The smell sets
into your skin
while waiting for the doctor
while waiting by the phone
while waiting for things
that don't happen anymore.
You try to scrub it off.
Instead,
you scrub off your skin
and find
the smell settled into your soul.
Now you are left skinless
asking
How do I scrub my soul?

Dark velvet curtain
turned as course as sandpaper
Wrapped up like my life depends on it
white rubbed bones
Urgency is always what gets me
all the wax paper cones
crushed into triangles
Where will I put this
crushed-ice-sugar-slush now?
Unwrap this girl? You ask me how.
Reshape the cone and take a bow.

Your memory
Nails on a chalkboard
The color of an orange lamp
Or the heavy paper stamp
On an envelope of illusion
Cliche delusion
I toss around these terms
Insides turned to worms
Squirming not like butterflies
Tell me what your money buys
Because it never bought me
I can't pick: hide, see, or flee
I long to be deaf
To a memory of the bereft
I long to be at home
And for my heart to be sewn

All the girls dress
to ****.
So do I but in a far less
pleasurable way.
Holding perfectly still.
Hey, maybe you'll stay.

All the girls are in high heels.
I stopped wearing them
On the same day I quit caring if
I was the right kind of *****.

Shimmery sparkles, clean lace,
Silk, and leather
Weave them in a quivering case
Create their invisible tether.

Whiskey and wine
Bubbling up
Numbing up
Coming right up!
Girls dress to ****
And they will.

There are wild roses.
They grow up through the cracks
in the pavement,
they have thorns
they have petals
the bees hover, but never settle
the bare feet step, unknowing
their soles then showing
thorns trapped beneath the skin.
they offer their dangerous beauty to the sun
they stay in one place; they never run.

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 always want to make you laugh
When we talk.
A gorgeous green celery stalk
Crunching under the pressure
Of her teeth;
A long walk
Down the shoreline
her hand in mine;
A twirl of her salted bones,
And me, eating nothing
but pizza and ice cream cones;
and the stuffing of
her exploded heart,
her forgotten art
collected by a face
That finally cares.

I married this charcoal
Fast as you took my soul
Dole out the pills
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
If-then statements that don't make sense
Read the side effects
On my lable
You see, I'm putting this all out on the table
My spirit is a flighty bird
You can't trust me, haven't you heard?
I don't have an owners manual
Oh my dear, this articulation is far too gradual.

I'm scouting ahead
I'm taking back all I gave
Here, I'll stave
This off
Starve
Burn
Barge through the door
Of your poor little house
That you took from a little piggy
I keep repeating,
Wolves take their share
Somehow, you don't care
And maybe there is nothing else to bare
Bones and skin
Misshapen breast and sloppy scars
I keep repeating,
Pay in love
I scouted ahead
It seems you never heard what I said.

pretty fascinating mind
appearing light,
flecking dangerously close.
swallow
let go

But keep one pinky on the edge.
Walk the line easily
between fascinating
and ******* with words.

fighting whats left inside me
i am or am i
laughing,
throwing my voice,
cracking the night,
And another bite mark
finds

A scar
A humble star
A version here
A ******* there

the quiet hits,
as it will,
defeat in my bones,
Quickly it does distill.
Looking around the room
momentarily left insane,
fringed, frightened,
buried cold

long dark rings
tucked in the eyes
black circles where you've hid
those years
behind.
Defined in every happy ending
to an ever-ending ride
In my pretty fascinating mind.

Brown ponytail:
as long as she’s been alive,
sandy like
hot straw as she pedaled that baby blue bike.
In that moment,
when she looked the other way,
she lost the ability to say,
"Only one more mile."
Because she was just a pile
Of cherry red mush.

Balance.
Heel-toe-heel-toe,
**** it
in,
chin up,
shoulders back.
These relentless echoes
resound through caves.
Waves:
certain frequencies.
Sine.
Cosine.
Tangents
I go on to avoid
your melting gaze,
your sand figurine
sifting swiftly through my palms.

Somehow the world
Has a vague flavor of you
Is this déjà Vũ?
I burn my mind
Looking for the memory
Location
Latitude
Longitude
Of where I went wrong
It is nowhere
And everywhere
At the same time.

All I want is to understand
Your mind
All I want is for you to forgive
My mind
The way I forgive
Your body.

A daisy chain
grazes scars lined up like dominos
I long to tip forward
a collapse upon collapse
a tumble down a long hill
down a long eyelash in the wind
your ebb
flow
weave
for this I heave
the mountains and streams aside

He knew
it was made
with a poetic queue,
with a slight of hand.
He laid
on her fuzzy apartment floor
that sounded like tapping and ticking
of distant metronomes
he had forgotten long ago.
His volume was low
on his ruby red guitar--
Six strings rusting.
He only felt the busing
of expectations not fully known.
If only he were alone.
If only he had seen
that she is something
more than just a traffic cone.

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.

I'm circling the spongy surface of my memory,
Trying to underline the part
Where your touch became too rough
But I wanted you to pull my hair anyway.
Where you stopped wanting to touch me
But wanted me to continue touching you.
Where I am left standing alone, knee deep
In my fiery *****
As Plath would say.
A sad and broken piece of machinery
A rusty, wet tractor left in the wilderness
Asking the vines for some sort of final mercy.
I want to underline it,
So I know it was real all along.

He said, "I had a girlfriend
Who couldn't ***
SHE was SO ****** up."

I whispered, "that makes me feel
really good." I couldn't look at him.

I don't know if he got the sarcasm.
I don't know if I will get the,
No that,
Monster out of my mind.
Vines, please give me some sort of
Final mercy.

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 used to be a vase
You used to have a young face
And he used to use me
And she used to see clearly.  

Smashed
Squished
Newborn wrinkles cry.
Young
But old enough to know
To say no.
Fade out of life
Fade into death
The cinematography isn't right
Choppy transitions, patchy light,
Shade and sugar.
Yes, drug her.

I used to be a vase
Wrapped in paper, just in case.

Red bikini
With zig zags, black
Ties untied, tucked into my sack.
I said no
You said that won't work
Sly smirk
Distaste and bitter
Forcefully you litter
Your body onto mine
Below the line
Above my face
Now my red bikini just causes a sour taste
Ruined high and low
By my unheard no.

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.

They can make you stop feeling pain
But they can't make you stop feeling love.
Strange brain
because they are kind of,
often
the very same thing.

Giant, gruff, grinning
it grabs gratuitously
at my body.
Grumpily grappling
onto my arm
and throwing.
I grasp at green air,
I find only the graceless
graininess of gravity.
It, grunting,
grips my insides
and greases the ground
with my grimy gremlins,
my greatest, grueling torment.

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.

your status symbol
a thimble
Over whatever remains
Leave my corpse, my aches, my pains
On his threshold
He won't see it until there's mold
A gray of some shade
Identify me by the scars I've made
Dental records show
This girl should have been happy long ago

Threads get darker
when wet
with tears, salty sweat,
spilled water on a date,
beer slopped, slurred state.
Color is characteristic,
evidence, not mystic,
of time and results
of the feelings from insults
not spoken.
Here is a token
to show you
this is your cue.

Make one big push
Away from the side of the pool
I can feel the difference
Between tile and grout
Can you?
Guards at the gate
Tell a story of abuse and hate
Cry a whole salty sea
For my memory
Sliced, sautéed sick

I am no magic trick

Fear of living on
Natives getting restless now
Mutiny in the air
Got some death to do.
Mirror stares back hard
**** is such a friendly word
Seems the only way
For reaching out now

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.

Put duct tape over your mouth
before you go south.

Be something you didn’t even pick.
Just stick
your finger down your throat.

Oh, don’t forget the moat
around your fragile castle--
Made from mud
sud up your hair
with pretty pink soap.

Trip down the slippery *****.
Hey, if only you could cope
with the meaning
of all the jellyfish trapped behind the glass.

In a tunnel of lights,
a metamorphosis.
Stuck in a cocoon,
crooked in the silver,
reach, grasp, alas
the lace and white entwined
in piercings thru the darkness.
Green flutters to red.

I pass the trigger
Like I pass the bottle
Say what you mean
I pull full throttle
But get no where in neutral
I never love anyone
Like what seems to be in-fashion
crashin' this life all in one go
a huge loop I sew
My fingers to my hand.
How is that possible
You demand.

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"

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.

I drew a portrait
of my memories:
dark blue and green
in purity. They are humming bold
circles swirling.
Red cores singing of
a fresh imagine.

Then,
Suddenly,
Just there,
the gray seaweed of time extends.
stabbing circles,
now the gruesome gray
intertwining twang of time
twisting itself into my memory.  

I asked him, "What does this mean to you?"
He said, "It is just a pretty pattern."

Walk the edge
A tightrope.
Steady.
Building to building
Moment to moment
Pen to paper

Commit me to forgetting
Forcing is the the same as letting
Last time I checked
You were some gold flecked
Feather
And together
We staggered down the tightrope

This all was a way to hope
Melted candle now.
Steady.

Baptized by the sun
Oak and pine
Out of time. Words do come.
Color through the line
Who put it there after all?

Meet new yous
All along the way
Figure out how to lose
And what to say
To the lions in your head.

These are all the things I've never said.

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 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

There were feathers
In the gutter
Next to the cigarettes.
Another slow stutter
in the composition of nature:
Your ring on the left
Deftly alloyed.
Delicate next to the destroyed.
He only loves rhymes
So at certain times
I add one to make him listen.
A shotgun
Wedding, a glimmering glisten
Even as four cells large,
I am a turbulent charge
Across the flock of phonixes
Their feathers falling to the gutter

Headphones in.
Glasses on.
You: a con
bright and lustrous like the cut of a gem
coating the burgler
in wishing and
twisting of her stomach.
Because if she could hold it
just once
maybe she can justify her birth
prove her father wrong.
Life is about worth.

"Get a degree
a high G.P.A.
a piece of modern adult identity.
Drive onto the racetrack with a real job--engine revved,"
say the boys:
Washington, Dad, and you.
Voices loud
Ears Deaf.

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

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

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

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?

There isn't enough
sunlight to keep
the plants alive.
Thus, fake sunlight
bathing a fake "I love you",
keeping it alive
because leaves can't tell the difference
between me on the pills
and me off the pills.
Now my finger
fingers the on-off switch.

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.

His charm was venom,
Fangs, and bite
Strong drinks and no fight
An easy prey
A breezy day,
Turned sour night
Taught me what isn't right.

Just venom
Makes me an untouchable ghost.
My death is what I loved the most.

Are you going to enter
the arena
or not?
Sail away from the marina
'Cause you're afraid of what you haven't got
You're afraid of this Athena

Are you going to run from
the pain
or not?
Numb with pizza, *****, and *******
'Cause you're afraid of what you haven't got
You're afraid of the back-breaking strain

While you think the armor is doing you good
your numbness, your excuses, your perfectionism, your would;
Really, it is only destructive and blocks your could.