poetry is my ******* therapy
coffee is my god
cheap ***** numbs the pain
but hey at least i still made
the choice
to go on
living

its always
strange
when new places
start to feel like home
and you've got holes in your
stalkings
holes in my lungs
where your words
filtered through me like
black smoke
with an intent to burn
and the ash is still on my tongue.
oh mother can you take away the poision
that consumes the waking hours
and the subconscious ones
cause he hurt me bad
and im a cracked teacup
leaking all over the window sill

thanks for calling me a ****.
i feel empowered
by my feminism.
i hope the girls
you bring to bed
can
really appreciate
your way with words
because nothing
makes the
******* drop
quicker

i got really drunk
and
peed
in a bathtub,
and it was
the happiest i've
been
in

a
while

there's an empty window sill
in the falling of the misty gray light
in tattered streaks.
how can the sun be made *****/?/
when the purest eyes blink
softly to smile at the ground
we can feel the ache
between the cracks of gravel
the earth straining beneath us,
groaning
howling maybe
with a wish for the
loneliness to be a white washed
school house
filled with brass bells ringing
and echoing laughter from light hearted children
with their rosy cheeks.
i miss my mother's rocking chair
and her arms,
stable branches in the brittle winter.

i've decided to floss more
take long walks in the crisp air
do laundry
and stop wearing mismatched
socks.
i think i'll walk away
from my old heart
that liked to hold razors
when i cried
or walk under the moonlight
in bare feet letting the cold
color me blue.

the old heart that felt so many things,
too many things.

i've decided to organize my paint supplies in drawers,
and use a ruler when i draw.
through the motions,
i think,
i'll stop,
hurting.

you ride on rolling waves
always at sea
voyaging across cultures
weaving colorful words into a pattern
beneath my eyelids
i don't think anyone
understands a soul
   flickering
back and forth
between worlds.
when your hands can reach before your poems
and i can feel
  it all
contentment would flow
between us

i am filled with tombstones
and the heaviness of corpses,
my lungs decaying with the dust
of death.
just a body plagued with
old memories and empty
fingerprints

i want to take sleeping pills
and huddle under sheets
waiting for the cobalt blue
mouth of night to
swallow me
maybe then loneliness
would take on a new form
and the cavernous shadows
would
be
warm against
my arms

so it was like this...
so it was like when you convince yourself
you're in love
you tell yourself you're inlove
he tells you he's in-love
so anything that happens is out-of-love;
his body was a weight on mine
his body was a sunken ship on mine
my body wanted release
but it's okay, because he was in love with me?
his body slipped into mine,
it pushed
and it shoved
but it's okay because we were in love.
my body felt shut off
from the nerves that make up my
senses,
my mind escaped up into the ceiling,
i can picture those ceilings so well,
blank and textured
and the ***** light
leaving brown shadows
on the walls.
i watched the dust motes clumsily waltz
to a silent tune.
i wished i could hear that tune.
his body was a weight on mine
my body was empty
but it was okay
because we were in love.
it was okay because he loved me.
but i didn't feel anything

living inside a prism
that reflects the light
and breaks it into fragmented colors
that stain the white hallways,
your breath a sandstorm
my hands crave skin
any skin
my hands crave hands
and pumping bodies
to fill a void larger than the empty matter
that surrounds
our drooping heads.
my stomach is a green house
of sticky moisture
sickly green
the roots between my lungs
were ripped out with calloused fingers
and i don't think i've ever been held
with the intent to instill comfort.
no lips to kiss my bones and cloak
them in the idea
of having an existence that
isn't so
completely    alone

sunday bled down my legs
my petals bloomed
your bitten lips
and the smirks between my thighs
a burning kiss
the bathtub water turned murky
a  basin of sin
cutting up ******* lines
perfect symmetry
****** apartments with molded
carpets
kids with their hair bleached
love disillusions the mind  
   to me that's scarier
than a needle
puncturing veins
and
the long twist of train tracks
on lonely purple nights,
winter bitten cheeks

in still moments
i realize i feel
nothing for you
and my chest falls softly
and my eyelids flutter
into an unparalleled sleep,
where your fingertips
are washed away
by the gentle tears of rain
and i sleep
just sleep

it won't always be this way
a bath of ice
and cold
fingertips
blue lips.
there's gotta be a fire burning within us
some
where

when a boy wants your body
kick him in the mouth
make him bleed a torrent of red
and watch the fear flow out of you
into him
then leave, button up your shirt,
tell yourself you cannot be burned,
and light that ******'s
house on fire.

we are impossible beings
with meat scrap hearts
rope burned tongues.
life drones on in this weary sort of
sonata
beautifully sad,
a whining violin with empty chords.
bedrooms frighten me
because
its just do this
and then hands are scraping around in my pants.
this type of thing becomes normalcy
and the thunder roars and i can hear your
******* throat screeching
at me from darkened rooms with
broken ceiling fans.

eyes like acid drops
i want to float in an ethereal
light where
colors meld together like melting metal
and this cold blue inside me
could be white hot and burning
instead of empty and confusing
an ice age of yearning.
what is this thing where
we are supposed to become somebody,
18 and no heart to beat,
how do you know what bills to pay
and **** i'm going to college where i have to do coin laundry
but my fingers aren't even working.

darling i'm a lonely heart,
an ice queen ******* down
cigarettes
slitting my wrists to jazz
and watching my soul crumble
like castle walls
thinking about a stranger
whose hands id like to hold

my days become calendar boxes
fitting each miserable heart break
between the times of
2 am until unblinking eyes
muster up the courage to open the blinds
and the morning starts over again
where i tend to forget
that you think i'm a monster
with a ribcage full of blizzards.
you see, the sun fills my
consciousness with a mirage
where i am a broken mouth
numbed on nova cane      
and the pain is a dull thud that
can fade into the background
until the darkness blankets my psyche
in a silent cocoon
and your horror film scars
throb along my skin.

i wrote a poem in a bathroom stall
somewhere in a city
where i fell in love
between inked skin and
glasses of amber liquid.
a band i've never heard of was playing
in the basement and i was
wishing on prolonged goodbyes,
only to surrender to
technicolor street signs
and
broken nights of
what could have been.

gray and blue and black
make up the angles and cheekbones
of you.
you're a painting with a film of dust
and i'm an attic that welcomes rust
broken windows, ripped screens
nests that house the emptiness of centuries,
and dolls that no longer have the mechanics to blink.
i guess you could form the conclusion
that i am a heap of broken things
floating inside a dead room
and you are a picture in a frame
that lives in shadows
etched in the silver starlight
of regrettable shame.

my eyes are slow to waking
to the dust filled light that swims
around my head in a dizzying dance.
these are the few precious seconds of
morning consciousness
where you are unaware of your body
your mind
and the room with the empty walls.
these seconds are filled with nothing but oxygen
that fills the lungs but does not yet touch the
brain
does not yet signal your logical state to
shake off the silken cobwebs of sleep.
but when those moments melt away like
sugar on your tongue
you are once again
the victim of
antagonizing reality.

the scent of soggy cigarettes
fills my nostrils
and my stomach swirls in a queasy
tempest.
this is alien territory.
i built my bones around your organs,
always there to protect
your sensitive heart...
but my bones were malnourished
and they yellowed
over time,
until i could feel the decay
and knew it was the season
for you and i to learn different roles.
for you, you had to be your own anchor
and for me,
i needed to find relief
i needed to be free,
give my bones some exercise.
although, with your beating blood gone,
i feel empty inside,
absent are the things i've always known
but now there are horizons and trees
and birds and suns to hang in the sky,
with my bare
hands
all on my own,
a journey that is waiting
for my footprints.

a ****** is quick
a heartbreak is a slow
death
that leaves your blood trailing
upon the walls in every room
and ghosts dance around your eyes
memories that haunt every corner
where our hands touched
and we laughed
a sound like pure crystal
that was lost in the echos
when our hearts
turned cold.

the clouds they hung
tightly against my heart
a rainstorm of goodbyes

i think theres a garden somewhere
and it's untouched
and everything just grows and blooms
in the sunlight.
life flourishes in every crack of stone,
every shadowed corner,
and i think that
i would like
to go there.

that girl she was sad
so she got high all the time
hoping to change her insides
hoping to dispel all memories of
your touch, your scent, your dimple, your crooked lips
your screams, yourhurtthatyouimpregnated within me
and that hate that gushed out of your throat and into
her heart,
my heart,
my heart full of hate
hating my lungs for breathing in smoke,
hating my hair for brushing up against my cheek
and remembering your fingers
and all the parts that fit
inside of me.

can we go back
to that evening
where the sun and the moon
shared the sky
and all around us,
was a haze of pink fuzz
and birds flew overhead
dipping down into the water
dipping down into our veins
our flesh an entanglement
of one
human
body.
the waves,
i remember,
they were lucid
and always changing colors.
blue to green to white froth dusted in sunset.
can we go back to that evening
where the universe
decided to reflect
the appendages in our chests
and the love swirling in our eyes.

a pale body
in a smoky glass
smoky night clubs
girls who sold their souls to jazz
they dip their backs and
shimmy their ankles
in an array of beaded stars.
you'll be a slave to the sax
sad mouths twitch
and hail down taxis
don't they know it's too late
to grab a cigarette and go back to that
empty room
we once thought
was home,
but it's just littered with
memories of you.

the night takes a turn
and it's no longer your friend-
holding your hair
with your head
in the toilet,
or taking you to see a movie-
the way colors can light up in the dark.
it's stars become hazy
and the hands that cradled you once
so gently,
become talons.
the night will eat you up little girl
and spit you out
into a painting abstract.
you'll be a crude cave drawing on a wall
dried blood so dark and brown
the night will have you either way
and the moon will look on
in melancholy

i won't apologize for being naked,
for having this body god gave me.
i will always love couch change
and my grandmother's knitted
sweater.
no one can take me away,
and a push is not a
touch and these bruises aren't
my fault
and the lies you hear
about me
are ok,
but i won't apologize
for what they think
they know
because
this is my story to tell.

if i could stitch together
all the unanswered phone calls
and the stale nights
spent in a bed with
wide owl eyes,
there would be enough
patch work
to cover the whole continent
in my quilt of
stomach aches
and empty hands

i remember how the room went blue
when i laid eyes on you.
like the lucid light reflected from a pool,
and i wasted no time
diving straight into
your waters

some people become walking tombs,
others swallow the sun.
my mother's hands were funeral flowers
and my heart an early grave.
all i tasted in my throat was ash
and the world's decay.

we're broken glass
a cerulean summer
that makes you sigh
under waves
of ocean

just be more than your body.
more than blood that runs in currents
and arms and fists and teeth
that cut through midnight predators.
because when they steal your body;
it isnt so bad.

and the morning was dripping
landing in fragments
not quite a quiet hurricane.
she was more mist than anything
and nostalgia has you in its grip,
running its soft lullabies across your neck
the goosebumps telling a story no one ever
knew.
now you hang open in your past
and your skin becomes the rain streaked
window pane
soaking through
the living room curtains.

i feel like a bad person
when your eyes turn
into reflections of the sea
and i know that it's because of me.

i could be beautiful if you tore
apart my limbs
reached inside tender skin
dusted off the ashes
cluttered on the surface of
my heart.
because maybe then you'd see
all the love that was there,
and that could make
anyone
beautiful.

lonely on the road
isolated, cracked asphalt
ground zero
Picking apart my skull
so my brain may expand
and breathe;
and fall into the heavy
vortex of my throat
where the universe
lumps itself

i fell in love with a succubus
years ago
and he still
haunts my dreams
and every morning
i feel a little more
lifeless

he was the kind of boy you'd
break all the rules for,
but you didn't know he'd break you.

the crack in the door
held the spectral light
a mosaic ghost
inside a misty turret
and the room is pregnant with your song
your words carrying me over golden
rooftops and
michelangelo skies.

every phone call ends in tears
and sleep becomes the devil

she rode softly softly
on the white sands making love with the crickets in the long
summer grasses with sweet toad songs
love spilled vehemently out of you
a torrent of cupid bows and holiday smiles
i caught your wrists like floating seeds coming to pollinate
the fields with their red glossy lips.
i'll steal a kiss
i'll catch a kiss
from spring wading through the bubbling brooks,
a long gown flowing behind her, her hair water falling beyond
the mist.

the kids in this town
like to crawl into the woods
with the scraggly trees
balding earth
snakes that feed
on futures
and they stay there,
hibernate
in this sleepy hollow
until one day their tongues have
slid back into their throats

your father got drunk at your graduation
and i wanted to keep holding your hand.
you in your blue robes,
a white star in the sea,
your heart so palpable
like an artist's dreams.
your step-father pretended he cared,
but muttered under his breath during the procession
and i wanted to keep holding your hand.
i wished my fingers would grow like vines around your
palm
so you'd know i'd be there all along.
the ground may feel broken and your successes
made into background noise,
but you're my white owl
who carries all that is unseen
in your forest-touched eyes
and i believe that our hands,
as long as they're stuck together,
will give you the wings
to leave the rubble behind.

the blinds hang heavy
transforming the room into a
baroque style painting
intense lights, intense darks
and your features hard.
you're angry at me because i didn't stay the night.
you're angry at me because it was 3 in the morning
and i wanted some place else to go.
i carry my heels as i walk into the
local truck stop
big burly men fat like flies
reek and stand in line with doritos.
i want to hear your voice crackle
over the pay phone.
listen to your static lecture
and i'll tell you i cut open my feet on
some rocks
and you'll hang up,
and that would be
my last quarter.

he liked how she wore rain boots in the summer
and wished to build her home in the marshes
where she could sing with the toads
and play a cattail harp, reed symphony.
she kept a journal
she would draw rain clouds
and snow,
he'd watch her fingers loop around the pencil,
brow wrinkled with concentrated focus.
i guess he loved her.
as much as anybody could.
loved the bottlecap eyes
and wide mouth full of crooked teeth,
cause when she smiled
his heart went crooked too
and she was the type of girl
who he could visit museums with
and they'd both stare at
the same painting
and think something quite
different.

in your home
dead moths
line the window sills
destined to a grave of dust
outdoor light gets
caught up in the grains
of rust
so nothing grows there.
your heart has rusted too,
splinters in your blond
hair.
splinters in the world you see.
the world that i have gone from.
it took me so long to be able to say goodbye.
to stop looking for your car to drive by.
now you're coffee dregs,
the stuff i wash down the drain.
i do not think of you when i smile,
i do not wish for your touch when i am
in pain.
no longer am i under your hex.
for this is salem,
and the witches hang.