He off-smiled
and she off-laughed
and they held hands and
walked through a Christmas-card-town
perfectly straight, perfectly perfect
legs perfectly in sync
leaving Kenneth Cole footprints
in the perfect snow
worthy to be captured
worthy of being envied
perfectly perfect.

They walked and were
perfectly off-happy
perfectly deceptive as they
simultaneously, wordlessly
wondered at happiness.

The Avoidance Game
is like too much makeup.
Painful and obvious.

Sometimes it hurts so much to look
in the mirror forgetting
faces in moonlight and truth
spoken like silvery spider webs
without fear
a world without fear; imagine.

Imagine looking up and
having a recognizable reflection.
I wish you missed your face like
we do.

there are moments between breaths
and pieces of air between
strands of hair

and times when silence speaks

but really, your mind is
just used to being shouted over
just restless and lonely and
fogged over

there are seconds
and days and weeks
and years

and there are those periods of time
with no name
between pencil touching paper

echoes haunt the silence

I'm going to walk towards her
because I have this problem
that I need to face

I'm going to look up, and she will too
I know it's difficult for both of us
We are both afraid of strangers

We'll move in inches and crawl if we
must, and reach like
***** (is it pointless?)

Today I press my palms against cold glass
But one day I'll feel sunshine
and fingers.

sigh at the forecast
there's enough grey in my head
to water my plants

it drips out my ears
colorless moments and tears
in writing and rants

you call it water
i call it away and it's
gone like forgiveness

but i think this true
i guess i like rain because
i can't hear my breaths

When I was very young I had
a thought about thinking and feeling and
Thinking about feeling and
Feeling thought (or not)
And then I realized I was old.

Hallelujah sings the golden crow
different from the rest, walks and talks
and sings and sings
and loses wings
and loses wings its wings
have shrunk to fit inside a business suit
a dark black fitted business suit

Cough coughs the golden crow
the blackened business crow
who no longer sings
no longer has wings
no different from the rest
no longer knows the simple things.

My tree is just too cold
Gas is too expensive so I
can't run to the open road.
Reality hurts
My voice wants to be heard
My eyes are lonely too...
It hurts so much to be excluded
not knowing where to aim my sadness
or whether to call myself "isolated"
or "isolating"
I'm trying to say "help"
but no one understands my language
I am a different species
perhaps
is that why nobody talks to me?
I don't want pity
I ache for a moment
of connection and caring
and not-worrying-just-being
but nobody
wants to
connect.

I'm in the space between
wanting to cry from sadness,
and wanting to cry because
no one would care if I cried,
and wanting to cry because
no one would even look anyway.

Cruel laughter is in my mirror
and in my pool of memories
frozen over.

It's been so long since I've
felt so much at once
and wasted so much time
in so little space
and thought so much about
fire and music
and hid so much in
math and words
and wanted so badly
to have someone to share it all with.

[civiliz]ation made of a large
[popul]ation of people with tendencies of
[segreg]ation with no purpose and
[condemn]ation that just hurts us
[transl]ation: [****]ation


(suffoc)ation prevents (revel)ation

Splash the cold
cold water spray my cold
cold day
FALLING into
Where is the
Who am
Blinking into sunshine
Runs the squirrel
Marry the lovebirds singing jolly?
Marred a fickle folly
Hummmmmming to clear
Chaos inside boxes
Flying rainbows
Touching rainbows dreamt the trees
Rooted sand slipping
Watch the children!
CHAOS inside boxes
FALLING that person over there
White faces turn away
Clasping air?
Water mind switch
temperature
orange yellow, breathe
jump WHY ask why
pills bones switch
gather hate
Splash the cold.

Alas, the static in my ears
never fails to crumble
returning me again to tears
and another attempt to fumble
with my web of tangled thoughts
trying again to learn to untie knots.

Silences and 'there's and 'here's
become a quantity in years
of words unsaid and yet unknown
to older people yet ungrown
because we chose to never face
a past that we cannot erase.

She realizes at some point she’s in dream and wakes up
Clenching her stomach, blurring her eyes
Covering her bruised body with shadow limbs
Silently coughing up through self-inflicted scars
Why is it so cold
Harsh sunlight with shivers in between rays
Green eyes like moonlight through prison bars
Leaden shadow limbs scrape the floor
Chalk writing in another language
Slipping on frozen marble, so cold,
So cold

Mice in her ears running, dead, multiplying
Whispers of her shame
Splatter paint on a nameless grave where
Bugs morph from the stone
Nightmares in the daytime between rays of moonlight,
So cold

I can't express myself quite right in this endless glaring light
of judgment
stirring sweat beads, clenching to hold my calm, failing?
I am trying to not be afraid of the fingers relentlessly tapping
and all of you with animal faces
we are running backwards in a painting on display
I haven't blinked in so long but I think it's okay
because I'm underwater.

So this is the one thing you'd talk to me for
to say you have enough scars
and don't need any more

I wish you'd throw it in my face
instead of sending it sideways
I wish you'd scream and yell of all your pain
that I've caused you all these days

Spit in my face, I'd be happy for the contact
and I wouldn't need to react
I want to hurt and let you see it
Don't care? I don't believe it
I don't believe our lives aren't meant to touch
Neither of us can really walk without a crutch
I miss having you to lean on; it wasn't much
but it was everything at the same time
Nothing compares; not even  small crime
(the excitement isn't so sublime)
or reason or words or perfect rhyme
(and I can't even rhyme worth a dime)
Life makes no sense in this trench in
a constant state of pain and tension
Waiting for a word or  healf-hearted glance
to break me from this wretched trance

I wish you knew I was hurting too
But you'll see me trying endlessly
and running into trees and breaking my knees
and crying as the sun sets on my chaos
because it just doesn't end, it only morphs
and lately I'm so alone that nothing matters
Love can't stop the wind and rain patters
and darkness may swallow my mind but
I might not care to ever find
myself again
and hurt myself again
and hurt you again
and make no sense again
But I never made sense...

Despite all my uncertainty I know I can't be
the one who lets you slip away from me

So I have a response, to your message
that I received today
(from a friend, in your sideways way)
I want you to know that
I see your sadness and pain
I see your scars and fears
I'm filled with shame
I'm disgusting and deserve
the nasty names
Yet I look forward to the day of your forgiveness
when maybe I'll have cleaned up this gross mess

I'll keep looking and hoping for us to lock eyes
Every time I try my fear amplifies
Sometimes I wish for a disguise
but I'm done telling lies

I don't dream, like I did, so many days ago
of your skin, lips, tongue; I don't
want to; I
have no need.
If I could close my eyes forever
and collapse and fall past my bones
and speak in our language
I would know satisfaction.

It's not my body, it's
my being
craving the long-lost touch of you

I want to forget looking down
Gaze with me
we'll connect
again
Our hearts will rock together
again
(but differently)

I know you are trying to
break through the barrier that is
a body, turned from me,
running.

I won't cry, I'll just laugh
and peel carrots and
paint windows with math and
lace up these running shoes,
and wish I could run away, too,
and wish I could chase you.

words are fragmented earth
elements seeping into the wind currents
clustering in empty spaces and
slowly gathering at our feet
dead and brown like the leaves,
but perhaps lacking beauty

words are time as they pass through
cold lips into empty air
empty ears, filled with empty sounds,
void of meaning

words are safety as they blanket themselves
around people trying to hide
empty people, filled with empty fear,
void of meaning

move their mouths, shape their sounds
vowels consonants breaths
empty eyes, black holes, empty souls,
void of meaning

words are the cage of the trapped
they can be controlled but nobody
knows how

i can trample grass and
step on bugs and flowers
all in an innocent evening
of lying in a field thinking
blinded by starlight
in my own company

but if i were to close my eyes
and if the creatures ceased their songs
and leaves ceased their rustling
and city sounds faded into my thoughts
then i would be left with myself

who then shall take me
if i am such sad company
to only me?
i make no difference for
stars or trees
or birds or bees

easy to arrive at the thought
that loneliness is less a problem
than living

so close to freedom yet
im putting up bars that dont let
in any light im losing sight
cant tell left from right
or wrong
wish i could sing it in a song
but i cant hear a sound
i only feel my heart pound
and my shaking cry
aimed upwards at a blackened sky
my bodys pinched from head to toe
and theres no room to grow
i cant even feel but for fear
and its only been a year

She's a wrecking ball creating a path of destruction
playing the arts of deception, seduction,
afraid to love, she lashes out against
herself, her family, friends; now she just resents
all those who left her in her madness
and all along, it was only just sadness.

I don't believe there's a soul to love me
but maybe I've fulfilled my own prophecy.

I am not me, I am the monster inside me
My words are fake, my eyes don't see straight,
I am the criminal and the crime.

Today I was beaten and broken
and someone revealed me beneath it all

I am trying so hard to stand in the ashes,
but there are more on my back,
I'm burning perpetually
in the ashes of my own burnt skin

Standing up here, I'm so close to the sunlight
closer than I've been in a year
I'm so anxious to see it, but I can't jump
and if I look up the ash gets in my eyes

I have to keep trying
I fall

I need to ask for help
I need a hand up
but a monster doesn't help and doesn't ask for help,
and that's what I am.

I meant everything I said,
and I still think you're amazing
You intrigue me like a single rose,
appeal to my senses and curiosity
I feel so close to you, and
so unsure of what is going
on in your beautiful mind.
I want to listen to you talk
and watch your hands.
Everything you do is unique;
you create another world
Your fleeting smile is the greatest gift
... and your touch...
Kissing you is perfect and innocent
Safe, like this bed and these
walls and this roof
Hold me; I want to
pretend that you feel the same way
and forget how I hate myself
and hate my body
This tear is for a happy moment
I had
It was with you, and
well, thanks.

You're stronger, maybe, but stubborn
like me
It's not always a good thing.
All I get from you is a
coldness that radiates like I thought
only heat and love could.
I couldn't forget those, either, in
case you were wondering.
I'm not angry, but you have enough anger
for the three of us.
If I touch you, I think you
might sink your teeth into my scalp.
So I'm keeping some distance.
Maybe if you recognized me you'd
stop growling
I though you wouldn't let this
skin hide a familiar heart, but
It's not the first time I've been wrong.

He has a heart that
is pure
despite that day long ago
when his light was stolen
his heart broken
his reason for being gone,
leaving a hole in
his soul

He'll still eat dinner at eight
and cry into the late
hours of night

He was there when
her body fell.

This is the pattern I see behind
my eyelids
and when I look at a leaf
or perhaps just the ocean from afar
It's in my reflection, looking up at me from
the rippling water
It's in the veins of my hands, which I
don't know so well
It changes like the moon day by day,
but the cycle repeats.
It's a song; music; perfect
It's in my head, clear like bells, and
then I'll lose it in a moment.
I can follow it but never recreate it.
It's everywhere. It's the taste I feel in my pores.

Sometimes I'm lost or afraid and I think
I forget it's there.
I lose the pattern; I close my eyes and
see nothing.
I disconnect.

This is you, and the pattern in your eyes,
and the energy in your gaze,
connecting me to the world.
There's a song in my head again, clear like bells,
like music; perfect
found in a moment, in a gaze, in a touch,
in a smile, in everything
I remember it's okay.

so natural
to laugh the way we do.
so right to
look at your face,
imagine what it would be
like to touch,
imagine you close your eyes
and breathe softly,
and me, asleep beside you.
Why should I turn away?

sometimes wish you knew,
sometimes know you already do.
guess you don't say anything
because nothing can happen, but
I know that's not true.

moments, seconds, minutes
listening to your laugh ring
in my head
and feeling your breath on my neck
being happy
because I smiled
because you smiled
because I can imagine
your fingers in mine, and
the smell of your collarbone.

Kisses are only kisses;
wishing for tendernesses
and soft caresses in the light of
the moon

to wish the way i do
get lost in laughing with you
the way we always do,
so natural.

I saw a leaf on the ground
stepped on, dry, cracked
and I felt sorry
But still it floated when the wind came up.

I saw the broken egg on the ground
below the nest
and I felt sorry
But still the others learned to fly.

I saw the ice cream on the ground
the child crying
and I felt sorry
But children are amazing; they don't stay sad.

In the middle of the desert
there is nobody
it is flat and barren, and the wind
stings with sand.
But still the cactus sings.

They march instead of walk
through snow and water, sand and rock
and dictate every time they talk.

Impervious, their eyes burn red
pierce you with fire, fill you with dread
they have no souls, are worse than dead.

They are the vision of your perfect fear
infecting those you hold so dear
and don't allow a single tear.

Come January they gather stones
to scare you while you turn to bones
they laugh at your shivers and your moans.

Spring arrives they gouge your eyes
to keep you from seeing flowers rise
forever stuck with gray and black and cries.

Spare you this, the summer heat?
Not; they strap coals to your feet
and smirk at the blind attempting retreat.

Still heartless as arrives the Fall
they decide to test you at your crawl
they cut the legs off one, off all.

They cause you nothing but a year of agony
regrets and loss of sanity
still They go down in infamy.

Were you to go back in time
you'd surely find your own rhyme
and take your chances on your dime!

Now too late to run away
they own you night and day
ah, but a life, thrown away.

I was lying on the floor thinking, listening to the raindrops outside,

I was living in a memory.

Hairs stand on end at the chill of a lost touch.

Sighs drift into silence in contempt.

The sun is gone for hours more, but I don't miss it.

We hide in moonlight and white noise;

we hide in pure sight.

Thoughts echo and repeat and it's the same scene

running in my head.

I like the roughness of bark and the feeling of sturdiness.
the texture, unique and familiar like a footprint fading in the sand,
more trustworthy than most things that grow and change
things like people unknowingly trained to lie
like fingernails that dig up flesh,
fingernails that were dead the moment they tried to breathe.

I like the scrape of bark on my bare feet.
After I flinch and almost stumble
My heart pounds; I feel real.
I hold the tree and it holds me.

One day I will put up a swing on that branch,
trust it more than words or feelings.
I'll swing in a sundress and feel the sky.
I'll sing to the tree that doesn't judge
and its leaves will whistle along into the wind.      

One day I'll climb up the trunk with bare feet.
I'll go past my branch and go higher
feel twigs snap and scratch; feel it smooth like velvet
At the top I'll have wings.

I'd like this to be my world, so simple
I like the way I feel alive, in the wind
with the song of the leaves
with sun-tickled skin and a head full of smiles
with bark under my bare feet.

I never told anyone that because they'd laugh.
I'm waiting for somebody who will listen
instead of waiting to talk
I'm waiting for someone to see me like
I can't see myself
and (if I'm honest, if I remember what honesty is)
to hold me back from running away.

Arms are more comforting than bark
but I wouldn't know.
Anyway, a branch won't die.

If you want to find me, I won't see you.
You can yell, but I'm not sure I will recognize
real words.
I've only heard screeches and barks, and lies.
I'll be at the top of a tree not looking down,
standing on a branch with bare feet
waiting to grow leaves or wings,
or for someone to sing and laugh or say my name,
or to help me remember love.

I think it
might have
maybe
been yesterday,
or the day before,
when it happened

Noticed the room was
different, and the silence was
all of a sudden empty

Realized what a glimmer is
because it
wasn't

Reached and grabbed air
felt my own nails press into my palms
squeezed my eyes  and i think a
tear dropped
swallowed into the hardwood and the silence

I think I stopped caring
I think I finally lost myself
in a memory forever
or a dream
it's so much easier, after all

better to be alone than to feel lonely...

there used to be a mirror in the corner,
and a window
i think i remember

i have scars from the broken glass
i'm white as a ghost
but i don't notice
besides, i'd rather not be
seen
i'd rather hide my red-eyed reflection and
the dust in my hair

maybe i died
but i don't know because that day,
yesterday or the day before,
i stopped feeling

perhaps it was
maybe
actually
a few years ago.

It's me, my skin, my bones, my mind
it's wrong, sick, distorted
Warped is the world seen through these eyes,
felt as it seeps into my pores
suffocating me, drowning me in acid
A moment is wrong and it's forever
I'll cry into the darkness,
"I can't hold the weight"
It echoes, reverberates, distorts and disappears, unheard

When darkness is my forever
and a struggle is a war that doesn't end
I am just a casualty

When life is a drama
and happiness is bitter and transitory
I am just an actor

Everything is real and nothing is real
Actuality isn't actual
The walls are bleeding
Barriers are breaking; or were they even there?
Secrets are painted on the bleeding walls
In a fleeting moment life is a war
How long can I fight?

This place is spotless like your hands
after you washed off all the blood
maybe you didn't want it to dry, to stick on you
maybe you thought that it would be harder to
leave
if that happened
maybe you knew that if it dried, the color
would remind you of rust
I know it does for me...
like the rust on your truck
that's still in our driveway
maybe someone should cover it, or get rid of it,
since no one likes to look at it
well
they all left
but I don't like to look at it.
I see it all the time up here
because I don't sleep, I only watch.
I guess I'm happy they didn't see my blood.
I wish I could stop myself from seeing hers.

remember windows.
Raindrops pounding against them as we cowered on the couch
safe, smiling
remember your smile

windows were your eyes
when you let me see your soul
I gazed for hours and we shared our secrets
remember your laugh

remember the window where you snuck in
we whispered as the night gave way to dawn
we wished it could stay dark forever
remember your embrace

writing at my window
I watch for you for hours
I shiver, aching for your arms...
remember how you used to smile.

I can stare through windows but I miss seeing your soul.

Zombie
sleep on the sofa
with eyes open
wake to walk to wander without want or will
stare into nothingness
think without thought
act without care or conscience
forget

the numbness swallows the pain
there is no fear of fire
or even blackness
we only fear feeling

I am a runaway train
loose and accelerating
cascading down into oblivion
metallic scraping breaking twist and
I meld with the ground from the sky
no brakes to stop me now
no brain to feel regret, no soul
I am manufactured, fake
a product
I never had a heart to begin with.

Is this freedom?
Breaking away from my steel track
cutting a new path into the earth
leaving plastic bodies broken in my wake
They have no brain to feel regret, no soul
they were manufactured, fake
a product
They never had a heart to begin with.

I dream of nature pure
a soul unfractured
the fall of the factory
alas
the system only lusts
for efficiency, obedience,
uniformity
we are machines
ignorant of natural law.

All we know is fresh-baked plastic
served through metal bars with a smile
the system only lusts
there is no
love.

the air is a current to follow
it pulls me
my body acts without a mind and i'm
somewhere
where?
not really curious though
not looking seeing hearing smelling tasting
not being, just going
i'm under water and my eyes are shut
i'm gasping and pulling in water
i'm gripping sand on the ocean floor
feeling it swirl away
with the current
it pulls me
i'm on the ground
damp earth
eyes wide not seeing
breathing not thinking
hidden in shadow, desperate for sunlight
afraid.

I see you while you are in your deepest blue
slipping in your daze
here a ribbon, here a shoe,
here again forgetting, too
haphazard in your haze.

I see sadness in a city
sleeping through the day
missing beauty, what a pity,
sunshine never seemed so pretty
untouched, unseen in every way.

I saw redemption and I smiled
fleeting as it may be
here acceptance for the defiled
the raging rebel wild and another unborn child
love in all simplicity.

I see your eyes turned vibrant, bright
I see your face once more alight
I see broken bones repaired
I see purity in those who cared
enough to themselves forgive
enough to again live.