I tried to give up compassion
But that's something I can't ration
'Cause I'm overflowing with passion,
But when happiness starts crashin'
I get lost in depression
Now my feet are dragging
and my head is hangin'
While I am walking
But once I am home
The walls I am banging
Even swans recognize the song that I'm singing
The mournful song that shows I am dying
My soul that once was flying
Now is just crying
Despite all that I'm trying
There ain't no one buying
The lies I am telling
"I'm fine, I'm not crying
I swear, I'm not lying"
But I'm wearing a mask
There ain't no question to ask
That will get the truth, so please do not ask
Just leave me to bask
In this pool of self pity
Because nothing is pretty
And my mask hides all beauty
I have only duty
To die for this world
Without holding a girl
For my head to twirl
And get lost in the world
Lost in the rage
As I walk on my stage
To fight for my life
With no weapon, no knife
Just me and my fists and the others the same,
I'm expected to **** yet I don't know his name
I'm lost in the fight
I've lost what is right
I **** for money
Every single night
I sold my should to war
And I don't know what for
I wish I could say this fight was my last
But the next fights already started, life's going too fast.
I wish I could lost
I'm ready to die
Will you beat me please?
Let my soul fly!

green locker
a new violin
barely fits


grass on knees sun too bright laugh


rush hour
crossing the street
she spills her coffee


discovery of a pond
she killed a frog
that fast

moving day—
children pick
at the curbside

GIVE me women, wine, and *****
Untill I cry out "hold, enough!"
You may do so sans objection
Till the day of resurrection:
For, bless my beard, they aye shall be
My beloved Trinity.

Usually
The hardest things to realize are the things you already know
Mask on, eyes covered, perception altered
Only concerned about the right here and the right now
And once you get your wake-up call, it’s never soon enough
So you call the front desk
And you yell
And scream
And cry
And yell
Cursing more than a drunken sailor
Earning more soap sponsored mouth washes than your mother could bear
And as soon as you hang up that phone
You realize it’s no one’s fault but your own

Well you know how they say
It’s better late than never
So I’ll sit outside your doorstep
And wait
And wait
And wait until forever

I would say that I want to be with you forever
But forever wouldn’t nearly be long enough

if you'd like,
we could play pretend-
i'd be sylvia plath, if you'd
be my modern-day
cummings;

we can meet in
the coffee shop on
forty-eighth and first
and talk about suicide
over tall cups of coffee
that taste like your grandfather's cigars

and when neither of us are
up for walking
we'll go out to the park
and sit
on the bench by the pond
and hold hands

(i won't really feel your fingers by mine
until they become
sticky with sweat; we'll look at each other
and realize it doesn't mean a thing
to either
except for maybe the first attempt on both parts
to not feel so alone)

when the sun sets,
i'll cry
and not have an answer
when you ask for one.

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants **** in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill’d that they o’erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By ’s drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and when he’s done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night:
Nothing in Nature’s sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there—for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess,
addicted to the feeling of something that could be
a distant cousin of loss,
but can’t be loss when it wasn’t there to begin with.
a cousin of loss and brother of bereavement,
a lexiconical gap
in the english maw,
a space where the definition slipped out
but the word never grew in.
a gap where a word should be,
a word meaning missing something you never had,
losing something that was never yours,
grieving for something that never looked your way
or graced you with its pain.
insomnia of the soul,
unable or unwilling to droop into the catatonic stupor
of love,
until my eyes ache with open,
and my heart aches with empty
and just beautiful aches and pains,
like stiff joints filled with sterling silver
or arthritic necklace clasps.
my tongue is tin because the argentine
is in my hands,
silver in the space between the carpals,
oozing precious metals
onto the page.
writing in second-best so that it’ll stay.
writing second-rate love letters
and pretending they’re real,
like the words i moan mean something other than
hello
i’m lonely
who are you?
like i’m not the girl who cried love
because the village had already learned
that wolves are lies,
and vice versa.
because faking it has always been my favorite pastime.
i’ll write love poems forever,
keep feeding my addiction for as long as it stays,
let my loveless track marks bloom cantankerous sores
on my ribs.
while i’m young
i’ll write poems of arthritis and weakness
and death,
because oh now i am immortal
invulnerable and omnipotent,
but when my bones are brittle and my flesh is loose
and my spine makes me bow to the earth,
my poems will be of life and strength
and god
because darkness is only beautiful when it isn’t
an imminent looming
future.
when i know i may die tomorrow,
i will write of bluejays
and of a love that never found me,
though it knocked on all the doors and called all the numbers,
waited on my porch while i hid in the closet,
nursing my ache
trying to fill a lexiconical gap
with bukowski
and insomnia.
supersaturated with emptiness
because all the words in the dictionary
can’t make up for the one that’s missing.
it changed the locks when it came,
shutting me out of my skull,
taking residence in my chest
and growing larger with each slow breath.
every huff of oxygen fed my
resident,
every injection of
late nights spent just writing,
every pill popped -
the lies that went down better
if i said them with a gulp of gin.
so my lovelessness cracked my ribs as it grew,
replaced my marrow with sterling silver
and i watched it happen like
a glacier devouring a desert
because i knew i would never survive loving something.
deserts were never made to run bounteous
with water.
just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess.
addicted to silver joints
and words that don’t exist.

You don't know it yet but
I've lost my leaves.
While you keep
Yours evergreen.
Are they honest?
These thorns you throw.
They pierce my bark.
Some wounds bleed.
Some simply remain
Like memories
Or worries.
I think our veins should be entwined;
You are behind a clearing.
I notice your silhouette,
Your back against the light.
I am dropping my leaves at your stem,
Hoping you will embrace winter too.
The grass between us is scattered with
Flowers beneath the snow.
I wish I could gather them
To give to you.
But your thorns
Have me frozen.
I cannot breath.
For if I crack another will pierce me.
So lose your leaves!
Show your branches: thorns exposed.
I will embrace them and let the
Blood flow,
I will gather
The Crimson
In my heart.

she says turn down your music like

oh ****, let's just

twist the volume from

here to here

and everything's gonna be all right. like

those big-toothed snakes we used to dream of gonna

creep to her bedroom when they hear this

beautiful thunder in my window.

like if i turn my guitar to a whisper of static everything's

gonna disappear

in a puff of smoke and

—heavy hands be gone—

we can all breathe through this

tepid air

without something else to wrap around

and through every shivering

f

       r

     a

          c

              t

    u        

    r

       e.



because that's never going to work on me

again.