You can tell me to stop
You can tell me to breathe
And you can tell me in gets better.

But can you tell me how to stop when the clock will never know a pause or a simple held in breath.
But can you tell me how to breathe when your lungs swallow your throat.
But can you tell me how it will get better when something so permanent is in the form of a clock without a throat.

I was only 9 years old with a mind that pierced like venom
at the fruit tree of creation.
And I resented that I could see myself in a mocking mirror
when all I wanted was to see the wall directly behind me.

It didn't matter when I wake because I still see the dark my closed eye lids rented to me.
The only good thing about dancing in the dark is not having to see who I am dancing with... but I hate Him.

Shoulders back, teeth flashing, and hair combed...
The mocking days loomed as they leashed me while I sniffed the buried ground because I was jealous of the breathless *******.
No! I will walk beside the Hand that bestows me and pretend like I enjoy playing fetch and having my stomach scratched so it can't ignore my Hand made zippers razored onto my skin.

So take me to church and tell me to grease my zippers with holy water so my blood won't sting the next time I drip sins...
And little girls aren't supposed to open the drawer to open their zippers, when instead should be opening the food cabinets.

Father, tell me why my fortitude lives on the same wavelengths that the fallen angel bestows on the weak...
Am I going to hell or is this my hell?

So why do I smile at the glance of your smile?
and why do I smile and have nothing to say
at the littlest of words that drip off your lips?

So why do I smile at the lightening striking glare that rains off your face
and burns my eyes?

So why do I smile at your out dated hair style?
and why do I smile at your words that bleed New York?

Why can't I return these butterflies and settle them back into a cocoon
to where they sat before I met you?

So why am I imprisoning the conversation starters with you
and putting my heart under arrest when I recognize your smell?
Why do I care about your stupid profound sonnets
and your emotionless responses that are secretly pouring out through your silenced mind?

I should probably stop.

I saw your smile and

I began to rise like newborn bubbles
in a freshly opened champaign bottle,
like the kind you see with a couple
intertwined in white lace and a black tie
walking out of a church.

I saw your smile and

I wanted to play those blinding white piano keys
attached to your gums that play
the soundtrack to my summer
harmonizing with the thoughts
playing hide and seek in our heads
as we shared our first kiss.

I saw your smile and

I forgot how to breathe like
when you kidnapped my breath
that was suppose to fill the silence
after we kissed but our stare
was powerful enough to break open
the gates of heaven before
St. peter could even inspect our adolescent hands.  

I saw your smile and

I was finally okay with you
whispering her name after your murderous words
"I love you" because I knew
you were now happy since me.

Silly boy,
that's not me on the other end of your phone line
and that's not how my voice sounds.

Silly boy,
how is that your Christmas tree is decorated when I was not there
and your parents weren't there to catch us
playing catch with our lips?

Silly boy,
that's not my smile tucked away in your eyes
or the scent lingering on your sweat shirt?

Silly boy,
that's not my hand in yours
and that's not my waist your touching.

You silly boy,
that is not my name after your murderous words
"I love you"

I'm too drunk off the air
Rolling out of your mouth
And the space between your lips. 

I'm too drunk off the anticipation 
My eyes receive as they 
Only know the language of 
The silence bleeding
From your dried lips.

I'm too drunk off the thoughts
I am making up 
In hopes that the words about 
To part from your lips,
Will grow me wings.

I'm too drunk off the sigh
Being the only thing 
Resurrected from our past together
Out of your lungs
...is that all that is ignited from our past?

So say something...
Before I become an alcoholic
On your stillness 
Forever clinging to your
Whiskey scent 
Promising me emptiness.

Your words become blades to my skin
And your eyes become the general 
To the tears that rebel against 
My lashes that beg for mercy.

The look on your face constricts 
Around my wrists mocking
The stained blood on my skin
Matching your words that web
Around a grenade waiting
To erupt with my permission.

But my strings lead up 
To your fingertips and 
My body is limp from
Your unintentional control. 

so just walk me to the plank
But wait, 
Your step beside mine
Is a worthless beat 
So just use your fingertip
To point me in the direction 
Of the waiting water 
Just foaming with bubbles 
To pile up inside my lungs,

One by one
Till the capacity is full
Like the grave of our hearts
Filled with dirt
Buried by the fuming smoke
Of your words 
With unlimited gunpowder.

Your smile and your laugh
Do not direct themselves at me
But play hide and seek
With my satisfaction,
So I'll sit at the edge of mountain
Drawn to the dangling light 
illuminated by your presence.

The thought of you kissing her 
Is something that stitches up 
The lining of my stomach 
So the butterflies 
Will suffocate.

Those butterflies turn to ashes 
As I force myself to
Swallow your words
Coated with gasoline
Because you and I both know
That it meets well with the
Fire inside my heart
That burns more and more
To the thought of you...
So lucky me because 
That thought is measured
By intervals of infinity.

My stomach will forever
Be barren from those 
Goodie butterflies
Because you killed them.

You turned my head and gave me a rosebud hickey
upon my lips,
and spoke the words that I get high on...
"I love you"

You told me to quit my worrying
of you slipping through the floorboards
of my wooden heart
with bent and broken nails

You kissed her hours later
while I was alone
missing you and your
haunting smile...
So why not just take the halo floating around my head
that you placed,
and put it around my neck instead?

I hang,
and hang on every word
that drips off your lips
leaving rope burns on my neck
stopping my breath
because I breathed
your air, and as you spoke
less and less,
I was suffocating.

I take the long way home
just desperate to feel
those butterflies
that I felt leaving your house
rushing to get home
before midnight would
break.

On the way home
my lips would continue
to tingle from each
breath rolling off yours
to seep into my lungs
because you'd give me
extra air to live longer
when only you knew
that I secretly wished
away my last breaths
so I could disappear.

On the way home,
I'd actually turn down
the radio so my mind
could trace over you body
on top of mine
and I would smile
as the moon cast light
through my car.

On the way home,
my chest would continue
to beat to the rhythm
of your blood pumping
because you were my
life support
feeding me breaths
and words that
made my cheeks flush
and my stomach rise
lifting my head too
because I was once buried.

Now, on the way home,
my lips quiver to dodge
myself from yelling out
your name.

Now, on the way home,
I make the radio scream
our melodies so my
mind cannot focus
to retrace the maze
of your body.

Now, on the way home,
my heart struggles
to remember how
to beat in unison
when it used to be pressed
against your chest
and being obsessed with
that force of pressure
keeping me compacted
together so I wouldn't
set fire to my lungs
and melt away forever.

Now, on the way home,
my head refuses to listen
to my stomach
and it turns to face
your house
and I hurt.

Now, on the way home,
my eyes mist
in the presence
of her car in
your driveway
parked where my car
use to sleep at night
when we'd become on
from dusk
till dawn.

Now, on the way home,
I remember back before you,
where I'd fight my breathing
to make it stop
so I could stop forever...
You saved me
from myself,
but now, on the way home,
I cannot turn into your
driveway anymore.

I can remember my 9 year old hands scrapping macabre words on top those tortured blue lines that pitied my gated head.  
I can remember my down the street friends, lips turned purple, from the snow temperature, glistening watered creek in my yard.
I can remember the quivering muscles in my stomach begging me not upchuck a landslide of overflowing butterflies on that summer night when he took my hand.
I can remember shutting out the lights on that one night while the cross hanging on my wall starred me down to fall to my knees and pray for the rotten wood in my heart to be repaired.
I can remember turning over away from that cross and find comfort in the damp pillow trailing a broken path to my withered eyes.
I can remember the thrown away unopened lunches falling free from my fingertips and throat.
I can remember my stomach hating me and my mind thinking in happy confetti-like gestures with a piñata full of echo’s, because candy insides are the devil.
I can remember abandoned dinners when spiders that took my place to cobweb my chair, and my food in the trashcan.
I can remember remnants of silver, sharp-toothed squares being injected on my skin and used as crayons.
I can remember the tree’s with broken arms smiling at me as I sat under the black leaves sharing their loneliness with me and I never did mind.
I can remember my lullaby had the same frequency as the jumpy breathes fluttering from my sunken lips harmonizing with the drops of my tears and blood.
I can remember the creature starring back at me in my bedroom and we had matching scars.
I can remember I hated her.
I can remember she hated me.
I can remember the young, immature boys with sharpened tongues quick with words that constricted the evil accumulating my skeleton as if I did not already know what needed to disappear.
I can remember my lips faking exposure of my tarnished, ***** teeth with the corners of my mouth turned up and the reflection of my cross blurred in the two windows on my body.
I can remember his voice on the other end of the phone line as he confessed his love at the same time while he was the tracing paper on my skin and I was that paper’s captain with a sharp, shiny penknife.
I can remember skipping the blue skies outside my chambered bed failing to search for the keys, but I was the guard and they were hanging on my cross.
I can remember falling to my bathroom floor, cold and sweaty begging for forgiveness as I gave my body and soul away to the undertaker when I checked off sin number “too many”.
I can remember God’s smile at me from the heavens and my heart being split open but not the bad kind of split, the kind that burst in the presence of grace.
I can remember the growling of my stomach scaring me away into night terrors, every night but they soon became my home.
I can remember sitting on the floor as my older sister, with her packed bags, walking out my house into her adult world and I was not at her car door waving goodbye.
I can remember my older brother leaving for college and I ignored the door shut.
I can remember my selfishness floating in the hands of Satan for he is the record sin keeper.
I can remember church pews darkening as I sat up from them because my sins squeezed inside and left scars, but that golden, stained glass alter at the front kept them in line all nice and tidy, and I would smile back.
I can remember that beige bread chiseled heavenly by the hands of God resting in the little golden doors behind God’s chair sprinting down my throat and planted seeds of glory in my withered and dry garden.
I can remember the holy water raining in my stomach praying for minerals of bits of food.
I can remember the blood in my veins fighting the layers of my skin rebuilding crooked patches that did match my normal skin color because I was the chemical warfare throwing rusted razors and bow and arrows penetrating the fortress just above my veins.  
I can remember needles and stitching living in the doctor’s drawer untouched by my skin even though my name has been reserved on them 47 times.
I can remember breathing.
I can remember praying.
I can remember living.
I can remember remembering this when I am 100 years old.

Her eyes are the stained glass broken from confession.
Her withered hair buried beneath dirt gravel.
Her forbidden mind fosters slobs of crazy.
Her mind is a battlefield of Trojan takeover.
Her bare feet remember sacred ground of tainted memories.
Her ears embrace the screech of still weather.
Her grapefruit mouth juiced with venom is tasteless.
her sharp egg shelled fingertips woven from braids of straw.
Her body is the Earthquake ruptured by the vibrations of collision.
Her thoughts trespass gated abandonment
Her firework pen exploding with gunpowder secrets.
Her gunpowder secrets deterring the sanity.
Her cracked lips cobweb from silenced words.
Her puppet stringed smile puts on a show to the audienced world.
Her soul has been toyed with by the cynical Fates.
Her echo without direction is a heartbroken drum line.
Her armor has been dowsed with sharp, penetrating words.
Her skin has painted stories interior to her porcelain frame.
Her soulless story can be dry swallowed by rocks.
Her tears bleed of whispered screams.