She painted the bathroom lavender
The only part of that left
Is the glorious mistake she made
On the moulding.

I am scarred
Where I was trying
To be beautiful.

It turns out
maybe that is more cherished
In the end.

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.

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.

She knows more
than she shows,
Shows more than she knows.
Bows, ribbons, flowers, lace
Invisible mask
Cast iron and shadow play
May I understand this
Heavy air?
This feeling of despair?
Words like bullets
He pulls the trigger with his tongue
Rung out like a towel
Trowel to dig a grave slowly
Stinging sharpness
Darkness never knew light.
A hodge podge sea
Of words can't make a sentence
When I said this is me
I really meant it.

The pool on sixth avenue,
Down the road and past the zoo,
Was deep.
And many would leap
Into a blue that must have weighed a ton,
But this poem isn't done.

This pool I just mentioned,
Compares to a friendship that nearly cured me of my tension.
It's depth and profound impact,
Have changed the way I see a friend, that's a fact.

Even though I maybe away,
I will keep you tucked inside and carry your mark everyday.

Thank you for everything you did for me
And for helping me to see:
Life in the light of understanding.

A map to treasure
An "X" perched sullen and unreachable,
Unchangeable
Immutable
Inedible
Intangible
In caves, dark
Scrawling crawling up my sclera
To blind
To bind
With direction more lethal
With words less lustrous:
Like diamonds
equaling crushed ice.
All this, a trick in the eye.

Life a shell
Of what it wants to be
It's too late now
It's gone, I can't see.

Sand is slippery like that
Through a tremor
Of an hourglass
Through a trigger
Of a memory, passed

Repeat on cue:
One more day
Then after two
I can't stay

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.

Drip Drop Pop
Open close
Unrip the closet door
Hinge
And cringe at the thought of more
Starving artist, so poor

Drip Drop Flop
Close open
The mess is in a frame
Real
And feel the dream that never came
Paint brush becomes lame

Drip Drop Mop
Up the tears
Fringe
On the end of your jacket that I see in the mirrors
Losing, failing my biggest fears

Drip Drops
Flow down the petals of your face

"Things haven't been the same."
Years of dead flowers,
Of looking away,
Of tear stained pillows
Yearning living may
Just be the death of me
I could see if she let me
You could be if you let you
Let me down easy
Let me down slowly
I'd watch you go
Just to imagine you
Coming

Back

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.

Feathers falling, flailing fast
As if they are dense
Like the star you fill up
Or that fills up you?
She can't tell the difference.

This bird struts pink skin
For all to see
How thin her neck seems to be
She looks around,
"Did you blow off all my feathers
because I perfectly blew off your ****?"
But all that was left of him was the smoke

There is a shadow
Watch it on the wall,
wonder how it lives
and if it dies.
How it stutters
And how it lies

There is a light
Dancing on the surface
Watch it like I watch you
Enchanting and far away
Memorize the reflection
The refraction

As it creates a shadow

Headless
Shirtless
Arms, speechless
He lays beneath the tracks
and feels the death he lacks.

Rough around the edges
The start and stop
Fruitless pledges
Forget-me-not

I can't fill in the blank
Churn and churn
Fill up the slate
Crash and burn

Punishment as an award
I longed to be invisible
To see a clear path forward
To be a person - permissible

Now as part of a suitcase
I move slowly
Fears to face

Try to be strong
Stare down the road
Think about how long
It takes to take a step,
To hear your song.

How long I've slept
Under this invisibility
Tranquility
Sadder
Shudder
Close then open
This is life is just coping

What did I want to say?
Carbons strung together
But not quite sticking
Quick enough
to make a sentence.
Describing how you fooled me
Trapped me
Took me
Showed me
Exactly what a boy like you
Could give
what a boy like you
Could conjure
Conjole
Console
Could take
Break
Leave
Run from,
Right as the carbons
Stuck together
Into one solemn sentence:
I will always care about you
And you will never care about anything.

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.

Be human
Or object
Thin air. Project
Science fair
A mismatched pair
Of socks
Mom collected them
A basket in the bedroom
Frantic rummaging
Trying to find a match
Trying to unfold a patch
But only finding ruin
The truth is, it is only human

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."

Stunted growth
Confusion
Loaf
A penny in the center
I need all the luck I can get
Ball set
In motion
Stopped, popped under a bully's foot
You learn fear
Then you learn pleasure
The difference between work and leisure
Flick a flame
Wild but tame
Tricks and bane
Become a diagnosis
Realize all their hypnosis
Turn anger into strength
Turn self hate into lust
Must you be this way?
What else could I say?

The things I love
the things I hate
Here, self-medicate
Take the cake
With soap as frosting
Costing and tossing
Is all I see right now
As my mind is salad, how
Is it you look so pallid?
My mind races
To fill the spaces
Where stars used to be.

Dinner alone
More often than not
Because dinner with you
Has only the difference of plates: two.
Why?
Where?
None of it matters.
We don't care.
Listen, instead, to others' chatters
About dreams
And why they have them
Far away, us, torn at the seams.

I wanted to say
To scream
To love
And never leave

A little bourbon
Velvet curtain
Fall

Devastation
Crawl along
Say things you don't mean
A voice unseen

Wolves hunt in packs
Relax
I wanted to say
I wanted to stay
I wanted to stand
To go
Headed toward the sand
Course correct
Now I'm crashing on land

I have an understanding of the sea
But not Chelsea
A name on a phone.
Try to stick to the facts
Don't step on tacks
Unless on purpose
Lie
Even when
You don't need to
Because I expect it.

Waste colors on me
canvas with a hole

Prefrontal cortex
Unplugged

Pulled the last thread
Unravel

Travel through time
A nomad girl.
Smoke from the ashes:

A beautiful curl

You changed your name
I lost you that day
I turned to tell you something

But you had already left
And I stood
Surrounded on six sides
By the sick, sloppy snakes
No knife in-hand
No skin on my bones.

Bared, ready
to be received, held
a blanket of frost
a spike in my tongue
My eyes overflowed

Spilling a sulfur
Ensnaring the snakes
Circling their fangs
Collecting their cacophony.

Till life ekes out.
Dissipating like screams
Into a full ***** bathtub
and the soul escapes.

Get used
To being used;
Or maybe use
Your useful mind
To sort through this useless clutter.
The fine veneer
He coated over every place,
Space,
Sound,
Smell.
What used to be ours
Is now reused
By her.

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.

Whatever you do
Don't fall in love
At a masquerade ball
He'll destroy you
Mask and all
Beauty you cling to
A high light reel
Of the second base steal
Will replay in your mind
Whatever you find
Make sure it isn't love
At a masquerade ball.

Wake up
Fly away
Push down
Stay

Simplicity or them
Loneliness or hatred
warmer than a pen
Or whatever I hold dear

Stand up
Pull away
Stomp down
Okay

Disease or sickness
Blades or dynamite
A Rothko darkness
Is this night

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.

Stay calm.
Calculate.
Mold yourself,
Shape the edges,
So maybe you'll fit with this one.
Take the safety of this gun
So I graze your shoulder
Like your bullet
Grazed my heart.

There will be more beauty
There's always moonlight

So far from a shore I can see.
So far from a you and a me.

There was half of me
That forgot
The part that remember
Long had been severed
Listening for a knock

You. That face.
A wonderful clock
My eyes leap forward
Longing for the details

Longing to remember
How you once laughed.

Electricity through wires
cold tracks, torn tires
back alley where you forgot me
cardboard boxes
quick brown foxes
accent on the "see"

I wait for navy
to melt into a pink gravy
maybe we forgot how to turn the key
unlock the door
get off the floor
of the back alley where you forgot me.

I run circles
Place to place
Face to face
With fear.
You're far and near
To where I just was
Pause
Think about what you're doing
Remember the sunset for viewing
Stewing and swimming in luck
Or the lack thereof
I look above
And ask for love.

The thought of your hand
Burns like white hot sand
Razor blade ridges
****** finger prints
The fabric of my mind
a phantom of you to find
If ever I change, give me the time
If ever you change, give she a rhyme
If I ever have nothing to demand but
The thought of your hand
White hot sand.

The suitcases are stacked wall-to-wall,
Weigh the same as me, about as tall.

You pound down the door,
Drop more suitcases on the floor

Jack-in-the boxes pop
Out of each, one-by-one, stop!

I take a shot but throw the bottle.
Light a match. Here's to full-throttle.

You were three seconds
Too short. Come by
And spread the blanket
Across a sea and bay
Lay
with me here.
And how I long to know
Your fingertips
And how I search glances
With glances.
Chances
The last after the last
Clear the splinters from the blast

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.

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.

Does she know
about me

Whispers
And invisible pleas
Slither into the universe
Across the sea

Telling her
To hold you for me.

I dip myself in gold
A hot sizzle
Does it catch
your eye
your fancy
The edge of your shirt
Beckoning you back

Do I call to you
As you call to me?
My hair will grow in either case
The geese will fly
The world will turn
And whisper it's infinite terror
It's infinite beauty

But now
it's done whispering

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.

Twists and turns
Describe the spaces and races
Body processes, yearns
To learn how you tie your laces
Stars group in a constellation
Pointing the way
And through the devastation
I see them like wounds, say
Did I ever tell you
I love the blue
In your eyes.

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.

I live on the moon.
Rocketed here last noon.
A Running Away
because of my mind and child's play.

I spend all day
building people
Out of moon-dust clay.
An army, A steeple
All without pay.

This is my punishment:
Slash at the sun,
Smell not a single scent,
And see no one
made of anything but clay.

This lace is loud--
a loudly changing mound
Stuffing the guts
Through tiny cuts
Of my bright bugs;
And your hugs
Keep them crawling.

I want to tell you.
I went to tell you.
Strange how I can
Find the words
Only when it's too late.

The bugs may
Be exterminated today.
But through the emptiness,
It's complete mess,
I try hard not to stare.
I try hard not to care.

is empty
echo
stacco
on the walls
through the halls
we run
and ride
bikes
hikes
we planned but never did
parents put the lid
on our dreams and thoughts
now the cots
and pots
are set up on the floor
I just want you more
with jelly jello jiggling right to my core
pour
pouring
rain
raining
training yourself
to starve a little more
more
ore
or
oranges stacked
stupidly packed
all the dishes are broken
and here is this ****** token
to replace the love I could never give you
here is your cue
to take all you have and leave
leave
leave
leaving
you are always just leaving
leaves are always just leaving
and thieves are always just coming
cuming
on my nose
pose
hose down you hopes
its only about how she copes
mopes
mops
and brooms
scattered in rooms
overlooking gray grass and blooms
and the wind blows the petals hard
card
signed only with your name
I don’t blame
you or her for preferring
your and hers second chance
dance
dance
dancing
in the empty house echoing.

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