I want to lick your feet clean
just so I know where you've been
just so you know I'm aaaaall yours

today i walked and felt tall.
like the world's weight
no longer
threatened to break my spine.

today i sat and felt strong.
for years i lifted children
like barbells
and now i am an athlete.

today i talked and felt wise.
my waters are
deep enough
to reflect.

today i lived and felt beautiful.
a face i once knew said
my babyish looks are gone.
and it's true: i am leaving my troubled youth behind.

comfort
safety
everything I needed
& she was holding me.
forehead to forehead I'm crying
& she's so calm so slow so high so careful
not enclosing me
just there
as I'm buckling under the weight
of the pieces I've just
put together.
I'm sitting there
forever with her hand on the nape of my neck,
pixie queen eyes never faltering,
meeting my pleading
alarmed gaze. "It's okay baby girl"
she whispers it
over & over

she reaches up & presses her thumbs down on my airways shaking me & my head keeps smacking the concrete. Both a crack and a thump in my skull. But later it's me: beating her face into the floor breaking her nose her face all apart makes me feel sickeningly alive, mortifies & exhilarates at once. I'm terrified of her, yes, but more so of myself. "It's okay baby girl." Is it? Because night after night sleeping pill after sleeping pill I'm dreaming of ending it all.

Oh, of all the ways I could end.

funny how i believe
in demons but i can't seem
to accept angels

plastic dreams & magic hearts
propelled into my subconscious
& I framed them.
lost myself compulsively
in the pages of everything I could
lay my hands on
   --sweet escape
     only comatose--
daydreamt often
visions of being fantastical
                        amazing
             standing on desks & screaming
                empowered
                     dominant
                    noticed

I find myself in only my underwear (again), bloodletting at 5am, trying my best to let it all out & start anew. Nothing matters & especially not me. I want to die but I don't want to leave him behind. I want to fall asleep & stay there forever, but I love waking up next to him. The sun kisses him as he kisses me. I keep trying to hold the lids of my eyes open but they shut & shut him out. I could watch him smiling across the pillow at me always but ****** I slip back into wonderworld. It's the Nowhere & Everywhere that occupies my every thought, except the ones of him.

I spend twelve hours a day planning my death & twelve hours a day sorting through, preparing for my life. I have two bracelets on my wrist: one reminding me of my friends & the other reminding me of nothing. Isn't that beautiful?

He understands everything about me except how haunted I am. Each time I see him I cry. He breaks my heart but stitches everything else back together again. He tells me I am important & he will never leave me but history stands over my shoulder whispering in my ear reminding me that I am not & yes he will. If I hold up my smallest finger to the looking glass, he on the other side will lift his & pinky promise to stay. Forever. If I throw a blanket up over my head & the mirror, he will do the same & I can finally have him to myself for a few minutes.

Even he wouldn't believe me if I told him how often he saves me from cutting off my crusts, peeling my skins, unseeding & trimming away. When we fight over who loves the other more, we have to give our reasons, back up our claims; each time, he agrees that I win.

you've never seen me tuck my edges in. don't notice the differences between my familiars. you stared in silence seeing my voodoo doll reality; stick pins through a waxen image. you swore revenge long before you got the news i'd been wronged. the time to be proud & protective is when you have an audience. take a step back, take back your brave *******. keep talking: i love hearing you convince yourself you've never failed me.

you overlooked me folding in on myself. i keep lowering my standards, cleaning out more of my closet: clearing out more of myself. halving & halving a torn-page treason (until i am fornever more). the piled suitcase of your empty promises, your sulking tender mercies, your smirking fist grazes; i keep finding i need less & less of my inheritance.

if i keep walking on & keep calling home, will i keep waiting for you to ask what my lenses are like to look through? if i keep growing my hair & composting my body, will i someday bear fruit? if i ease into each fluctuated stride, does it matter how many miles these feet kiss? how does bloodletting me make you feel like a man? if i needed attention, would you watch over me?

but there's no good illusion for these stinging welts.

sleep is the only place I can
not Be.
where I don't cry don't
melt into whatever I'm perched on
coat the top
& soak into the fabric beneath.
I have a chameleon soul
shift into whatever people need (want) me to be
latch onto anyone that (thinks they) can handle me.

I gotta be better for myself
take more care of me
inside & out
purify my body
alter my high strung mind
change my surroundings
learn how to sleep
make new habits
give myself things to hold onto
intake, educate; always.
I'm going to lift myself
I have a plan
I swear to god I gotta
push through
gotta
do this for me.
success not mine,
I think I'd
collapse again
but not get up this time
lying there
paralyzed & entranced
by the weight of solid reality
that I am a heartbreak's failure. sweet lullabies
as I lie pained but at ease
trains raced, hearts rushed
    but I remained at ease.

magic woman.
flowing...life never startles her.
takes each piece of paper she finds
& hides it away
between the pages
of whatever book she
happens to be reading that day.
soul filled with fire:
encapsulating &
changing any & all
that come too close;
whatever man
that thinks he can let the flames
lick his fingers
then pull his hand away,
unscathed.

a branch is a struggle
every leaf a memory,
each smile a victory.
growth is patience
the winds that blow may bend you
but buds become twigs become branches become limbs:

the trains of thought that are faucets of the Whole;
Trinities' sum is still 1.
Singular & Complete
but controlled, organized,
knotted & divided.

standing on
crossroads
binoculars tell me
each is a dead end.
try to pick the best bad option.

crimson ribbons round your leg
delicate trails
quickly blurred
make you feel better yet?

nah, wipe it down
wash away
pale pink feathering reminders
all I need. never regret.

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

all I dream of is how
he touches me
my weakness
nape of my neck
his hand slides up
God I love it
when he plays me so well
I bite lips
that he said
he loved kissing
my *******
that softly gifted into his hands

∈ 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.

mum always breaks my heart
she always knows how to tear me apart

she can very cheerily be so nice
the wrong word can make her turn to ice

most of the time she's distant
solid, fortified, distinctly resistant

but intent on my every word choice
note the changing of tone in her voice

sometimes she's odd, accepting;
after two days she's bored and back to neglecting

searching out 'wrongs', use to ream me
she knows the exact strings to pull and unseam me

and it hurts even worse when I see that she tries
she always gets my hopes up & dashes them in front of my eyes

   then she goes into her fantasy land
   we're Lori&Ror;; Gilmore, talking men

I try to play along; it's hilarious to see
that as hip as she likes to think she is, she's as bad at this as me

do you remember
when you were beautiful, & I a beast?
now you're dutiful. I'm only a barista.
when a message was all we had
when our words were shattered glass
when you were popping codiene
& I was just ghosting.
if I walked past you, would it matter?
if I stopped asking, would it still hurt?

do you wonder
when I'll smoke less cigarettes
or stop hating my silhouette
on the floorboards?
now I do.
when love was a click away
when a drink could forget yesterday
when I ate only cold meat
& I washed my hair on Jesus' feet.
if I keep moving rocks around, will I go forward?
if I buy less, will I get more?

do you dream about
when you'll wake from nightmares in my arms?
now, you're doing the program, doing time
when I'm looking at the clock spin circles around me
when I am cold & bruised & beat
when we're alone or lonely
& I wonder if it's love or mutual obsession.
if I say 'never', will wrong prove me?
if I get better, won't I still bleed?

lifting sifting
drifting intense
pouring distorting
apparently blessed
breathe high & divide
love myself, then the rest
I'll never stay with anyone
I can stand to give to less.

gold & diamonds in my ear
pages of bile somewhere near
patchwork *******; the words that I spew
strive to be beautiful & deserve you

I used to scream & scream
so angry I found I couldn't stop
crying hyperventilating
maybe to make her worried
maybe to make her notice me
maybe to prove I was crazier than her

I made her cry
   made her go in the basement where the ***** coolers -- blueberry smirnoff, your favorite -- were waiting
   made her silent streaming tears come out & her coffee refilling again + again & her cigarette package needing to be replaced; the basement a hazy cave my mother sat in, silent + unresponsive, smoking constantly crying often rocking back+forth occasionally for four days

                                                                             I win.

if getting better
is what this is called, then i
would rather stay sick

what does it say about me
that i am comforted by
the Burning Man?
his skin chars & peels
tendons beneath earnestly oozing
anxiously trying to soothe the flames
kindled by papery wishes,
wooden expressions, angry inflections.
his ashen tears
stolen away by a wind's tired sigh
flutter down to a ground somewhere.
the fire will purify him of his
infections, the dust will return
to the dust, but the man who
touches my forehead so lightly, steams
the cold sweat from my brow,
calms my terrored shuddering...
i am losing him smoke ring by smoke ring.......


.......what should i think of him
that he is addicted to loving
the Dripping Woman?
my breathing is wet and laboured,
there is less, less room for
air when lungs are naive to the
furtive ripples overtaking them:
some people die by the drop.
.
.
.
.
.
.
clove cigarettes smell most
like him. we lie together &
stare at the cherry blossoms
dropping to tuck us into our bed.

if insanity
is doing the same
thing over & over
& expecting new
results is
sanity
doing different
things every day &
knowing you'll
see the same
conclusion?

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

last night i flew over
seven seas that seemed as one
to you
on battered, ****** wings
& you thought i looked ****.
you like women ragged & jagged-edged
with souls as severed as your own,
hoping to find one whose broken
pieces fit snug to yours, but
you're so stupid:
this is the hoarding of shattered glass.
you hold me, don't flinch when i
hold your gaze and cut you deeper than anyone
has ever pressed before. i say 'sorry'
but there's no need to explain;
you already know why
: i'm hard to handle.

last night (your yesterday)
you felt me long before my
feet lifted off and you
waited, long before my
restless wings wandering soul
knew where i was going, exactly.
the door was closed but the
window was open, i slunk through
huddled beneath the frame
sodden and soaking the floor. pitiful
desperate vulnerable thing but i
think that's what you loved me for:
you think you're **** and unworthy
and here is one that crawls to you, begs
for you to touch her and lays her head
on your knees to sleep.

i think that's what you loved me for.

you're on the other side
but we stand
just a breath
a heart's murmur
a spider's sidestep
from touching.

i'm the duck who doesn't fly
& you've spent so long getting high
now that you're finally
touching down
solid ground just seems
like rock bottom.

I stretched out on pavements at dusk
oblivious to the idea of safety in case of mindless vehicles
mindful only to the collected heat radiating into my stupid skin.

I suckle on the bones of my mother's memory
her nails running up my spine used to soothe me.
Now they leave puncture wounds.
Sweet breastmilk that one day turned irritable and absent-minded;
she slapped me when I refused to drink.

My haughty attitude or pouted lip:
the only way I knew how to ask for help.
Didi you hear me?
Still, I suffer, scream in silence.

Maybe I seek acceptance from men,
but I want a woman to know that it's me who is in control.
I wanted approval daddy,
I'm not an object for your manipulation, mother.

Stupefied, I stoop, slouch through short doorways
that accept men who don't hold their heads high.
I slink into outstretched arms meant for other people.
Tonight, please. Tonight, just. Hold me.

bud blossom bloom wilt
rinse repeat

heartbeats on repeat
rattle photoframes on walls
they match pace with yours

lifting sifting
drifting intense
pouring distorting
apparently blessed
breathe high & divide
love myself, then the rest
I'll never stay with anyone
I can stand to give to less.

look at me
not with your ideals
of who I should be.
look at me
not with bewilderment,
condemnation, inaccuracy.
look at me
without wishing I was
who I used to be.
just accept. just listen, just hold.
just
look at me.

It's disappointing
how little my parents care
for my opinion.

I leave a bad taste
in their mouths. I come across
too harsh for their ears.

I am both deeply in love & deeply
melancholy
which feels like
being tied to horses
& pulled between them
testing who is stronger

I want him to pull my strings
rough play
with the softest, most gentle of souls
as malleable as mine & kindred to it.
He loves me so utterly, so completely.

la petite morte. she
cried out. slow, soft and mournful.
sensual sadness.

try to keep going
let them live peacefully
as I fake it
let them keep
the illusion that
I am Something.

honestly,
when was I ever
Anything?

if you find your world has stopped revolving,
resist turning about: breathe it in
allow yourself to be held
even if your arms are the only ones
wrapping your torso round
the only lonelier sound than a loon's call is silence
but silence shouts every secret
the only thing more tragic, more beautiful
then felled Rome
is rising tattered & slanted from your knees

Arise
You: sloppy eyed with feathered thighs
regardless of your rocking hips
regardless of your worn brow
regardless of your gnawed lips
regardless of your dripping nows

Arise.

four hundred new macabre tattoos
dance up & down my thigh.
my whole life made up of untruths
it's not necessarily a lie.
and maybe I love you and maybe I don't
I haven't decided yet.
and maybe I'll live and maybe I won't
I'm still trying to grow a set.
forever's forgotten when right now is too much
some things have got to change.
my lover, Yesterday, has the strangest touch
like holding fingers over a flame.
tomorrow's a sigh
today is a burden
living is but a joke.
blink fast, don't cry
nod through the sermon
shut up & light a smoke.

drinking alone & unwise at the table
watch me tremble; shook from the core
I say you're lonely, you say I'm unstable
I give all I have & you ask me for more.

⁢'s hard for me to breathe
through the needles & pins
hard for me to see
I'm giving in
you would love if you could be
a little under my skin
it's hard for me to see
I'm letting you win.

sinking inside in a fisherman's stable
cigarette ashes cover the floor
I try not to need you & find I'm unable
I give all I have & you ask me for more.

⁢'s hard for me to breathe
through the needles & pins
hard for me to see
I'm giving in
you would love if you could be
a little under my skin
it's hard for me to see
I'm letting you win.

oh, what a beautiful day:
I know that I won't always feel this way.
oh, this ocean I'm in;
I've already decided I won't swim.
I've already decided I won't swim.

losing myself in the old rhymes & fables
a candle to fend off my wandering mind
I told you I loved you, laid my heart on the table;
that's not what I got so I'll burrow inside.

summering in a gentle garden
inspires
burst out quivering
he was helpless to it
kicking with a
swallowed sensitiveness.

today this lady had dripping teeth and forked tongue, spitting two streams of words at once. today this lady had sorrowed eyes that laughed and looked through you. today this lady had dishevelled locks, not a hair out of place. today this lady had eyebrows that asked what you meant but disapproved entirely. you couldn't quite tell if this lady held you in care or contempt.

each random letter was picked with care
the sullen voice, the offset stare
yet she felt so out of control.
she had wild locks & violet eyes
she didn't know but was not surprised
you never knew what, or if, she was thinking.

she had this look about her, like she would rather be anywhere else, but you constantly felt under her attention, like you knew she was in this moment with you. she seemed constantly on the verge of letting something go (you didn't know what), but she's lingering in the doorway,  she's pausing to take the scene in, she's observing the dandelion for several minutes before blowing the seeds into the breeze.




if there is anything I've learned from her, it is to live in each moment, even if I'm detached--- though I'm detached.

At some point, we have to let go.

she just kept waiting for him
to come home
throw his key7s in the dish
hang his coat on the hook
ease his body over hers
lay his love on her
again...

sigh
lock the door
lay out tomorrow's clothes
******* thinking of him
roll over alone
again

the puckered fields i've plowewd
the seeds of discord i've sewn
inside this dirt.

my unhappiness grows,

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

Real attachment
Real trust
is hard because
it means I
have to lay there,
trying to believe him,
feel loved.
Try to gracefully accept
the love notes he
leaves on my body:
the physical way he
shows me I am
important.
Truth be told,
the *** is incredible
when there are no illusions
about why I'm there,
naked and stranger,
only valuable
because I'm so
useful & useless.

One day, they'll wake up next to you and look toward you. You'll roll over, all bleary-eyed and drowsy. With your raspy, honey thick voice, you'll mumble good morning into their neck, tell them you love them. You'll run your fingers over their jaw line, lean in to kiss them, and see the hesitation in their eyes. Suddenly, you are wide awake and you question, and your heart races in the most awful way, because somewhere, deep in you, you already know. They can't even meet your eye when they say "We need to talk". And they tell you things that you hadn't even been aware were problems and they say they're sorry, but you know, in your heart of hearts, they're not, really. That's when you realize that everything you thought 'This' was between you was Real for you but Not for them. You realize that they were pretending. You realize you've been used. And then they are getting out of bed and putting on their pants and leaving. The sound of the door clicking shut with everything you thought you had on the wrong side of the door; The sound of the lock finding itself and clicking into place is the exact sound your heart made when it broke.

Life steals what you want
to give you what you need
but scars you til you're scared
to satisfy your dreams

all I want is help but I resist those who reach
all I need is love but I run from that beast
all I ask is knowledge but hate when you teach
I pretend I'm the best but think I'm the least