She collects the rice after weddings
Looking for prophecies in her cupped palms
Searching each grain for a story.
She thinks of the children they ought to have
And their names with deeper meanings:
Against birth, defender of man.
A blonde girl
And a precocious boy
Who she knows will one day learn
The language of suicide
Their starfish hands
Never to be the pickers of rice

Glazed, ice on ice,
Dark holes in the night
It creeps under your skin
Up through your nose
You breathe it in
Stumbling around
You shake
Jittery
And still come back for more
The monster in the closet
That always calls your name
And you-you follow it anyway
Though you know the game
It glitters in the sun.
Fire in a bag.
You soar so high....
Then you crash a week later.
My love
My unholy monster
****.

last night my mind traveled,
not without me, but inside me.

Beneath a thousand clouds
          I lie and watch
     a vision of a girl
                   dance by;
and in the brilliant light,
          fade and gone-
                    a ghost in the mist.
     The breeze moans on.

my misanthropy
isn't as naturally
occurring
as the dullness
of your tongue

Moving in was a *****.
Three tiny flights of stairs.
Night three and we finally had dinner.
Macaroni and cheese on the floor.
I was sad for the first few months.
Crying on the futon.
Crying in my bed.
Crying on the floor.
Crying in the shower.
Crying on your shoulder.
Netflix, Redbox, and Cooltv.
Dragging bags of clothes to the laundry room.
You and Cody played guitar.
We had a live show every night.
You wrote beautiful music.
And stopped singing if I cried.
Turning conversations into poetry.
You introduced me to Becca.
Little did I know, she'd be my best friend.
Getting drunk.
Getting high.
Smoking out of bongs.
Smoking joints.
Smoking bowls.
Smoking blunts.
Trying to find something to smoke.
The light in the bathroom stopped working.
We had to smack it for it to turn on.
That stopped working too.
The candle caught on fire.
Your drunk friend threw it into the sink.
I almost killed him.
We slept together sometimes.
We slept apart.
We slept with other people.
I took out my dreads to make myself feel better.
Shang was in West Virginia the whole time.
But he was in the living room every day.
We rolled...so many times.
Laughing at everything.
Going on toilet paper missions.
The futon broke.
New rule: no *** on the futon.
Playing Circle of Death, we got to know each other.
The ring of beer stains around the coffee table.
Bats chirping right outside my window.
We discovered our super powers.
I don't remember my birthday party.
The Christmas party.
Justin got me drunk on white Russians.
Slow dancing with Brian.
Mouth ****.
Jello shots.
You never carved the turkey cookie.
New Year's Eve someone kicked in the door.
It was broken for months.
The next few months were the last ones.
I didn't want to leave.
The apartment was our home.
We ****** up, we grew up, we threw up.
There's no place home.

is anybody out there
listening to the scrape of heart on rib cage?
ten times over
the knocker sounds
ten times over
the doors remain steady
voices sound from the other side
muffled against the wood
quiet and lulling at times
mostly raging
frothing
the figure stands guard
clad in a suit of dark
and the figurine sits on its haunches
laughing and grinning always
the black is a thick blanket
infinite yet tiny
electrically charged with dreams
and it's easy to get lost
and scared
too easy to flee fast on feet
but to weather the barrage of flowing thunder storm
is to bring closer the possibility
of a greater tale