I feel asphalt beneath my feet-
Flat and black.
Microscopic ridges longing
For rough pearly sand,
Sharp golden grass
Ask if black never appears in nature
Except as an absence.
Past tense humanity
They always say
"Live for the now"
How can I understand time
If I can't understand asphalt?

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.

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

Hands stained
A black-purple
Dried blood of
My life
I just killed
One day
Maybe with my bare hands
Maybe with a ice pick, chilled,
Just out of the freezer.

This thing is strangling me
This thing I can't see
But can somehow feel.
I asked him if my face looks weird
Because I can't tell
If I'm smiling or frowning
Eyes wide
Like a mad scientist

I asked him to run away with me.
We could get a little house
With a shady front yard

No
He said
Another year
he said

In another year,
My dear,
I'll be gone.

My hands aren't long enough
To reach inside your head
Between the bed
And hands before
Not lucky enough for more
Poor, stupid girl
Sitting with that empty chair
I long to fill.
What happened?
We miss the severed valves
Of our hearts and calves
Of our carts.
We go to the market
with nothing to sell.

You're alone sailing
Sea shimmers
Limbs flailing
Some things never change.
You climb the walls
Of a gun range
Bullets like words
Fly at you

Like birds

He loves her
when he isn't himself
holding the reins
protecting the top shelf
with layers of barbed wire
but he doesn't know
I like to bleed

Take a pill or leave
Take a pill and leave
Take a pill, alleve
This
Gaze trying
To lasso the moment
In memory
Of a time when
This was at least ugly
at most something to be forgotten.

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 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.

Swimming through the dark
Just looking for your mark
A sign of your heavenly visitation
It is too bad I run into many a imitation
There are many who are fake who rake me across the coals
Because they mask their souls
When I catch a glimpse of you
A sparkle, shimmering through the shadows of life, please remember me too

I cannot spread my wings to fly with you
For my feathers are tattered and clipped and not at all new.
So I will see you fly up up and away
But your kiss promises me that everything will be okay.
I cannot help that I feel so alone as I wander through the mist
So cold and small
I await the very day when you will call
And tell me you are forever mine

So the fallen angel I am
Is not a white woolen lamb
And I don't know if white can love the sight
that they have drawn.

You wouldn't believe it if I told you
we can now walk
away from guns
put the safety on the trigger
put the razor in the gutter
stop running for a second,
look back to reckon:
is it still back there?

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.

I haven't been alone
If I stop running
I'll never start again
The little piece of metal
I can never quite shake
Wrap around my finger
Oh how you linger
Like a life never the same again
Dreams shouting in the distance
Seem so silly now

In the night
People leave the streets alone
With the lamps.
yellow light clamps
onto your figure figuring which way to go.
With a hole in your jacket,
It's hard to find heat
Feet trudge through sludge
That used to be green green grass.

Dead rat
Wire rim
Push the lace
At your best pace
A smile
Grim

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.

I wear a shell around me
Choking
A little
I can't seem to find
Hay in a haystack
Only the needle.
I'm beginning to feel the *****
The stick
Of a shell around me

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.

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.

Maybe I don't want to see you again
Maybe I want to drift away
on a bed of poppy petals.
This soft blanket has become heavy
like lead
it tells me
things are okay
but I can't hear it
I'm too busy listening
waiting
for your footsteps to fall away
for your shadows to disappear
like everything
that was once contained in me
has come and gone,
like the moon.

Can you tell I'm nervous
Put a glaze over it in an oven
Hot like Saturday nights I never had
With a girl I never met
Friend is such a tragic word
Would you bet
That I run away every time
Here and there
I make this rhyme
So maybe you'll listen

I often wish
to feel not as a dead fish
flipping and flopping
on your dashboard
on your sharp sword
on, around, between.

I often think
I feel a sense of this
which is really that,
lovely like the space
between the molecules of your face.

I often stare
to feel between the lines
swimming and swerving
When is "I'm tired"
"I'm tired"
and when is it "I'm tired of you."

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.

Zombie eyes,
wide like the skies
covering up space.
Her: blushed with the pace
of the day.
Fifty reasons to say,
“no,” fifty less
in favor of asking,
“how?”

The sun kissed me yesterday,
I wonder if you'll mind
The traces of gold
It left behind.

I understand the world
Through a dark sea.
Barefoot, I walk
Through the shock
Of sting rays,
But all I feel is the sand
How it holds me up, helps me stand,
And run towards you.

I meet rough seas
Like a cool pool of oil
Sick and poisonous
Colliding, but not mixing
Holding the secret
To living without actually feeling.

You are the light
The blood
The reason I fight
You are gold
In the center of the sun

You are water
Through my fingers
In my fingers
Something that doesn't quite linger

You are the reason I live
And the reason I die.

I evaporate
Slowly like a puddle
Into humid air

My particles
Invisible
To her eyes
To his eyes
To your eyes.
But felt heavy
In her lungs
In his lungs
In your lungs

I condense
Reluctantly like a scared teenager
Into the middle of breath.

Pain in a ring
Slip off into the dirt

Ring of hurt
Fall over into gray

Circle around decay

Stumble again

Sit here a second
Just in time
put him to bed
With a rhyme.
Silence is all thats ever said
So
I think about asking
But think about pain instead.

White wisp fabric
Float
Like steam
Weaves patterns
In and out
A reminder of you
Fleeting
Like starlight
But sadder

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

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.

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.

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?

Am I a black bird piercing the sky
or the space between your sigh
and my lie?
Am I an amber drink
or just a poem that makes you think
or the blood thats in the sink?

I scratch and hatch
some kind of plan
to sift through all this sand
surrounding me like a grave
but I walk nowhere
on these limp legs
on these wooden pegs
splintering underneath me

I unhitch and restitch
all the wounds
all the suitcases
all the trailers and all the trash
I throw out and blow out
all the people
all the places
all the face and the traces
of whatever this "me" is

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.

I don't have much
To love you with
A small light and such
A tight hold, a soft clutch
The stars align
A mystic sign
A hopeful line
An I love you
That doesn't make sense
It's meant to be in past tense
Because you don't mean it
Please, give me something to fill this pit

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.

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

I spread the floor
In the hopes you remain
Underneath it
Or the very least find
Reasons for why I am like this
Why I yearn for you
Why we miss
Each other every time.  
Rhyme to ice the pain
Rain to grow the flowers
Powers of speech I lack.
Back to loving you?
I never left.

I can't think of titles
But only bullets in rifles
What color is blood?
How can I understand truth
When there are only lies?
Show me all your party tricks
Say the same lines
One in bed
One in the shower
One dinner
One linear
Up and down is always certain
I draw the curtain

You wanted a poem
About your heart
I see it there beneath
Thorns and broken parts
A rib cage
Pick locked
Replace with barb wire
Opened with the right
Twist of the tongue
The right inhale of the lung
But I am a fish
I breath blue
And don't feel air
I'm telling you
It's not fair

You can't delete poems I guess

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.

Free falling
Water up my nose
Am I smiling or am I frowning
Am I swimming or am I drowning
Isnt it strange
How putting your leg between mine
Echos like we are still
In that cave so long ago
Grabbing and racing to fill
This bright void
No question marks
Because you are all the answers

Today I set
A date
For my wedding

With death.

Blood and blade.
Rise above.
Could you quit,
If it felt like love?
Forever will I sit-
empty glass,
Fingers old.

Bold passions never sit
Could you quit,
If it felt like love?

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