I wear a shell around me
Choking
A little
I can't seem to find
Hay in a haystack
Only the needle.
I'm beginning to feel the *****
The stick
Of a shell around me

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

Cure me
Just Meat
meets a lover
Seen bright stars like them
Fall to the ground like them
Dissolve into the earth like them
Hold to skin
It makes a mark
Hold to eyes
See it stark
Hold to heart
It all goes dark

Even nothing is something

Baptized by the sun
Oak and pine
Out of time. Words do come.
Color through the line
Who put it there after all?

Meet new yous
All along the way
Figure out how to lose
And what to say
To the lions in your head.

These are all the things I've never said.

"Be more likable
Easier to work with"
Clay
Sink your claws in
The gray
Hold on
Hold up
You always said
The gold never does stay

You can't delete poems I guess

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

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

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.

Blood clotted water
Brown with anguish
Sizzling down the drain
Drowning rain inside this head
Nothing clicks or moves in place
All these thoughts are left unread
So much fills the space
Where you once were

You're a dark magician
there I stand full of contrition
you doing
and undoing
on repeat
in all the people I meet
You teach me how to feel pain
there is nothing to attain

I died that day
even though they say
"sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me"
I died under the sea
because I was never me.

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.

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

I reach for the gold,
stop short;
could I hold it
if I caught it,
if I caught you?
Do you see how
I meant to?

Stopped short.

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.

A single slight curl,
A memory seed-
Like sand in a pearl

the needle goes through
The thought of you
Now gathering a luster
Then and now I wonder
If I have the muster
If I have the sand
If I have a hand

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

A note lingers on my tongue
A little on the spicey side
I would know if I could feel it
Solid ice walls
Surround me

I can't think of titles
But only bullets in rifles
What color is blood?
How can I understand truth
When there are only lies?
Show me all your party tricks
Say the same lines
One in bed
One in the shower
One dinner
One linear
Up and down is always certain
I draw the curtain

I evaporate
Slowly like a puddle
Into humid air

My particles
Invisible
To her eyes
To his eyes
To your eyes.
But felt heavy
In her lungs
In his lungs
In your lungs

I condense
Reluctantly like a scared teenager
Into the middle of breath.

Do the same things
over and over
to try and understand
why you can't stop.

Splinters in the stone
Passed a tree
Now gone and gray
Some may say
It's not personal

Sublime days:
Colored red,
Smelling of nothing,
And feeling like even less.

I thought I could
Fill this up
With whispers and eyelashes
Of strangers
I hold on
to their finger prints
With thread and barbed wire
I throw rocks
And listen for them to land
Maybe then I could understand.
I thought I could
Fill this up
As you would
With thread and barbed wire

Variations on a theme
same play, different team
I kick the ball
But they don't receive
I start to call
But cannot answer
Quiet parasite
Quick cancer

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

Send a smile
A nod in an envelop
The stitches of a hand
To needle you together

And ears can see clearly
What others do not
So give me that
Lever
to pull
Give me your hand
To push
Through the everything

You set the pain on fire
lay it down slowly
in an amber pile
among the things
I can't quite reach
among the strings
I can't untie.

Run fast
because the world is disappearing.
There,
reappearing,
are the fingers you wish for
never given by fate.
They disappear too.
So run fast
because thats what lasts.

It all trudges
through what I've done,
the leaving,
the coming,
the blood
and the rain.
I see how tired
it all is,
I want it to fall asleep
in my life
in my lie.

I hope to hurt
I put it out on my limbs
the way I go through life
just on the edge
a shaky limb
I can't get enough
or any at all
full throttle
slam on the brakes
I wish to take these mistakes
and swallow them whole
but that wouldn't be good enough
for you.

So this long line traces the pain
and keeps it in a small groove
I ask the angels to move
so I can see the sun
and then nothing at all.

I wipe the stardust from my eyes
Oh how it itches and burns
We take turns
Because that is only fair
Good enough to ****
But not good enough to care
People stare at what I've done
He takes that on
Their judgements and I are one
I've gotten used to hauling it around
I'd share it, but it's too profound
Sounds like winter
Smells like him.

My mind is drizzled
with golden chains
wrapped unforgivingly
and I search endlessly
for a picture of us when we were a family.
I've been waiting for you
floating on an air mattress
of thoughts useless to anyone else.
Wear jupiter on your ears
to make you seem in-tune
or out-of-tune
whichever he prefers
cures as simple
as wearing a bullet around your neck.

My eyes are lasers
Burning people
Unwittingly
Unwilling I wear glasses
So you can't see
And I can't see
Blind love the blind
Because it is a life
Without fire.

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

You wanted a poem
About your heart
I see it there beneath
Thorns and broken parts
A rib cage
Pick locked
Replace with barb wire
Opened with the right
Twist of the tongue
The right inhale of the lung
But I am a fish
I breath blue
And don't feel air
I'm telling you
It's not fair

I don't have much
To love you with
A small light and such
A tight hold, a soft clutch
The stars align
A mystic sign
A hopeful line
An I love you
That doesn't make sense
It's meant to be in past tense
Because you don't mean it
Please, give me something to fill this pit

Am I a black bird piercing the sky
or the space between your sigh
and my lie?
Am I an amber drink
or just a poem that makes you think
or the blood thats in the sink?

I scratch and hatch
some kind of plan
to sift through all this sand
surrounding me like a grave
but I walk nowhere
on these limp legs
on these wooden pegs
splintering underneath me

I unhitch and restitch
all the wounds
all the suitcases
all the trailers and all the trash
I throw out and blow out
all the people
all the places
all the face and the traces
of whatever this "me" is

If I could love
the limping
ugly
afraid
part of me
That I drag through the mud
and thorns

If I could let
the transparent
clawing
screaming
silhouette speak
Instead of kicking it
into the basement

If I could put
my deepest human essence
onto paper
for everyone to see

Then.
Then, I could be free.

****** 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

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.

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.

His charm was venom,
Fangs, and bite
Strong drinks and no fight
An easy prey
A breezy day,
Turned sour night
Taught me what isn't right.

Just venom
Makes me an untouchable ghost.
My death is what I loved the most.

Giant, gruff, grinning
it grabs gratuitously
at my body.
Grumpily grappling
onto my arm
and throwing.
I grasp at green air,
I find only the graceless
graininess of gravity.
It, grunting,
grips my insides
and greases the ground
with my grimy gremlins,
my greatest, grueling torment.

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

Wanting
And letting
I draw spirals around them
With sugar molecules and smoke
Poke fun at my addictions
When it is really only one
Ton of metal
Calling my name.
I look for the same
But find a lot of different
I look for words...
Why are you sad?
Why did she get cancer?
It's the same answer.

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?

Maybe I don't want to see you again
Maybe I want to drift away
on a bed of poppy petals.
This soft blanket has become heavy
like lead
it tells me
things are okay
but I can't hear it
I'm too busy listening
waiting
for your footsteps to fall away
for your shadows to disappear
like everything
that was once contained in me
has come and gone,
like the moon.

Time is an angel,
Decay, slow rotting
Love and vengeance plotting.

Girls drown in crowns,
whiskey, and tessellated tides
Sharp edge, triangle swords
Surrounding all sides.

Boys point arrows
Sharp, yet crooked
And fly from flower to flower
As a sparrow

All of everything ticks by
Into itself
Of itself
By itself

Awake and asleep,
remember which?
Time is all that's changed
since we last touched.

Clutched in limbo,
between a red and yellow light
sight for sore eyes,
yet you were born blind.

I can feel your eyes:
a blast furnace red and yellow
blistering my face with your touch
pain, glorious pain,
numb smile
that part of me no longer exists*

It floated away
on a sea of sweet silence.
And I let it.

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.