i am in a world
where he will only do.
no one else could make me love,
could make my body float like petals
in a river.
even when i'm gone,
he still has my heart
and my lungs breathe his name
in the dark.
you see,
at the end of it all
there is no other whom i'd rather
argue with.
it will always be him
for me.

im a bag of meat scraps.
you know, that **** they throw to the pigs,
so it becomes a sick scene of hog eating hog
animistic cannibalism
i'm the girl with cobwebs in her hair
and the bruises on her ankles that she claims
she got from "falling down the stairs"
the kindergartner whose valentine box is empty
and starts to expect a life without love.
all the things that go wrong in the world, all the mutations, and outcasts,
i become them all.
i am a breathing mistake
and i am what the artists paint.
i and you and we
are beautiful

she was a wash of milky moonlight
with purple iris veins
her fingernails glimmered like
the insides of shells as she laid
a delicate palm on the sleeping boy's
brow.
"i am your winter, i am your heartbreak"
she whispered into his dreams
and a shadow passed over his slumbering frame,
and it was nothing but night and rain
inside his subconscious.
she left with the scars of past regrets
and frosted jars filled with all the tragedies of
first love
the springs that turned rotten and foul
into a sticky heat  when flower buds die before they bloom.
with slow blinking eyes
the boy awoke
with his chest opened wide.
he clutched at his dilapidated heart
and wished for the icy caress of sleep
to pull him back under.

the moon's pale hair
dusted the top of the water tower
spattered in graffiti rust.
i want so much to flick the dirt
from under my nails
and the dried blood smeared on lips.
i took a seminar on how to give back
and we learned to cut up plastic cup holders
and draw crosses on our hands.
i hung your painting in the room with the ink stains.
i feel nothing while i pass through this life,
paper mache carnations
king of clubs
missing buttons
all collect under my nails.
i just want to scrub
until it's fleshy pink
and i can write poetry again

you screamed into the highway
tunnel
streets lined
with cracked glass
and broken people
without homes
said you wanted the dark
filled shame
in unwashed sheets-type-days
with dingy motel rooms
and coin laundry.
i don't want
the clean clipped sunday school
smiles
and the sunshine should be
a cold,
phosphorescent,
so i know
that i'm not
being lied to.

antique grit
he screamed at her in the passenger
seat
slammed the doors
four wheel drive
four fist punches
floral bruises
blooming on skin
color like milk bottles when they're shaken
in white gloved hands,
buttons on wrists.
church pamphlets
printed with jesus love
the man in the jeep screamed
through his lungs
and religion was scheduled on his sundays;
but today wasn't holy
  and abuse looked nice on her oil painted skin

i just wanted to  pick your bones
white daisies in a field
and weave them together
a halo to float over my head
so wherever i'd go a part of you hung in the air
a soft constant breeze.

and maybe you'll let me.
maybe you'll string your veins like lights to light my journey
when the cobbled streets are black
and your back in rink-a-**** town
and i'm off getting my wings.

you like to breath air into my dreams,
lifting my balloons, and even though  you'll be here in this gray
town you never
made me feel sorry.

sorry that i've got to leave.
and maybe you'll give me your hands too,

so when it's colder than a winter month, i can wrap my fingers in them
and i'll be warm on the inside
too

she clutches her body
a frayed rag
and she remembers his
ragweed teeth
the bobbles in his ears-
skin stretching like fabric on a loom.
there are no tears anymore
    just a quiet knowing
like the sad eyes of a cow
off to the slaughter house
and carcasses hang in strips
   a ****** mouth
torn open in a grin
and the hard glinting metal of a knife flaying open skin.
her skin,
her legs like wishbones,
cracking apart,
thrusted in obtuse angles
   a conveyor belt life of sludge
and consumption

our skin is washed in the rivers of youth
stained yellow from tea leaves
the subtle scent of mint green accumulates between
nostril and lip
freshly awakened.
your soul,
my soul,
is clean

the little kids with their candy
cigarettes
drawing chalk pictures in the
street
Rows of houses all looking
clean and neat.
closed latches, dark windows,
no laughter from behind the
bushes
and the neighbors usher
in the hoses to wash
the chalk
away

everything about you is a poem,
and i'll never quit writing it.
from your raven gloss hair,
to your eyes that hold the colors of forest trees,
with their heads dipped in a halo of warm, golden sunlight.
your skin is winter,
****** snow, and your lips are a timid cherry blossom blooming
to meet mine,
and i'll part them gently;
wrapping ourselves in an eternity of spring,
new beginnings and awakenings.

you are all i know of pain
when your absence hit me so bitterly,
it carved out numerous tunnels and caverns
in my anatomy,
   unfamiliar territory to me.
alone,
i had to map out these unexplored caves,
knowing every inch, every rock
of my sadness,
of my beautiful, and dark
emotions that have given me a soul
completed with dimensions,
i am a being with layers;
thanks to your winter chilled departure.

you cruel humans
all of you are
with your chapped lips
stinging words
crooked teeth
poisonous giggles
worming their way into
pure innocent hearts.
how dare you
point out anything that you
believe to be wrong.
it's not wrong-
the girl in your class with the unruly hair
go ahead snicker and taunt,
the boy who always smiles,
even if he is the **** of the joke,
and you think these people are the monsters,
disliked and far from normal-
   but beauty rests in their souls
and it only intensifies with every jab you make,
and your skin begins to rot and your flesh falls away
and your organs are infected with black holes
where your humanity used to be.

the sunset is all
candy heart valentines
"hug me"
"i love you"
"be mine?"
saccharine promises
sticky and dissolving
on tiny pink cat tongues
running in a field of daisies
skipping slowly
hair flinging side to side
but nobody's there to catch your embrace
hallmark card ***** and february *******
parties in the bathroom
forget your empty bed
forget forget
you keep the door locked-
cold thoughts.

paint with blood
upon the earth
tie my lungs into ribbons.
i am only happy when i'm
dying.
when depression slits my wrists

there was a girl
with a chipped tooth
and holes in her stockings.
she hides behind a veil of hair.
stupid boys will
touch her
and she can only stare
at the ceiling
cracks.

you were my first midnight kiss
drunk and laughing
spilling like bubbly over and over into your arms
your lips a white froth of sweets
this was the fairy tale hour,
so to speak
but i'm no cinderella
running away
with glass in my heart that aches.
no i was done with fragility;
i'm yours, rust and bolts and ticks and all
you were my first midnight kiss,
and although it did not awaken me from a century of slumber
or turn my fins into human legs
i could feel a different magic
tingling upon the cupid's bow of my lips

the night has slipped from the tips of my fingers,
finding solace in bottomless sweaters
sleeves that swallow hands
and mouths that swallow
bourbon brooks
trickling through a loss of consciousness.
i yearn on winter bones for the loss of knowledge;
a slow mind,
and sweaty delirium.
i want to watch my finger nails go purple
from malnutrition, seeping into the cracks of an old house-
to become an eighteenth century ghost
and i'd measure my heart breaks in dust.
when the world falls away;
and it falls away often-
i find solace in thinking that nothing can amount to nothing
and one day you all will be as i am.

a thin willow wisp,
a frayed cardigan
  a story that was once told and lost through years of
the telephone game;
while the rich culture faded with every new tongue

the gardens weep
in the moonlight
because she has gone away.
a pale sliver of a finger
waivers in a pond reflection.
a specter-
  the stars have become
pearl spilled tears
and the roses tremble in dew
because of the absence,
her absence-
felt so wholly.
the world fades quietly
with her white body
under ground
...
although that is where she lay
(she has gone away)

i want to crawl into your bed
while it's still blue outside
and the sun has cold feet
because morning hasn't broken
and your body could curl around mine
like a scarf in the winter

july, she lied to me
because summer in my hair
is ending.
the smell of frost
pours from the iced over window panes

and it's darker
and forests are naked

distraught in their skinny wardrobe
vulnerable and staring.

doe eyes meet me through a snow covered sheet
and summer its okay
that you're gone.

it's sunday
and the dog lies on the rug
the fire spits
and the leather chair
is devoid of human warmth.
the scene is picturesque
a cabin fit for the woods
the books are dusty,
pages worn,
it could have been lived in-
but this place is just a skeleton.

skin stretches into mountain ridges
i am a fetus
wanting to bloom inside of you
to meet your heart
and cup it within my soul
to see your beauty from deep within
and stoke the fire that warms your veins;
with me you'll never
be cold again.

send her with a ribbon
and "i'm sorry"
on her lips
because girls should feel ashamed
of the bodies they possess.

the night was quiet.
cold but sweet
rippled pools in a forest of pine.
i lounged on the couch
as you threaded round' and round' the trees
pinpricks of lights dripping from your arms.
as you carried christmas in your palms
and i watched
silently,
your grace  unfolded
like   a tear stained love letter
"desperate hearts belong together"
and it's true i could never find another angle like you
to perch at the top of my tree
and your eggnog lips move   gently
over my mouth
eyelashes
brushing window panes
like fragile falling
snowflakes

fog grows heavy
on winter's breath
we loved in the bushels
of new fallen leaves
and our whispers were snippets
of warm summer breezes.
we're no longer dead,
never while we're together
feeding life into
our hearts
once so vacant-
your brother hung himself
off the boat next to your house
and i downed my throat with sleeping pills
and made pretty red patterns
across my arms.
that was before we met,
when December was a wasteland
of death endeavors
some triumphs..
some well,
disaster.
but we gave this month a new name,
a new identity
that trembles with the "i love you's"
and the "remember when's"
our cheeks hollow from
warm slubby kisses

your hands
they wrap around my neck
squeezing with delicious want
you want me to submit\
and i choke out
the smiles
because all i wanted was

to be put down

you hurled my blouse
over my head
and my *******
ballooned out in front
of your lips.
your kisses were small fires
that burned beneath my skin
and my eyes rolled back in my head-
seeing instead with
hands.

it is a dangerous thing to do
to still in silence
alone with nothing but thoughts
and feelings
belonging only
to me.
how risky it is
to cut the world away
snap the string connecting everything
to draw the curtain down
left with my shadow
a
poisonous
companion
giving life
to sorrow
an unwise
circumstance
to be with me and me
and just me--
and suicide,
she purrs
along the window's rim
peeping in
at me and me and
lonesome me

the melancholy music
dwindles inside of my bones
hollowed by the
constant straining of limbs
hoping to feel something
other than this
unfailingly cold metal
kissing my tongue
gleaming cruelty
branding scars into finger tips
im unsure of everything
and most of all
i am a lost
cry for help
a distant plea
fossilizing into a future
of dead uncertainty.

floating aimlessly along a river
headed no where.
to live in such a state
absent of direction
would be
unattainable bliss

swollen cheeks
and bellies
dancing with the
succulent satisfaction of being filled.
but i am empty.
my palms desolate deserts searching
for the source of energy
to quell my wandering soul.
yearning for deeper connections
and a sink
to upheave the
dry heaves
of lonely
nothings.

there are no words
for long strangled hair
cascading down a naked spine
all pale and freckled.
only soft murmurs spoken between two hearts
and imploring eyes that delve down to the core
of our bare vulnerable insides.
bodies move like the wings of birds
coming together
coming apart
a story written in honey
to be burned onto tongues
dissipating in the pure
ecstasy of moments
snuggled in between shoulders
resting side by side
and that long contented sigh
when it's over
that stretches a blanket
over the room
holding me
and you

rain is a veil
that shrouds me
from the world.
the world that hurts and scorns
and says what you are
but not what you wish.
that you want to be
a warm smile
in the yellowed pages of a dusty book,
or the streaks of sunlight that pierces through
a room of gloom,
painting stripes on the whitewashed walls.
yet the rain cannot drown out the sounds
echoing all around
"outsider outsider"
lonely and scabbed over

you didn't wish to see me today
and i wilt in shadows.
for you, my sun,
did not embrace me with your rays.

i felt sad today.
i painted the walls blue
and sat down in front of the window,
searching for you.

you were beveled glass
carved out of sunlight
and you burned into my irises
contracting against the intensity
of your presence.
sometimes it still gets like that.
brief moments where your beauty over powers
and in more ways than one
i'm lost in a temporary blindness.

sober days erupt into
nights of dragging screeches
***** tongues crave a paranoia filled daze
and the stars slice open our palms-
they're so close
heads become melting matter.
the universe cannot stitch our
gaping wounds.
we are
cold dead creatures
driven by the need to
be somewhere else.

you slithered
into my lungs
choked my voice
didn't let me run
you crushed my ribs
now you want back
back into my garden
but you see,
everything is growing, finally

i fell apart like egg shells
the whites of my eyes
hard boiled

i found a smile behind the clouds
i wanted to stay there
but i had to come back down

because broken things
cannot fly
and under water
i'm screaming goodbye

in darkness your shadow is thrown across
the graffiti walls, and beneath
the house foundation rats linger,
husks with needles in their arms.
the children see with their daisy white eyes
the bottom of mother's shoes as she's pitted
down stairwells-
and the popstars sing "it's all right, it's all right."

the house is quiet
bodies without hearts
but we can imagine the beating
and you're here

and it's still quiet
but a different kind

she had long hair
that fell like ragweeds
across skin of soil
measuring deep.
the water came and eroded her lips away
and the seaweed got stuck in her throat
so she looks on with wide owl eyes
silent as falling snow.

i am cracked ribs when it's
raining and the road
is slick
with car oil-
car crashes.
stinking rubble,
the bottle of oxycontin
that rests by your bed,
cold dead feet motionless in the morgue.
i am the graceless stroke of a violin
in unpracticed hands,
the rip rip ripping of a dress
torn off,
the chill in winter breath.
you are the sun that found me
fixable,
not hopeless
or yellow addiction.
you were the cast that healed my broken
bones
piecing back together my
fragmented whole.

i'm no good with talking-
that's something that comes out of
my mouth like gnats.
awkward, rather unpleasant.
writing, yes.
i can write a bit.
essays, no
speeches, no
stories, no.
but poetry,
i write that for you.
my poems speak my heart
because it has no voice box.
i think i've always known i'd find you,
always known that these poems floating
inside me
were for you.
i've always known i'd love you.

this is how i say thank you
this is how i let you know
that the pancakes you make taste like gold
and your eyes say that they love me
over and over.

boys come through my life
like pennies facing backwards

you are so much more
so much more
so much
more.
gosh
i have these feelings,
THESE FEELINGS
i've never felt
you put them there,
like you lay blankets over me when i'm sleeping,
how you rub your thumb
along my cheek
sweet, darling, sweet.

you build me up higher than
mountain tops
gosh
i have these feelings
and here's your poem. they're all for you.
because all this love
-that's what i'm feeling-
it's for you too.

laughing
touching sun rays
with bare feet
bare promises
with no spine
crushed and dragging
leaving a trail of scarlet
dying beautifully,
if you look at me
i'll die beautifully.

i get this feeling
like when you see a senior citizen eating alone
knowing that they've lost the ones they loved
knowing one day we will too.
the youth that thinks we cannot die
that for some reason life is only
immortal for us.
i'm sure that old man thought the same.
and here he is wrinkled
with empty chairs
for company.

my room holds your scent
like it's another being,
forming hands and lips
winking at me from under warm bed sheets
it whispers your name
a desire i've always known
but couldn't put words to it.
an unspoken holiness
,your name,
and i find my fingers steepling together
to kneel in prayer,
thank you for leaving
and always coming back
to give your smell
/ a body /
and a mouth.

days like these
i feel comatose.
a sleeping beauty
in a coffin.

a death of eternity
..not new
or waking,
a floating enigma
defying                 logistics
      a tiny winter scene
trapped inside a snowglobe

never changing
cold and wet
                          yes wet like her lips
as she strikes a damp match
didn't you know, it won't catch

      warmth is gone from this place
the dark                                      dragging days
snatching
the light
from lidless           eyes.

as a human race
we strive to achieve the unattainable.
to play god;
to become god.
but what we don't understand-
is that we are unraveling
every bit
of ourselves in the process.
morphing into fallen angels
lost from good graces
  and trapped in cold
empty undergrounds
moving backwards
instead
of

   looking
up