I'm high now and sulking in detached spacey anxiousness. My cigarette hanging limply in fingers. music cramming into my eardrums. staring into coffee too cold. Here I am: tearing down the towers I only just made. New lined bricks explode beside the pressure of the bombs I throw. The pave is still hot and debris will fall and solidify in it. There I was: I can see the shadows of the cities I've left behind, their stirred up ashes so fresh they sometimes cloud my vision. Here I am: standing in my kitchen, scrubbing a frying pan, furious. There I was: a million years ago, on the other side of the frying pan flying across the room. Here I am: screaming I love you and I'm scared. There I was: listening to i hate you and if you leave, i don't want you to come back. Here I am: losing myself in a rhythm of destruction and there I was: born into a cycle where I'm just another link on the chain. Heritage cascades over me god it's painful but oddly relieving. If I truly lived in the moment, I would hear the telephone ring, him begging me to find something I could trust in him and hold onto it. If I truly lived in the moment, I wouldn't be here thinking about you in the aftermath.

"I see your hair is burning
Hills are filled with fire
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar"
  -Jim Morrison

I used to be a girl who had very close relationships with eccentric women who talked to themselves & sang to kitty cats, birds, dogs, & who sometimes got cranky with squirrels who climbed into birdhouses. Women who had laughter follow them wherever they went. Who teased me but never made fun of me. Women who were much older than me, came into my life at various times, who moved in & out of it, fluctuating in immediacy but always loving me totally, always keeping in touch, never a hateful or spiteful glance. Women who saw me not as something to deal with, but something to help. I wasn't a chore. They were people who introduced me to things, included me in everything. Women who lent me books. Who played battleship, scrabble, cards, word games, catch, and pranks with me. Who invited me to watch movies, cook supper, pile wood, play in the sandbox or garden, walk on the beach with them. Women who spent time talking to me & doing things with me; both focusing on who I was & who I would be at once. Women who were grams & aunts & adopted family and who were not my mother.

Prom. I'm not Pretty In Pink. I'm not Cinderella at the ball. List of saving graces: My dad slipped me drugs during the father-daughter dance; I had my best friend to help me the whole night. Insights: my principle was a dumb-***; the sight of Jody during a panic-attack makes my world spiral & fall down a million shattered glass hills, the no-escape land where chests turn into cages & clench lungs so hard they can't make full breaths & hands turn into ADHD fire ants, pushing and & twisting skin until raw, scratching necks and arms nervously & don't mind the drawn blood, sweetie. Where politics & family trees go on forgotten & why did they send HER heroutgetherout I can't do this Tom. Where I'm backed up in a corner & I'm stuck in the no-escape land. Clastrophobia; why are all these people around me? Swarming me. Incessant little panic bees swirling constantly touching always "don't ******* touch me!!" & Tom is raising his voice at them; I can hear the volume and the sheer chaotic amount of noise but can't distinguish the words. &then; the panic bees file & march forward, nothing to see here, folks. "It's just me & you," he's telling me "they don't matter" & he's looking at me & then the breathing concentrations & the pain in my throat & the chest loosens a bit & I can feel the pulled muscles all over me & I can climb up the glass hills & the shakes? Oh, they don't stop for a looong while.

I've been thinking a lot about the guns
the split second of pain & crashing & terror
before the explosion, the release,
the sighing of my lungs & the emptying of my mind
end to the psychosis
  the hallucinations
  the empty cathedrals
  the backstroke & the ****** noses

I've been thinking about the drugs
the layers of numbing comfort
  distance
  denial
I screen my eyes with until I don't squint in the sun anymore

I've been thinking about the walls
I stare at for hours
I want to peel off the top-coat & see what's underneath

I've been thinking about the day you left me
the chair I sat in
the new cigarette I would pick up & light from the final drag of the old
the boxes that one by one moved themselves out our front door
the way you looked at me when you said goodbye
the way the house looked so empty
the new cigarette
the chair I sat in
the leaves that changed from green to red to brown to whisked away in wind
the day that you left
&the; walls ever since
&the; drugs ever since
&the; guns ever since

I shouldn't have asked him to be calm
without fail he's on a trip
drink clenched in his hand
teetering
  anticipation
  take out a cigarette
he starts furiously
  I don't have to think
  eyes shut tight
    left lying broken
      so often
  middle of the floor
  just like the Christmas toys

he's promising he will settle down
he's vowing he won't touch me again
  there's no need to answer
it's too late now to make it over again;
it's shattered
smashed beyond repair

when you see a man
there's something about them that
                                makes
                                you
                                 stop
as if he is
life's greatest challenge
to figure out

he's not

I am the secret she keeps
she lives partially in the shadows
I could destroy everything for her
everything that means
something to her
would go away
if I don't stay behind her closed doors

she belongs to someone else
but she's mine while I hold her
she  screams my name (for now)
back arching
I'm not the taken anymore
I do the taking now

I've always been accused of being greedy
I simply see it as not playing coy
when opportunity
looks me straight in the eye & winks
later, opportunity will
bite her lips
pull my hair
beg me not to string her along so well

she always comes back for more

He didn't sleep
night or day
but to cheer him up
I taught him
something useful

I'll hold him
from his World War II
from the rolled-up newspapers
the front door that waited

He was looking up at me
saying
it was worse
he was impartial
didn't laugh
I urged
you go hide at friends' homes
he didn't pay any attention
just looked
stared up
motionless
staring
jaw frozen
But I refuse to let it get me down

This is how he punishes me

to wake up
early morning
to the glaring whisper
...GIVE...MORE

I don't like to face him

∈ that moment, all I wanted was for things to stop. no more pen to paper nose to the grindstone keep calm carry on power through just keep swimming stop. no more hey baby can i buy you a drink nice legs cat calls from passing strangers fumbling in the dark sweater vests do you like that take it take it stop. no more forms deadlines how can i help you miss you just need to fill this out sign here please stop. no more how's the weather how's your sister how are you polite questions honest answers uncomfortable look at the people around you scanning for familiar people to save you from having to try to seem sincere stop. but they kept going kept going I stood still as they moved forward leaving me to stand still as they flowed on around me: stopped.

I feel you, syncing yourself with me
I can't help but fall in time with your footsteps
Our heartbeats harmonize as we lie, entanged

I feel you, pulsating, waves on a shore
Relentlessly eroding my hardened heart
Entrancing me; Lulling me into your grasp

I feel
My heart strings
Being pulled by your hand,
Embroidering me
Into the fabric of your being

others help me break
myself. fixing the pieces
is my job alone.

we will be martyrs
we will feel the earth
&let; the wind push us back in ecstacy
it will be beautiful
&fat;; will let us alone for a while

let it go &res;; easy
until the next time tragedy strikes
it was the back &fort;; that took us
&we; ran,
  ran fast
from the duties we were opposed to

we cried in spite of ourselves
  because the world feeds off of
  the misery of the peoples
we laughed in spite of it all
  because sometimes satire
  is the only way we can process the scars we carry

the leaves shimmied on the trees
&we; couldn't help but believe it was all for us:
  Nature is our Dancing Girl

Oh, You know of my past.
You are quite aware that I have taken
  much from men.
Aware that they have lashed back
  &filled; me with their poison
  &filled; me with their bodies
  &filled; me with their wreckage
  &filled; me with their hatred
But you don't mind- you silently tell me you love me every time I see you
  just...standing there.
Reminding me that there isn't enough poison in me to smother you.
Reminding me that you can still
  prosper,
  find substance,
  find sustinance
    in me.

&to; hear your throat open up
&you;; control give way
as you exhale
the delight you take in me:
This is the influence behind me coming back to you.
What keeps me turning into you.

You wait for the day
my heart swells
&I; forget about everything I know.
You wait for the day
I run the distance between us...
simply to touch you,
to surround you,
take you in,
envelop you in myself.

I want to see your heart
Vulnerable
Naked
On display for me
I want to notice the imperfections
The off color
The almost
I want to know the 'yes' and 'no's about you
I want to be a crutch of yours
To help you through the day
"I only do it when I'm stressed"
"I only do it when I'm drunk"
"Now I'm addicted"
I want to be your cigarette
Your gradual habituation
I want to kiss you with the sun
Even with your morning breath
I want to kiss you with the moon
Even with your whiskey breath
I want to pack your lunch and fold your clothes
I want to fight with you and cry
I want to talk with you and hug
I want to be in your everyday
I long to hear you call
"I'm home, hunny"
But we're 'just friends'.

I listened to your
feelings just so I wouldn't
have to deal with mine

I  left everything to believe in you
You opened me up
I am your valentine
I am your love letter
I am your pomegranate
I paused at flowers and you loved me for it
It was the sky that I wondered upon that upset you
Your jealousy  
Your anger
You wanted me to keep my head bowed
Eyes on the ground
Give all my love to flowers

She sticks like water. She loves like a butterfly.
She slips through my fingers like sand.
She is good for me; just like the cigarettes I'm chain-smoking.
She changes her haircolor like she changes her mind.

I've never loved anyone like I love her.
So why is it so easy for me to let her walk away?
So... so easy... to let my tambourine fall away from my fingers,
After watching her burn my sound-house down?

You were Someone
I should have written in My memory books
  with pencil--
to be easily erased later.

Instead,
I carved your Name
  into the wood-workings of My Being,
to serve as a reminder
of My Mistakes.

The massacre occurs inside myself
I've been compulsively pushing the self-destruct button for years
I am not an endless cycle
What I subtract, I don't regain
But I am decreasing, becoming slowly more deceased
By my own hand my heart is flayed, flogged, quartered, disemboweled
The contents of myself spilling out
In a gory unheaval
Onto parchment

I want you to bleed me thin
I want you to run me ragged
I want you to make me scream until I lose my voice
I want you to make me feel something unordinary
I want to tear my hair out in frustration
I want to throw things and break them
I want you to break down my walls &mak;; me cry
I want you to stomp my heart out like a cigarette
I want you to beat me until the only thing I cling to is you
Until you're the only poison in my system
Until you've broken all my other nasty habits
&You;'ve established yourself as the only one left
I want you to be integral to me
I want your dominance to push me into submission
Be my Queen, I'll be your Knight of the Cart
Be my Aeneas, I'll be your Dido
Be unchanged by my passion
Be unmoved when I flow on you, around you, in you
I want you to shape the way I sway
I want you to take over all that I am
Establish yourself as my identity

&You; spoke to me
We were at the yard sale
Picking through old gems and dog-eared pages
Your skin brushed mine
&You; tell me that Jesus will hold me
But I know you will, too

You are earth and trees
&I; am water
I will sustain you
I will feed you what you need

You are flowers &I; am the blue, blue sky
You are still flowers when I am grey, grey
You are constant and I am fluid
I am the vaulting skies, and the unknown ocean.
I am passion &movement; &instabilty;

I was going to tell you I loved you
Nervous hands Quiet mouth Stupidstupidstupid me
I hand you a teapot instead

Implode on myself
Outward anger pressed inward
Fingers digging
Searchingly
Grasp to pull my stomach through my mouth
Rip the hair from my head
In wild, hurried, passionate hate
Quicklyhurryfinditwherethefuckdidiputit
Scratch the way through skin
Open myself up
Try to find something good

You are endless
Over-powering, lithe, rhythmic, ruthless
You are a virus
Over-riding and re-programming
My system
Until all I can think of is 'more'
'Don't stop corrupting me'
My words aren't real
You flow everywhere
Seamlessly
I cry for my own deconstruction
You objectify me with my permission
It's beautiful. It's beautiful
It's awful
'Don't stop'

blurred faces. fuzzy
feelings. vibrate your words to
me. let me feel you.

private moments in
public. inappropriate:
regulated. eyes

meet across smoky
rooms. lips meet between misty
thoughts &desires.;

we indulge in the
****** up. we live on the edge
of what is allowed.

we are to behold.
us: you grind I moan you laugh.
Sweet Vision, say yes.

she moves over me
soft kisses
small fingers
lingers
in the crook of my neck
the small of my back
runs her hand
over my piercing
licks and kisses my eyelids
we hold each other
because it isn't supposed to last
we aren't supposed to be here
why am I here
she laughs
I laugh too
then we remember what we're here for
& get back to business
she judges me
because I'm everything
she doesn't want
but I can see her
telling herself to shut up
(she loves it)
she kisses me
instead of saying
what we both know she's thinking
I hate being with her
but I tell myself to shut up
I kiss her
instead of asking her to leave
I should get a rosary
to hang over my bed
to remind myself
who I'm letting down
every time I abandon praying over my bed
& choose to pray over her body instead
He loves me
He loves me
I'm faithful with my fingers crossed

You were there, in the parking lot
There is something beautiful
In the moment
When you are screaming at me
Personal, personal words
Flung at me
In the presense of the public
They look at us
And see horribly unstable people
"This is not the place for fighting.
They should know better"
But they don't see you
Looking at me
⫬ saying
"I hate you",
but, rather,
"I have a problem with you.
I want to work this out,
But right now I'm really upset
&Hav;; to yell".