In the light of the streetlamps
I looked upon you
as a sailor looks over the sea.
I watched the fire in your eyes
flicker and burn.
It called me back to
memories of waking up
on your couch,
the smell of syrup and rain
on a Sunday afternoon.
Suddenly I feel
your silk sheets sliding
off of my cool skin in the summer time,
hours spent enveloped
in the folds of your body,
tangled in your hair,
a soft auburn forest .
I felt the lure of your scent
as I fell at your feet
pledging allegiance of my sable heart
unto this
goddess
before my filthy hands.
Crumpled in a heap before you,
you stepped over my weeping soul
and into sturdy arms.
Arms that never dreamt of your skin,
never went sleepless over
the quiver of your lip.
Arms that never felt weak and worthless
in your absence.
Not how mine did.
Those arms are strong
they will strangle the warmth
from your bones,
leave you shivering in the road
where I shall find you by the light of the streetlamps
only recognizable by the dying fire in your eyes.
I see your darkness now.
Your miserable wallowing worst
I pray this time
you shall see
my light.

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 lay beside you
to touch you, to hold your hand.
cold marble replied.

I am suddenly aware
of how the blood weighs me down
pooling around the black box
that lays frozen in the darkness
of my chest

My body caves in.
Melting into my own skin
into the slowmotion observed by
restless eyes
tired eyes

and I laugh
hollow
Pretending
I really feel
the laughter in my throat

Am I living?
I am just an illusion, I pray.

Reality answers
and I know
I am still whole
Not a pit beneath the eyes of the rest,
Not a spec of gray in the void,
Not a twisting memory fading
into the ether.

I am still flesh and streaming blood.
Still a moving, flexing creature.
Slowed down by ravenous
thoughts
about pain.

And when the hands that reached for me
with filthy intentions
retreat
I yearn for the filth,
I yearn for the feeling
of want.

I yearn for any feeling.
Any at all.

Adorned in flowers, you will look to the sky.
Garnished with clovers, your body will sigh.
A breath to the aspens lining your road,
shading your skin in the sun of the grove.
Come down silver hands from the aerial realm
and you recall the words of the old St. Anselm.
For he argued that 'Being is greater than not being'
And you are no longer frighted by the hell
you are seeing.

privileged and dismissed.
the beige of the spectrum,
clothed in a flimsy dress
peeling off my hips
in a mint-walled motel.
matte irises examining the dingy sheets
where I sink,
saturated by sweaty palms
and the mildewed ceiling
is crumbling around us
at every tremor of the mattress.
we evaporate
into the musty air,
mingling with the mists
of the hourly guests before us.

and maybe I sauntered
from that room
a little rosier than before.
maybe I left there
a few shades darker.

We are born not of flesh
carved from the visage of mother and father,
We are born of nebulae,
of a symphony in the snow and
the seeking of knowledge we never acquire.
We are birthed for
good.
We are grown in
evil.
Our lives nothing more
than the squealing of wheels
as they spin in our
sempiternal filth,
a footprint in the dust since God said
"Let there be fear and malice".
Faces of dead, liquored men,
shovels in our piracy
digging for hidden treasure in the graveyard.
So we crawl in the holes and
cover each other up.
Insulting the demons who pull us through,
blessing them
with good tidings.
We go at our passing, to face the Devil.
God as our jury,
your hamartia plays witness.
I am driven only by my fantasy of tomorrow.
What a way to live.
What a way to die.

The symptoms on the flimsy blue pamphlet
read more like my own biography.
And the sable gems of your eyes
were spilling over
with an emotion
all but unknown to me.
I felt
dim.

I guess it's my turn
to take a dive into
the little orange bottles.
Maybe this time
I wont resurface.

You should know that I complain.
A lot.
About the heat and the snow
and the ******* that cut me off on my way to the store.
I will complain. And whine.
Because no one ever listened before.

You should know that I might shy away from your fingers.
My self esteem has been smothered beyond resurrection
and I'll hide my face in the sunlight
and cower, blushing and shamed
when your hands show even the slightest hint of lust.

I hope you understand
that I will smile.
I will smile about the trees and the wind
and comment on the way tendrils of mist
wind through the valley
or how the colors of the pasture
are so vibrant in April.
And I will smile and sing to the windows.
You will listen, I hope.

You should know that sometimes,
when we creep along the highway in the evening
and a song comes on, dripping with sentiment
in the way the sun sets behind the mountains,
I will want you to be silent.
Hushed and still as the horizon.
I will need the radio up, the voices off,
I will need your fingers in mine.

I want you to know that I crave a listener.
An understand-er.
A know-er and do-er.
A lover.
I need silence and peace
and long drives into the dark.
I need whispers and songs
and summer breezes in the bedroom.
I need and want and lust and whine.


I'm selfish and sad
and I know you'll understand someday.
even if it takes a life-time.

I recall those cosmic brownies from my childhood
and the little kool-aid drinks we picked out from the 7-11
with coins from the belly of our couch cushions.
Watching Judge Judy in the afternoons
on grandma's squishy sofa
thinking that 'law' and 'court'
were words you used when your room-mate
didn't pay her rent on time
or when your boyfriend used your credit card
to take out the ***** from down the street.
So we plucked the feet off the daddy-long-legs
and lit ants on fire
when the swimming pool was closed.
Names like
Charles Manson
Ted Bundy
never sparked fear in our bodies
never bred anger or sadness in our hearts.
So we crawled through our tunnels past youth and adolescence
awoke to a world where
men and women
who slaughtered dozens of innocents like cattle
are being served breakfast by the men and women we trust
to keep us safe at night
while we sleep in our soft beds
more vulnerable
than the devils who leave us in fear.

I forgot my name.

Those syllables chosen for me at birth
by people i had never seen before,
strangers I had never met.

I forgot the sound the letters make
when slurred together on someone's tongue,
squished against the backs of their teeth

What was the noun they used to scream
when they needed a scapegoat?
What was the noise they used to cry
when they needed a hiding place?

What was that odd combination of letters
they always took for granted?

I don't remember.

That isn't me anymore.

In hushed rooms and empty corridors
I counted my heartbeats.
One, two, three.

Some days I was more alive than others,
stepping in tune with the pulsating muscle
in my chest.
Slow and uneasy.
One. Two.

And one day,
After I had paced the corridor seven times,
hushed the children
and silenced the banshee,
I found it.
Quiet.

I heard the last thump of my heart.
One.

In the monotonous ringing of silence
and in the empty hall,
there was tranquility.

Just like you,
I get lonely too.

I have felt
disappointment
in the voice of someone
you love
as they dig up the truth
with their eyes

I have felt
anger in the eyes
of guidance
as they knew
you had been driven
the wrong way

I have felt
concern in the voice
of a bystander
as they watch you
wreck into the barrier
between right
and the opposite
direction

I know love
in the heart of a leader
as they stand you on two feet
kiss you on the forehead
and whisper
'I promise I wont tell.'
and beg
'Be safe.'

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

rain forgives.

She sipped her coffee even though it carried a faint hint of nicotine.
She smiled back at strangers even when their eyes said:
"I won't be kind, I won't be gentle."
Her skirt hugged her hips
her blouse hung from two silken threads
around a pale skeleton, bruises blossom around her ribs.
Still, she walked beneath the moon
hot breath on her neck from a unnamed man
whom she knew only by the taste of his lips
and the green Jackson's stuffed in her bra.
She begged for the dawn every night.

Fell for you, died on impact.

Leave your concious mind
into vivid dreams
fall into the sheets
to watch stars capsize
beneath a distant horizon.
Cling to their brilliance
swing from their beams above the fields
call farewell to the
antagonists
who shoved you too far
Whisper into the vacant spaces
words of reassurance
tell yourself
'it's okay to follow the light'
an escape
beyond the reaches of your lifetime
into the heavy darkness.
let the stars lead you
so readily
beyond.
So forlorn
is the echo
of your final goodbye.

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 wonder about the eyes and the lips.
If they would have held a reflection of yours.
Maybe the hair was the same texture,
a replica of your youth
which you have lost.
Would you have changed your mind?
If you had seen the fingers and toes,
a perfect count of ten,
and the cream of it's alabaster hands.
Sometimes I wish there were small words
to call my name,
and sometimes I am glad
for your barren womb
for I know of your temptations and weakness
the dust in your bones
as your young body ages beyond
reasonable years.
For the smoke was toxic in your nostrils,
did a bundle of Jefferson's
burn a hole in your pocket?
Only virgins wear white on their wedding day,
was your a dusty beige
clashing with the grey tux
of a criminal?
A man who has a title branded on his
filthy hands, that he touched that girl with,
til death
do you part?
How much justice did you desire for those fingers
after they were clasped around your thick neck?
So I pray your blood keeps pumping and your
brain still buzzes
after every hit,
and I pray the fog clears before your checks don't
and maybe you will extinguish the flames
before your lungs give out
just like your knees did that day.
They ignore your dodgy glances to the side,
your hands, aftershocks of the quaking nerves inside you.
They see past your sudden skeletal visage
and the grey tint in your cheeks
like you have sat on a shelf, sagging and
collecting particles.
But I taste your abuse,
every flavor of it.
As long as you live through your high,
you wont have face your low.
We are thankful everyday
for your blessing
of infertility.

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

i am torn pages
from a book
gathering dust
behind the shelf
just broken twigs underfoot
of a marching army
and only gray snow
piled along
i-84
going straight from Phoenix to
nowhere special
i became the wind at
5 a.m.
and the moon
at noon.
i went  unnoticed
this long
i can make it
to the end
without further incident
perhaps the coldness
of crippling exhaustion will be kind
and leave me numb
in my dying day.

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.

You're my secret.
My secret keeper,
my safe, my lock-box.
my trunk in the attic.

my shipwreck on the sea floor.
my sails in the wind.
my shade tree in the spring.
my warm fire, my cleansing river.

You are love incarnate.

If you pay attention to the flowers,
the blooms in the hollows of your cheeks,
buds hanging from your jawbone,
bowing to a somber reflection,
Overlook the wilted edges
and the mud above the roots,
perhaps the petals won't fall.

If you sing for the meadow
lush in your temples
and between your eyes,
green with the vibrant flora,
light will fall over your eyes
and the growth in the soil
will be alive with allure.

Continents of
the flexing spine,
shifting behind the lungs.
A forest spanning dips and curves
from shoulder to hip,
the sway of your midriff
under the weight of
mountain peaks
and the valleys between.

Your own eyes,
holders of the grandeur
of what is molded around the bones.
You must prune the roses
with love of your warm garden
and the birds with flock
to your trees.

I thank you for bringing me here,
swaddling me in foil and casting me unto the embers
to burn slow in kiss of the flame.
I thank you for saving me from hunger,
for showing me what McDonald's tastes like
at 1 a.m when we escaped a daddy
who wasn't daddy anymore,
a daddy who flicked his tongue like a serpent
into an empty brown bottle.
I thank you, dear mother,
for dressing me in roses and velvet,
and kissing me on the forehead where wisps of my hair
tangled with yours
and how it was the same shade of amber.
I thank you for letting your tears drench my shirt,
how you showed me it was okay to be weak,
to be a shattered mirror,
and you bandaged my fingers when I tried to gather
the shards of your skin that cut into mine.
I thank you for sending me to school
where I met people who taught me what love really meant,
and how daddies were not all monster's inside.
I saw fear and I saw trust in the eyes of strangers
when they talked about their families.
And i am sure they saw emptiness in my eyes
when I spoke of a little house on the hill.
My ninth home in four years.
Four years running from daddy,
four years of you tasting the forbidden fruit and
following the familiar scent of his cologne.
But I can go now.
I can walk through the embers on my own two feet
and I will ******* own fruit
and pray i am not like you.
Though I love you mother,
very much.
You have weathered my skin
to stone.
You found a new man for me to call daddy.
He is okay.
You are okay.
I am going to find more than okay.
Thank you, mother,
for showing me all the wrong ways to be loved.

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

I dry out on nights like these.
When words and phrases elude my lips
and I'm parched,
thirsty for a good verse.

Getting on
through a trying work hour in the night-time rush,
groped by strangers with dark eyes
the color of neglect and whiskey.
Men with knives under their sleeves,
calling you back and back again,
refills for their poison and pretzels for the table,
don't be a *****, darling.
I only want to feel those hands trembling
under mine.
All you ever knew were the bruises and the burns.
Gliding closer and closer to
your face, your hands,
inching towards the skin that gleams, exposed
and invokes the shame you feel from
fetid breath on your neck, these
animals with moldering livers.
but another round for the men in the grease and grime.
Green bottles and a smile that said
'I like the taste of your weakness,
You like the abuse.'

I longed to be here.
Forgetting how much I loathed these walls
till I found myself inside them
again.

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.

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.