He told me that
Ivy bags never feel as good as shooting up,
Watching the needle slide into his arm.
Watching his liquid life drip from a
Plastic bag
Into the tube.

The first time he overdosed his friends were so scared
They left him to the dogs.
On the side of the road,
In a fit of rambling and cold sweat.
The sweat, everywhere
The cold was deeper in his bones.

The second time he was at his Mothers house.
She wanted so badly to see the little
Boy she once
Held to her breast.
But looked down on his shaking  
Ashamed to not recognize the body at her feet.

By the third time
He had no one left.
They classified him as a lonely addict,
Addicted to several deadly drugs.

At some point he realized he wasn't going to have
The wake up moment.
He was never going to bounce back from this
Swallowing sleep
Consuming his life one second at a time.
Ticking away he is lost to the sound of the clock
He says the rhythm puts him to sleep

He told me ivy bags never felt as good as shooting up
But sometimes the clock in the hospital would break
And he could pretend
He didn't ever feel the time.

Thinking I was found
In your touch, only
To find I am still lost
In my own presence.

Tiny spider legs
My eyes are filled
With tiny spider legs, if I close them
Just enough.

Oceans can lay
Still, in the same eyes.

He took away my poetry
A gift to my tongue
A trait to my sanity now teaters in his glance.
One
Glancing blow from him and my world falls.
Balancing tightropes,
Circus acts draw elephants in my room.
He stole my words, thoughts
Now swell in my throat
Fill my mouth with grotesque vines that grow from my stomach.

He looks at her words like flowers that bloom from her heart.
Reaching to his looks
Sweet pollen on his fingers, I know.
I know.
Though he never returned the gift to me that was mine own,
Never my own anymore.
I look to my vines with hate.
My own song now become tightropes
So that you may decide to walk over me again.

And then you changed
With each passing day I saw you in
A different light.
But I didn't mind
Because I knew I was just starting
To see you clearly.

Please, stay.
Here, with me.
The voice in my head is lustful.
A hopeless romantic
That does not
Know better.

Wishing you were here,
Yet never again wanting your company.
Wanting to talk
Yet being afraid of having the last words.
Being afraid you will
Once again
Feel false love in the
Cadence, as it trails in your dreams.
Being afraid you will wake up,
Cold sweat,
Actually wanting me.

Though my mind is in a state
Of please stay,
My heart knows the pain
Of when you will once again leave.

So we carry on in our lustful
Regrets.

And please, do leave.
I will not sing for you though I am a bird and you are my sky.
But please, go on knowing
How hard it was for me
To let you in,
Only to see how easy it was for you
To claw your way out.

He tells me my
Body is warm,
He wraps his arms around my waist,
Kisses my neck,
Cups my *******.

But I am cold.
I know
My presence seems inviting,
My presence seems warm,
But the stars of my soul have grown dim
And the galaxies in my mind no longer shine with wonder.

Light your fire inside of me
And maybe I'll burn
Long enough to feel the heat.

They preach
Don't be a sheep,
But ******* it
This wool is warm.

There will be a day you feel your soul
Being forced up your throat,

Don't speak those words
For it might escape.

Tell yourself not
To let's those tears out,
Not out of fear of sight
But from fear of seeing with empty caves, once your cheeks have dried.

When you begin to
Suffocate,
Place you're hand over your heat
And feel it bleeding.

The Sea World commercial
Tells me
Amazing and real only exist together
In one place.
They must have never met your eyes.

But after hearing about what
Happens
On the other side of the glass,
I can't help but think both
Are false advertisement.

Screams,
In the painfully sweet hours
When the child is no longer a part
Of the mother,
But one of his own.
From outside,
It was quiet.
The leaves piled on underground pathways.
Birds sliding from tree branches, escaping the thick green leaves
To swoop up and kiss the sky.
The outside was beautiful.
But the nervous taps
Of the father's leg on the hospital floor,
The tears of the woman,
Her strength,
It was beautiful as well.
--
Your innocence floods from your heart,
Its precious,
The way you pick
At the rocks in the snow,
The way you
Begin to cry because the colds bites you.
Do not worry,
It cannot steal your warmth.
I see you take the neighbors flowers,
They are a dull red against your eyes.
When you drop them,
You smile
Because you see the pollen
On your fingers.
--
I know it's hard at times,
When the leaves are no longer
Filled with tiny lady bugs and rich memories.
I apologize,
For those days
When you felt in your bones you had to
Crash down your home;
A small bed of grass
And walls of thin sticks
Just couldn't stay up any longer.
Yet those trees you cut down
Can still grow fruit,
Ripe and full.
I promise.
I see the bushes out front,
Berries once so ripe,
Now shriveled and dry.
You're no longer sifting through them.
I'm sorry,
You know.
For the men that hurt you,
*I hope you can one day find warmth in the sun,
As it soaks into your skin.

It may be true that we’re
All sitting on death row
Mistaking temporary ripples
For permanence.
But life doesn't touch you
Because
Your eyes are portals into eternity,
And your smile is a wormhole into
Polaroid moments, taking place in
A timeless spaceless plane where
We are infinite.

No wonder the demons are jealous.

They tell me to choose
What I love most.
But what I choose
May hurt me more than anything,
No matter how much I love it.

My gods are small.
They exist in the space between the lips
Of two souls.
They nourish off the smiles,
Smiling thoughts,
Smiling though times are sandpaper.
My gods are sadness as beauty.
My gods do not ask,
Do not speak.
Do not merely excist as gods
Rather morals,
Rather miracles.
Rather potential that nests between the eyelashes of a child.
Rather existing as we do.
My gods are not really gods,
But lakes that hide behind your lids
When you cannot stand to look to the sea.
My gods are small.
My gods
Are never quite large enough
For another's world.
But always small enough to be seen when other gods are not.

I learned the difference
Between grime
And dirt,
At a very young age.
That they can be different
Yet look the same under the fingernails
Of a child.
I hid them,
Bit them,
For I knew what would come if I was not neat.

Disapproving glances at my mother,
How dare she raise such an animal.
Disappointing looks at me,
I never could scrub my nails enough
For the clean to stain.

I have always battled
My beliefs.
Strangling them down as if they
Exist.
Pulling them from their roots hoping to look to my fingers
And see flowers,
But I look down,
And see my own empty eyes in the palms of my hands.

I feel ashamed when faced with grief.
Ashamed I can't see the
Light that they everyone else sees,
She
Is in a better place now.
I sit crying in the back rows,
To afraid to sit by someone
Who may comfort me.
I sit far enough away to cradle
My disbelief
As it crawls down my face.

I was eaten away
By a monster inside of me.
It feeds on the feelings of
Shame.
It feeds on the
Fears I have.

When I look it in the face and I tell it
No.
I am better than this,
It knows all the right words to tell me
I am nothing.

It reminds me
I have felt the greed of too many men as they steal,
Yet tell me I am not enough.
That I walk down hallways,
Embarrassed to be standing,
To be walking,
To be seen by the wit of cruel souls.
That I believe the taunts
Before accepting the compliments.
That every night when I go to sleep
I will not rest.
That I will give up on trying and lye Awake
Tired and unable
Dangling off the edge of my bed.
Letting the cold slip into sheets that Were once
So warm.
It reminds me that I know better
Than to feel such naïve elation.

I have seen the guilt
Arise in the eyes of the people I love.
As they question where they went Wrong.
I stand before them
Exposed,
They preach, keep trying.
And I no longer have the will to Confess the comfort
I feel
When I give up,
Because my monsters
Are so friendly when they tell me
I'm better off in their company.

He sparks a fire
That burns through time,
That burns through fear,
He
Sparks a fire that burns through the stars.
Sometimes I wonder if I will miss their light.

People tire,
So oft mistaken by the idea,
So oft hurt by past, that they
Can't see a future for anyone.
Sometimes I question if I will one day hold the same
Tired eyes.

When the fire heats up,
When the flames flicker,
Sometimes I question where his fuel burns from.
But I'd rather feed from his sky,
Then stay in my own stars.

Fire burns in your mind
You complain about the heat.
I would carry buckets of water
For thousands of miles,
Pray for storms
Just to bring you a cool
Breeze.
I would quiet the burns
Playing your favorite song
Every night.
But time and time again
I burned at the price of others.
I would care for you
But I sit in ruins.
My arms are ash not
Strong enough to lift.
My voice is smoke.
My piano teeth are bent and broken.
No melodies will come from my embers
But at least I can appreciate the warmth.

Indulging in you
A  debauchery.
They tell me not to eat if I am not hungry,
But in you I feast.

How do you manage to embrace me
With embers in your eyes
After all those oceans have washed through?
Little wash buckets,
Little white clothes, that just
Couldn't stay clean.
I see stress
Under your eyes
Like bruises,
Seeing the truth just hurts too much.
Little clothes lines in your smile.
I try not to notice you let the laundry sit through the storm
Shirts hang torn.
But you look at me, dry cleaned suits.

I am lost.
Why did we leave that time?
How your eyes
Flickered like fire and met mine.
A glorious passion
Fused in with the stars above us.

I am lost.
Our wishes manumitted.
How did we loose the freedom?
Our fears forgotten for the simple quest
Of being ourselves.
Separate,
As one.

When did we get to this point?
Where we traded our love
For the better half of perception.
We
Were wrong.
Naturally we fixed ourselves to the static views.

Yet I still remember,
How you took my hand.
You whispered that the
Gods won't mind.

Those days,
Those pictures I see
Flashing electric,
Plug the gears of reality and leave me
Frozen in want for the time
When I never knew you
And I never knew myself.

Our fingers,
Interlocked.
You glance at me with fire.
I felt the sand
Of all those years,
And your eyes were the sea.

I don't always look for the shoreline,
But years have passed,
And all I could see was crisp fields.

There is not always stars.
The small I-do's we said that night,
We're not done
Under a blanket of moonlight.
We did not sit by a fire
Holding love in our bones,
Mending.
We did not walk on a beach,
Toes in the sand,
Love at first sight.
You did not pull me in and kiss me.
We didn't even say much.
But it was beauty,
The way you smiled at me when
I emerged in your doorway,
With a dollar store rose of apology.
The way you rigidly
Imperfectly hugged me.
In sticky sweet serenity.

May the gods look back
On our rotted destroyed Earth
And see only harmony.

The sun burned to
Destroy darkness, the
Moon sought to swallow all light.
Yet they lived peacefully
In the same skies.

Was is really that easy
To lose all sense of innocence.
Eyes once so bright
Full like oceans.
Full like oceans.
How easy it was to abandon ship.
How long did you wait for the water to dry up?
No more seas of dreaming in your soul
But puddles of shame in the corners of your mind.
You pretend,
I know you try to see yourself stomping through puddles.
Your boots are not quite tall enough to keep the dirt
From staining your blood.

Through the
Curtain.
Draping my faith on the walls like tapestries, hanging
Wishes on nails. Rooms filled with pipe dreams and hidden images.
Imagine watching you with that gleam in your eyes
I used to always love the way your eyes danced
Waltzing
Slow tones through my hair.
I know
The music turned sour in your mouth
You no longer wanted to dance.
I know
They always feared the melody wouldn't last long enough.
Showing you my wishes
Surgery open on tables with legs
Never strong enough to hold the weight.
Your legs
Your hands
Your bones were shaking the day you told me you relapsed.
I imagine
The way you complained about the glare of the sun in my room.
Too bright for your vision
Once your heart grew dim.

I don't know how,
Such sadnes could fall into
Such empty hands,
And still feel like progress.
Like sand through a strainer
Piece by piece perfectly
Fitting.
Yet falling through.
Truth lies in the small spaces
Between the metal weaving.
Spinning.
Snowflakes falling on pavement.
Cement
In my room. A draft
Under my bed
Like the monster in his eyes,
When he tells me
His love for me
Is slipping between his fingers.

If I could stay in imprint of your bed forever,
It's smells of unwanted dreams
And roses.
Flowers so sweet
They kiss my neck,
My legs,
My bare chest as it beats to your sleeping eyes.
They flutter,
I know your dreaming.

If I could lie here forever
I might reach up and touch your check,
To feel the heat of your thoughts as they seep into my fingertips.

Though I know you want me gone
When you are awake.
So if I were to lie there forever
In the imprint of your bed,
Such  lies
Would drive me mad,
I gather my fingertips and leave unwanted affection where it may lay
Naked next to you.

The little bluebird outside my window
Turning black before my eyes,
Smoldering lies it sings to me,
Burns holes in the sky, I know
The way
The little bluebird likes to
Dip and dive through your sky.

After blessings undone, turns
Promises upside down
I may only wish for your
Little bluebird words
To fall flat in your mouth.

I slept in my pants last night.
Tears stained on my pillow like
The blood
On my hands.
I swept the mess of my life into your dustpan,
And wonder how many pieces may fall behind me.
I will never be able to clean them up,
If I am too afraid to look back.

I fell asleep in my shame,
Forgetting to take it to your dry cleaner.
You would wash out my skin and hang my soul to dry.
Carve your new colors into my palms.
Paint me new irises and maybe
I will fall asleep under new skys

Through the white screen door,
Down broken steps of burned bark
A rusty swing set, red
Buried in Autumn.

Years passed since I sat,
In thick plastic seats
Now are weathered and cracked.

The vines of snakes
Hug the legs, winding and twisting.

Ripe
Sticky summer in-capsuled in growing memories
Of all the years I sat
And picked away at the berries.
At the end of the succulent days,
My fingers, stained
Red.

Sometimes I picture
Your lips.
Not kissing them
Ever so gently.
Not your eyes so perfectly placed
Above them.
Just your lips.
How they curve when you tell me
That I just make you so happy.
How soft they are when you lean in
To tell me you love me.
I try not to think of how those lips
May lie to me.
Or how they will quiver
When you no longer find happiness in me.
Some times I picture your lips,
And how they will feel on her lips
When you tire from mine.

She tells me
Lumpia is her taste of home.
Traditions she had with her aunt when she was small
Hands *****,
Dark hair messy,
But she smiled as she hovered over the hot oil.

Halika dito, Come here.
Gutom ka ba? Are you hungry?

She tells me
Her mother
Would have her scrub her nails,
Before sending her to set the first few servings
In the oil to fry.

She tells me
That warm phillipian-lumpia memories
Have their own special place
In her heart,
In her mind.
On her tongue.
Warm times standing speckled with youth.

She speaks soft sweet days to me
As she hands me the tongs to place the first servings in the pan.

Maybe you can't feel the skin
On your palms
But they are wrapped around your own throat,
Ivy chocking your forest.
A colisascope of stars spinning
Webs in your branches.
Sometimes I forget where we were.
How close we got to the moon
Before you remembered your roots,
How it was to be held down.
But when I feel the wind
I still hope it reaches your leaves.
I still pray you can feel the
Movement in your body.
I know it seems like a broken drum
But your heart is beating songs large enough to move oceans.

All of those words
On repeat in my head.
On repeat in my head.
On repeat in my head.
On repeat in my head.
Again and again
And again.

My mouth is a music box,
But my mind is a broken record.

Twenty-six.
Twenty-seven.*

I count my blessing before they break by your tongue.

I know that perilous game
Of razors
You play.

Trust me when I reach to you, tell
You, I know
What its like to lose.

Child,
Don't worry if the shoe fits
**You can always walk barefoot.

Death**
Brings us closer,
When Life couldn't.

Six small shapes line
The inside of my heart shaped
Abyss.
I would call it an *****
But
My twisted view and
Clockwise soul led me in
The wrong direction
Towards darkness that knows
Nothing besides
Theft.
People tell me to
Let it go
As if it was my choice.
As if I tug at my skin
Like bait.
In reality
I tug at my skin
Afraid to feel it resting
On my bones.
This body was not my own
For three years,
I found my life
Laying flat, the
Thin line between
How do you dos, and you
Are better off not knowing me.
Somewhere on the sidelines of
Oregon
My lungs were found in salt.
My body was not my own
For long nights setting fire to the sky,
Before I could not breathe.
There was
Too much smoke.
But I finally have the room to inhale.
I finally have the will to take up space.
And I will not let myself fall apart.

Smile.
Not because they ask you to,
But because they will never have to know what it's like to feel cold
In a warm room.

I have cried these eyes empty,
Time and time again, I know
The hurt.
Cold caves on my face, Stone
Wells are my expression.
Wells never deep enough to trap the small girl,
But always hollow enough to have her screams remain
And echo

Throw your coins in and make a wish
Before the water washes out.

And then it was daylight.
You lay next to me still sleeping,
The crisp scent of your everlasting
Youth
Dwelled in the air.

Oh how the night
Had sung.
The stars came to us
Kissed your fingertips,
Your hands.
Your hair.

We grew together,
Glowing red like fire.

Next to me you awoke.
A drop of sea
Formed,
In the corner of your green eyes
And fell
Down to the earth.
Small rivers on your face.
You let go of the ash
You keep.
The masks you wore
Are no longer yours.

I could see the happiness bloom in your soul.
Oh the happiness,
Oh the small
Gifts
You give to the heavens.

Everything that once lied to me in my thoughts,
So brought me down to my knees.
To my back I lay.
Defying the stars.
So everything that I know do lie so still.

When you feel your bones
Mending,
To make room for the sadness
That will comfort your heart.
Don't worry when you cannot find  my help.
I am always yours.
So sweetly,
So still, do I lie in the
Arch of your back. Dear,
I will rest in your eyes until all you see is honest.