Clueless
I spin these tires in the mud
Tear up the foxes den

What's the difference between boys and men?
One can reach the door handle.

You don't understand what I'm trying to say
I can't get to this threshold, not today.

I lost another bet
Met halfway through
A new razor blade song
Long to feel skin
Sin is the only thing I'm good at
Sat down and gave in
Pin *****
Pat down
to find your bullet
Still lodged in my spine
Line after line I articulate
Particulate matter matters a lot
Sought to numb the world
Curled hair around my finger
Linger longer
Stronger and stinging salt water in my eyes.

I want to swim
in the middle of the night
wade in right
up to the hem of skirt.
The names of my dates:
Lake, Pond, Stream, Sea

I want to swim
wherever nature touches me
because it touches me better
than you ever did.

Am I a fridge on the road side?
Am I a pair of red lips
folded like gift wrap
around your part?
Am I am an empty black coat?
You must understand --
I need to meet me.
Stop this destruction.
If you see me,
arrange an introduction.

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

Handful of doughy breast,
perfect caramel skin,
a mind messed,
memorizing a mesmerizing pin.
Sticking
Pricking
Licking
My heart sweet and tender.
What good is rejection from each
gender?
Only as good as a moldy peach.
Screech
Breach
Bleach
all I seem good enough for.
Around when it's convenient
never more.
Been there. Seen it.
Screen it
Clean it
Please, just mean it.

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.

I want to numb this
Into oblivion
For ten seconds
I want to feel
That it never existed.
I want to take
A dentist syringe
Full of pink perfection
Stab into this monster
And numb it way
So it might be possible to say
Goodbye.

I'm stuck in a ******* box
Wild wolves and a fox
Take their share:
One heart already, two's a pair.
As we ***** and drown,
We hear the iconic sound,
"I'll huff and puff and blow your house down."

Now we roam.
Wild boar, mouths of foam,
We scheme and look and run
Exacting revenge with a smoking gun.

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

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.

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

Hope to be the dancer
Bag of meat
Actuality
Reality
What's the difference?

Keep up this charade
Tell your secrets
Say you're naked
When you're nothing
Without whatever
Belongs below the waist
The waste
The taste of nothing
Is so loud.

Here, a bouquet of broken
Skyscrapers,
A pile of glass shards,
A chaotic
Entropic
Mess of a thing.
What a pity
you wasted your time
on me.
Tied with a black ribbon
Of wet tar and black candle wax,
I hand it over
You said,
"I wanted your heart."

"This is my heart."

In my mind
I scrape my fingertips
Along the spine of your soul
Utterances from lips
Impulse control
I shove my hands
In my pockets
Step away
Step away
So much surface
Hungry for something I can't quite name
Something I chase but never catch
this gray sandpaper skin

Destroys.

Cinnamon whiskey
Burning hot like unseen lace.
Him and her: Frisky.
In my mind, her face.

Dark and structured
Cheek bones and jaw line
Imagination fractured
But all the same: Mine.

When I don't know
What he is doing
I imagine what is so.
Despite rationality shooing.

She walked home
in the rain and snow.
Indecisive sky she used to know
now etched with buildings
burning slowly at their core.
Termites wanting more.
I lost my power cord.
There is a bug in the system
because she's always bored
always running
up hill
on the treadmill.
Can't catch a break
or a breath.

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.

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.

All I have right now
is youth.
And maybe a couple o' words:
A little truth.
Flexibility and time
Beer with lime
Climb
Claw
Saw
A map to a clue.
All I have right now
Is you--

Clouds cover the sun
As it rises over waves; as I run
Away from actions
Dictated by fears, and false fractions
Of heart and understanding.
Slowly burning pink, demanding
The attention of crowds,
the sun escapes the clouds.

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.

I find myself
leaning into
the pain.
Studying it.
Microscope--
blurry at first,
fiddling with the ****,
finding the perfect point
of clarity.

Mechanisms clean,
neat ball-point-pen
hand writing
describing the chemical
deficiency,
structure
of love.
Reduce me to carbons:
microscopic lines and arrows.
Maybe that is a little easier.

Tangled web
Weave stronger somehow
Biting the bullet
Kills you anyway

Full spectrum color -
A tangled web
Beautiful

Razor sharp electricity of eyes
Gaze through me
I want to evaporate
I want to linger a little
Spider approaching
Settle.

Her leather jacket.
Making a racket
Out of sticks and twine.
The line is fine
And faint and often disappears
And reappears
But only when you want it to.
I didn't have a clue
When he shaved your head
That you would emerge dead
Now there are no rackets
Just Black Its
Consuming my organs bold
A chewing and chilling mold.

You put in a bendy straw
And ******
Out all the color of an already vanilla milkshake
Telling the difference between real and fake
Telling you something you don’t believe
Was a doctor rolling up his sleeves.

I put on my best:
A metal vest.
"Check, check-mate"
Is the only thing I hear as of late.
Touch feels like fire.
And I am nothing but a cheap liar.
Put your best tricks on the table
I'll ignore my suspicion if I am able.

Mom was never mom.
Weakness was never weakness.
You were never you.
And we argue, is it green or is it blue?

I always build them a lovely raft
Caring tied to attention
Crazy used as string;
And finally a sail of love,
Golden and scared rises.
Some stay on the shore
Admire my work
But you stepped aboard
Untied yourself from the shore
And drifted
Taking with you my finest work

Bathtub overflowing
Spilling
Spitting
Spinning
Giant vortexes
Consuming the bathroom
Where a single candle burns,
Where a single candle is put out.
Where the rubber ducky floats
But then sinks.
Nothing stays afloat forever.

Broken strings
Unplugged wires
Unleashed monsters
Unhinged imagination
I make this, you, a creation
Do you see a resemblance?
I don't.
I care too much
You don't.
The only rule
Avoid the action
Reaction,
Traction
What is left of me?
Merely a fraction.

Left my heart beating
Lighted grid and tambourine
Never a goodbye.

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.

I want to capture
all this blood-sludge-drainage
dripping drops down my femur.
I put down the ******* to look for the creamer.
She's lost, they say. She's a dreamer
stuck in a dream catcher
fetch her a blade quickly. Come
over to see her last breath.
I want to capture it all
in words
lines on paper
drape the world with it,
so everyone will be lost
and no one will be lost
and I won't be lost.

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.

Cold bath water
numbness
You added the ice cubes
To stop the swelling
Of my heart
In your honor.
Hypothermia sets in
And feels like warmth

You're vapor that
Claws at people
waves red flags
that say
send help

Watch them walk by

They always get tired of you
You get lonely of them
You cross them off your list
Crosses are your talent

Wait awhile
to become a raincloud

My days are now
One more thing to bear
My skin is now
Just a dare
And I feel your lungs
Press into a simple math problem
With twos and ones
And zeros

It starts out specific
Pretty, far away, and perfect
Take one step forward
One to the left and one toward
The edge of feeling something
And everything
And nothing
All at the same time
Somehow
Somewhere
We became two vines. Ensnare
My heart
As shards of a light bulb
Hot hurts just as cold.

I became the sea
Just so you'd come see me
Just to listen to you breath
It must be possible to live
In this place between
Lonliness and joy
Visible and transparent
What can I do with
These waves, tsunamis
Hurricanes on skin
Of bones.

It must be possible
For you to swim with me
Without drowning

Eyes rolling black
To run to what I lack
And from your memories
However warm
However cherished

Warm turned scalding
Cherished turned consuming

It was a sour lemon
A flavor
An aftertaste
A feeling of what its like
To notice
A pretty clear glass.
Just pass
The clock
Down the long
Mahogany table
A song
On repeat
A slow beat
On the steering wheel
Just steal
This pretty clear glass
Before it smashes on the tile

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.

You stand in my mind
Solid as a stone
Eternally eroded
By my imagination
Into something smoother
Into something you weren't before
Something a little more
Iridescent like mica
Like a shooting star
Cutting sharply through me
See that girl I was before?
Neither do I.

Cutting up wood
Smells sweet
Smoky
Sawdust falling like snow
The foul vinegar of decay
Starts on its work
Chewing at the arsenic
Right from the moment of creation
Destruction sets in.

A coin spins
a decision to be made:
which side will show?
Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde.
Him, You.
You:
abused,
ragged edged,
pushed under the bed,
forgotten parts of a soul.
The ringing yields to silence.

Black mud
Slip
Fall.

It was the scars
That gave it away

Call out into the storm
Hear the wind scream
Over and over ask
Is this real or is this a dream
Throw metal around
(It's comforting for a second)
Turn up the sound

So you can't hear
Death coming

Black boxes.
Smell of delicate decay
like kindling first catching fire.
Pigeons bathing in the gutter
glitter and iridescent feathers
covered in the banal bile of boys,
their insides strewn on the ground.

Fire ant mound,
stepping on those was my childhood.
Coulds and woulds and shoulds
creating those is my adulthood.

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.

Sitting here with me
I tear apart
Push together
Build and destroy
Pain and pleasure
Because I can't stand it either way

Chain me down
Cut it out
My mind is round
Try to make it square

To you
It's not fair

I sit on the river bluff
Waiting for
This black hole fire *******
To fizzle out.
Waiting for
All the contents of my being
All the gravity
All the wispy plots
To be released
And placed back in their spots.
No one else seems to miss it
But I do, so there I sit.