Try to spit out
Your poison
Too late it's already in my veins
She's on the no apology diet
He's on the couch
I'm on the floor
Ten light years away from them
And it's lonely in space
Except when I think of your stardust
Lust and bone is just a part of us
You can't cut it away
Say that you'll stay awhile longer
Your poison makes me stronger.

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.

You want to cut
out your tongue
because your tongue seems too large
and your jaw has stretched
to a loud hammer of a feature
this makes it hard to speak.
You think to yourself,
"What good is a person who cannot speak?"
When you really want to say,
"What good is a person who cannot say anything?"

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.

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

Spitting out poetry
knitting out seams
seems to never make much sense
or much money.
It tastes like honey
It exists where
landlines turn into moles
landmines turn into souls.
Bowls of coal for breakfast,
flag half mast
cast in bronze on front lawns.
Yawns echo through classrooms.
What was I saying before?
I can't remember anymore.

Your mind will never be free.
A smog of emotion, you, and me
pollutes perfection;
a strong conviction
for x, y, or z
makes truth hum vaguely.
Fear and the whole **** mess
skews secret subconsciousness
Confounding our dirt perfection,
our galaxy-star-dust-energy-affection.

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.

your status symbol
a thimble
Over whatever remains
Leave my corpse, my aches, my pains
On his threshold
He won't see it until there's mold
A gray of some shade
Identify me by the scars I've made
Dental records show
This girl should have been happy long ago

Walk the edge
A tightrope.
Steady.
Building to building
Moment to moment
Pen to paper

Commit me to forgetting
Forcing is the the same as letting
Last time I checked
You were some gold flecked
Feather
And together
We staggered down the tightrope

This all was a way to hope
Melted candle now.
Steady.

White wisp fabric
Float
Like steam
Weaves patterns
In and out
A reminder of you
Fleeting
Like starlight
But sadder

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.

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.

You hit the right notes.
You see through the coats
Of paint and bone saws
All the undertone claws
At my fabric
Is this part of some elaborate
Plan
Or trick
Either will stick
Firmly to your web
I float through the ebb
Without really caring
If you, or anyone, is staring
At me caught in webbing
Of your plan
Or trick.
Because
Either will stick.

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.

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

High heeled boot
His time, her loot
Thrown onto the tracks.
He cries, she packs.
As she stands on the platform,
confusion becomes the norm.

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.

I ripped the pearls off my neck.
The string was as fragile as love.
White spheres, dozens,
roll under the couch
like my baggage--
all the stuff you wouldn't,
couldn't,
didn't,
help me carry.
How do you think I got so strong?
Wearing heavy pearls around my neck?
Bearing heavy curls around my wreck
around my sides
inside my insides?
How do you think I got so strong?
Making mistakes and being wrong.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I could never be your sunrise
I don't know how to stand
Like the sun above the peaks
I don't know how to take
Darkness away from stars
Your mark doesn't have to scar to show
Below the layers:
Lingering molecules that once touched your skin
Love is patient, but mine is thin
Within a walled-city soul
This torture takes it's toll.

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.

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

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

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.

Go to write.
Blank
Fan
Blades
Turn slowly. Then quick.
As the switch turns itself
Pause. Click
Send
Tying a noose to the other end

The flavor of this place
Is choking rancid
Back of the throat
It crashes

Stitch your lips together,
Remain here,
Forgotten by the feather
Of a flock
Now sitting on kitchen tables,
no longer together
Were they ever?

And never
Has there been a moon
I didn't wish to share

With you

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.

Left my heart beating
Lighted grid and tambourine
Never a goodbye.

I don't want to
But I'll teach you
the meaning of shadows
If you teach me to see light in a meadow,
If you teach me to speak,
I don't want to
But I'll teach you
the sound of struggle
Sadness isn't my only quality
They keep telling me
If you teach me how to hear
I don't want to
But I'll teach you
What it's like to lose someone dear.

Fear of living on
Natives getting restless now
Mutiny in the air
Got some death to do.
Mirror stares back hard
**** is such a friendly word
Seems the only way
For reaching out now

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.

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.

Rusty saw blade
I hold on
Grind the dull blade
across tethers and strings and ropes
mummifying
strangling
not a cocoon like I once thought
do you feel the panic set in?
Needle ****** on your forearms
twine frays
did I ever say
that anything stays?

Table set for twenty
Plenty of scary laid out as china
Find a spot
Maybe sit down
While an invisible
Scarf slowly strangles me
All it takes
A flick of your pinky finger
Topples table over
Broken china and lace
Casserole on the floor
And the sound of you shutting the door.

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

I never told you
one time I said
I love you
and meant it.
Nothing a couple pills won't fix.
I never told you,
but oil and water don't mix.

Blank faces gather
boredom with being human
so I pretend
I'm that dancer
he chose instead.

His air is snow
blanketed white willowed
over his heart; lo,
I slush. My jacket billowed.

Cheap wine, plump grapefruit,
sun dresses, and kisses--
a pirate's loot
from Jack Frost's cavern. He misses
his coin turned to color on my cheeks.
No different than missus
from under red light streaks.

Are you going to enter
the arena
or not?
Sail away from the marina
'Cause you're afraid of what you haven't got
You're afraid of this Athena

Are you going to run from
the pain
or not?
Numb with pizza, *****, and *******
'Cause you're afraid of what you haven't got
You're afraid of the back-breaking strain

While you think the armor is doing you good
your numbness, your excuses, your perfectionism, your would;
Really, it is only destructive and blocks your could.

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.

Comb through the details
like a primordial
pitiful
primate.
Try to find the millisecond
moment
movement
where you decided to wiggle free.
Fake key
Far away

It is hard to write
And draw
When you're at the bottom of the sea
Fighting tooth, nail, and claw.
How can I unlock these chains without the key?
Tell me, tell me, tell me.
Sharks circling
Nostrils on fire:
You never knew the taste of flame
Until now, liar.
If they ever came
Then you wouldn't have all these marks
Then you wouldn't know
All the anatomy of sharks.

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.

Headphones in.
Glasses on.
You: a con
bright and lustrous like the cut of a gem
coating the burgler
in wishing and
twisting of her stomach.
Because if she could hold it
just once
maybe she can justify her birth
prove her father wrong.
Life is about worth.

A boy in a hammock
Lovingly like a monster
I reach my lacy fingers
a little closer.
A thread
gets caught on the piece
of peace
that somehow ends
up in my pocket.

I give him the key to lock it
and tell my lacy fingers
to just stop it.

I put my hands
Up through the sands
Of the hourglass.
Please pass
The hammer and nail.
My burned heart strings, pale
In comparison to live
Bees in a hive
Never feeling
The sands, nor peeling
Wetlands off brain surfaces.
No, I'll take my heart strings
Put them with all the other things.
Then, I raise my hammer to the glass.
I spill out onto the shining brass.
Cold and blinded I cry,
"This out here is all a lie."

Kids order coffee.
They are extracted and
addicted before they can even see
social media profiles, supply and demand.

Kids use hair gel,
mascara; they know how to type
"You're nothing without a thick shell"
Facebook. iPhone. Google. Skype.

A joyous blame game
Getting them to raise themselves
and each other.
Where, oh where, is mother?

Didn't know they could?
Welcome to the era without
Childhood.