my veins pump molasses

my dry heart belongs to the desert sands and i

cough

i cough up my childhood

memories scattering through the air like

d                   s

         u                      t

i have been parched since birth, since the beginning of this journey

that never ends

i measure my height in sunspots and in the time it takes to forget where i'm from

beached without an ocean

dry and cracking like the desert soil, no hope of rain and no sign

of life

empty and hot and alone

my dry heart hides behind my bleached desert bones and i

drown

in the sand

loud heavy music drips through
a
h e a v i e r
atmosphere
vibrations write our dialogue
i read your lips like
poems
scattered across the universe
the beat pulses intrinisically and
i am breathless
sweaty
out of my element and into yours
to a place where
i am the wrong puzzle piece
my hands are cold and yours are warm and i need to leave
i am afraid
i am homesick for a place i do not belong in
(your arms)
crowded floors turn topside and
i can not see
but i am aware of one thing, capable
of one last thought:
the holy light lies in your eyes

my breaths
your breaths
and two heart beats pulsing in the quiet grey atmosphere
pavement
soil
and two hands intertwined at night
and all i can think is that instead of lying on top of it, i would rather be buried
beneath it.

i think in puddles of oil, slick and polluting
when i speak it comes out as smoke
negative thoughts inhabiting negative people
i heard that secondhand smokers have it worse

i am okay with becoming another statistic
"a growing symptom of the world's disease"
-- as they put it
they can use my sleep as a method of change, as long as i don't wake to see it

in the morning, i sit in the quiet hallways and drown myself in music
because if i don't, i don't know which way is up and which direction is right
but why does it matter?
i always think right is left and i pronounce my words wrong and they say it's okay to make
mistakes but don't you dare make a B

i think about sitting on the edge of a nebula as it's forming,
watching things so much bigger than you and i take place
but we began there too

sometimes i think about the fact that time is a manmade concept
so i can't waste time or spend time
when it isn't real
so i can't give my time back to the universe
to keep the stars turning
instead of me breathing

sometimes i think that maybe if i am mean to everyone i care about,
they will leave
and i can stop worrying that they were like you
and never cared in the first place.

the class i don't cry in is the class i do the worst in and if that
doesn't say something
then i don't know what does.

you told me i was special.
who were you talking about?
you said that we would never amount to anything
and you yell
and you refuse to understand
and i could never tell you that those pictures are not of me
and that i don't want to be good at math
and that i want to crawl inside my own skin and hibernate until my cells dry

but it's okay because my dad said there's nothing wrong with me

Spare me your narrow mind --

the sharp edges of your thoughts cut deep into flesh better suited to bruise

Don't twist your words into the gaslighting of a sociopath

You smile in them, but I've come to realize it is the smile

of a wicked ticking crocodile

and I'm out of time.

Five is the magic number - phalanges to syllables to tiles on a floor.

Five years rambling around in the darkest of green eyes, in the raw fiber of sultry voices,

in the streetlight suburbs of an Orange city.

Weakness, vulnerability, idiocy -- your words to describe what I prefer to term

Optimistic, good-natured, hopeful.

Someone seeking the best in people.

I assure you, your words fit much better now. You saw to that.

You saw to everything, pulled on strings that would have been better off frayed.

You tasted of evergreen, made everything so clear and fresh

It was natural to confide in you, garner your unique perspective on the course of life

Not unique, of course, but so very rare, so very ******* coveted.

You always were the con artist, my love.

The taste of your bitter ash might come from the fact that you ******* us all over

So perfectly.



I really should have known better.

I can't meet your eyes. Your gaze is hot, like iron in a forge. I get embarrassed, I look away.

Looking away is always worse. That's when I see.

Long, thin piano fingers, tapping, twisting, restless.
Long, thin legs shaped like dreaming.
Straight Roman nose.
Slender hips.
Thin lips.

On anyone else, everyone might appreciate this.
On you, only one would covet these. Only one would covet you.

I didn't know what I was getting into. I tried to leave, but I was stuck. Ensnared by that dorky smile, that reedy voice, that obnoxious laugh.

I almost had to ask if you knew how loud your whispers were.

i was the earth and you
my burning sun
it's not poetic anymore to spin a metaphor
so i'll put it to you plain:

you came, i burned, and all life has been evacuated to mars.

cough crumble choke
see if i ******* care
slide to the                      edge
          and tumble through repetitions of
my renditions of
a half truth apology
I tried, I'm sorry, I did my best
and I'll bite my tongue until it bleeds and I'll laugh while you drown
Drown drown drown
and I'll hold you under
and pull you out
scream myself hoarse, do mouth to mouth
until we can't tell which one of us was the
          smoker
and which was the set of lungs.

you think your wants are the only wants.
you think your opinions are absolute.
you think emotion is a weakness.

i think love should be reciprocal
i think promises should be binding
i think we all deserve sanity

we think we should agree to disagree.

small hands
           And bleeding cuticles
and the promise of being cold in July.
smashed hopes and busted knuckles
all the rings ever made -- save one

i saw a car on the highway and the driver
The driver had your hands.
Your hands, without bandaids.
Your hands, without blood
Your hands, with perfect smooth skin.

I had always wondered what your hands would look like on someone who was more than a skeleton.