Fear radiates lackluster
And holds my hand
Instead of you
You - damage,
A heatwave.
Ravage
Your bones. A feather.
Kind and savage
A severed tether.

I dig at old wounds
with screams
and pink champagne
pink pain running down
my arms
down
my thoughts
through and through
I loved you
You could accept these lions
except their claws are sharp

I could begin climbing a tree
To attach a swing for you
And me
I'd build it to only seat two
But I am stuck inside
A brown paper bag
Chopped up
Into pieces I can't describe.
I reach out to catch him
But miss by an inch,
A mile,
A day,
A year,
So
I wait right here.

All this destruction
Is an unaffordable construction
Of an escape door.
Sometime simple, sometimes more.
What did I want?
What did he want?
They say people are better than objects
I think not

In my mind
you are a fire dancer
brightly, I find
a world without cancer
a world where he chooses me
a world where I can clearly see
what is right in from of me
In my mind,
things are different than they really are.
rare overlaps of 'I love your scar'
'find safety in pain'
like rain,
it doesn't run.

Lurk against the wall
Stunning rose wallpaper
Have things explained
Look around for an exit
Stairs somehow too far away
And not that subtle
What is it that you can say?
Describe exactly the difference between two shades of gray
Or exactly what it’s like to see the floor disappear
To disappear yourself
To know absence as violent
These things have no words
So you are silent

We float
On and on
In and out
Lonely and numb
One inch from each other
Punch through
This plastic air
This skyscraper construct
Of should
Or shouldn’t
Of go
Or stay
A misunderstanding

Wheels turn over
Sand spinning
Spitting out the waves
Try to do it as yourself
But must have forgot
Alien
Because

it's typical

I'm trying to fix you.
You stupid girl
You sloppy girl
You glass girl
Knocked from the table edge.
You broken girl
Now just pieces
Getting smaller
Ground down under his boot
Soot
Blow
In his nose
Through his veins
Then
Into his brain.
How can I fix you now?

Where did you go
Lines I recognize
Not as my own
How did I become this thing?
This white, solemn bone
Only wanting you to sing
Clearly
Through the haze
Through the black
And the white
There would never be darkness
Without the light.

Have you noticed
birds are in the trees
And they are flying
And singing
And living a thousand lives
Of which you know nothing,
That magic, have you noticed it?
In the way your eyes know to blink
and the moon knows to rise
and the world still blooms and spins
It lives
It thrives
Then
it dies.

You implanted your
Finger tips.
Just barely
On the side of my cheek.
I search in the mirror
Just to get some peek
At your finger prints left there.

You implanted your
Lips.
Just barely
on the side of my cheek.
I search my memory
Just to seek
What I could do to get another
fix.

A beg you to crush me
my only demand
and you never disappoint

Collect all the sticks
because they and I
don't mix
Collect a strand
of her hair
in my hand
but please
understand
these were never my words
please understand
this was never planned.

Running low on steam
And dreams
Seams tear apart,
I keep repeating.
Meeting a meaning halfway
Untouched and blasé

I've read this story a million times
I've stood in this spot a million times
I write out the millions so it rhymes
Maybe then you'll hear
all the things coming at me from the mirror
Stear this ship so it crashes on the rocks
locks in a destiny, like you always said
it never matters what I've read.

His finger tips
and more
demagnetize me.
Now, I don't work anymore.

Is it ever hard to breath
in the fog,
or the starlight?

Is it ever hard to heave
this bundle off your back?

Is it ever hard to leave
fate behind;
to leave
all the paper
stamped and signed?

Is it easy to drop
the pencil?
To "make it pop"
or match the drapes?

Is it easy to stop
and see how hard it is to breath?

I'm hungry but I can't even feel it
through all this thick sickness.
When it comes to anything, I'll steal it,
feel it, seal it with blue masking tape.
I gaze over at you: basking late
summer eve
and just before I leave,
I'll wrap your memory in bubbles
to myself I'll say, "Thanks for all the troubles."

I'll board a weather vane:
slim sword straight through this vein.
I shake the rein
and heave a heavy sigh.

He'll take me to the end of the universe.
Cursed love, gossip, bend and snap
whisking away like a dove at my stupid trap.
Send help.
Here, hold my white flag,
while I get off
and step into the stars.

Here take my shoes
Run away, you got nothin' to lose
Run away, I got nothin' for you to use
Run away, gave you no reason not to
"Fun to play with you,"
but just for a second
he and she say
and it may
just be a little easier to understand scabs
than tears.
Fears pile up like bullets in your gun
at least they don't run
but here, take my shoes,
you got nothin' to lose.

Reptilian madness
Turns over in a second
Wash them off
As if it never happened
As I never happened
Sit underneath
An obese sadness
Sharp teeth
Reptilian madness
My world turns

And yearns
Always in the wake

Sometimes I wish dad
had hit me instead.
When he was mad
he threw words that led
to bruises unseen
beneath the skin
ripe and mean.
Just stick some sort of pin
and you'll see me bleed
if that is what you need
Because then at least I can watch that heal.

Here and there
this needs a scientific name,
a twist of tongue,
ribcage: gilded frame.

A song unsung
Like a zipper unzipped
Like a drink sipped too slow
Like a blink of stars
That have lost their glow.

How can you fell an emptiness?
Maybe that means
There is something to feel
Which makes it not emptiness
Anymore.

Five fingers pressed to my cheek
I feel them phantom
Random pulses of memory
Gripping onto an absence,
Like air molecules,
Cool to an unseen touch,
I feel a nothing.
Your body becomes a loaded gun.
Shiny and sparkling in the sun.

Raked across the coals
burning never gets old
Bold brains once fresh
Now rot in wires
Tied knot
Sets fire
Fried the ends of this friendship
As a tragic paintbrush
Hits the road

They say things never stay
But I think they're wrong
Your heart strings extend
Into the encapsulating abyss
Never are they amiss
Their love, a list
Of reasons why
You and I
Will never say goodbye

One word or two
I claw at the meaning of me and you
Two seconds or three
I know the you, but not the me
I know the window, but not the door.
Three drips to the floor
Tally up these wounds that heal
Rally up these moons to steal.

Drown with silence
Evaporate with salt
I'll repeat. I'll repeat:
It's not your fault.

Leaning into black
I'll watch you dance
You'll repeat. You'll repeat:
You missed this chance.

Reach for reasons
Branches too high
Sift with memories
He'll repeat. He'll repeat:
Your life is a lie.

I ran into the ocean
One night.
The stars shot me with bullets
Of relief.
The waves licked my ankles
Knees
Thighs
Up my body, cold and gentle,
Finally sealing my lungs
With salt
And the memory
Of how you wouldn't lay next to me.

The car
was running.
The star
was shining
under a black spotlight.
The girl
was losing the fight
between simplicity
and clarity to see:
What life really is,
What life really means,
What life breaks.

Impulse beats
Up, down
Hello. Greet.
Hands do what they do
What they need.
Heed greed far too often

Have I had good times?
A few
Have I made any good rhymes?
Maybe two
Do I believe in signs?
As long as you do

I hold an umbrella
Turned inside out and filled with sand
Cradled somehow beneath my grip.
You take my other hand
So I let it slip

"Isn't poetry
unless it rhymes, with meter"
...guess he won't listen.

When you can't see clearly,
look harder
Through the pebbles and stones
Of sentences
Do you find nails and glass?

Are days all clones
Some simple
Sublime

Color

Step closer
An inch away
Wanting to die
And wanting to stay
I can choose to love
Or to lie

I waver as a flag
Flat and colorless

The dead wash ashore
over and over
I ask for more
mercy
but there lies war
instead of a wild flower
that was somehow there before
amid the grass and stream
a wild flower
grown in my dream

Stop sign
Blink red and gone
Speed past. All in
The heat of a song
Balanced. Calling,
am I blind
Or is this good?
Stop sign
Is the mood.

Missed these trains
Watch them go by
Counting the cars
Caged
Slide through these bars
To you - showing me
The devastation of joy
And happiness too
Not really understanding love
Before I met you

Fall into it now
A wanting fever
Insane
With you I
Now board the train.

Gray dust
And I
Have left you behind.

You:
The only thing I've ever wanted to know
You: the blood and the blade.
You: the only gold to have stayed.

I sail into the moon
Was it ever too soon
To take your hand

I have become the ghoul
In your faint nightmares
I have become the fool
In your dreams.
Give me pills and creams
To put where things went wrong
To make me into something strong
Long gone are the days
When I was wispy butterfly,
A struggling little cocoon.
I look for a way out

Nothing is too soon.

I feel asphalt beneath my feet-
Flat and black.
Microscopic ridges longing
For rough pearly sand,
Sharp golden grass
Ask if black never appears in nature
Except as an absence.
Past tense humanity
They always say
"Live for the now"
How can I understand time
If I can't understand asphalt?

Found a way in
Out through all the weeds
No path left
Wanting particles on
The tip of my tongue
Words teetering
Action metering
Rules I can't quite place
Describing love
As the moment before pain

Split down the center
insides glow
on skin anew
away it all flew
that day
I saw a dove
making me believe
in love.

This thing is strangling me
This thing I can't see
But can somehow feel.
I asked him if my face looks weird
Because I can't tell
If I'm smiling or frowning
Eyes wide
Like a mad scientist

I asked him to run away with me.
We could get a little house
With a shady front yard

No
He said
Another year
he said

In another year,
My dear,
I'll be gone.

Bite my nails
Just in case.
I carve out this space
Where they cannot hurt me

Now I see
That you belonged
Crammed and curled and far away
Bone to breast
With all the rest
Where you couldn't hurt me.

Pull up all my silk,
All my buckets , and lies.
Retreat. Retract into a cave.
Wait for the moon to rise.

He loves her
when he isn't himself
holding the reins
protecting the top shelf
with layers of barbed wire
but he doesn't know
I like to bleed

Cut things in half
Or at least I try
Do all math
Things add up
But you just get by

Hands stained
A black-purple
Dried blood of
My life
I just killed
One day
Maybe with my bare hands
Maybe with a ice pick, chilled,
Just out of the freezer.

My hands aren't long enough
To reach inside your head
Between the bed
And hands before
Not lucky enough for more
Poor, stupid girl
Sitting with that empty chair
I long to fill.
What happened?
We miss the severed valves
Of our hearts and calves
Of our carts.
We go to the market
with nothing to sell.

Swimming through the dark
Just looking for your mark
A sign of your heavenly visitation
It is too bad I run into many a imitation
There are many who are fake who rake me across the coals
Because they mask their souls
When I catch a glimpse of you
A sparkle, shimmering through the shadows of life, please remember me too

I cannot spread my wings to fly with you
For my feathers are tattered and clipped and not at all new.
So I will see you fly up up and away
But your kiss promises me that everything will be okay.
I cannot help that I feel so alone as I wander through the mist
So cold and small
I await the very day when you will call
And tell me you are forever mine

So the fallen angel I am
Is not a white woolen lamb
And I don't know if white can love the sight
that they have drawn.

Signed on for the strong game
But under some different name
And with a mask on:
Looking like
The person you are in your dreams.

Oh such long nights
And fits and fights
Spitting sour lights
Into my eyes
So I can see more clearly.
I push away those whims
To hold you dearly
But I can still feel the heat of your hand
That I almost reached out for.