Blood clotted water
Brown with anguish
Sizzling down the drain
Drowning rain inside this head
Nothing clicks or moves in place
All these thoughts are left unread
So much fills the space
Where you once were

I scramble my brain
Like I used to scramble eggs
For her on Mother's Day
Everything I do
Reminds me of something else
Felt heart melts
Under a solitary flame
My body is on land
I gaze at it through a telescope
I cut the rope
Like I cut everything out

Including Mother's Day.

Words lost
I take all of this at some cost
Pictures dull
A cognitive lull
A black backing on my brain
Suction, please, irrigate this wound with rain
I'm only trying to approach reality
Full of blisters and malady
Boldly following my repeating word
All my memories have become blurred
Nothing makes sense
Everything moves into past tense.

Orange bottle rattle
slowly fading is my paddle
beneath the salty sea
forever I only wanted a "you" and a "me"
flee fast, keep track of just the ends
floating out here, as darkness descends
stars sneak out
peek out
from beneath puffs of clouds
I give them a message
"Send someone to help with this wreckage."

Tragic toes split down the line
Fine tipped pens spit out the last time
I saw you sail by
Just pass through
Two hundred years of agony
In a single breath of air
Without the exhale
I search my scratches for one that might
remember your palm print
I loved you but didn't

The world spins
Dizzy roller coaster
Pitch and yaw
I'll lie and say I never saw
Your evaporation take place
I was a clam
And you were some pliers
Or maybe just a liar
I replaced you with a sharp piece of metal
When I swore I'd never settle
But it seems I've stumbled into blank
Blankets of blankness
Rank this less than perfect
On a scale of one to ten

Dark kitchen. lines of shadows
Paint the walls a shade too soon
All I wanted to do for a living
Was never sit down
And use my broken fingers for something great
Beyond you and me
Chairs and nails
Rails and cares
Tales about pairs of socks lost and then found
That's all I really wanted
What is left this second:
a dark kitchen
A heart beat beckon

I tried to explain
This wide eyed insomnia
Scare crow nested neatly in the folds
Of my golden diamond mind.
Find out what I didn't have to give you
It's true
I was never much to begin with
But constellation and rumination
On the mutation of her single gene
In her single mind
In one single second
Proves to be an endless circle
How long does it take for a bomb to explode?
This arm and leg and foot
Bare down upon me, screaming,
Because they are used to so much more pain
Today it's dark
Tomorrow, it looks like rain.

I could never be your sunrise
I don't know how to stand
Like the sun above the peaks
I don't know how to take
Darkness away from stars
Your mark doesn't have to scar to show
Below the layers:
Lingering molecules that once touched your skin
Love is patient, but mine is thin
Within a walled-city soul
This torture takes it's toll.

File folder mind
Pulled loose. Tossed around.
Paper flutters like birds and clouds
Slow decent
Into madness
I never chose
Even though the Buddhists say otherwise
I watch it all settle around me
Blood and mud stains
Never stayed in the lines

I'm on the run
One hundred and fifteen
Miles per hour
Day after day
My bad person manifesto
Crescendos into a snorkel
Just below the surface
The stars map out
The way from you to me
The smell is free
But to see
There is a small fee.
A debt circle
Encircles entwines ensnares
Stare blindly at the slop
I'm on the run
And I can't stop

A note lingers on my tongue
A little on the spicey side
I would know if I could feel it
Solid ice walls
Surround me

The sound of your voice
Fake lullaby in the distance
And fading fast
They say you gotta
Love the one you're with
If you can't love the one you want.
Are these the same people
comparing wishes to horses?
Outlining courses
With white chalk on the grass?

I have a seat among the ants
Grabbing ahold of your hem
Falling asleep to the sound of your absence
Your memory turns from coal to gem

Desert at night
cold, moon bright
harsh cactus cuts
spiny needles as the door shuts
sand between your toes
lonely heart beats and woes
echo through vastness
black sharpness
I wander without
I wonder about
how it came to be this way

Try to spit out
Your poison
Too late it's already in my veins
She's on the no apology diet
He's on the couch
I'm on the floor
Ten light years away from them
And it's lonely in space
Except when I think of your stardust
Lust and bone is just a part of us
You can't cut it away
Say that you'll stay awhile longer
Your poison makes me stronger.

Eyelids pinned back,
Lack of sleep I let
my arms keep track
Of the time.
As skin cells fold over,
I leave some on your collar
They used to be dashes, slashes,
Eye lashes and spicy mashes.
I watch you turn around
With an epiphany found:
There is no life span to your well wishes,

We are all just dead fishes.

Brown-eyed eraser
Subtract scars, blurry
Hurry up, you gotta chase her
Stand straight over the river bluff
Reach a toe to touch
A cloud, a puff
Of smoke from dragons underneath
A sword unsheathed
I'll tell you if I'll let me
Count it down
One, two, three

One word or two
I claw at the meaning of me and you
Two seconds or three
I know the you, but not the me
I know the window, but not the door.
Three drips to the floor
Tally up these wounds that heal
Rally up these moons to steal.

Oblong pink pill
Amber smooth scotch
They are all just a bedpost notch
Romance with a razor blade
For you I was made
And I ask if I'm late
Or just in time
Without reason, without rhyme
I evaporate all the water
All the hope,
I slaughter

Finger on the trigger
A decapitated appetite
ears pricked
I listen for your smell
of freshly sliced apples
like the ones mom used to give us
your gaze is a hungry wolf
and I wonder if I've turned into father.

Half asleep during the day
Half awake at night
I am an empty glass bottle
On the vast, dark sea
Hurricane coming full throttle
At little me
And I'm on to your trickery
Half asleep or half awake
I can't tell if this is real or fake.

Flooded sharp things
My arm floating heavily
On your shoulders

White silhouette pin pricked
Against darkness, licked
Like salt from in between teeth
Blood is made of iron
Can't you taste it?
Blue and red siren
Through the front door window
Coffee on the ground
Smells like the sound
Of you leaving through the door.
He tells everyone you're dead
But the only thing that's changed
Is your head

White silhouette pin pricked
They've all been tricked.

An apple with an arrow through it
You didn't keep it, just threw it
At me. Sharp thorns overtake me.
I only wanted to show you my aim.
Tame the animal, curl flame
Around your finger
I would love to linger
Just a lifetime longer
But paper snowflakes are no stronger
Than this cheap plastic mask
I was never cut out for this task.

I'm a black ash candle flame
Sheets made of sandpaper
Skin made of bugs
Nails on a chalkboard
Love pulls and tugs
When you're around,
I yearn to build
Rock solid block
Out all the sun.
I yearn to put my hand on yours
But I'm afraid it'll melt.
A cascade of butterflies soar
Orange air
Burns to black ash
By candle flame.

Climb the stairs slowly
Limb to bare, solely
In the lonely dead of night
I wish to fly with all my might
Sight confused with a candle flame
Hot and cold both hurt the same
You could **** me with a single silence
Absence is a sort of violence
you look for evidence
You develop reticence
How could anything last
When we are always a couple seconds in the past?

I smell you in between my
Mascara laden lashes
Luck and love
Have a conspiracy
Good taste
Bad timing
Rhyming as a way to get the words out
Could you ever get tired
Of her golden hair
And your golden ring?
The thing
I've learned from you,
Intertwined tangled in the sun,
Is how to love someone
Who can't love you back.

Word evaporation
Like radiation
chemotherapy
Dare me to make something intricate
Triple threat thread
three stiches
On the mend
On the bend
Of your hip to your waist
What do they say about haste?
What do they say about paste?
If only I could remember
If only we had skipped December.

Shrill screams during dreams of you and me
sea salt and caramel  
pour her over my banana split
Fit for a king, I thought
not hot
not warm
no swarm
of butterflies
crispy and slight,
wings blow away in the darkness of night
might you come to love me in time?
Rhyme anything, anytime, anymore
pour me over a bed of hot coals
evaporate me over a head of cold souls
cut me up over whatever it was you said
piece me back together, tuck me into bed.

Pool of blood turns sticky
Icky thick tick picked off and tossed aside
carve a pumpkin-
watermelon smile
black teeth grow
sprout green,
a textured ridge
bridge the gap between what I mean and what is seen.
I think of you in your blue room
With all the pieces contrary
love isn't real but imaginary.

Piggy bank smashed
For the last coin and cash
Stash of licorice
Blends in well
Swell with butterflies
When I see her
On my wrist
And in my blood
Flood my veins with fire and flames
Tames animals I don't know the name of
Not a single dove
To love
Above a harrowing landscape
**** my mind
Before my body
Shoddy, I give it away
Don't have to stay
I'll even hold the door for you
Piggy bank black and blue
Do what you need to do

The short stems will never do
I chronically wait for you
while tie-dying
and untying
knots
lots of people ask why
but I always lie.

In my mind,
I've died a million ways
Oh my, to find
Meaning to fill the days.
Pays in coin
**** on fire,
As Plath would say.
This circumstance seems dire
Liar, it's only in your mind
Find meaning in the days
Ways that may
Teach me love
Reach above
Make me stay.

A place on the periphery
outside edge
sharpen with her stare
Could I ever make her care?
Covered in roses
Intricate poses

I took out all the thorns
threw them at you
blood battered
fried and hot  
taking what is due.
I never meant to love you
I never meant to stop and start

We never meant to part.

The moment I said hello
Was the moment I said goodbye
Eyes can tell lies
Same as thighs
Gripping ties knotted in my mind
Blind to find
The meaning of hate
Same coin, same rate
As love and needs
Seeds thrown out
To wither instead of grow
The moment I said hello
Was the moment I said don't go

Table set for twenty
Plenty of scary laid out as china
Find a spot
Maybe sit down
While an invisible
Scarf slowly strangles me
All it takes
A flick of your pinky finger
Topples table over
Broken china and lace
Casserole on the floor
And the sound of you shutting the door.

Faked but believable
Achievable in the mind first
Cursed down, core found
'Round and 'round I go
Low and high tide, the moon
Is soon
Chipped away.
May I just say,
I loved you the moment I saw you?
Blue devil to
Revel in gazes to
Shrivel into
mazes.

Burned my last box of food
Burned black by solitude
Fortitude is as famous as me
Pity, that was my last goodbye
Lie or tell the truth
Give me some kind of proof
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
I played with fire
I played with trust.

I hold onto you
Little last sweater thread
An angel's grip to mend
Whatever they call this
Kiss, miss this target
Largest needle
Invisible beetle
A silent torture
A pressed flower
I love you with this weak power
Screams a pitch too high to hear
I beg you to tell me what is near
My eyes tell you how to flee
My hands tell you how to plea.

Sew back together
Feather to bone
Stone to gravel
Unravel skin
Search somewhere for something sharp
Harp strings, heart strings
Both play the same melody:
Forget all this revelry
Pains and pleasantry
All feels the same to me.

Reanimate a dead fish
hook through the lips
hips sway a song I forgot the words to
cue the sad violin
sin satisfying for a second
beckoning over the edge of a tower
power of gravity and lust
foundry of trust.

In my mind
you are a fire dancer
brightly, I find
a world without cancer
a world where he chooses me
a world where I can clearly see
what is right in from of me
In my mind,
things are different than they really are.
rare overlaps of 'I love your scar'
'find safety in pain'
like rain,
it doesn't run.

Came out of hiding
Salt shaker bliss riding
110 miles per hour
Converge
upon another; a surge
of hope is now upheaving
leaving grieving behind.

Grind up heart strings,
rings, and things
A powder to keep
A foul and wondrous leap
only to help
rungs like tongues
spit curses
to keep us in place.

We keep a pace:
a slow unraveling
of the road we are traveling.
Chasing heart breaks
is all it takes.
Salt shaker bliss
riding 110 miles per hour,
we did everything in our power
but still it was a hit or miss.

There are white streaks
in her hair
on your arm
in his blood vessels
between the lines I say and don't say
below the dark sea
above the "you" and the "me"
See them or don't
won't you unveil
prevail
re-sell this vision of adulthood
with all it's woulds and shoulds
with all it's white streaks:
where you are just a "hi"
and I am just a good "bye"

Mountain, steep grade
Laid, paid, never stayed
I worship the void filled
By my imagination guild
Mildew dreams weaves tight
Across my right side brain
Jumped on a train
To take me away
Pay in love
Pay in day
Pay in night
Whatever you can afford
Cut the chord
A chain link
Steel metal mountain
Steep grade
Remain unpaid.

You are a time-trapped thinker  
they would tell me if I wasn't a ghost
or merely a host
for all these animal things
creating fireball rings
around my brain
who gets to make the meaning of sane?
certainly not this razor blade
certainly not all these things I've made
I reach for the paint brush,
but in my fevered rush,
I spilled everything I had left.
Try to fill a void with fire and trigger,
you'll only burn the hole bigger.

I whisper
eyelids red and pink and black
in hand blade and broken compass and sack
what could I have done?
who could I be instead?
Here, let me switch off this head.
I whisper
insides red and pink and black
I count out each crack
between you and me
I whisper

when will you see?

obese sadness
Footsteps heavy through mud and blood
Goodness and badness
Feel the same sharp splinter spear
Invisible pit
Too steep, unlit
Tendrils of lead
If only it were something that bled
Maybe they would understand
Drowning on land
And in a bed sheet
As torrential as sleet
It tears down every ladder
And all they say is,
"What's the matter?"

I've read this story a million times
I've stood in this spot a million times
I write out the millions so it rhymes
Maybe then you'll hear
all the things coming at me from the mirror
Stear this ship so it crashes on the rocks
locks in a destiny, like you always said
it never matters what I've read.

Here take my shoes
Run away, you got nothin' to lose
Run away, I got nothin' for you to use
Run away, gave you no reason not to
"Fun to play with you,"
but just for a second
he and she say
and it may
just be a little easier to understand scabs
than tears.
Fears pile up like bullets in your gun
at least they don't run
but here, take my shoes,
you got nothin' to lose.