it was my birthday and we were
walking at 6 am
in a grocery store parking lot
you bought me flowers
and above our heads
the sun was rising
and the sky lit up
with streaks of pink,
like it was being awakened,
coming alive.
that's how my insides felt,
as your fingers wiggled between mine,
and the flock of birds
ricocheted beyond the purple clouds
as we both looked up
and i was struck again with the thought
that you and i
would share this love forever.

there's nothing
that i cannot feel-
mostly it's this hollowness
a computer program circuit.
the world makes us all the same,
into malfunctioning robots.
the cogs in my heart
cease to turn
and it's ragged
jagged
numbness

the woman laid her stomach
over the child's soft downy head
as a shield
as armor
to protect such soft innocence
from the grainy world that creeps in
with it's gnarled fingers.
the same world that took
the warm fragile beating
of her heart
and sloooooooowed
it
to
a
dull whisper

he's more than just some boy
with black hair
or eyes that peer from behind trees.
i know because
when he sits on my bed
or my couch
or my chair
or my floor
it's like he's always been there.
apart of a drawing or a painting
something permanent
but i didn't noticed until
his physical form
accumulated in my life.

it's like we are a family
of pressed flowers
slid between glass casings
or dried butterfly wings
pinned on a cork board.
something to be studied
observed
fragility that disperses
between finger and thumb
sorrowfully turning into dust that
coats the surfaces of tables or
writing desks.
i'll always love the colors
always love their hues
shaping me-
they made me the golden shadows
of things, like during sunsets.
but i feel blue
at the bottom
and it's because they are sad
and i know so much
about flowers
that are truly people
and nothing more//

silence leaks like light into a camera
filtering obscure blobs
that take shape
take meaning
take life.
we still the hollow breaths
that tunnel through our black lungs
wanting to hold a white hot
star in our palms
and **** the vibrancy down
inside of us.
its true that emptiness
rests like lions in cages
between our esophagus and stomach-
but its how you choose
to come into your being-
it is what defines
the map and constellations
of our souls.

this heart is like
smoke hanging
in the air
when the ashes crumble
into living things
and it's all
illusions
pressing the clock hands
waiting for your breaths
to come raspy.
who could love what's never been alive?
but he did
he did
"you never had a funeral",
he said
and "when i looked into your eyes
i knew something like that;
those soul windows-
could never be dead."

eyes bloodshot
awakening even in dreams
the dead may rest
but never the living

her legs hung seductively
out of a window frame
pouring smoke
and they drank it all in
took what she had to give
her painted lips
her white wrists
and the marrow
that slept inside.
empty girl
empty sighs
abandoned ware house
turned
****** scene
because their
desire,
each time
was like a knife sunk through her

you were afraid of being cut open
the view of doctor gloves
reaching inside
parts you didn't
know could feel
like slicing off
a point of a star
watching it dim
and die inside
of a light bulb
flickering.
these things they spit out of you
you lost them one at a time
fingers down your throat
evacuate what you didn't need;
that day i slept in your stomach
i could feel the urgency of static
pulling me through your lungs
your teeth hit me on the way out
you needed me
but you were your own
doll maker
cutting space
into your heart
substituting
wooden pieces
that held no
memory of
the way
my lashes looked
when it rained

we were never people
but maps
with worlds to explore
an almanac of oceans
body parts cut up into
states.
you were california
always so far away
and i was alaska
in a cold dark place.
one day
our bodies folded
atlas hands
joined together
splitting mountain
ridges
to be with one another.

I slash my skin
into
violent
grins;
welcome
my friends

you
are turpentine
when the world gets too thick
your eyes are oil paint
that watch me
smile
watch me cry
watch me laugh
and die
you are the sacrifices
made for me
you are what i chose
to make me happy
you've made a home
inside my lungs
and i drink in your scent
every square inch
you don't like breakfast very much
but you make me eggs over easy
and you like the way i rub together my
feet when i'm asleep;
you said that way you'll always know
it's me.
you don't like yourself very much
and that's why i wrote this poem
because i know these things-
your a garden of different seeds
i'll love the way you grow forever
and i know you'd never stop
loving me

what is it like to
sit
on laundromat tiles
with fish eyes blank
slack jaw
words coming out
"you're too young"
my porcelain skin
isn't china doll thin;
i've felt things inside that rupture
stitching
that morph into a blazing
hot sun because i feel
it's burn in every molecule
thrown under microscopes and watching
the chemical reaction of knowing
you're in love and being in love and always wanting love
with the one person who gives you love
as amebas you can't
measure the age
"oh yes it's love, no
doubt about that"
scientifically proven.
but when you add a
slight skeleton
skin with cuts and scars
from off balanced racing on concrete
with feet that feel every
material of every terrain
and wide eyes that smile
because
life can truly be beautiful.
when you add all that-
love somehow becomes less potent
as if the inner
bonds of feeling
are taken less
seriously.
tell me this;
my lips curve around his name
and my voice box softens
and slows,
dragging out letters
like they hold a story in each one
and to me they always will
should that change with age, should it lessen?
my heart pumps in the same rhythm that
it will 20 years from now.
love has no age
it exists in timeless capacities
and does not know numbers,
it will not see them
it sees two hands
holding one another
gently like
sacred white doves
alighting on aspen
branches
with roots that bury in deep-
but bark as tender
as newborn babies

brown blotches
feathers in no way
glossy
unnoticed
and
dull.
small fragile
bones.
a sister of
depression,
people will always pass over thee.
of course when there's
creatures like cardinals
with
flaming red bodies.

but eyes cannot tell all
for ears that open too
can never mistaken
the ever sweet
tune of the
bird
almost always
forgotten;
but not quite.

that night in december
was when we came
to be-
we knew each other
it seems
in passed
distant memories.
this cold winter
evening was our chance
to know one another
as we are now;
retracing footsteps
getting back to basics.
funny how we
reconvened at a church
and it was so suitable
for you to fall in love with me
right
there
because our hearts
aligned
in a holy
design-
as if it were truly God
putting us back
together.

a wound sliced
into your thigh
is an emergency exit
for emotion to trickle
through
because you're filled like
a hot air balloon.
dunk your head back
and take a swig
of the cough syrup
for extra bliss
and then you should feel
okay
about living

i tried to **** myself
a year ago-
a year ago
i wasn't me
a year today
i've experienced
so many things
that a year ago
i would have
missed out on
had i
a year ago
succeeded
in death
so a year today
i'm quite thankful
my
[heart still beats in my chest]

chipped china cups stained
with cherry red prints from your lip stick.
the way you swing your body languidly
through the wispy smoke
hanging in the air like a reunion of ghost;
always enchanted me so.
here the graves lie of all the lovers whose
hearts were severed by your gentle fingers
cutting out the sacred testimonies wedged
brightly in every heart.
they stained the earth,
for they had something
to give
but although your eyes open
with surprising brilliance,
how can anything you see
hold meaning?

i get sad sometimes
too much
feeling in my
throat
swollen tonsils
with hydrated
emotions
wallowing in
one place
thinking of winter
and days that
act
as night
dawn doesn't
show
wrists
that cannot
cease
blood flow
i was a corpse
once
did you know?
i think
sometimes
my
heart
remembers
death
and its the same
old itch
that
ignites
memories best
forgotten
but
there's the
salt
and here's
my wound.

cloudy blankets give warmth
when the outside world
screams
and rain falls like
domestic violence
and inside it's all
tea and blueberry
muffins baking
slowly
likethelove
in my guts.
i was confused that it wasn't a burst;
something violent
like the stomach flu
(that made me think
it wasn't really you
who i should count the
seconds with)
but you've patted soil
around my ankles
and i'm growing in your shade
blooming love
that has roots
instead of
momentary
drunkenness

i want you to drive to me
in this midnight hour
with the world shut up
in a dark closet
come to me
so we can
fill this
fragile span
of moments
with kisses
of longing
and
forbidden
nightly
visits

we all wanna be thin
diet of nicotine
and cigarette smoke;
let me see those bones.
delicate fragile curves
like a swan's neck
vulnerable
and carved out of
stone
statuesque
and perfection
a greek chiseled chest
with a collar bone
deep
as the trenches
at the bottom
of the sea
because skinny arms
skinny legs
can't hold veins
long enough to live

the curve of coffee
mug handles
forms familiarity
with the figures
of my grasping fingers
hoping to clutch at something warm
like the soup of your heart-
the dish of the day
i know you give it to me over
and over
but i never tire
of the taste

you got high once;
when i was out of town.
i forgive you love.

i know you're sorry,
it's a struggle
of course.
i forgive you love.

dry your eyes
and remember i don't have it in me
to leave your side
i forgive you love.

mistakes are a part of life
you're the sweetest boy
that holds me when i cry
i forgive you love.

shadow heart
shadow skin
i flit between this life
and that.
invisibility finds it's way to me
to kidnap my confidence
what was that?
oh,
only my voice
lost
to the wind.

i call this the golden hour:
i only notice when my
heart is content-
and right now, its swimming
in a sweet heady fragrance;
the leaves on the trees drip yellow honey
the windows radiate;
kitchen walls glowing warmly
and all our skin stained
with the color of laughter.
and  i know the light is
rejuvenating
and i know that right now
i'm golden too

the light drips through my window
a solemn moment wrapped
snuggly about me.
alone
as a desert cactus
cradled in the losses of failed efforts.
i do try, you know
but alas here i am
alone

peeled me like
a citrus fruit
waiting to ooze
and digest
inside of you

severed hands
that used to clasp
turned to ash
blown away on hot air
eyes pooling upon the horizon
//                  
this is the world
when a heart weeps.

i found your spirit
laying at my feet
upon the ground
it was a tattered sheet
transparent threads
shreds of a spider web
i gathered in my arms
careful as glass
a sad mess
your sorry soul
i found it
i loved it
and i knew it was mine

through half lidded eyes
i gaze into the smokey expanse;
musk wafting through
sliding between fingertips
a lost lover's hand
falling slowly to rest
at the side of a body
grey with the light
shuttered out.

sweet daughter
little girl with curling hair
one day she'll hate that hair
and terrorize it
with styling machines.
sweet child holds her mother's hand
looks into motherly eyes
with awe
in a couple of years
she'll look into those eyes
with uncertainty.
soft cheeks, rosy lips
will one day crush a boy's heart.
or her heart should be crushed.

sunlight reflected in broken
jagged fragments
on the wings of an aeroplane flying north
deep in the valley of organs and
warm trickling blood.
she haunts my thoughts as a distant terror
a threat to the happiness
weaved between weathered fingers
she'll take him away
take away
with the fluctuations of her voice
cutting raw wounds in the back of
my throat.
//calmly wait
passion resonates with a sticky wet
presence
clinging wet clothes to curves.
he sees my thighs
with appraising eyes.
you must belong to me::
to my sacred heart beats--
no thoughts of california and the wreckage
she should bring

Linoleum lined cheeks
steely eyes glinting
with harsh determination.
we dwindle in the stony
silence
apart from industry
and nature's
comforting presence.

he painted the way he saw things
and he saw her lips;
deep red rubies.
he feathered the paint on his brush lightly
so as to capture the gentleness
of her clairvoyant voice
that snakes out from between those ruby lips
parted in pleasure-
pleasure from the twinkling stars
and the distorted reality
she's encased herself in;
never to understand why he
depicts her portrait
in a style
so abstract.

my body is water molded
paper
peeling back in curls
revealing bleach white bones
a skeletal structure
hollow
as wind
whistles through

interwoven sunlight
through back streets
over grown ivy curling on stone
growing in grey concrete
someone's footsteps linger
where the millions have frayed;
icy hearts melting
with warm summer rays
a woman with skin mottled and pink
curls in a corner of the busy city scene
said she lost her existence to the devil's drug
and now she's just a shell of what she once was.
decomposing back into earth, into the gravel
the pavement slick with oil, copper filled taste.
and i lounge upon a quilted meadow
laying waste

the ache of a violin
thrums in your stomach
a soft sad whisper
and a gray smudged tear
ink calligraphy on a cheek;
a wreck of beauty
so wonderfully ruined.
a glorious ship sunk
and decaying in dust
under leagues
of ocean
reminding us
that the prideful
can be broken.

vibrations underneath
of the cries of souls buried deep.
i wish i could go to them,
to answer their pleas.
so much is wrong
with what i see
so much bad energy.
i cannot escape, i cannot run.
the hem of my dress is nailed
down tight to wood.
helpless as helpless gets,
i watch as the painted faces
of children melt like
candle wax
after the flame has long been
blown out.

hell, i know i'm a pain in the ***
i get angry just at the sight of a cracked glass;
because i don't like things that are inconvenient
and i don't like when you hide your feelings.
i become a dam with some poor fool's
finger shoved into the hole, while i continue
to fill with watery rage, until
flimsy fleshy fingers
stand no chance against
the current that is my fire
and i knock the silly fool
straight off his feet, and the streams rush, unhinged
right, bullseye,
into you.

she had sad eyes
misted gray clouds
stormed about
upon her forehead
creating creases
like a restless sea.
her smile
(if only she would)
could hold the shining beauty
of a string of pearls
resting gently
on white collar bones;
but only a thicket of
gray
shrouds her features
and likely
eyes shall
pass her
without any hesitation

hey i think we've met before
two young sets of eyes
staring quizzically from
across the tabletop
of a chinese restaurant
with paper lanterns
and oriental
tea being
****** through
chattering teeth.
i met you at a bowling alley;
you told me you couldn't bowl.
it was pretty cute
when the ball landed in the gutter
time after time-
why would you bowl?
you said
why wouldn't i.
perfect sense.
ink stains my fingers,
i watch the splotches
as i comb my hands through
your hair;
so we've met before
and we keep meeting again
and again
inside dark closets
warmed by hanging clothes
and static cling
me to you
you to me
that's how it should always be.

a dark abyss
waits for me.
insects pour from my throat
choking my words.
how could anyone know
the way wounds feel
when they're stretched  
and pulled apart
with ***** of skin
hanging loose.
my scars;
they've faded
into translucent
breezes
that tickle the skin
a sort of itch itch itch
to remember the dark abyss
and purple veins
and when practical thinking
went amiss

we layed in the room
with the peeling wallpaper;
the sweetly painted flowers
now crinkled and drooping;
you swallowed your heart and
i asked you where it went.
you said you didn't know
what i meant.
but when i curled my toes around yours,
they were stone cold;
and i could see that your eyes-
once a habitat of wild floras and faunas-
had turned to granite.
i nestled my body tightly against
this unfamiliar tombstone
that held the sculpted angles of
your shoulder blades
and the empty lost echo of
your heart beating.

jump back
bruised eyelids
blooming purple flowers underneath pale
skin
bare skin
veins scratching towards
the surface
clawing
and clawing
to get out,
to bleed
just slice the razor
beneath your thigh
let the blood lie
let it lie

i was lying on the street
with cracked ribs and cold feet
never thought i'd had it in me.
heights, never really my thing
but not as terrified as people think
it was a peculiar notion
to see if i could fly
like so many birds before me
but here
with this stinging sensation
coursing through every inch of my frame
i realized
quite quickly
that my wings had
been broken.

Darling my darling
i sometimes think of writing a letter to
you everyday
even though you are never far away
i sometimes still dream of him
but no matter,
this heart is yours.
remember when we first met?
a chilly winter night,
visiting the Petco cats
and playing nintendo
while your record player spinned.
Seems surreal now.
like that time
you laid yourself as a
blanket over me
and we watched outer space
on dewy grass
with hands clasped.
you spilled your secrets to me,
whispered them into my hair,
where they nestled and found warm dark
comfort there.
your lips
oh your lips
how not even the gods could forget
such two perfect
bows that tremble,
opening gently over mine.
somehow you breathed life into me
and that was the end to my
sad
ghost story.
so
darling
my darling
thank you
for unlocking something inside
of me
something that never stops
singing.

gliding on pointed toes
the atlantic coast
stretches on and in
my stomach when
i'm sad
because i hold an ocean
this sorrow reaches deep
how could i ever tell you
what was in my chest
that night
when the atlantic
drowned my words
and i gave up
my fight

i am quiet when you
lay me on the bed
when your forest eyes
swallow me whole,
slowly removing my clothes.
my skin is pale
with freckles to match yours
and your forest eyes
catch on fire
and i've never before
felt so beautiful.