Sudden decent
dents paint scent
into my mind.
What is this "art"?
Something stupid and contrived
derived from work-for-free
always-be-the-victim me.
I sit here with you,
towering over me like a mammoth:
ancient and urgent
itchy and crawling.
You're all I have left
and I feel sorry
for making you into garbage.

I thought by now I'd make less trash
I thought by now I'd be less trash.

The combustion
Of eye contact
Nearly kills me every time
Half dead
Half asleep
I'll tell you which of those promises
I can't keep
Ridges of his thumbs
Match up with the grooves
Carved in my back
Give me some slack
Let me climb down
Or up
I can't tell which is which anymore
Don't keep score
Pour out the bottle of whiskey
To keep this wound clean
Don't you see now? I never say what I mean.

Part of her skull
is dented,
filled with foam.
It is where you rented,
and lived for awhile.

Uncontrolled proliferation
of cells
like rabbits
or people
destructive and useless.
That is what you are.

I gave myself
the same haircut he gave her
but since no one
understands,
I cover it with the rest of my hair,
"Hire me,
I'm normal.
No, I didn't save her hair that day."

Lies.
I memorize the texture
of the dent
of her hair
of things and spaces
that you ruined.

Did you take
her to make
me stronger?
Make me suffer a little longer?
A little harder?
Did you want me to barter?

We said,
"At least it isn't GBM."
White coat replied,
"No, because now you get to watch her die
slowly."
This isn't dying,
this is living.

Was that what you wanted to tell me?

Got sick of being under my bed
So they climbed into my head
I see them around every corner
I smell them in pleasure
I taste them in pain
I hear them walking
An echoing madness
Through neuron chambers
And blood vessels
Dilating pupils spell out the fear I cannot.
Through everything I haven't forgot

monsters cannot be fought.
So don't slow down,
They might catch up.

I learned how to survive
By lying through my eyes
Through a teeth-bared smile
Actually a snarl
from an internal monster
Last time I checked
It isn't okay to be sad
Take a porclein mask
Paint it glad

I learned how to lie
By living in this house
Where the only way
To say
What you mean
Is through abstraction.
Truth becomes subtraction

Came out of hiding
Salt shaker bliss riding
110 miles per hour
Converge
upon another; a surge
of hope is now upheaving
leaving grieving behind.

Grind up heart strings,
rings, and things
A powder to keep
A foul and wondrous leap
only to help
rungs like tongues
spit curses
to keep us in place.

We keep a pace:
a slow unraveling
of the road we are traveling.
Chasing heart breaks
is all it takes.
Salt shaker bliss
riding 110 miles per hour,
we did everything in our power
but still it was a hit or miss.

Whiskey glass perched

Bird in a cage

A puppet,
dying on stage.
Rage around town
Like him or her
Or them
Men scrape the side
And hide
behind cold eyes
And a whiskey glass
Perched.

Fingers reach and bend.
Please pass the paste,
because I'm on the mend.
"Make haste!"
You want to say.

Your cursive cure
on a rusty pole.
Summons full of allure
you dole
them out like pennies.

There was a structure
here at one time:
a mechanism, an aperture,
a gear, a chime.
Now, it all pounds to dust.

If you must,
push me fast over the cusp.

My will
melted away like a popsicle
now a pool of sugar
evaporating quickly
leaving behind
some sticky stick
singing sweetly
of a thing that was once good.

My imagination crafts a new one
a few done
and alone
wooden sticks pile up
like maggots on your corpse.
You, my emotional self,
flatlined and bruised.
Nobody there to be amused.

She walked away,
but looked back with a wink.
I sat there on a bench,
watching,
thinking about
how she just left--
To ride roller coasters
And drink tequila
And not be alone.

In my mind,
I've died a million ways
Oh my, to find
Meaning to fill the days.
Pays in coin
**** on fire,
As Plath would say.
This circumstance seems dire
Liar, it's only in your mind
Find meaning in the days
Ways that may
Teach me love
Reach above
Make me stay.

I want to understand the mechanics
Of your ball-n-socket joints
Treble cleft clicking into place
Face down in the dawn
An empty hammock
Over dead lawn
Trace the fabric of your lock
A pin code combination
I'll never quite master
Key-in a distress call faster
Than it takes for me to jump
Dump the luggage
Pump the points
What's to understand about ball-n-socket joints?

Oblivion should be a disease
Water vapor and antifreeze
Pool on the inside of my chest.
Do what's best
Not what's healthy;
Around everyone, be stealthy;
Build a metal barricade:
Mantras like a blaring cannonade
Teach me what it smells like to never listen
The only thing I wish had stayed
Was your smile, a glimmering glisten

Harp strings.
Heart stings.
Start things.
He sings.
Phone rings.
Rungs
on a ladder leading up,
Up,
Up, and away.
Say,
Why the ****
am I not enough?
No, just terrible, terrible luck.

Eyelids pinned back,
Lack of sleep I let
my arms keep track
Of the time.
As skin cells fold over,
I leave some on your collar
They used to be dashes, slashes,
Eye lashes and spicy mashes.
I watch you turn around
With an epiphany found:
There is no life span to your well wishes,

We are all just dead fishes.

My body sat there rotting
Taking deep breaths while plotting
My escape from the tape
Trap. Map with the compass all eskew
Sits firmly on the ground you
Pass
me on your doorstep
I hand out bold hints
Peel off all the tint.  
Deal, scoff, all the lint
Curls in between my toes.

Suddenly I rip
Off the top
Stop, drop, and roll
Soul on fire
I burn this box down.

Silver cask and red wine
Fine things that rhyme
Find things with time
is what they keep saying
and the clock keeps ticking
and the ticks keep licking
******* up my blood and spilling it
onto the kitchen floor
but I cry about spilled milk
what a waste
hasten this versioning
this red-wine-cushioning.

I smell you in between my
Mascara laden lashes
Luck and love
Have a conspiracy
Good taste
Bad timing
Rhyming as a way to get the words out
Could you ever get tired
Of her golden hair
And your golden ring?
The thing
I've learned from you,
Intertwined tangled in the sun,
Is how to love someone
Who can't love you back.

Things circle and sway,
threads bare and fray,
I lean in to hear you
because I cannot clearly say
what this body knows.

Questions I pose,
frames I build
chaos ensnaring
What is your trick called, "caring"

A lonely box for each of us
blue. steel. cold.
Now it does rust.
Now, another day is sold.

I want to understand
Mechanics banned
From working right
Under a thumb, light
Strokes dark
Mark down another thing
Throw away another ring
Sing low another dirge
Die a little, emerge
From ashes
Another plan hashes
Another man dashes
Cashes in on my desperation
Precipation makes things grow
Throw away another ring
Notice, again, another ding
Mark down anther thing
On and on
All this greets every dawn.

“Do you want to get out of here?”
Well, I thought that meant you wanted me
Now I fear
This moment we’ve all waited to see
If I could keep
Your interest in me

My small sentence
Spoken softly to the bathtub ledge
Describing the difference between anger
And the love of a stranger
As nothing at all.

I swear the end
Of this gun is cold
Like the way he drowns me
In unanswered questions
Masked women
With red lipstick
Turning the engine on
never off again
All threats
On all sides
Coincides
With the scam:
Wherever I go
There I am.

I walk through
the door marked "you"
A cloud of poison
I have chosen
because I crave nothing
but suffering
please tell me
that my sweet scene lingers
the way your words do
the way your fingers
always have.

The color of sadness
Is the blue of the room
Where I laying calling out to you

The weight of sadness
Is all of the ocean
Gathered in the sound of “no”

It is a harsh velvet rope
In tropical heat
Strangling slowly
Every fleeting joy

I have measured it all
In every way
Just so I could
Hold it there and say
“I will love you again”

You're a beautiful monster
powerful and dangerous
towering and infinite.

I am an ugly tower
wizened and stone-faced
but made of sleek marble
unscalable.

Finger on the trigger
A decapitated appetite
ears pricked
I listen for your smell
of freshly sliced apples
like the ones mom used to give us
your gaze is a hungry wolf
and I wonder if I've turned into father.

You are sandpaper.
Polishing painfully my heart
to a fine
ball of luster.

You are a penny thrown in the fountain
A dense and worthless wish
For something called happiness.

You are the cherry on top of a mountain
Deliciously decomposing
Waiting for me to get strong enough to meet you.

You are the feather in my wing
Causing drag and crashing into the bay
Now I can't fly away.

The world spins
Dizzy roller coaster
Pitch and yaw
I'll lie and say I never saw
Your evaporation take place
I was a clam
And you were some pliers
Or maybe just a liar
I replaced you with a sharp piece of metal
When I swore I'd never settle
But it seems I've stumbled into blank
Blankets of blankness
Rank this less than perfect
On a scale of one to ten

Clear water
a deep breath before
diving down,
dodging dark sharks
of fear.
Clear water
helps my search of the rope
rotting ripe
and ripped upon the coral.
I reach for it.
Will you let me take it?

Your eyes said it before your lips did.
Fingers tasting salt water streaks
On my cheeks
Down my neck
Talk about steps
The time my feet got amputated
mutated genes
Means the chemistry
Is in entropy's favor.  
Take a second to sprinkle
Sparkles
firecracker smiles
On lipsmacker lies.
Fake until its real.
Real until it dies.

I hold onto you
Little last sweater thread
An angel's grip to mend
Whatever they call this
Kiss, miss this target
Largest needle
Invisible beetle
A silent torture
A pressed flower
I love you with this weak power
Screams a pitch too high to hear
I beg you to tell me what is near
My eyes tell you how to flee
My hands tell you how to plea.

My poems never rhyme,
So you'll never listen.
Wrists sliced
Tears
and sidewalk salty
Snow falling
a pure blanket humbles the city
I am far away from.
My eyes never see
So you'll never exist.

I keep a look out
For your ghost
I keep a knife
By my bedpost
Just in case.

I seek a lengthy silence
To listen better
I seek a sharp object
To cut this tether
Just in case.

I speak not a word
They flew away
I speak a glance downward
That's enough to say
"Just in case"

You are a time-trapped thinker  
they would tell me if I wasn't a ghost
or merely a host
for all these animal things
creating fireball rings
around my brain
who gets to make the meaning of sane?
certainly not this razor blade
certainly not all these things I've made
I reach for the paint brush,
but in my fevered rush,
I spilled everything I had left.
Try to fill a void with fire and trigger,
you'll only burn the hole bigger.

Beat the drum
Steady.
Fall into place
Whenever you're ready.
Trip on a pen
Land through a spear
I wasted my youth
Chasing the near
In this bathtub

Stand again.

Wanting to live
For paint that never stays
For not knowing the path
But going anyways

Oblong pink pill
Amber smooth scotch
They are all just a bedpost notch
Romance with a razor blade
For you I was made
And I ask if I'm late
Or just in time
Without reason, without rhyme
I evaporate all the water
All the hope,
I slaughter

They don't care
If you're concerned
With yin and yang, a pair
Or a soul like butter churned.

They will never taste your mind
Like they taste your body.
Hard to find
Distant, spotty.

That won't stop them
Or clip their thorned stem.

A sharp mind dulled
While I run
From the dark death undertows.
Pulling from unseen roses, a gun,
And fragile bullets, columns, rows.
Truly no escape
From a serpent, Eden, and apples.

First choice, that's you
A sugar-coated reply
Ending in delete.

I didn't understand the lines
because I could color right over them.
I could get black
and blue
on my wrists and calves
when I painted all over the carpet.
Don't hesitate
to fill
a metal dumpster
with scraps of memories
the good times I multiply into a vast ocean
of burning paper.
I tried to tie it to my waist
and hoist us both over the fence.
I was too weak
or it was too heavy
couldn't tell which

I tried, but you won't.
I didn't understand the lines
and still don't.

I laid a needle and thread out on the table.
I whispered, "This is for when you are able
to sew yourself up."
Empty room.
I wait for my fingers to grow back.
Like sea star limbs--
nubs at first.
Then, with articulation,
my new sprouts grasp
the fine alloy:
thin and frail.
"Okay," I whisper, "now it is time to sail."

I want to scrub
Every last one of his dead taste buds
From my mouth
A toothbrush slowly sharpening
Saw blade
Spit out the blood,
Mud, and toothpaste

I want to find
Every way there
Is to destroy myself
To live without ever breathing
Or seeing
Or being seen

I want you to know
My worst fear came true
I never was capable of loving you.

Your bed is a projection
on the wall;
A turn style slammed into my hip.
I tried to crawl under
but fell asleep instead.
Suits get off the train
and step on joints and fingernails
in the Oblivion
they drank
and worked themselves
into;
The same oblivion
that doesn't notice that the bed
is just a projection on the wall.

This place carves you out
Become hallow
Things have gone
Now
To another way
In another plane
Fly high over all this
Go back to a time
Just breath if you understand

I take my breath,
my regular heart beat,
And bottle it
out in the space
Of everything he forgot. Ignored.
Selling the difference between black and white
Selling you something that is worth my fight
is an endless song we still sing.

They shove
poetry down throats
by putting it on the train.
They know you'll look at it
because you don't look at faces
you're afraid
they're looking back.

They shove
a definition of beauty
into your mind
through skinny arms
through masked skin
through red lips
Crisp
Advertisements
on how you need to look
to keep him
on your hook.

They shove
Their morality
into your veins
through religion
and tasty cliches,
Heaven forbid
You ask why.

Chairs stacked high
My flower
I chose you
In a hasty gaze
I fit
A puzzle together
By cutting
Away the pieces
That don't fit
Sit with this
Feeling that I'm not a person
I wonder if they notice

Please unsettle
Yourself from your standards
Fifty eight
And twenty three
At the same time.
What became of you?

she won't know what to do
Because when it comes to women,
All you want is a girl
All golden curl
And too much blush
A drip with a pouty lip.

You say everyday
How much you want him to change.
When he does, you ask,
"What became of you?"
Why couldn't you tell that little girl of yours
Not to be afraid?
That things will be okay.
I still wait for that day.

Do you know the feeling
Disconnection
Stuck in a jar
Loss of power
In the dark
Light a candle
Can't get a spark
Crooked smile
Surrounded on four sides
Walls dark with dried blood
Loss of speech
The only thing left
A hallow and terrifying screech
Amplified so no one can hear it

Maybe I need to write on these walls
just a paragraph or two
of how you
don't matter
and I
don't matter.

This stupid thing in me
a monster ravenous
for my time and hands
it demands
to be heard,
tells me I'll never be cured,
and by you I'll always be allured.

Maybe that is the only way to do things
and, oh, how my little wax heart sings
softly to it.
This monster, this clawing contraption,
beats everything else down
Now, I unzip my gown.