell him I don't want his incisions and leaves knives by my bed to desensitize any qualms.

Last weekend, I didn't go home with the pineapple boys. I climbed through arms and fingers and faces, but my lover (machine) had since ascended - I kept asking which of the walls i could follow to find him, but They laughed and told me i was blind.

At 11 AM, I awoke and went to inform my mother that the day was timeless. I then sat amongst it and waited for the thing to recommence/

It didn't.

Later, I
found myself in aisle no. 5 (an obligation valued before the supposed ceasing of time), becoming - !desperado! in aisle no. 5, 5 for baking, because baking is community, comfort, a kiss on the forehead, a dream. Disgusted by the
lighting
of the place, I hurried with my business, out and past the parking lot people who appeared quite oblivious to this state of affairs. One glanced at me, but my aisle 5 eyes took care of the situation.

I woke up in the car, tried my hardest to ignore the fakeness of the dash clock, and pulled
out
into the road, leaving aisle 5 behind in some pop-up book land of apparent responsibility.

And cried, as it is oh so weary to crave death in a place so meant for life.
  
∞

Allow me to
c o l l  e  c   t.
along tunneled ceilings^ and
unused bones.
They tell me that fire
is hot**
and lakes freeze [over in winter
but I can feel
china doll shar"ds underlying
skins. (Some mornings, when I wake up too early, they've protruded a bit so that they catch against my bedsheets and ensnare us. I grab a hammer from under the bed, pound out silt-size rubies and tangles of flesh)


(Oh, mother, mother, take me in, take me in)

prairie girl, home for the summer
                    steals ceramic eyes to shade
         sunrises of gasoline kisses -
                    she lies underneath and counts
                             each, whilst marveling at snow-
                             globe winds and birds that can't
                             fly.

Spring folds,
its deck shred
'cross poppy laden
fields.

Away with the heavy air and a bit lighter on the lungs!
          Color seeps
          from stone and skies
          part.

In evening-time, we walk past the old playgrounds, as always, while sleepy suns settle their eyes on lazy toes and swing-set reds.
~
Land that is known,
stay awhile.

Sometimes I feel Beautiful.
incense drips from the cold tile
Exotic even,
never worth the pain bestowed
but priceless still.

Fiend he was and fed away my heart to the pack of nightscratchers in his wake - all the while looking me in the eyes, my superfluous pose, his wired,

wicked laugh echoing at me in my dreams, behind my nose and in every strand of

flitting, fleeting hair, like a mechanical fantasy of Mr. Poe, and It was Then, in that freakishly drawn-out moment of my life that I realized I am not a girl, this nonsense may have

ripped the veins from around that kaleidoscope dreamland of my interior but from now till on I will

live unreal realities outside the mind, bequeathing thoughts and sense but as a woman,

taking my fall with grace, gracing the light with a smile, smiling at the

dreams
                     I
                             once
                                         dreamt.

I was sitting with the lights on when all of a sudden the last person left the room and you came out of no where you ran me over you looked into me you flicked me off your earth with your eyes your eyes i always loved your eyes id always tell you how they were sculpted wings turbulent seas winds birds you stopped looking.

these hands have quieted their wobbling, id have hoped my heartdve as well.

Oh, head of mine, dearest, darkest

I’m all in, all ears
(You skip a beat)

/

As gull lifts from land, I will leave you to find kinder winds, subtler seas
-The earth has received my dues and thus sceneries come to pass.-

i am:
fall off the bone, tenderized,
dry. Caked mud falling from the mass.
God forsake me. The way in which a love clouds my nostrils and my mind will mesh shut at each new instance of the molecules O and H forming the stuff of my body, makes me faint.
I am now. Heartbeats tick unwillingly. I am yes.
Kiss me and I'm yours, I'm -fall into his arms, princess, you who have the world at your beck and call- , casual, I am innoculation.

Tiger, i
swim at night to keep my skins
Pale. And marinate moon-dipped tundras.
Splash, ripples as i spear tides with flesh and bone, collapse into waters taut as untested brides. 'Paradise,' I'm told, though my eyes reveal but shadows upon the shores. Not to be depressing.
Stay under with me a bit longer my love.

I, ripe
fruit,
a-wait dreams,
legends, storms~
In song, become
girl, with voice, hair,
lips, let me ex
press to you the welling,
welting of
the cardiovascular.
Precipice of a
smile, sultry swirl of
cloud before the
wet. Orange
skies cut to
red. Brok
en clocks because maybe without time they'll get here before I
wilt.

and I know that at this moment I am like the flapping
/for sale/ signs in the wind but on the inside I feel so
safe,        not       hot        not       cold        but this soupy
mix that only reinvigorates when that biting wind
reminds me of future engagements.

I see the veins wrapped around my bones
Glimmering blue bonds restraining me
The meat of my self, pulsing in attempts to break free
But I am held in place
Like a fishing net, they catch up my expression
And I am grateful
For without the restraint, my essense would everywhere be spilled
Still, life seeps from the the grating
Down my limbs it streams
As a river fresh cuts through the swamp
or is it my plain?
Collecting to pool, then dripping in my wake
So trailing the source
My bridal veil will never be disembodied