Natural selection
Now just an impression
A first one
With the mass of one ton
Lowered down onto the tip of my tongue
Flowered through the tip of my handshake

Lick me like a cottonmouth snake
Sweet like lemon cake
Your charm is venom
And I yearn for its death.

The last time you saw me
Was the last time I was alive
Your charm is venom
Now unzip that denim.

There are rocks
With your finger prints on them

There are places
With the color of your eyes
Burning them down

There are memories
I wanted to last forever

There is pain
In the end of a needle
Just as there is love
In all people

There is a body
With your name
Your finger prints
Your colors
But no you.

A lighted grid,
bleeding orange beams
and black rivers,
gazes up
confusing a steel bird
for a shooting star
wishes made
and regretted
burned in the stratosphere
of the folds in your mind
and the flatline of your heart.

Make a list
Make a plan
Make a choice
Still, a confusing man

Take off your clothes
Take less than you give
Take the girl for granted
Still forget to live

Check things off
Jack things off
Shrug things off
Still overfill the trough

Turn the boy on
Turn the light on
Turn the stove on
Still hold back your yawn

All so you can see life:
a coin of meaning and frivolity
in pursuit of harmony

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 was a victim
Of your addiction.
One of your numbers
It's too bad
You don't keep count.

I was one of your poisons
You used to try
to ****
All the slices and scars
All the sadness and pain

I was one of your mistakes
A strong one
That put bars over the door
Kept all the razors at bay.
Would never run away.

Yesterday you gave up
Addictions
Poisons
And
Mistakes

Today I gave up
You

I line up
all the things
I like about you.
I space them evenly
Precisely
Accurately
I shoot them
with a harpoon,
A gun,
A sling shot.
Then I smash them.
I burn them.
I bury them.
They beckon me
to go about collecting
them once more.

So you'll realize
I don't make sense.
What usually happens:
they lose interest.
An inside-out umbrella.
A stained iron.
An oven-fridge on the roadside.

I am as alone
When I am with you
As I am when I am not.
Fat tears
Invisibly streaking down my face
Whiskey and lace
Pills in the cabinet, just in case
I feel like taking all of them
Because I can't look at men
Without thinking of the tricks
Slithering up their sleeves
The hearts they collect and break just for kicks
Whiskey and lace
Whimsy and taste
All the contents of me in this jar
Here, take it, I can't stand it anymore.

Pills and rocks
Take them to
Not feel tired anymore
....If only

Diamonds like ice
broken glass
Cut cold

Age gathers bold.
Not so pretty
When it melts;
I long for, I long for
Choosing something else

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.

I thought I saw you yesterday
Through my blurred vision
A piston engine, stopped
And was left to rust
In the front yard
They say we all come from stardust
There mustn't be any left
Pick a card, any card
The one you want isn't in the deck

It isn't your mystery
Or history
That makes me stick around.
It isn't because you pound
Away at me,
Or have the right key.
I stay
Because you just may
Be a habit, an addiction,
Just a whirl-twirl fiction,
greasy slab of meat,
***** spike on the bottom of my cleat.

Could I ever call your name
Loud enough
To be heard?
Words herded through your mind
In one, out the other
But I was just a puddle
On your living room couch
A sheer sweater draped over me
Ridiculously.
Every face I show you ficticuously
Shows you
Your reflection

I'm a black ash candle flame
Sheets made of sandpaper
Skin made of bugs
Nails on a chalkboard
Love pulls and tugs
When you're around,
I yearn to build
Rock solid block
Out all the sun.
I yearn to put my hand on yours
But I'm afraid it'll melt.
A cascade of butterflies soar
Orange air
Burns to black ash
By candle flame.

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.

Skin and sand
Swords that stab
Babble away at the point:
An inarticulate ***
Of
Confusion and lust
Dissatisfaction and trust
Or distrust
Or apathy
They all feel the same to me.
The floral pattern of your pillow
Is imprinted on my jawline
The last mania
The last game of trivia
The last time I felt something
Skin and sand
Are the only things I demand.

This place makes me angry
because the heater is out of control
because my mind is out of control
because here is where even cacti die
dry
barren
yet full of concrete buildings
mortar
metal screws
yet there you are, a sprout
green
small
yet blossoming tall.

Here is this voice
it is just a whisper
would you turn your head
to lean in closer?

Imagination says
there is a space
where I am not a chore,
and a place
where I am not cold anymore

Reality says
there is an abyss,
where I am a water glass
that can't feel a kiss
as you turn your head
what did you miss?

Sew back together
Feather to bone
Stone to gravel
Unravel skin
Search somewhere for something sharp
Harp strings, heart strings
Both play the same melody:
Forget all this revelry
Pains and pleasantry
All feels the same to me.

I take cold showers
To save the hot water for you
One plus one isn't always two
Green plus yellow is blue
Black is the absence of them.
I know the monsters' den
All too well.  
You're a resounding bell
A deafening cannonade
For nothing was I made.

Very best
never quite enough
No sleep, no rest
As rough
As the Rockies
Mountains of pink skin
monster
What else do I call it?
How do I **** it?
These things aren't taught in school
Hot metal skewer to hand over to you
Here, I know what you want to do.
Very best
Never quite enough
It's tough,
So here are all my knives and matches
To take me out in batches.

Half of my face
Is scared
Is scarred
It's the part I hide
In the shadows
In the back of the room
With tint and highlight.
Ugly Textures
And those scars
I bandage
And, behold, I manage.

Words lost
I take all of this at some cost
Pictures dull
A cognitive lull
A black backing on my brain
Suction, please, irrigate this wound with rain
I'm only trying to approach reality
Full of blisters and malady
Boldly following my repeating word
All my memories have become blurred
Nothing makes sense
Everything moves into past tense.

The water in the sea
In my eyes
Stinging but clear
Maybe you were the first and last
To see me
As I am
To race me down the beach
The first and last
I would have run to
I would have wrapped
My life around.
Stinging but clear,
It was always you, my dear

I fell in love with the colors first
A contrast green, gold
Blue
Underneath.
Then the words
So many and so few
Sighs and currents
Cold shivering view
Distance and near
Not having enough eye
To see all
That once was here.

I grade your paper on what I see
Or what the Validictorian gives to me
She tells you to write in pen.
Come on boys, grow up to be men!
The only thing she cares about is if you’re in ASB.
Pleasing the teacher is the key.
You’re up the creek without a paddle,
If you have your own style of hitching up the saddle.
The horse you ride is like a paper,
If you don’t follow format you’re sure to fall.
This riding lesson has taught me nothing,
Except that conformity wins them all.

Heavy silver hair
falls silently,
a razor slices away
the tiny slivers closest to your scalp.
Markers stencil
where he will saw
a report speaks
dry and clinical
of how it took you away.

Mountain, steep grade
Laid, paid, never stayed
I worship the void filled
By my imagination guild
Mildew dreams weaves tight
Across my right side brain
Jumped on a train
To take me away
Pay in love
Pay in day
Pay in night
Whatever you can afford
Cut the chord
A chain link
Steel metal mountain
Steep grade
Remain unpaid.

I try to saw
My body in half
The gears and springs
Broken sensors
Machinery of my other half
never quite disengages
I pour out its contents on these pages
So as to not get oil
On your ear
It's broken? fix it.

Well
B'twixt you and me,
Who wants broken machinery?

Hold on while I burn
my life down.
I've collected all the tinder.
I've chopped all the wood
Dead
Flaked bark and pale flesh.
I construct a magnificent
castle around my life--
tiny, buzzing, confused,
I've trapped it in a mason jar.
It's locked in a desk drawer  
Locked in a room
In the highest tower.
Now I drop the match.
Does glass burn?

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?

File folder mind
Pulled loose. Tossed around.
Paper flutters like birds and clouds
Slow decent
Into madness
I never chose
Even though the Buddhists say otherwise
I watch it all settle around me
Blood and mud stains
Never stayed in the lines

Reanimate a dead fish
hook through the lips
hips sway a song I forgot the words to
cue the sad violin
sin satisfying for a second
beckoning over the edge of a tower
power of gravity and lust
foundry of trust.

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.

They laughed at her
Standing there trembling
Like a naked and skinny calf
New born and stilted
Slanted a little to the left

I laughed along
With them
Sorry,
You're not who I thought you were
Maybe I'm not made of bronze
With golden hair
Nothing metallic
Nothing precious
Just dirt
And dust
And rust
And a black wax heart.

They laughed at her
I laughed along with them
Because there is nothing else left
Of you
Or 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.

Compose,
Gather, rather throw together
A set of words
Birds talk the same amount of nonsense

Translate these electrical impulses
Repulses of boys
Or men
(I can't tell the difference anymore)

Decompose
This body
Because its shoddy
It's not all have

But it is all
I am willing to give to you.

****** candles
with wax walled wicks
to light at first,
the flame must linger
break
burn
behold a light bringer
slowly melting away
yielding to darkness

I wait
In the lilies for you.
Counting every breath
And every petal
That falls.
Finding something that solves
These wolves you face.

Whiskey and lace
Placed careful in my life.
Stray hair. A knife.
A long night saying no
And.
If you know what's best,
You'll just run. You'll just go.

Joys and pains
Wash past me like sunlight
Breaking through the clouds.
What I long to say
Stands before me
Just out of reach
Just past the horizon.
What I long to feel
Flees from me
Just far enough
For me to know its shape.

You never see the dark side
Of the moon,
Just like you never see
The light side
Of he
and she.
Just be
as I fall through a lotus blossom.

Leaves turn gray
And fall away
The pressure is too great,
And you are far too late
I ask the universe
Or fate
To send some help
But it only hears a curse.

My light isn't light
He said
It's un-light
In the brightest possible way,
I long to gulp down
A beautiful soul
To replace the one stolen from me,
The one lost at sea
Instead, the un-light
Gulps me into its
Violent absence found
In leaves turning gray.

Ocean skies
In your eyes
Reflected upside down
Me, a clown
Big red nose
Pacing the rows
Counting up all the things
Make my soul sting
Do you like me or are you just desperate?
Maybe a little of both.
Can you keep this oath?
Only if Art agrees.

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.

Dueling duo
Entangled
Entwined
Within my mind
Find a way to hold on another moment longer
Which is stronger?
I hold my breath waiting to find out
Bloodied bout
A calm before the storm
A cold before the warm
A walk before the run
A cloud in front of the sun.

Live without hurting
him, others, and the spirit.
Unattainable

An apple with an arrow through it
You didn't keep it, just threw it
At me. Sharp thorns overtake me.
I only wanted to show you my aim.
Tame the animal, curl flame
Around your finger
I would love to linger
Just a lifetime longer
But paper snowflakes are no stronger
Than this cheap plastic mask
I was never cut out for this task.

You don't need a brief.
Briefly let me like it
as our,
Or
Your
Words slip around
Or sound
Just briefly
As our's instead of your's

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.

The sound of your voice
Fake lullaby in the distance
And fading fast
They say you gotta
Love the one you're with
If you can't love the one you want.
Are these the same people
comparing wishes to horses?
Outlining courses
With white chalk on the grass?

I have a seat among the ants
Grabbing ahold of your hem
Falling asleep to the sound of your absence
Your memory turns from coal to gem