if i could write anything beautiful
that didn't have a thing to do with you
     i'd have written my way to the moon and back
on a path built of college-ruled yellow lines

i gave up on writing
the first time i heard you speak

now
     even my own words mean nothing to me

no pen could procreate the sweetness slung by your tongue


what's left to be said
     hasn't even got a proper spelling

he used to range off-key
on nights he'd sing to me
          and i?
     well i'd fake a smile
and pretend to not account for
the fire running my spine
that never let me whisper to his lobes
     "you're doing fine"

i just couldn't lie
to a face like a shelter dog's

and he'd lay next to me
     sawing logs
as if he couldn't even be bothered to dream
as if all screens are unwelcome
when what you're trying to stitch is a sail

     another night time nice guy
with a needle between his teeth
faking bonds between the bed sheets

          those sheets though?
          those sheets got me

i dropped to my knees
digging deep for water
     and felt the clay take shape beneath my fingers

this place
     this is home

so from the dust i sculpted doorways
          and windows
          and halls
     lifted up walls
and made myself a castle out of the sand

now i drink beer at the edge of paradise
and ask the thirsty to come inside
     and play in the shade


i never ask them to stay
     but neither do i point them towards the door

she exhales in outcrops of lilies of the valley
and cries with the echo of a landslide
     but when she laughs
the sun himself rushes to brush against her burial mound cheeks
and pretend he was was the spark that launched her into bated birdsong

i pressed the moon to my breast
and took light to heart

now i see clearly when i fall apart
     and pull myself back together
with nebulous lassos

arriving at a peak in the valley
     i've never once proclaimed to the hill i've climbed
"i have conquered you"

i've always seen it the other way around

"i am yours now
     mountain
your treasures and secrets are yours to keep
i only ask that you share with me your view"

i 've got a soft spot for the smell of tobacco and the taste of whiskey
and the voice of boys who claim to miss me

i long to get high
high up in the trees
in the hills
along the ridges
     i live to pierce the atmosphere
and note the lack of sensation as i plummet

oh how i love it
     those cheap thrills of the fall

i wish i were a sea shell

a perfect spiral fit to be cradled in your palm
something for you to focus on
when the noise you've spent so long focusing on
becomes too much to interpret

i wish i were a sea shell

a direct line between you and the cosmos
the etherial red phone
you press to your ear to hear what your heart already knows your brain needs reminded of
     the swish of blood and grey matter
that steadies your flippant pulse

i wish i were a sea shell
deemed too relevant upon your moment of discovery
to leave at rest with the other detritus
exposed at low-tide

i often times get distracted from myself
by the person i like to think that i am

she's a ******* catch
     a cash-in-hand
     done-deal find
worth every dime

i'm tangled up line
     woven into the creek-bed
that couldn't even catch the sunlight

but it's alright

     i got a few coats of gold krylon
hiding my rust from the mirror

as much as i loathe the familiarity of your frame
i can't help but be mesmurized by your face
     the look of your lips and the shape they take
as you wrestle the bottle to death


     i confess
     it's something i dream of
as the nightmares change their shapes

how could i ever expect to believe
that you understand
when you and i both know
     we see the world through different eyes

you don't see the monsters
who hide beneath my eyelids
you don't hear the things they whisper whilst i sleep
     you don't see my ****** up dreams

and yes
     i'd love for you to stay
and i do taste your flesh
          in the way you say "i know"

but
     no
you don't

so
     know this

this is why i rush you to leave
why i won't let you say "need"
     why i lock the door

this is why you DO want me more

          because i like you too much to break you
     and i'd hate to share with you my shadows

the worst part about people
whom understand nothing about themselves
     is their incessant need to pretend
as if they can see so clearly
through the dusty corners of each other's secrets

after enough ***
     i could fall in love with anyone

after enough whiskey
     i love myself too much to want to share

i can't wait until the day
i wake up
and realize
     i've fallen in love
the same way that dusk falls
onto the skyline

     it's an obvious thing that you don't notice
until the sky lights itself on fire
with the last three drops of light

when i mouth my secrets to the cliff's face
do you taste the carbon in the space i take
the heat i obsolve in our sacred states

     do you note my silhouette


          when my profile aligns with that of the moon?

perhaps
if there were spaces
     gaps left in the english language

places meant for characters left to be invented

maybe
if there were phrases
     and definitions
yet to be coined

i could finally tell the whole truth
about me
     and the monsters in my head

sunrise sounds like the earth itself is waking

crack the back
     and rise

i lick the dust from my lips

     the taste of iron
     salt
          stardust

communion

this dirt is my altar

     the flora
my patroned saints
     the fauna
my goddess in swing
     the wind

my baptismal cleanse


     oh

and i

the wide eyed game-trail wanderer
     child of mud and snow
it's of the earth i'm crafted
and back to the stars that i'll go

it was i
who gave to my telescope
the gift of animation

she relays my pulse to the stars
     slingshotting binary christmas cards to the carbon that i borrowed from

and some nights
     i wake to her breath along my neck as she studies life
and what it means

then
     come morning
she kisses my sun-stained synapses
and reminds me that my body's a testament to existence
          not a mausoleum

how does this heart of mine
     fit in to my earthly equation

          does the salt water in my body
     prove me
     the undisputed daughter of the sea

can you hear me
          god


i'm listening

he always insisted
i needed something to believe in
     yet he scoffed
          attempted to laugh it off
when i promised that i built stonehenge
     and the great pyramids
    
     ground his teeth as i whispered
that the world found cuneiform by my hands

     and he dropped me off
when i elaborated on the day
i walked away from babylon's tower


so
     off he galloped forever
          destined never to understand the factual weight of one's dreams

i'm unsure what i miss more

     you
          or the excuse you gave me to be insane

it took me twenty five years
to realize
all i've really wanted to find in life
is a gentle man
who knows just how to behave
      when i rest my rose-hipped lips
upon his peach-fleshed lobes

          and whisper

     "i'm afraid."

i fall in love a dozen times a day

with lips as they dance on a down-turned face
with the wilting words they say
with that same face
     when it takes the shape of a reaction

you'll get distracted
     when our eyes cross like sci-fi light beams
and it will seem as if i'm looking at you the same way that i bat my lashes through the telescope's lens

          it doesn't depend on much

just that we so happen to share the same space
     and an eerily simular pulse

i remember the day i was born
     all bright light and handshakes

it felt the same on the day that i died

.    ironic
really

          the brain stem controls involuntary movement
     and lies just inside
the flesh that i can't help but check
for the glass and pebbles
     you left behind

there's something in the way in which grown men cry
          that begs us to fall to our knees
     and weep
for the heart ache that we've given to our fathers

i stay awake late
contempleting the possibility of decoding the illustrative lyrics
      spoken between my head and my heart

my wheels keep turnin' circles

     still
it's a start

is it possible to feel more than the tepms built
     the night that you ignited
and illuminated my brain
as a shape
human hands can't recreate
         that hearts can't fake

     a space we dream of inhabiting when our souls create a safe place

     just something we cling to
when we learn who we are whist we scream
and cling to the images we sling
as we clutch each other's bodies

     a heart-felt blockade between who wish to be
          and who they see

if looks could ****
     i'd be slaughtering the masses
and if these walls could talk
     they'd probably never stop laughing
but if that ***** of a mattress should crack
and leak the secrets of mine that she keeps in her chest-
like tightly bound metallic coils-
     so help me lillith

i'll burn this house to the ground

     i'd rather see all that i've built turn into ashes
than to hear her voice rehasing all the whispers i'm slinging whilst fast asleep
     or how i cry in bed for weeks
     or the way i flinch when the sun crosses my face
like a shadow i can't name

     i'm a mess
a natural disaster with whirlwind hair and a lightning strike pulse
     in a second-hand dress that doesn't fit right
          i'm fine
     i'll survive

but should you be the boy i find
     and i bring you home tonight
just know that i'm better than alright
          know how very much i feel alive
regardless of the subconscious soliloquies you unleash in your half-silence
     divulging secrets whilst you slumber

          i wake like the waves lapping at a fallen empire's shoreline
     and quest to test your lyrical limitations and the possible personification of your breath
     and your chest
          heaving like the sea himself

they've been sitting here since the night Christ died
     sharing stale conversation
     and lukewarm beer

i leaned against my mother's kitchen sink
crying
          six shots of whiskey deep at half passed noon

     and both mutts came running
leaning their limber legs against mine

a heart-felt interspecies hug

ready and willing to catch my salty tears
upon the bridge of their snouts

     so this is true love

i've written a grip of confessional love poems on beverage napkins
strung them together with a dissociative understanding of time (like dental floss)
     wrung them out and hung them up to ripen on the line

mama always said not to name things that are only going to die
and i lied to her face when i told her i wouldn't

          i gave it a name

and i was going to send it your way
as if maybe seeing it all spelled out
would make you change your plans
     and stay

alas
     i'm quite certain that i blew my nose on the winning sonnet
and burried the rest with what was left of my tears

now i don't even write
     i just scream at the stars all night
as if my life's become a sailor-song
and this desert
          my decaying cabaret

some women call their bodies home to something greater

     me?
my body's a burial ground
for dreams i found
     and lost
just as quickly

i'm a canvas
void of my own expression yet riddled with scars
left behind by precious little ghosts
     and their lack of confession

you've got the same gleam in your eyes as god did
     the night before she gave birth to the stars

you got this rattle in your chest
like the timing belt in your heart's been limping towards death since birth

it always hurt to listen to

so here
     here's the message at the bottom of the bottle
     you spend so many nights studying
as if perhaps
          you might actually remember what it read when the sun assaults your head come morning

here's what you been begging every fair-haired eve to whimper
as you slip her a dose of your hand-crafted love-sludge on her boyfriend's couch

this is the truth i learned about you seven years ago
while you spilled your guts on my favorite boots
     you really were cute
all campfire-light and anguish as you visably contemplated introducing your hand to my chest

you're different
not just from me
     but from everyone you meet in every pub on any street
and for some reason
     you seem to think that means that they don't see you

          they see you

you're scared
     not of dissappointing onlookers
but of disappointing yourself in some manner you can't help
so you help yourself to whatever opportunity you can find
     to exhibit boisterously the ******* you think they see you as

          you're too smart to be so stupid

and you're hurt
i get it
     i've heard your monsters howling through your head
     everytime you ever used my bed to rest it
but that's not an excuse to pull the dumb **** that you do
that's not a reason to abandon whatever sense of self-worth you once grasped

oh
     handsome boy
          the wounds of your past are not handicaps
     no
pain catalysts enlightenment

and i meant to tell you that night
     'long the river in the fire light
that you're going to be alright
          that you'll survive
so long as you give up the act that you're the only one who's ever felt like that

hurt just proves you've still got feeling

i'll leave behind a legacy of lengthy love poems
so that no reader could ever tell
     that i've never loved a heart who loved me back

i'll ensure that my body leave behind no bone unbroken
so no anthropologist would ever guess
     that i spent my entire life scared to death

and i'll fill each dusty corner of my tiny little house
with plants and books and trinkets of memories forgotten
so that the coroner could never publish
     how empty i really felt

oh-
          of all words i've ever spoken
    i pray that these will never read broken:

*i will sow this great earth with ideas for blooming
each incapable of death so that no child ever guess
    that i didn't live forever

i spent twenty years day-dreaming of a love
that i finally found
     when i found you
and it's true
          love hurts

but what's worse
is holding on to a kite's string
     long after the kite broke free

you're not coming back to me


     so this is what letting go tastes like
               whiskey and salt water

today
     my father
beneath all his grey hair and wisdom

asked what it says about our world
that we tell our children tales
of masked heroes
     brave enough to face monsters
          of cloaked men who stand up against oppression
          against carelessness
          against greed

why do we teach the youth
that the brave should hide their true identity
     that they should act ashamed of their valor

              
               i hid my face in fear of recognition
                    and wiped a renegade tear

these solar flares and northern lights
have been reminding me of the way we used to fight
     wild and alive
     beneath the absence of light
          cascading from a new moon

your lips unleash melodies while you're asleep
and it sounds to me like a lullaby
i've spent a lifetime trying to teach myself to sing

my secrets sharpen their teeth as i'm sound asleep

and i still wonder why i wake with sapling scars

i find myself
     fly-bi-nightly
dancing a razor thin line
between hating myself
     and giving you the blame

it's been so long since i last slept

so here
     this time i brought something for you

          take it


i made it for you
from scratch
     and i wrapped it in the flesh of that lone oak
     that you'd thoughtlessly carved our names in
          outlined in a school-boy heart
     coupled with the word "forever"

silly little man-cub

     always raising your voice over terms you can't define

i still leave you love poems on crumbling walls
     like rust-stains on canvas yet to be stretched

there isn't a message yet

but in my dreams
you somehow see it all for what it means
following the commas and line-breaks
right back to where you left me
     and we finally allow ourselves
     to share the light necessary for life to grow



i awake in the morning with whiskey breath
and aerosol stained fingertips

     *can't you hear me slinging siren songs
     across the distances we keep
          while fast asleep?

"just think of  all the things
that the whales and dolphins could teach us"
     she says
ashing her cigarette
with a cheeky grin

happy mother's day

pizza and beer and tequilla
and all that i can think
     is how proud it makes me
to know that she's the home i came from

i watched raven pull the skirts from the rose's hips
and smear lady bug guts across her grin
     like garden-grade lipstick

i asked her what it means
when she hovers in my dreams
but she just laughed

and on her way back to that highway in the sky
she craned her neck just enough to throw me a whisper

"your wings won't mean a thing
     if you're too afraid to fly"

if simplicity was what you'd wanted
     i'd have adorned myself in complexities
and have finally learned to dance

i watched the gods dip their chubby fingers into a puddle of midnight blue
and finger-paint a sky for the sun to rise in

oh how they laughed
and they danced
and they kissed the forehead of a giggling moon breast goddess

then
     you were born

a diamond of dew in spider's web

that was the day the universe learned how to do her spinning

i stay awake at night
whispering my secrets to the stars
and waiting for the sky to reply

usually
***** puts me on hold
but some nights
     she'll pick up the line

and answer my pleas
with her thunderous laughter

i tried to write a poem that wasn't about you
but nothing came to mind
so i climbed up on top of my mom's roof
and puffed smoke signals towards the moon
in hopes that they'd take my thoughts with them

before i knew it
i was counting sattelites
the same way that i'd count your breaths at night
     apparently everything marches to the same measure as your sunken sternum

"sunrise, sunset."

somewhere in orion's belt
hides the same gleam as your moonlit grin
and i'm back at it again
     twisting up sweet leaf in the appologies you'd sling
     and hoping you'll think of me
when you wake from coughing in your sleep
as i scortch my fingertips

maybe you'll be reminded
of that first campfire kiss
we shared in the sticks
     was it five years ago
          or was it six?

****
     i just can't think of anything but our tangled hips

          the way they read just like a star chart's dots and trailing dashes
     and the astrological improbability of celestial bodies managing to gracefully merge