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

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

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 think we all need someone we can spill ourselves into when it's four a.m and we can't sleep.

I'm going to set myself ablaze.



                                                      ­   Flare up with destruction, creation.
                                                 A whirlwind of carefully placed imagination.
                                  An inferno of memememe
                  I'm again ravaging the hillsides in a furious, hot mess.
                                     Scorching your eyes and heart with my scarred hands of charcoal
                                                            and flame.
                                                           I do it all.
                                                              I write with magma ink
                                                   and paint with gasoline.
                                            Then I burn it up.
                   My soul chasing the fruits of the Earth with a fiery vengeance
                                                     an­d a blackened desire for passion.
                                 I have set myself ablaze, follow me with your
                                                       kindling souls and oxygen.
                                                         ­                              Fuel me.
                                                             ­                                 Feed me.



                                                 Set your life on fire.

                                        Seek those who fan your flames.

Do shadows long
To see the sun?

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

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

'I'm no poet.
Just an unfinished verse.'

and he replied,

'I believe you are both.
A poet
and a poem.'

Maybe the Earth grows cold
out of longing.
For he has drifted so far from the sun,
and misses her warmth
on his aching skin.

A young boy short by a dime
for the cookies in the window.
An officer,
unknowingly
short on time,
"I'll pay for them."
"What do you wan to be when you grow up?"
He describes his dream,
rushing around on the court,
and the rhythmic bouncing
of an orange ball.
"I want to be a star."
The man smiles.
"You need to work hard."
And he promises
this man of the law
with generous hands,
He promises he will work hard.
And the man walks away, out the front doors
and not a second to react,
he lays on the pavement
unmoving.
face in the asphalt, a wasted man.
And in reply to the last request of an officer,
gunned down on the street,
this boy made a promise.
And he makes another one today
not to waste a dead man's
last words.

wrap your summer fingers
around her wintered soul

We all wear the skins of our worst enemy.

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

Hurry,
Fall in love with me
while my eyes are sealed in dreams,
my defenses shackled in sheets
I have thrashed to the floor.
Fall in love with me
in my fraility,
while my bones are weak
from rattling,
before I shove your
ship from the shore
and scurry to the mountain tops,
shadowed by lingering
'almost's.
I sing no more.

New Year's day chases us towards the dawn.
'Stick around, will ya?'
But I fear the light behind his fresh eyes
is nothing more
than a temporary stain
of January sunshine.

I can't handle the caffeine as it rushes through my arteries.
When you know you need to keep moving
but the taste on your tongue is bitter with
swollen memories grown to large
to shelter in the heels of your feet.
Slows you down with the weight of every jaded moment
you ever thought about the vacancy
in your own lungs
or sinking your  hands in icy water.
So maybe you're the one who's drowning,
Maybe you need a break from tracing maps with your eyes
looking for the safest route back to the banks
of the river you lost yourself in as a child.
And can you call me when you're feeling well again?
Let me know sickness is the only obstacle we have to conquer
before our world erupts into fire when we come together at the close.
With our bodies braced against the walls,
we awake into the dawn's light
where our weary bones
ache no more.
And all I needed was a cup of coffee
to keep me up
till I saw you again.

Coincidence of the stars,    
Chemical compounds,
Natural bonds of our tired flesh
Emerging  from mud and earth.

Feral beasts,
Fed by the dirt and brush,
Being who's instinct and will
Conquer the evolved heart.

The blood must flow
And the teeth must gnash.
Heathens in skins, a religion of fire and smoke,
Bones in the dust under a canopy of stars,
Guided by nature and the will of the African plains.

The order of the suns and moons,
Woven from the fibers of
our very tissue and DNA.

Oceanic creatures and woolly ape
Bred their kin,
Harvested knowledge from the
Seed of grass, growing wild though the hills.

To live and to fall
Beneath the crust of the earth
And feed the flowers,
To grow a garden from moldering flesh,
And sleep in darkness,
Bodies akin to the soil
Given only to ground.

A fragile
and calloused concoction.
Coincidence of the stars,
Creation of the cosmos.

We don't remember the sun
for the blisters on our skin
but for the way it sets
in beauty and grandeur
on a fiery horizon,
with surreality and colour.
We remember the sun
for the climactic ending
to a short,
passionate life.

I was yanked from my childish day dreams,
plunged into a cess-pool of evaluation and judgement
before my 15th birthday.

I have yet to venture outside my own country's borders,
yet to feel unconditional love from eyes unseen,
I can't even cook my own dinner.

They ****** me into the hot seat,
where are you going?
how will you get there?
Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Maybe eating olives on my balcony,
crying over wasted years and broken fingers.
And they tell me
'Study hard, your future depends on it.'
as if my future revolves around
letters on a piece of paper,
teaching me that percentages
and values
define my self-worth.

Subliminal messaging.
Grades before morals.
And now I look at the scale and the digits
line up
three men to be executed
by firing squad.
And I was taught from the age of six
that these numbers represent
my life.

I am numbers
on a scale
on a report card
a g.p.a
a percentage on a test.

Society looks upon me
as a resume.
A collection of fake numbers and symbols
and they decide,
based upon this ****** little game of
calculations,
what life you deserve.

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 always wondered if you were like me.
If you dreamt of stars and the sea.
Thought of ways to get away,
Awake by night and dead by day.
Knowing you, I found this true.
Saw how deep and high you grew.
You veiled me, thick as vines.
And filled the gaps between my lines.

She spun a scarf to hide her shamed head
from a silken thread of equivocations
that led her lovers into walls.
She ate from a spoon of clay and earth,
saturated by her tongue
mud in the depths of her bleeding throat
and the towns people said
'May her mendacity lead her into hell's bastille,
may her sins bury her before the breath leaves her lungs.'
and she was silent.
While her judgment day had arrived
and she marched on quietly towards the grave
of the rogue,
I felt her eyes catch mine in the crowd
and I tasted the humanity,
I smelled the anguish.
Sentenced to death by the thirsty fingers
of an un-dead society,
feeding on the remainders of true, unyielding life.
She walked on towards the land of slumber,
a conscious antithesis
of justice.

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

A few kind words
a few worry-some questions
maybe a motherly embrace
and I would be sitting in yellow patches of sunlight
dancing across the kitchen floor
gorging myself on baked goods
not a scraggly girl with empty eyes and stomach
begging for attention
from all the wrong places
and attention is one thing I received
But they led me to believe
It was all I was good for.

I can taste the huckleberries ripe on the branches
stolen from the fairy garden in the early summer
when the ravens weren't looking.

I stole a lot of things as a child.
I stole the UV rays from the sun,
tanning my alabaster arms
and freckling my shoulders.

I stole winks from boys in my third grade classroom
while the teacher had her back turned.
And I might have sold those winks
to other boys
for an extra juice at lunch.

Maybe I committed petty theft as a young lady,
taking the air from someones lungs,
******* in their light-bulbs and
blowing a fuse.

I'm a thief,
taking the light from their eyes
and the bullets from their guns,
I stole smiles
and never gave them back.

I let the glow of the headlights
and the glow in your eyes
guide us home.

Faint chords of an old rock song
drifting out the radio,
your breath
fogging the window

You, me,
a billion points of light
hanging above our tired heads.
And then you whispered quietly to me:

"These are the moments I remember."
The cream of your voice
Dragged me back from the clouds
and I turned to you.

"these are the moments I live for."
The slight furl of your lips
and the reflection of the moon in your eyes
hurled me back into my daydreams.

And then we were silent.
And the world felt right.

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

'love and miss you'

Oh lord! The skies have cleared,
I have seen the sun at last!
Such a touching message from
father to daughter,
a letter of unconditional love
for your offspring!
All faults must be erased and
we have reached forgiveness at last!
Alert the community!
Assemble the clergy!
Release the doves
and ring the bells!
The world must hear of your
love and sacrifice
for a daughter a thousand miles away!
We rejoice!
May the children dance and
the people sing,
we come together in celebration of
love and life!
The deep and concrete connection
between two generations
of one family!
Call down the angels!
Bless, with your heavenly fingers,
the man who has the audacity
to express to his only daughter
such honest and heartfelt emotion!
To give his heart
to the girl he sees just once a year
and calls every six months!
How he must love her so!
And may she reply with a simple message:

'you too'

for it is all she can manage to say
to a man who is all but
a stranger.

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.

Mama can sing lullabies to the baby
for 18 years
and daddy can come and go,
leaving the garden with a message
for baby:

'You have a river inside you.
white water and grizzly bears
chasing salmon.
the world is wild, baby.'

Green-eyed child stumbles away from the nest
with a head of butterflies,
soft hands.
She didn't see the meteor
when it fell form the heavens
and struck her baby face.

She saw clearly
for the fist time
a world without mother's song.
Millions, billions
of men and women,
digging a pit in the cold earth.

'To the world, dear baby,
you are but flesh
and working arms.
So pick up a shovel'
said the man in the suit.

'Start digging.
We're going to hell'

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

You saw me in my black boots and leather jacket
white smoke rolling off my tongue

You offered me a steady hand
and calmed my shaky one.

Gray skies
Gray eyes
And a chilly smile
in the empty
afternoon.
What will we do?
Where do we go from here?
I only follow you,
gray eyes,
I only wish for my
gray eyed
love
to come near.

Whatever lies beyond this life
shall suffice for me.
Forgive my simple mortal mind
and may my soul be free.

You might put the past behind you,
but even when the sun is on your back
you can still feel it's heat.