i'm wearing your gold on my finger, it shines
in the light of your sun as you linger in mine
sharing a space that is no space at all
and the sunset would reason 'too early for fall'
i kiss and i whisper to someone in dreams
I don't know them but they know me, it seems
fear of a wandering tongue that speaks
and breaks the vows we vow to keep
I disavow,
now weep.

in form it doesn't seem to seem
but do we know who it could be
I see me
just me
but you
oh standing closer to the sea
window open over the settee
formal fuss of the in the know
oh do you know
how we all live when one
does go?

I passed alone in room of white
they didn't hear.

I pass along beside myself
but didn't see
the mirror.

she wore dotted patterns
draped over the bare of her dotted arms
a frill in the hem was the purity
the white sheet sheilding dotted skin
a bright virginal white against
her hair.
it tickled her waist
where rivers threaded seams
pulled taught against freckled hips
****** chasms from the strangulation
of the chaste garments
rivers where she was bathed as a girl
as a virginal sapling
now full and weeping under layer after layer after suffocating layer
of linens
to keep dotted skin from breathing.

I'm circling the foyer and kicking up dust
I don't feel sound
I don't hear solitude
Stop drinking
Stop wasting moments on thoughts on never drawing conclusions
I'm corrosive
When will you finally settle down?  be still and
Wait
No
Who is speaking?
I'm fumbling with the light and Slilping out the door
Is it morning yet?
Keep drinking and I'll let you go
Not missed
A dust cloud follows and
You're wasting no more time
Running from that crooked shadow you carry on behind.

from a corrosive cloud
i was
a solo interlude in the quiet
where i am liberated
alone
but still so full of sound

i used to wonder what those lights were in the sky
i never knew stars
before i saw your eyes

Pressure in the palms.
Lifting flesh over flesh to breathe
In unison, quickened.
Frevored pace
As the window darkens beyond
Luminous eyes shutting
Lips parting
Dampness of your palms
Press into me
And I fall into sleep
And you fall into my arms
A place you call love

a ghost of a city
a thousand reside
and scream
without voices
'live 10,000 years'
and form walls with
their backs
shrouding the country
that bleeds
but shows no blood

react to the light

collecting birds with broken bones from the porch
and mending them - healed
I lay on the porch and waited
no one came to bind me.

Delicate wisps of dream
Float gently toward the ceiling
Fill the cracks
Crevices
Of an empty soul

The trees do shed their coat in fall,
the blossoms were only fleeting -
and I shed mine.
Parted ways with my long auburn hair -
copper and gold threads to weave together
nature and nurture.
The trees fed me fruits
and I am full
of their sweet nectar.
The trees do shed their coat in fall -
My neck is bare
and my hair
once reflective of the sun
reflect the white bitter cold
I breathe in
I breathe out
Chilled.

there were always wisps of hair tangling in the wind
longing to ride it away, me with it.
you traced maps in my freckles,
pin ***** sprinkled shoulders leading the way
to nowhere.
I squinted at the stars
my glasses are broken
and I wished I could see what they looked like from far away

I am a tangle of hair
a rustle of branches
against walls
droplets streaking
down windows
stillness of wind
before the new gust
felt heard seen
but yet a ghost

sudden downpour,
on repentant shoulders,
licks clean.
As if weather knows.
As if weather sees.

rain forgives.

Death is a filthy temptress,
but a beautiful one.
Anyone who disagrees
is either dying,
or in denial.

I forgot how to write
I forgot that words can be sounds can be oceans
I forgot that oceans crash and swell and roar
I forgot that words can, too.

I am not that
not a storm before sunrise,
awakening the slumbering seaside
with sprays of churning ocean,
watery elemental
breaking against the bluff
with every exhale
- quickened heartbeat -
pounding the shore with
black-water fists
I am not that
the master of nature
calling the mountains to rise
and the rivers to run
Planting my flag
in my earth.
No.

I was strong once.
When I kicked from the womb.
Now I lift my hands
only to be held
by another.

i made love once
once while I slept,
while i slept off the whiskey
slipped off my clothing and
stepped off the curb.
and awoke to the smell of
something musky
dank - rusty?
i made love once
over the course of a week
i made love to four bottles
and me.

You can leave the past
behind.
But even when the sun
is on your back,
You can still feel
its heat.

When ember fingers linger near
And braise a child's skin,
You are quiet, still,
It burns until,
You become the sinner's sin .

She walks alone in auburn light and grace,

A ****** marking painted on her face.

She breaks the gaze upon the somber view,

A lonely figure bathed in golden hue.

The field of grain that slumbers under sky,

it stretches wide, a rolling sea of rye.

Beneath the dripping stars her body sinks,

A soft bed in the dust, her lust, it drinks.

It thirsts on blackened sky and heavy silence,

Her heart, it churns and yearns with such a violence.

The coyotes sing her soundly to her sleep,

She leaves her dreams in seas of rye to keep.

Wind ripping through windows
sleeping silhouette shivers inside
Dark. Dark walls
streetlamp glow far below
The window screen
The wind screams
You sleep
You sleep
a draft in the sheets
Body heat
Hair tousled by pillow wind
Blowing gently
Blowing ferociously
Will the window break
The shutters snap
I lay silent
awake
Beside sleeping silhouette
You dream
You dream

I never sleep

when you're 18 going on 9-5
and you watch the volcanic birth of the rest of your life
rise from a still ocean
you almost wish
there were resignation letters
for living.

When did you last lay in breezy orchards,

naked, sunshine glazing your curves in amber,

heaped between fallen apples, tickled by alfalfa,

peeking through a tangle of someone else's hair.

When did you last lay beneath starry sky,

afloat in empty fields, grain waving like oceans do

peering above, your vision consumed by an expanse of stars,

two bodies shivering under one blanket.

When did you last hold your breath,

struggling to slow time in that one aging moment

and you would gladly let the world grow old without you.

Freeze.

Still.

Forever.

Just five more minutes.

I washed the window when i left you
I forget you
whats your name?

****** sheets still on my bed
the window is ***** again
please forgive me
did you forget me
Where is home?

I washed my hands when I left you

He was careful he was kind
Don't look back now
the sheets are *****

There has never been a place that I have felt safe from memories

I locked the room and now I never enter
I forgot you
where did I go?
He has held me closer than a mother
holds her baby
And the window is fogging
it's filthy

If you come to find me
please shut the door behind you

rushing wind will come and blow your hair
thats my last
caress
I have left

I have left
the window open for you

I used to be made of leather
wrinkled and worn,
my seams were torn,
but you,

you sewed me together.


Satin fingers linger on me
oh why can't I be
smooth?

I learned to be rough,
to be enough
oh why can't you be too?

Skinned and *****
and left alone,
I am leather

like you.

'pale blue book beside my bed.
stop staring
a sinner is as a sinner was and forever will be'
shhh.
'I'll only do it one more time.'
he said
'be careful, mine, small, kind'
'I am no one's but His'
was that a lie?
'it rained last night and i took a walk'
there's another
'and i prayed
"before i wake,
i pray the lord my soul to take"'
it was a fantasy, really.
am i?
'Lord! Hear me!'
but i saw only ran drops and i heard
only thunder
or was it?
~laughter
'pale blue book of mine
he never heard me'
you fell behind the dresser
and I never bother to put you back in your dusty corner.
I put myself in mine

I wear you like pearls,
Dripping down my neck,
Into the curves of my chest,
Rising. Falling.
Beneath the weight of your breath.
I clench and release the air.
Suffocating.
Your fingers in between my lips,
It was a sweltering summer in the sheets.
And we swam in our own ocean,
Tossing about and-
Rolling.
Tides of arms and balled fists,
Crashing together, a furious,
Lustfull storm.
You wore me like perfume,
The aroma of volcanic ash,
And I erupted in your arms.
And no sunlight remained-
Except in your eyes.

If I were to sail past days and years

to ask of you what we once found here-

If I were to char the hearts I hold

to chance this bliss and gamble the gold-

I wonder if your hand would reach

past time and space and sea,

or if those eyes would soon be blind

than fix their sight on me.


I've given thought to what I've lost

and gained through growth and reason.

the waters yearn and churn with frost-

we've long out-grown our season.

A soul must reminisce on if's

and leave the shores of sorrow.

It was only fantasy, you see,

I wont love you tomorrow.

You'll see me when the tides roll out,
in a heavy downpour
at the heart of the spout.
Catch me in the grave of pine,
trees like tombstones
roots in my spine.
Follow me past the end of the page,
till the ink bleeds out
and you fray with age.
I'll wait beneath an august sky,
my heart will be wet,
yet unthirstably dry.

once, I got a letter in the mail
I knew it was for me because the handwriting was illegible
and the stamp had a middle-finger
instead of a queen
whoever wrote it knew me well
because the sealed it with a
*******
and a big, bolded
go to hell

Some days my body is a trophy.
a dusty display in which I placed all recollections
of sorrowful evenings and birds with broken limbs I collected from the porch
Some days my body is a trophy
a tribute to my skin having smoldered
and made stony by fire-polishing
which may have brought on blisters and a chorus of
"i can live, I can live, I can live"'s to erupt at the mere thought of heat.
Some days my body is a trophy
it is for the one who says
"i went so far beyond her expectations that she lost sight of me"
i cant see him, my vision is hazy after spending an eternity with dust on my corneas and curtains drawn across my forehead,
I hid in myself, detaching skin from muscle and using my armor like a blanket in which I could block out the peering eyes of strangers
Some days my body is a trophy, because
instead of cutting away my blanket like I had,
you folded me back into a swan and I was no longer
crumpled rice paper that had been incorrectly origami-ed
by a fat fingered hurrier.
I was an image.
I am  your trophy to the world telling them all
I restored a masterpiece that had been mishandled and cast away
Some days my body is a trophy
That I hold up high
that says
I am worthy
and I will not be left behind

It's warm
There is no sun or fire
Just your fingers on my arm

I've taken off the scarf
Around my neck and I pace to
The window to check
If the snow has melted yet
Almost

It's nearly warm again
Letters in the mail bear
Good news from over there
They're doing well
Oh well

I'm alright here in this
Purgatory season
Caught in between the realities
Of seeing and believing
In what I've found here

It's been a cold year so far
But my heat, here you are standing
Before me
Your flames are all I see
In this dim corridor
I'm passing through

I hope the snow melts away
Real soon

Our eyes wide open.
Observing the threads between us, holding, binding us up
In warm sheets together.
Arm in arm,
Taking your face near mine,
Our  breath,
The same in my lungs
As out yours.
Dusk peeking through the blinds,
Tucking in behind the hills
Rolling past the window.
We let time
Slip.
Because we knew,
Knew that there was more than breath
Being shared between the pillows.
Though we didn't say it then,
We felt the jolt,
The surge of energy through our organs,
Like the vibrations left wafting in the air after
An orchestra,
We lived briefly in that moment,
And we fell and crashed and burned,
And flung our charred bodies into each other.
In that moment,
Before we finished blinking,
Before your eyelashes parted,
allowing the luminous glow
of what you had felt reflect back
in my eyes,

I knew.

I knew.

Loose and black and peeling,
Hey, hey
Chip away
The scabbing on your brain
Find a smoother way of dealing.
Let gray eyes roll
back in your mind.
Find that passion
One more time.

Youth distracted from youth
by ideas of a love
that fuels the sun
and crisps the skin
with yearning,
lust.

You are youth
with future
of seed and rain storms,
soil tilled
by child's play
not by fingers
in hair
wrinkled
bed sheets in your fists.

Embrace the sunrise
and do not rush
the twilight.

Coercion of thighs
Under  the persuasion of a deserted road
And  the weakness of your knees.
You may cry out for the cleansing of your womb
From  the filth,
The  residue of evil
That  infects you from the inside.

"You are a murderer,
worse than a ******!
You stole life!"

Could you plead and longer to
Whatever lies above your matted hair
And shaken shoulders
To tear out this grudge
That  feeds off your fear?
It blooms with a life so
Tainted.
For an unwanted kiss
Is unwanted nonetheless,
No matter how gentle
Or sweet.

Could you gaze into the mirror,
The visage of charred innocence,
Swollen  abdomen,
Bursting  with life from inside,
A  life you fear to resemble
Your  salted stranger
Who took the light from your eyes
And fed it to his gluttonous evil.
Sever the ties,
The umbilical chain of memory
Leashing your pleasure
To the filth of dominant lust.
Begin from the mud on your knees
Where you fell to the asphalt
Where the Baby's Breath grew in the cracks.
Sink into cleansing waters
And release.

Forget, but do not forgive.
For you wish for the freedom of this birth
Like  an animal,
Caught  in a trap,
Wishes  to gnaw off it's own leg.

Now go.
And when the time has arrived,
Blossom  life within you
With  a heart so red and swollen
From  the purity, the tenderness
Of  a welcomed hand.
And it will be love's face that you cradle.

Drum ta dum drum
That head on the floor
Spit spraying like a misty roar
From the jaws of
Hell
"Do you want some more?"

Four times the size
With half as much brain
And ***** widened eyes
Sitting on his chest
"I will lay you to ******* rest"

Wall shaking
Back breaking
Brain quaking
Bruise machine
With a filthy dream
"You're ******* faking"

Hey bone twisting mama
Take a shot at me, trouble maker
Your dressed up sweety
Keep fist flinging
And daddy comes to take her
"Shut up or ill keep swinging"

Send him out
To the mills to the hellhounds
And I keep locking my ears
Drown out the shouts
Bury my head in the ground

Pray you **** him before
I **** myself

There was nothing more alluring
   than observing her gallop through the evening,
      swimming along the riffs
   as they sailed from the stage.
How could I look away?

Where could I run?
    to escape the strangulation
        of her arms coiled round my neck
    as if I was all that anchored her to this earth.
But I grew accustomed to her passionate demeanor.

She was one of those dreams
    that ended as they began.
        In a state of delirium and confusion
    heavy limbs, fatigue of the bones,
an intensity that felt liquid, fading.

And like a dream,
    I recall only a fraction
        of the dances, the hazy bedroom scenes.
    the curtain of unconsciousness
has saved my tongue from insatiable avidity.

She pinched me.
I awoke.

I fell away from myself for just a little while.
Creeping through the rye
and sleeping in the foxholes scattered through the hills.
I pushed away the ideas
of satisfaction
and romance.
Wafting through the air,
I was a perfume of the mountains.
Pine and wet earth, I let nature reclaim me
while I waited,
slumbered inside my skin.
When my mind had cleared,
the fog of the valley,
lifted,
a stranger found me sleeping beside the brook.
And with a calloused hand
and a rough voice
he lifted me from the dirt.

A friend for the spring,
possibility lies just over yonder.
Sing with me a while,
while we find our way.

I wish you would look at me.
I wish
you saw me.
Reassured me, with just a glance,
that it wasn't all
a mirage.
I didn't concoct memories and
feelings
while I slept.
I can't account for those months
that you
and me
were somewhere between
falling and waltzing,
All I see in m mind
is a spinning record
and the inside of my heavy eyelids
with a hand in my hair.
Just dreaming
Just screaming
but
I need to know
that you remeber
that you fekt it
and that this echo
of you voice
is
mine.
look at me
and erase doubts.
Share every moment
in that brief glance,
the void of your pupil
is swallowed
by mine.

look at me

so I don't forget

I used to hurl myself at the idea                                  
that your body is a craving,                                        
a fire to be stroked.                                                      
Ne­ver did I feel that heat,                                            
the heat of skin on skin,maybe,
but the "fire in your *****"
"passion in the rippling bodies"
never.
Were my *****'s a little loose?
They all spoke another language
with their hips and lips
and the fingers grasping at the hem of my skirt.
I flicked them away.
Sent them dancing in reverse down my leg
and back to the party.

Forced myself to play into the ****** game
of who done who.
But I never lost a round.
And I never lost my *******, either.
Because once I felt the walls come down
I was a ghost.
I was water,
slipping through your fingers
left nothing but a wet spot on your trousers
and a little annoyance at your dumb luck.

Keeping my flowers on their stems.
I let the hands find me,
call it peer-pressure.

I let Lewis and Clark
explore my terrain.
They both left positive feedback
and told everyone
about their grand adventures
in my mountains and valleys
and swift, coursing rivers.

I was busy playing hide and seek
in the closet
with the boys and girls
and forgot to mention
that all I wanted
were a few kind words
and a hand to hold.

Busy keeping pace with the promiscuity
of my youth
and losing track of those sweet little wisps
of lovers,
fleeting.
Eluding my fingers,
slipping through them
like water,
leaving my eyes a little wet
and the rest of me
damp with a dark shade of gray.

Maybe I am just afraid.

of what?

Of everything.