A Swift decent
A run away train
What is it she meant
When she said she loves pain?

Lift up and replace
Her with
A dancer's face
Full of jewels and pith.

Teach her the meaning of connection
Or try at least
With mysterious affection
A chasm increased

I died under a tree
Or under the sea
So everything feels the same to me.

Make blown glass plans
Tasting of peppermint and lime
Feeling of golden bubbles and time
Eroded by ***** and cancer

The floor I walk on
Bare foot
Made of shards of blown glass plans
Look at these hands.
Tasting of iron and callous
Feeling of sharp disappointment and malice.

I have no ear for disaster
I just master
The art of self destruction
fire-building construction
Production of serotonin
A lacking pain, moanin'
A silence because I can't find the words
fly-away blood like birds
In my bath
Miscalculated math
Who said to climb this steeple?
Made out of a pile of people
On my cracked plate
Oh, you came to save me?
Well, it's far too late.

I want to understand the mechanics
Of your ball-n-socket joints
Treble cleft clicking into place
Face down in the dawn
An empty hammock
Over dead lawn
Trace the fabric of your lock
A pin code combination
I'll never quite master
Key-in a distress call faster
Than it takes for me to jump
Dump the luggage
Pump the points
What's to understand about ball-n-socket joints?

Baby birds hatch
Catch
On a feather to survive
Dive
Revive
Look around you're alone
Clone
Clones
Drones
Lined up for battle
Rattle on the end of a tail
Pale face
tracing veins
Reins tied around my neck
Peck
Peck
Pecking
There are bugs somewhere on the ground
Hounds howl
Vowel
The only one I remember is "i"
My tie has somehow killed me
See
that nest?
It's best
that's it's empty now.

The hospital smells like home
Something's hurt your head
On-repeat, "me instead"
Lead paint wishing walls
Halls fluorescent
Reminiscent of looking for your shoes
Lose just this girl
Curl your hair like you used to
Do you understand?
On-repeat, "me instead."

I grasp needle and thread
Read somewhere
That's what I'm suppose to do
Clues to how to swallow this
Kiss well:
Sell your soul piece-by-piece
Crease like rayon
Crayon melting in the backseat
Fragility is my greatest strength.

Velvet wrapping paper
Over something he
Or she
Or them
Could
Or would
Or should
Never love.
Two hands and a brush
Cracked lips and ****** teeth.
One stitch at a time.

Lavender and metal
Will settle
Whatever is broken in me
I want to be
As stoic as a a cherry tree.
Take enough pills
To block out all the madness thrills.

But that was last paragraph
Accepting blades with a laugh
Lavender and metal
Sharpened to a fine gin edge
Throw out who you are, that's the pledge
I can never utter
Because of the shutter
She causes.

I lost count of the loses.

Subtle hairs out of place
Momentary pleading on her face
Race this heart 'til it gives out
Round and round this route
A warm sickness
A familiar thickness
Pick this carcass
Up off the road
What color is darkness
If there isn't any light to measure?
The opposite of pleasure
Is numbness
So I pick pain
Unplug the drain
Unhinge the door
I can't take this anymore.

I can't erase
your penned-in face
I killed a man
That's for sure.
Long days begin to blur
The sting
Of her lips
And the clink of a ring
Sing of bullets
And thin streams of *****
Or blood
Or death
Or love
It all sounds like evaporation to me.
I sat at her grave
Maybe told her I'm not that brave.

Gather the sand.
Shift it
Comb it
Stroke it
Like a bitter demon
On your shoulder
Or her shoulder
Equally, they smolder
Set it all on fire
Pills and solitude
Melt into glass

A swell in-throat
Tumbling boat
Bumbling sailor
Not quite awake
Quickly, give him a hard shake.
A swell grows paler
Closer still
Loneliness turns shrill
Awareness bereft
Beating all that is left
Eating all that stands.
Lighthouse growing dark.

Just a small scrape
On the prefrontal cortex
Just a small ****
With prefrontal latex.
A maze learned latent
You always said I wasn't patient.
A black river
A moon shivering sliver
Of guiding yellow
Take every large thing
Burn it til it's mellow.

Red light blinking
Hopelessly thinking
This may never turn green
Of all his sayings mean,
Which did I love the most?
Sarcastically boast
I can't pick just one.
I set them free
Like helium balloons
I stare at the sun until I can't see
What it was you wanted me to be.

Got sick of being under my bed
So they climbed into my head
I see them around every corner
I smell them in pleasure
I taste them in pain
I hear them walking
An echoing madness
Through neuron chambers
And blood vessels
Dilating pupils spell out the fear I cannot.
Through everything I haven't forgot

monsters cannot be fought.
So don't slow down,
They might catch up.

Everything I own was stolen
From you
Or him or them.
Where have you been?
Locked in a den
But now I'm on the run.

Stain on your fingers
Maybe, I hope it lingers
Because there has to be evidence
Of existence at all
of the sadness, towering tall
I mark it on my wrist and on the wall
With clear paint and razor-claw.

Is there something to hold onto?
Everything I own was stolen from you.

red lipstick
Oil dripping off a dipstick
Lick quick
The chocolate off my blood stream
Colored dream
Of all nightmares
Floating away.
These things gather
Or scatter, rather,
Across the expanse of my memory.
Please remedy:
A needle, a pill, a potion, a lotion
Not to see
Whatever has become of me.

Your eyes said it before your lips did.
Fingers tasting salt water streaks
On my cheeks
Down my neck
Talk about steps
The time my feet got amputated
mutated genes
Means the chemistry
Is in entropy's favor.  
Take a second to sprinkle
Sparkles
firecracker smiles
On lipsmacker lies.
Fake until its real.
Real until it dies.

Glue comes out too fast
But not at the right angle
Adhesion unburdened
Learned it
From living just second-by-second
Was the reason ever reckoned?
I don't remember.
It was in late December
When I opened my eyes
Covered in glue
Still not dry, realizing:
The glue comes out too fast
And never seems to last.

Bad decisions and drowning
Like knives and matches
It all catches
On the end of my leads.
My needs
And wants
They always feel the same.
An itch and pain.
A stitch of disdain
What's the difference between
Bad and good?
To be or not to be.
They all feel the same to me.

When I was born
they cut off my tongue,
so I spoke in colors.
Spitting red in my father's face:
an invisible vapor
lingering a decade or two.
I tried washing it out with blue
and black
smelling of tar pit tantrums
it oozed microscopically from my gums.
Generating sums
of recycled metals
gray and solid crushing my body.
I licked in silver whispers
gold drips on my seat.

I keep repeating
a staccato pleading purple
please pay
in love.
Please stay
said with one white cloud above.

You turn the ***.

Bile collection
Right at the base of my neck
All lined up
Disgusting brown to putrid green
Cup by cup
It all tumbles out of my spine
Onto your new white t-shirt
Try to assert
A muffled apology.

I somehow ask you
Sorry about your shirt, you see?

You reply
It looks white to me.

Prefer the heat
To the cold
Because its too close
To how it felt around you
Under
Crushed ice and thunder.
Stand above lasers.
Will they burn off traces
Of my soul?
Will they help this roll
Off my tongue a little smoother?

Prefer the heat.
Grab some lemonade and take a seat.

Sinking
To a familiar imprint in the sand
Salt traffic jams
Shark teeth and flared nostrils
Fingers numb
Curled around the trigger
Cannot let go.

But through the noise
Ripples
Quadratic equations
I see a blurred sunset
It feels like the day we first met.

I didn't understand the lines
because I could color right over them.
I could get black
and blue
on my wrists and calves
when I painted all over the carpet.
Don't hesitate
to fill
a metal dumpster
with scraps of memories
the good times I multiply into a vast ocean
of burning paper.
I tried to tie it to my waist
and hoist us both over the fence.
I was too weak
or it was too heavy
couldn't tell which

I tried, but you won't.
I didn't understand the lines
and still don't.

I count minutes like I count light reflections
Off the window.
I count them on every finger
And every toe
And every cancer cell
Spreading like a wild fire
Burning whatever it is we have left
There is a purity in destruction
A nothingness where weakness is strength
So I watch
Count
Savor the flavor of the minute
Glenfidditch
Fifteen
A sickness rising in me
Too much spice
I count the minutes
Like I watch the wind
My tongue burned.

Please shut the door
but open a window.
What could I have done more?

This gun,
I taste it heavy on my palm,
if I knew where to pull it
I might
Some fight
this turned out to be.

Tell me, do you see?
Are you afraid?
What keeps you from running?
A worthlessness, cunning?

I'm wrapped in a saw blade
It seems to be one you made
that time you looked me in the eye
and believed my lie.

Let me try to explain these things.
I slide a need and thread
through my wings.
Over and over.

All the dirt I've bled
stains your shirt.
All the words I've said
over and over

echo off the walls
never quite heard.
Meaning trips and falls
over and over.

I keep repeating
I keep grabbing at something fleeting.

You hit the right notes.
You see through the coats
Of paint and bone saws
All the undertone claws
At my fabric
Is this part of some elaborate
Plan
Or trick
Either will stick
Firmly to your web
I float through the ebb
Without really caring
If you, or anyone, is staring
At me caught in webbing
Of your plan
Or trick.
Because
Either will stick.

I learned the smell of disappointment
By drinking  scotch with you.
Shimmering new
Tossed carelessly
Into a simmering stew.
A cold so hot it's blue
I didn't know if I should kick off the blanket
Or wrap it tightly around my neck.
Sprawled out on the deck
I knew no morals
Swimming through the corals
I knew no mortality
I learned the smell of futility
By drinking scotch with you.

Keep a beat
Of urgency
While
Weeds grow in my seat.
So, I stand instead
Tapping my toe
In the space right below
The thin pile of ash
Watching me
Asking, "do you see
In me what he never saw in you?"

How can you fell an emptiness?
Maybe that means
There is something to feel
Which makes it not emptiness
Anymore.

Five fingers pressed to my cheek
I feel them phantom
Random pulses of memory
Gripping onto an absence,
Like air molecules,
Cool to an unseen touch,
I feel a nothing.
Your body becomes a loaded gun.
Shiny and sparkling in the sun.

My body sat there rotting
Taking deep breaths while plotting
My escape from the tape
Trap. Map with the compass all eskew
Sits firmly on the ground you
Pass
me on your doorstep
I hand out bold hints
Peel off all the tint.  
Deal, scoff, all the lint
Curls in between my toes.

Suddenly I rip
Off the top
Stop, drop, and roll
Soul on fire
I burn this box down.

Claw at your eyes
Ties tied tight around my *****
As Plath would say
Mother may
I please just cut myself in half
Throw away the ties,
Lies, and sighs
Muffled by ruffled feathers.
Walk around free
On sea
Touched palms.

I sent you my body in a bag
Of ones and zeros
It waits on your doorstep
Unopened.

He was a one-liner
Better and finer
Than all the stuff on my bed post
What feels like this the most?
Burning and slicing.
Taking my arm and dicing
Out what is trapped there.
If I take a glance, I'll stare.
Not a single glare
Through this glass, reflects.
Slimy licks become defects
And my finger prints gouge the glass
Take a pass
At me
Because I'll never be free.

A magnetic torrent
Metal fingernails
Sharpened
Scrape
Scar
Splatter
Gray matter
Matters to me
Maybe not to you
Two windows closed
Posed a threat I can't describe.
Tribe of spiders spinning webs
Shreds of evidence
Laid out for you to see

Why do you wonder about why?
Reasons heavy on top of my
Body. Like lead bullets poison
Soil turning black
Magnetic torrent
A wind slams me into your door.

Girl, what's wrong?
Tell me what's right
Off-balance plight
Crumble along the river side
Drown in the low tide
While the water rushes
Pushes brushes
Out of my hands
Demands of my mind:
A bump and grind
Of questioning my worth
And how can I tell you
That all I want is to be visible
To one single person
For One single second.

Girl, what's wrong?
Absolutely nothing.

Standing in the middle of the street
Blue heat
Hearing your heart beat
Repeat in my red blood cells
Shells of me and you
Left on a deserted beach
Peach fuzz grows slowly
To the tune of your cedar smell
Sell your stuff and run away
Lay here a little longer
Stronger drinks than I thought
Sought something in you
That isn't there.

Somehow
Somewhere
I found the secret
to burning the inflammable.

Someone
Some place
Found my face
Unrecognized

So they identified me
By all the scars I've made.

Blunt force,
bone broken in half,
temporary tattoo:
that's her, him, and you.
The lions know what to do
when the snow globe shatters
fake flecks clear, revealing the tatters
and making it easier to see
what is outside of me.
Claw
Mane
Blunt force,
just after a kiss on the glass.

I have become a vapor.
I have become a hot haze.
The weatherman
knows me better than anyone
because I don't give
you copies of my brain
chemistry report
retort and contort
into this,
a vapor
Into me,
a vapor.
Disappearing act.

Running low on steam
And dreams
Seams tear apart,
I keep repeating.
Meeting a meaning halfway
Untouched and blasé

Spitting out poetry
knitting out seams
seems to never make much sense
or much money.
It tastes like honey
It exists where
landlines turn into moles
landmines turn into souls.
Bowls of coal for breakfast,
flag half mast
cast in bronze on front lawns.
Yawns echo through classrooms.
What was I saying before?
I can't remember anymore.

She retched her skull in two
brain stem looking
like roots in her hand.
Nerve endings cooking in the cool,
blood in one big pool
up to her knees.
asking, begging, please

Let me throw
this into some dark pit.
I have dug for years and years.
So I might forget
the way your thumbs felt
and seemed to melt
away my skin,
bruises, scars,
and etched things
revealing budding wings.

Scrape the sides
Of the bowl
Addicted to something
I don't know the name of.
Batter collects at the bottom.
Harvest with a spoon
A moon to guide the way
Hit the road today
Hoping it will only get better
I tried to tell you in person
But I ended up telling you in a letter.

You are a bandit in the night
right on time
right when I have no fight.
Silhouette framed in the doorway,
make me pay
in lust and body:
ugly and shoddy.
Somehow I ask you,
"What does my mind taste like through
my blood-brain barrier?"

"Mud and pigeon feathers,
walking from the shadows
into the light,"
whispered the Bandit in the night.

I search for words
a frantic hand in the sand.
Sand slipping silently through the window
and down the hall
and out the door.
Uncovering the carpet, poor
cat and lampshade
crooked and destroyed.
Nothing to be found
my leg has shattered
I can't feel it
calf shards sit sharp side up.
poker cards on the floor
tank top slipping
off my shoulder
down my arm
rolls blood
and mud;
this stuff feels like bugs.
I keep smearing,
clearing the wreckage,  
forgetting your package
as I pass it in the hall.

Everything I touch turns to flies.
He called me Magic Eyes,
but didn't hesitate to forget
and get scared like all the rest I've met.
Who wants to be a fly anyway?

Everything I touch feels like gun metal.
Cold and deadly
This expensive paint brush
is a trigger I crush
everyday:
A sharp accessory medley.

Everything I touch enters my blood stream
and feels only like a dream
where you made me scream  
and drive away.
My cells thrive on bribes anyway.

My head is a sea
of gasoline.
It smells strongly
of travel and
it smells slightly
like the breath I was able to take
when dad got out of the car.
Fill 'er up.

This arm
on this clock
is a match
hovering over me
a plume of fume
rising up to hug the flame
and ignite my life
turning to a simple scheme
of color and strife.

Then, I'm a pile of rubble
because this machine sea blew.
Where will I sleep now?

Sudden decent
dents paint scent
into my mind.
What is this "art"?
Something stupid and contrived
derived from work-for-free
always-be-the-victim me.
I sit here with you,
towering over me like a mammoth:
ancient and urgent
itchy and crawling.
You're all I have left
and I feel sorry
for making you into garbage.

I thought by now I'd make less trash
I thought by now I'd be less trash.