We float
On and on
In and out
Lonely and numb
One inch from each other
Punch through
This plastic air
This skyscraper construct
Of should
Or shouldn’t
Of go
Or stay
A misunderstanding

Flock dynamics
observe
straight line or curve
arrive anyway
Seems like the only way
of reaching out again.

Three words looking at the moon
Listening with eyes
I arrive here
Combing through the night
Looking for just a second
Away
Away...
Yes you may
Cut through this loneliness
As long as I don’t let on
That I need in any way
Away
Away...
Was there a time I was beautiful?
Come closer with whatever
You have to say
Away
Away
Please stay

I am still shedding the skin
That knew how to love.
They say it takes seven years
To be born again
No matter how much you burn
And
Peel
The cells that knew
Away
They are there
And you don’t have the power
Time has

I wanted it to be us
Pulling away from the bottom
Of the deep end;
But smeared lipstick reminds me:
This is only temporary.  
They will only love you
As long as you are loveable
As long as you are good

I would have shook off
This dark veil
To see you more clearly

I would have loved
This world
In its chaos
Beautiful spirals in and out
Of madness
Of loneliness and beckoning
Over and over
A tolling bell.

The only thing that grows
is the space between.
You don't want what this body knows

questions pile up evermore
What does this mean?
Why don't you want me anymore?

On and on
this suffering plays
my heart is its song

I ask, "how long?"
it doesn't respond.

Things circle and sway,
threads bare and fray,
I lean in to hear you
because I cannot clearly say
what this body knows.

Questions I pose,
frames I build
chaos ensnaring
What is your trick called, "caring"

A lonely box for each of us
blue. steel. cold.
Now it does rust.
Now, another day is sold.

Have you noticed
birds are in the trees
And they are flying
And singing
And living a thousand lives
Of which you know nothing,
That magic, have you noticed it?
In the way your eyes know to blink
and the moon knows to rise
and the world still blooms and spins
It lives
It thrives
Then
it dies.

Here is this voice
it is just a whisper
would you turn your head
to lean in closer?

Imagination says
there is a space
where I am not a chore,
and a place
where I am not cold anymore

Reality says
there is an abyss,
where I am a water glass
that can't feel a kiss
as you turn your head
what did you miss?

The color of sadness
Is the blue of the room
Where I laying calling out to you

The weight of sadness
Is all of the ocean
Gathered in the sound of “no”

It is a harsh velvet rope
In tropical heat
Strangling slowly
Every fleeting joy

I have measured it all
In every way
Just so I could
Hold it there and say
“I will love you again”

“Do you want to get out of here?”
Well, I thought that meant you wanted me
Now I fear
This moment we’ve all waited to see
If I could keep
Your interest in me

My small sentence
Spoken softly to the bathtub ledge
Describing the difference between anger
And the love of a stranger
As nothing at all.

If I could love
the limping
ugly
afraid
part of me
That I drag through the mud
and thorns

If I could let
the transparent
clawing
screaming
silhouette speak
Instead of kicking it
into the basement

If I could put
my deepest human essence
onto paper
for everyone to see

Then.
Then, I could be free.

Lurk against the wall
Stunning rose wallpaper
Have things explained
Look around for an exit
Stairs somehow too far away
And not that subtle
What is it that you can say?
Describe exactly the difference between two shades of gray
Or exactly what it’s like to see the floor disappear
To disappear yourself
To know absence as violent
These things have no words
So you are silent

I took this withered body:
Wilted under the pressure of the moon,
A simple shard of glass
Transparent in the carpet.
And I saw it in a new light
Of a graceful waterfall
That doesn’t know the difference
Between what I used to be
And the way I stand here now
Wash away my
Wash away my
Wash away my
Emerge a butterfly

A sea as fire
Exists upon me
Drink in the life
As it slowly counts down.
It’s you
I plan to see last,
It’s blood
In another silk of this earth
On my forearm
That’s the only place this lives now
And as these bones surface forward
I wasn’t going to say goodbye
But now I know I must.

You're vapor that
Claws at people
waves red flags
that say
send help

Watch them walk by

They always get tired of you
You get lonely of them
You cross them off your list
Crosses are your talent

Wait awhile
to become a raincloud

Sleep against the ledge
Balance one foot
then the next
Peer into a could
A world of another time
Where sad is happy
And happy is a puppet stage.

Birds sing every morning
Some through a cage.

Step closer
An inch away
Wanting to die
And wanting to stay
I can choose to love
Or to lie

I waver as a flag
Flat and colorless

Cords stuck
To skin
Paper thin folds
Lines and numbers
Measure life
And shout as death
Steps closer now
Take off masks
Detach tubes
Check off tasks
Gasping slower
Come on
Come on
Let him run
Into the next world
Zero and lines
Straight lines
Are the final goodbye

Missed these trains
Watch them go by
Counting the cars
Caged
Slide through these bars
To you - showing me
The devastation of joy
And happiness too
Not really understanding love
Before I met you

Fall into it now
A wanting fever
Insane
With you I
Now board the train.

Tangled web
Weave stronger somehow
Biting the bullet
Kills you anyway

Full spectrum color -
A tangled web
Beautiful

Razor sharp electricity of eyes
Gaze through me
I want to evaporate
I want to linger a little
Spider approaching
Settle.

Found a way in
Out through all the weeds
No path left
Wanting particles on
The tip of my tongue
Words teetering
Action metering
Rules I can't quite place
Describing love
As the moment before pain

Head bowed
Eyes closed
Cellphone
Smart
Phone
Worship

It has all gone vapor
Through the chimney
Mixing with the clouds
Pixel perfect
Engineering effort

learn to look up again
See again
Eyes open

I became the sea
Just so you'd come see me
Just to listen to you breath
It must be possible to live
In this place between
Lonliness and joy
Visible and transparent
What can I do with
These waves, tsunamis
Hurricanes on skin
Of bones.

It must be possible
For you to swim with me
Without drowning

Your rules are wallpaper
Over the bars, the cage
Scratch a circle:
Sandpaper on the edges of a page
Your world is full
Of emptiness
Your world is a desert
With cacti blooming
In the meanwhile.

Cactus spines
Prickly gold cover
don't touch me, lover.

Nauseated by this life
All the anger and strife
Circles on circles
End up where you began
A ship on sand
Nature, with its blood
Death and mud
cactus stingers and moon
Nothing that lasts
Except the past

I fell in love with the colors first
A contrast green, gold
Blue
Underneath.
Then the words
So many and so few
Sighs and currents
Cold shivering view
Distance and near
Not having enough eye
To see all
That once was here.

There are rocks
With your finger prints on them

There are places
With the color of your eyes
Burning them down

There are memories
I wanted to last forever

There is pain
In the end of a needle
Just as there is love
In all people

There is a body
With your name
Your finger prints
Your colors
But no you.

I dip myself in gold
A hot sizzle
Does it catch
your eye
your fancy
The edge of your shirt
Beckoning you back

Do I call to you
As you call to me?
My hair will grow in either case
The geese will fly
The world will turn
And whisper it's infinite terror
It's infinite beauty

But now
it's done whispering

Etched into life
Patterns of chicken scratch
Looking for crumbs in the dust
You only have to trust
Put them in spaces
Old with rust
Can you see through my faces
Enough.

I vaporize and materialize
On some occasion
Put myself back together
In time for the explosion
Repeat
Repeat patterns
Repeat you
Repeat me

Bite my nails
Just in case.
I carve out this space
Where they cannot hurt me

Now I see
That you belonged
Crammed and curled and far away
Bone to breast
With all the rest
Where you couldn't hurt me.

Pull up all my silk,
All my buckets , and lies.
Retreat. Retract into a cave.
Wait for the moon to rise.

Drifting in and out
Flailing looks like flying
In your eyes
Try on different selves
Meet them one-by-one
Say goodbye

The only constant

Winter stalks the sunset
As night preys upon the light
Hunched and cold
Watching you sail from the shore.
And I grow old
Waiting for your return

Push away
Pull closer

Couldn't stay
Tried anyway

Unraveled pile
Of ***** yarn
Yearns and
Learns what it means to burn
And discern, finely,
The different flavors
Of pain

And create, kindly,
The eventual train
Of thought
Accept
What you've got

Pain in a ring
Slip off into the dirt

Ring of hurt
Fall over into gray

Circle around decay

Stumble again

Reptilian madness
Turns over in a second
Wash them off
As if it never happened
As I never happened
Sit underneath
An obese sadness
Sharp teeth
Reptilian madness
My world turns

And yearns
Always in the wake

Everything blue. Invisible.

Crashing, collapsing  
Gold swept away

The back again to stay the winter

Weathering stone to sand

Hand-in-hand to spring

*Soaking everything in gold
In blue

You can't delete poems I guess

Waste colors on me
canvas with a hole

Prefrontal cortex
Unplugged

Pulled the last thread
Unravel

Travel through time
A nomad girl.
Smoke from the ashes:

A beautiful curl

Wake up
Fly away
Push down
Stay

Simplicity or them
Loneliness or hatred
warmer than a pen
Or whatever I hold dear

Stand up
Pull away
Stomp down
Okay

Disease or sickness
Blades or dynamite
A Rothko darkness
Is this night

Your silence
On waves distant
You float away

Too much is never enough
Hand on skin
Nails on sandpaper
Walk on the shadows
Or with the shadows
All I could muster

Fire feels like ice
Like lace
Like net
Like bars and chains
Can you hear me?
Scream louder
Gun powder

Out with a bang

Sitting here with me
I tear apart
Push together
Build and destroy
Pain and pleasure
Because I can't stand it either way

Chain me down
Cut it out
My mind is round
Try to make it square

To you
It's not fair

Play it tough
Skin on skin
So soft
It hurts. ***** of a pin
Feel alive again

Start simple.
Go too far
Cause a ripple
******* me
Lose it

Just pass the time
With you

Sublime

In my mind
I scrape my fingertips
Along the spine of your soul
Utterances from lips
Impulse control
I shove my hands
In my pockets
Step away
Step away
So much surface
Hungry for something I can't quite name
Something I chase but never catch
this gray sandpaper skin

Destroys.

Recoil back into the belly
Of this grief
Large. Obese. Heavy.
Cut all the fragile strings
Watch colorful kites fly away
Imagine their life in the clouds
Far away.

Take the swarm of pixels
The sting
Stretch out and look up
Let them cover
Hover
Run
see one last kite tail
Disappear behind the sun

Where did you go
Lines I recognize
Not as my own
How did I become this thing?
This white, solemn bone
Only wanting you to sing
Clearly
Through the haze
Through the black
And the white
There would never be darkness
Without the light.

Impulse beats
Up, down
Hello. Greet.
Hands do what they do
What they need.
Heed greed far too often

Have I had good times?
A few
Have I made any good rhymes?
Maybe two
Do I believe in signs?
As long as you do

Rough around the edges
The start and stop
Fruitless pledges
Forget-me-not

I can't fill in the blank
Churn and churn
Fill up the slate
Crash and burn

Punishment as an award
I longed to be invisible
To see a clear path forward
To be a person - permissible

Now as part of a suitcase
I move slowly
Fears to face

Pills and rocks
Take them to
Not feel tired anymore
....If only

Diamonds like ice
broken glass
Cut cold

Age gathers bold.
Not so pretty
When it melts;
I long for, I long for
Choosing something else

Mist and color
Sparkle
Mountains climbed
Slowly and then quickly
And it does remind
You to go but stay
Whispering still
Say everything again
You match the hills
Blood on your arm
It kills.

The night is long
Stars hidden by clouds
Loud silences ring
Through thick things
Wrapped around my leg
My mind
I do beg
for the sun
I do run
Out of myself
And into nothingness
I do melt
Into the night

The long night