i feel

naked

but vulnerably so;

i don't want to let you in,
show you the deepest crevices of my soul
not for fear of embarrassment,

i'm just not going to let you break me in half
like that.

"leave before getting left,"

a motto for girls like me.
                                                             you don't know the frustration
                                                           when things don't go as planned.
stop saying
                  g
                    o
                      o
                        d
                          night.

please take me into the
forest, deep
with tall redwoods and let me feel the rocks like
swords under my callous feet.
where we can watch the sunset from
up above the tilting world, sitting on our thrones
made of Marlboro filters and sticks
on a mountain cliff.
we'd be cliffhangers
and thieves and vagabonds, painting ourselves
with the blue tinted night
like the deepest parts of
the
sea
far from the wandering grasp of
reality.
watch the stars with eyes like
flickering lightbulbs,
shining yellow in empty, echoing rooms.
bring along four bottles
of wine,
one for each of us.

we'll drink until theres wine slipping past our cheeks
like some kind of blood-orange sob,
leaking out our hollowed belly-buttons
rivers running swift through the lines of our
palms.
wounded from every pore with the blood of
our intoxication;
magenta tongue stained skin.

would you let me take your hand and lead you
through the empty, knocking dark
and sing to you in the soft moments of
before morning?
would you trust me enough to
close your eyes
and let me lead you in a bruised,
tumbling
drunken journey to the top of the
highest mountain?
we could lay in the summer blanketed wind
made of dancing sky and
burning earth.
close our eyes and stop the earthquake in
our minds,
wake up with the sunshine seeping through
every corner of our aching
bodies,
roses growing out of our jigsaw jaws and puzzle piece
crumbling ribs and lungs;
see through our sober fingers and
wandering eyes
a different world than it was at
midnight.

do you ever start chinking away
breaking, cracking the stone, hard mineral, steel cold
barrier of your heart
so it'd be impossible for someone else
to do it for you?

white wine pungent, soft
clinking glass against an empty chasm
sunlight
hard wood draped in sleeping veneer.

cascading drapes against
violet
         dark
                 stagnant bruised skin left alone and slowly freezing over.
smoke leaking through whispering
dry lips chapped with desert words
lack of moisture creating canyons
hidden inside desperate mouths.

it's breaking like a frozen over
ashy, navy, drowning lake.
my own fault,
i always start breaking my own heart.
my own form of life insurance.

it's fogged over like a magnifying glass,
cracking across the two foot surface because
the strangled fish can't breathe under all
the permafrost and ice.

i'm waiting impatiently for summer;
i hate this cold.

in the shower,
i pretend that the burning hot
water
raining down on my body
are your soft and callous fingers
warm and wet
july heat;
seep through
my skin.

i arch my back, push my ******* toward the
low hanging ceiling
and i pretend that the water
hitting my throat
are your lips
kissing my neck
carefully.
i pretend that the steam is your breath
escaping,
but then i open my eyes and i am
alone
and it is cold winter not the summer *****
of July.

"let me use the shower!"
someone yells.
i pull the water to a stop, and it trickles
as the feel of your kisses dwindle
in January
chill.

"how strange it is to be anything
at all"

sometimes i look
at my skin
and wonder why we have
branches growing out of lined palms,
and wonder why
our eyeballs look like galaxies
compacted

and i realize that there is no answer
but to stop thinking about it
and just
live
for ***** sake.

the funny thing is,
you think i'm still interested.

i don't fall in love with people who leave me
alone,
frigid, frozen
covered in a 9 o'clock night rain
with a piping cup of peppermint tea in my shaking fingers and
nowhere to walk except home.

you only ever touched me once
and that was centuries ago
when my lungs were new and fresh,
and i didn't come home smelling like ashtrays and stolen lilac
perfume.

i'm not a little girl anymore,
and i dont cry when red lights shine down
and people scream into microphones
with sweat sliding of the sides of their faces
cheeks shiny like stainless steel coffee pots.

i'm not attracted to you,
just like i'm not interested in your friend
that i ******
who tasted like american spirits and greed
because it's not worth looking at boys
who will never, ever satisfy you
or understand even the tips
of your fingernails
and golden brown split ends.