i am the femme fetale who
doesn't see the lights of the train
but lures people towards the tracks
i am the siren who doesn't know
her singing creates destruction
ensnaring victims with her voice
i am the whirlwind that creates
sinkholes with warm words
soft embraces, gentle whispers,
i am the quiet
before the explosion of a grenade
i am the explosives
but i look just like alluring magic
when you sink down here,
pitch black becomes your muse
instead of the kaleidoscope you
seemed like you were expecting
you swallow me, all warm words,
all soft embraces, all gentle whispers,
but embracing me is like a car crash
where the impact may be fatal

my trauma home looks like
a blighted ecosystem
thriving with atoms that
name themselves anxiety
name themselves self-doubt
name themselves a graveyard
where no hole is big enough to
hide the defecation, the diseased,
the gap between these ribs.
i want to rip myself open
with alcohol,
watch my body coil up like a snake
watch myself come undone
watch myself spill secrets
in *****
like alphabet soup but thicker.
the spiders look enlarged, enraged,
enveloped in their webbed paradise
waiting for me to land on sticky skin.
the sharks find their next prey by blood, but the only way i will draw blood is by biting my tongue too much.

It is
And it's changing
The wind into summer shower
Into mushrooms and birds mouth
From river to the sewer
It is and it's changing
From dark to light to dim with
Speckles of sun born by the
Mirror in you childlike hand
You are catching dust bunnies
Sneezing and laughing
And the dirt could be followed by magic
And the kiss isn't greased by the notion
Of sin and the sin is only a word from the book
Death and insanity
Are frightening and profound
Your world is built from
No buts but ands
And they flow into peace
Just as well as the film of oil
On the ***** puddle
Astonishes you with
An iridescent rainbow
Duality is born by fear
You split and separate so
Caught up in the survival game
To keep that face and partake
Of wealth and fame
Empty is locked in the dungeon
And the words interlock
In plain patterns
Yet alive as they produce sounds
And the smell of tangerines
On a tree by the coast of Sicily
Reminds you of the day
When you could still enjoy
The warmth of sun
It absorbed into its juicy flesh
And there's no need to run
No need to stay
No need to cut off the ties
When life offers you more
And the heat and cold are feelings
That gets names as they replace each other
As they flow unstoppable
Dripping reactions
Burning like acid and smooth like milk
All in one glass
And when you have no thoughts
Ask questions
And when you feel the pain
Stay present and consider humanity

you and i are two different souls,
living on two separate worlds
that collided once
just to be parted
and never meet again.

she is a kaleidoscope. an ephemeral array
of dazzling multicolor. an LSD trip,
a hint of DMT, a tableau of ecstasy.
Thoreau once said, "all good things
are wild and free." i penned those lines
in the leather-bound journal i gave her
alongside a host of lineated iterations of empathy—
the first of many sloppy attempts at poetry,
earnest ideas penned to arouse
and amuse my muse.

a hopeless romantic, through and through,
but wise enough to recognize the folly
of storming a castle barricaded by a dragon.
she's going to have to save herself. after all,
she has always been the heroine in her own story
and ****** in mine. so i'll bide my time,
organize and strategize. i'll build bridges
faster than the dragon can burn them.
i will raise an army and wait patiently
at the gates, soulful if not entirely sober.
after all, she is as mesmerizing as fine wine—
and just as intoxicating.

when she chooses to kick down the door
and tear down the walls, i will yield
no ground when the barricades fall.
i've long since abandoned the sword for the pen
and bear only a shield to protect
and secure the health and safety
of the one who stole the stars from the skies
and adorns her eyes with the irises of nebulae.

'till then, i opine.

streams of salt and H2O leak
down reddened cheeks and condense
in a golden beard. a war-torn nation,
half-a-world-away, crystallizes clear as dayspring
in an insomniac's screaming and fragile psyche
at half-past-three in the morning.
what strength must a seven-year-old posses
to persevere amidst the perversity of cluster bombs?
munitions bought and paid for with the taxes
we fork over to the United States. will her blood one day
stain our hands with crimson? will her mother's?
a girl who just wanted to read, to escape
the tragedy that inundates our surroundings,
to a magical realm of pure imagination.
where we can summon spectral stags
to save us from the misery of humanity
and learn to disarm those who would harm  
us with the charm, Expelliarmus!
the bastion where i found the first seeds that grew
into a rebellion opens its doors to you, Bana.
there's a crater where your house used to be,
rubble strewn in Aleppo, Syria. but know that Hogwarts
will always be there to welcome you home.

Bugged out,
awake all night
and the ocean
is seeping through cracks in my lips.

Now, don't get lost my darling,
Williamsport's forgotten,
don't you lie my darling,
your love is the ocean.

maybe it's just the fact
that your eyes remind
me of nebulae but
i guess i just thought
we'd burn out like the sun

5 billion years on
before bursting
shattering supernova
undulating amidst
the Milky Way

but lately
we're nothing more than a solitary match
sputtering in the eye of a hurricane
flickering with hardly any fuel left
'cause this crisis has blackened our blood
and i couldn't seem to find
the gasoline to pour over this fading flame

so i'll scuttle this life-boat and set myself adrift
silently waiting to capsize
the old adage is true
the captain must go down with the ship
but our hands were interlocked
on that steering wheel
so i suppose it's only fitting
that i named this vessel after you
i'll sing your favorite tunes
as i keep sinking into this bottomless
trench of sleeplessness

we were both willing to
ram our Titanic into the glacier
if only to kiss the contours
of ice beneath the surface
the secret we hid from one another
pulling us with the magnetism of the planet's poles
a knowledge subliminally submerged

"i said i'd never let you go and i never did"
but Houston
we have a problem

and while all things end
i thought we'd go down
like the Challenger
erupting and scattering
bits of fiery debris across
these broken homes
sprinkled like memories
of Florida theme parks
and forbidden rooftops
and the corpse-blue cornfields of Iowa
illuminated at midnight by the halo
of all your Marlboro cigarettes

i didn't think
we'd spend
all these years
pretending
to still be friends

a lack of color-
days drawn over crossed out words
sunsets and full moons
do you really believe that i have forgotten anything.

a mind that you cannot rest in.
swirling hands and tangled hair.
if you told me that men were the devil i would believe you.

let me lie face up
hands toward the sky
let the water flow over me
through me, until i am nothing

how did you ever break what was already broken.

be careful what you wish for.
white painted over sunflowers
summer is gone and the devils are close
i can feel their hands
reaching, pushing tiny pieces of
fear
in through my ears

let spring come,
but i worry i will not rise this time.