i remember having to stand where they
could find me
and they brought me to some place
that smelt of tears (**** it smelt like screams)
and maybe i shed my own tears
and maybe some other scared little girl smelt
the sugar burning
because my innocence left the day i decided that
everything was awfulscarywhatshappening
so i dialed some number and made a mistake
and i lost the battle to stay
hidden
i remember i remember i remember
saying i loved him, and all he did was
drop me.
i remember i remember i remember
saying i hated me, and all i did was
drop me.
i remember i remember i remember
saying i love you, and all you did was
carry me.

Sometimes you feel like a flower in a glass vase
decorating the center of a booth in a rundown diner
surrounded by coffee cup stains and burger grease
and accompanied by a hundred wearied faces
that come and pass, blurs in the middle of the night,
the fluorescent light of a single bulb that slowly burns out
the only shining source, mucky water your one food supply,
alone, carefully shriveling away forgotten, but other times
you're the diner, the trusty booth, a shimmering light
on a otherwise cavernous, empty road
in the middle of nowhere, a guardian,
always there waiting to help the exhausted
on their journey, wherever that may be.

It's here
Here in the moment

staring into that screen

tap it out
spill it now

immediately

Don't let it go
nor let it know

you're recording

but absord it
and store it in

formlessly

Let it fill your glands
your heart, your blood
then hands

but give it room
to breathe

Can't want
can't crave

can't cave to need

can't break
nor take the dream

can't take it

where it doesn't
want to be

You'll get it
where it's going
eventually

just allow it to be

Ten too many
and babbling

if I am the frying pan then you are the fire
in a way you’ve always been my gateway drug
[oh her]
and I’ve always been their gateway to you (we have never
really been that similar) if I am the street lights then
you are the stars (you have always made that one
pretty clear)
I am covered in your footprints
your hair kind of looks like mine
spit on my face and we’ll see if I start to look more like you
[oh it’s you]
we were born in hospitals and since then my infant skin
has felt like plastic in your hands
(I’ll sit down in the dirt to see if I can blend in
with what you say you really love) smile and maybe
I’ll remember
what I really love about the grass growing through the sidewalk
(I remember once you told me you would love me
if I could show you where the sidewalk ends)
if I am the bridge then you are the untamed river
I’m sorry if I couldn’t see below my feet but you never bothered
to look up either
you have always been my gunpowder and I
have always been your bastille (whether you are rogue or royalty
has yet to be determined) you have always said
that I was hollow and I held matches in my teeth hoping
it would prove me volatile
[always you two]
I used to think our bones were the same metal but you’d
be the first to tell me yours was forged in a hotter fire
I think
mine will be harder to break (and we will both be melting
for years) if I am holding their hands then
you are bleeding beneath their feet if I stand alone
then you are standing on their shoulders
(I remember you like charcoal on a cave wall
like a name carved in tree bark
there are sets of your fingerprints next to mine all down
the highway
hold my hand against the dirt and we’ll see
if the heat of battle in the blood red riverbank will be enough
to burn this skin from our bones) we are not friends and
we are never going to be strangers (and more than anything
I am sorry for that)
if I am midnight then you are three am
if I am the sun then you are (not the moon)
arcturus
in a way I’ve always been your gateway
in a way you’ve always been my coup de foudre
[oh this again]
in a way your poetry was always my first love

When the heroes die-
And good men go to war;
Who will swat the flies?
And who will clean their sores?

In the dawn of destruction,
We seek peace in death machines.

In the wake of extinction,
We seek peace in annihilation.

I fear for my children,
And their children as well-
For this generation of men,
It's safe to say they failed.

When the heroes die-
And good men go to war;
Who will swat the flies?
And who will clean their sores?

My bones are star dust-
I am a super nova.
Behind me is darkness, ahead is a sky full of
stars, and that is why my eyes are bright
even when my soul (made of star dust, too)- is dull.

r.c.