Here and there
this needs a scientific name,
a twist of tongue,
ribcage: gilded frame.

A song unsung
Like a zipper unzipped
Like a drink sipped too slow
Like a blink of stars
That have lost their glow.

Can you fight blade to blade?
Often not
As I drop it on my knee.
I watch the words fly out to sea
And all the things once within me
Have all fallen
Drifting now. Accompanying now
The pollen
Once within the rose.

You set the pain on fire
lay it down slowly
in an amber pile
among the things
I can't quite reach
among the strings
I can't untie.

Run fast
because the world is disappearing.
There,
reappearing,
are the fingers you wish for
never given by fate.
They disappear too.
So run fast
because thats what lasts.

Mad hatter runs rampant
through a haze
in a maze.

I take that mad hatter
between my hands:
a knot of never-ending strings
a plain face
without love. without light.
There.
Hold on tight.

Is it ever hard to breath
in the fog,
or the starlight?

Is it ever hard to heave
this bundle off your back?

Is it ever hard to leave
fate behind;
to leave
all the paper
stamped and signed?

Is it easy to drop
the pencil?
To "make it pop"
or match the drapes?

Is it easy to stop
and see how hard it is to breath?

It all trudges
through what I've done,
the leaving,
the coming,
the blood
and the rain.
I see how tired
it all is,
I want it to fall asleep
in my life
in my lie.

I asked for you,
but I didn't know your name,
I just imagined you laying there
among the clovers, all covered in dew.
And now I tear
all my parts into little pieces
so I can give them to you one-by-one:
in an envelope,
in a cursive letter,
in all the threads of a sweater,
in every footstep and fingerprint,
in every hue and every tint.
I give it all to you
little-by-little.

Keep you on file
they always say
good enough to string along
not good enough to ask to stay
can they all sense the wrong?
they certainly hit me down
with whispers, they drown
I drown
away I see,
your floating, golden, perfect
crown.

They never existed;
they sip lemonade with me
on a porch.
They ask me who I am;
I ask them to stay,
to blossom into reality
like a harsh lotus
I cannot touch
through the glass.

A beg you to crush me
my only demand
and you never disappoint

Collect all the sticks
because they and I
don't mix
Collect a strand
of her hair
in my hand
but please
understand
these were never my words
please understand
this was never planned.

The dead wash ashore
over and over
I ask for more
mercy
but there lies war
instead of a wild flower
that was somehow there before
amid the grass and stream
a wild flower
grown in my dream

Do the same things
over and over
to try and understand
why you can't stop.

Feels like
sunbeams
under redwoods
in clover

eyes

boil over

Scratch out words I meant to say
beneath the dark
standing stark
a thin veneer of your
fine fingers
your flesh
and your bones
Just tell me one thing:
Do you
oh
do you
still sting?

I reach for the gold,
stop short;
could I hold it
if I caught it,
if I caught you?
Do you see how
I meant to?

Stopped short.

Split down the center
insides glow
on skin anew
away it all flew
that day
I saw a dove
making me believe
in love.

I smudge the paint
on the wall
your wall
to call out a weak power
by which I love you.
Cower beneath the hedges,
never to be seen,
I can't seem to say what I mean.
As I let go of you,
black and blue,


you drift out to sea

Sticky lies
comb the gum out of my hair.
The universe told me
it is unfair.
We will trudge through it
snowy boots
sticky fingers
and all.
We will catch the vase
as it falls.
I will watch my face
as it calls
and combs
the gum out of my hair.

Come closer if you dare.
Through the fear of my dazzling glare,
I see a sunset
and a past
not worth talking about.
Dance with me
and see
a sunrise
with eyes like moons.
We will run off together
like they do in cartoons.
We will cut our tether
like you always wanted,
but I remain forever haunted
by a sunset
and a past
not worth talking about.

Wipe me clean
a chalk board eraser
So close I can taste her
You're the worst I've seen
take it all one-by-one
I asked the sun
if it would heal me
I asked God to be
somehow closer.

I walk through
the door marked "you"
A cloud of poison
I have chosen
because I crave nothing
but suffering
please tell me
that my sweet scene lingers
the way your words do
the way your fingers
always have.

I hope to hurt
I put it out on my limbs
the way I go through life
just on the edge
a shaky limb
I can't get enough
or any at all
full throttle
slam on the brakes
I wish to take these mistakes
and swallow them whole
but that wouldn't be good enough
for you.

So this long line traces the pain
and keeps it in a small groove
I ask the angels to move
so I can see the sun
and then nothing at all.

I wear her sunglasses
that I found on his table
I can see him
touching her
how I wish he would touch me
I hear her singing
paint the roses red
so I do

There are echoes in stones
what they have seen.
How is it that you can dream
and keep tearing my skin from bones?

No one can stand anyone else
I am not an island
but a tired and sagging sack
patches upon patches
stitch me up again
Here I am, it is time to begin.

I know you love me
Because of how much it hurts
A beautiful torture
An outstretched hand
A sea of existence
To define the land.
It has the power
To **** me
But always lets me down
Love is a sound
Far too loud
Love is a cloud
In a cloudless sky
Love isn't my
Action or inaction
But
Most of all,
Love isn't a fraction.

One step forward
Three steps back
Pull at the bottom of the stack
Masks reveal
Hearts conceal
Swim across all the seas
Lock all the locks
Throw away all the keys
Is a way of life
For people like me
Is there time
To just be

Elegant fingers
I created from nothing
Or something
A stranger said to me
Long ago
Zip down the zipper
Look chipper
They say that's best
I'm not like the rest
Hardly worth the time
It takes to consider
If you'll stay
They say
The good thing is
The bad thing is
Everything is fleeting.
Everything is bliss.

I wipe the stardust from my eyes
Oh how it itches and burns
We take turns
Because that is only fair
Good enough to ****
But not good enough to care
People stare at what I've done
He takes that on
Their judgements and I are one
I've gotten used to hauling it around
I'd share it, but it's too profound
Sounds like winter
Smells like him.

Words escape me
A common problem
I see
In the folds
Of hands intertwined
There he holds
A gun to my forehead
And asks to have a normal conversation
Doesn't understand
Doesn't agree
How could it be
That words escape me?

I'm always early
Like winter
And rain
And the moon
When all you want is sun.
Dad spun stories
Of how things are
Fleeting
So you might as well
Love and hate
At a similar rate
Not too much
Not too little
Just early enough
And somewhere in the middle.

They say things never stay
But I think they're wrong
Your heart strings extend
Into the encapsulating abyss
Never are they amiss
Their love, a list
Of reasons why
You and I
Will never say goodbye

I evaporate into the candle flame
Blow out each one
In one single exhale
Utter a word
To try and save me
Keep me from shaking
The truth out of him
Date a blade
Because at least they're honest
It's been fourteen hours now
And I haven't stopped shaking
The truth out of me.

I have an understanding of the sea
But not Chelsea
A name on a phone.
Try to stick to the facts
Don't step on tacks
Unless on purpose
Lie
Even when
You don't need to
Because I expect it.

I am an old shoe
Try to untie
These laces
With crippled fingers
And hot glue
Running into my fingerprints
Burn them off
One by one
Phase in and out
This old shoe and hat
Lock the door
Take up the mat.

I look for god in the city's view
I look for you
In my heavy perfume  
Put on lipstick
To kiss
Straws and glass
I'm not afraid of spiders
Or liars
Or cheats
I fear what meets
Me in the dark alley ways
And caves
Of my mind

Throw my hood up
It's raining outside
And inside
Is a nothingness
Like my bedroom walls
Your words
Echoing
Maddening
Repeating
Defining
I swim toward the shore
But it moves away
So I drift and sway
Amongst the eels and beer cans
I talk to them like they understand
Out of the sky I demand
A satellite picture
Of how your hair might be
The image is good company
In a way they never are
Here and gone
Like a shooting star

A young machine
Three circuits too loose
Three days to lose
To waste
Away on blood
My own
Because no one wants it anyway
They say they'll pay
You back in love
How you wanted it
Instead
You're broke

I've known the brakes
And I've known break-neck speed
I am need
Bundled with what it takes
To hold my lions in
I've known the rattle of tin
And the the tattle of sin
I am poker with high stakes
I know what makes
You the same as the rest
I try my best
But I don't know you
Out of us, that makes two.

Torn up like
Mom's wicker baskets
Living forever
Like all their caskets
A sky, blue pastel
An empty castle
Engulfed by vines
They ignore the signs
Thorns tear thicker
The wicker
Of baskets.

I swear the end
Of this gun is cold
Like the way he drowns me
In unanswered questions
Masked women
With red lipstick
Turning the engine on
never off again
All threats
On all sides
Coincides
With the scam:
Wherever I go
There I am.

Let me down slowly
Instead fiercely
In scarcity
We bare teeth
A step beneath
The intangible surface
Of the hi-how-are-you
Conversations
Perversions of things
We want to say

My eyes are lasers
Burning people
Unwittingly
Unwilling I wear glasses
So you can't see
And I can't see
Blind love the blind
Because it is a life
Without fire.

Chairs stacked high
My flower
I chose you
In a hasty gaze
I fit
A puzzle together
By cutting
Away the pieces
That don't fit
Sit with this
Feeling that I'm not a person
I wonder if they notice

Leaves turn gray
And fall away
The pressure is too great,
And you are far too late
I ask the universe
Or fate
To send some help
But it only hears a curse.

My light isn't light
He said
It's un-light
In the brightest possible way,
I long to gulp down
A beautiful soul
To replace the one stolen from me,
The one lost at sea
Instead, the un-light
Gulps me into its
Violent absence found
In leaves turning gray.

I dig at old wounds
with screams
and pink champagne
pink pain running down
my arms
down
my thoughts
through and through
I loved you
You could accept these lions
except their claws are sharp

Float on the surface
A little game
Print my name
when you like cursive
A crooked arrow
When you like straight
**** at this rate
Because I can't think
Of anything I'd prefer
Than being subject
To your allure
Replace
The blue model
With A nicer face
Slow
Scarcity

A boy in a hammock
Lovingly like a monster
I reach my lacy fingers
a little closer.
A thread
gets caught on the piece
of peace
that somehow ends
up in my pocket.

I give him the key to lock it
and tell my lacy fingers
to just stop it.

Don't come closer
I've created a bed of butterfly wings:
all the things
I tried on
but didn't fit
all the wrongs
don't equal the rights
night spent
trying to be the dragon
he chases
all the faces
dissolve into scars.

I never told you
one time I said
I love you
and meant it.
Nothing a couple pills won't fix.
I never told you,
but oil and water don't mix.

Blank faces gather
boredom with being human
so I pretend
I'm that dancer
he chose instead.