17
she's 17
stuck in a disney dream
waiting for a chance
to soar above skyscrapers
and discover
the identity of infinity
but she's closed in this door,
a purgatory of grown up feelings
and little kid sensitivity,
to trust too easily
oh 17
she's 17
but she just wants to be somebody.

daughters slitting their wrists
in the bathroom sinks
the call goes straight to voicemail
a scratchy dial tone
of weeping.
hedges trimmed and the house
smelling of fresh paint
the boy in the closet
drips his head
feet hanging inches from the ground.
as long as the neighbors
don't miss their tea time
there's no harm in
a bump in the night.

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

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.

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

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.

body
is an ecosystem
of nebulas
between my legs
a blooming
garden
ravaged by
apocalyptic hands
red forests
bleeding trees
fill the voids
with a looping of deaths.
rebirth and creation.
a body
felt
in every crevice;
a blanket
heaving
with breath.

Little town, bundled up, like a tightly locked box.
Our coats zipped up too high.
I feel stuffy with the humid air- especially surrounded with all these fixing stares.
Turning into glares.
I used to be fine, the bath tub just a place of comfort, not to self harm.
But you've broken me in more ways than one.
I can feel the walls closing in.
Each place holds the ghost of a memory, my escape knows no end.
Can the light shine to hide my shadows again.
Close the book, I'm at my end.

uncomfortable in skin
repulsed by mirror images
fragmented, yellow face
white paste to hide the decay
slit the belly open
and watch everything
hang open

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.

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

The bitter black coffee slides down my throat
I wince at the taste and the headache
as a result of last night

Oh but this is what I live for.
the excitement of forgetting

Of becoming someone else.
A carefree girl
who never passes up a dare,
who tips the bottle back
taking on the burn
without a swig of anything else to make
it go down easy.

Cause' the thing is,
I won't go down easy,
i can't.
I want rules so i can defy them

I want those crazy nights
filled with adrenaline
and legs sprawled on moonlit grass

Not the normal lull
of a life planned out,
sitting patiently on a grocery shelf
ready to be taken home for dinner
to feed the kids and the greetings of the
"honey, I'm home" 's
followed by an empty kiss.

No, not me.
First, I'll paint my body
blue and black
because i welcome the bruises.
I'll burn out long before
you can catch me with an
apron tied around my waist
and a platter full of fresh, hot cakes.

you saw her draped in scarves
so bold,
flapping around her supple figure,
you got glances in-between
of velvet skin,
soft freckles
flitting,
a bird of paradise
is what she is.
exotic
and
free
but you saw her hips
sway
and you thought of closing
your hands
over bone;
of pulling her down
underneath
your groin.
not
a
person at all
she seemed
to you
but
a body
meant to pleasure you.

I hold a longing in my throat
it aches and sears as i try to choke it down

clogged like a pipe
my breathing slows

have you ever wanted something so badly,
that you just forget everything else?

Forget the way small fingers feel wrapped in your hands-
the gift that keeps on giving
Forget the black plague that his lies fed into my bloodstream;
I even sometimes forget the reason for living

You see
I'm blinded by this lust
to fit in
to find a place warm with belonging
But I can't forget
what is important

How your palms cup me softly
when the world is damp-
make me realize
that all along
I had somewhere.

some art is meaningful
some art is "just because"
so for your viewing pleasure;
shut up.

My innocence is lost.
The years I've spent understanding the world
diminish the child-like light
I've held inside.
I used to mourn the loss of life,
I used to cry for my sins,
Now I swim in them.
I emerge,
dripping the blood of the sacrificed lambs,
I run,
savage.
I lust,
I moan for passion,
For corruption.
And it grows
deep inside
my gut,
ripping through the downy duckling feathers.
I was born in this world, and I will die in it.
But I will die me,
Incredibly raw,
Intangible,
me.

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.

dusk;
it shrouds the
evening in mist-
a cloaked figure
carrying a message
that will send a mother's
heart rocking.
the smell of eggs
smelling them sunny side up
some comfort in the
familiarity
of a kitchen and a stove
i'll always remember
the moon licked grove
with white rotted
wood being taken back by the earth
and how your eyes lingered there
in ivy and tendrils so green
you looked sad
a rare sadness,
one that comes with great knowing
we never spoke
we never speak
between the long slabs of
concrete that conjoin
the towns we've shut up inside
closing with a dead man's eyes
how did it get this way;
my lungs decayed,
puffing up dust like an ancient tome

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

giants sleeping in october
our bodies frayed like scarecrows.
there is a glowing face
amongst the darkness

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]

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

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

Sickly sticky sweet dribble
trickles from your lips.

A dog foaming at the mouth.
You want what you want
So why shouldn't you get it?
Even if it means the claws are coming out.

Disgusting fiends
***** bottom feeders.

Go back to the shadows whence you came,
And pray no more on the weak's shame.

the moon hung like
a bulb in the sky
the windows were broken in,
gaping holes in the buildings,
hollow eyes
no longer weeping.
the air was gritty
and we stood huddled sharing a
smoke.
a man nearby waved about and screamed
tormented by demons
that nobody could see-
just a frothing mouth
reeking of *****
and i felt sad
thinking of
fragility

Temporary things never last.



Tis' why they are temporary.



Your love was temporary.





Like sugared gum. So sweet for the first few minutes.







Slowly turning into a depleted lump, burdening your tongue.

















But you spit me out.
I was determined to live with the tasteless blob, hoping it would morph back into something beautiful.













I guess I see why I was pulled from the inside.
I settled, yet I was still yesterday's trash.









My bubble burst.









Now it's only me left with the sticky mess.

i am beveled glass
without a setting
ragged edges
and no beginning

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

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.

I slash my skin
into
violent
grins;
welcome
my friends

if i were you
and i read my poetry
i'd hate myself
and wish to feel
every needle sting.
see your torment,
with glowing red eyes
the angel of death
i will avenge
my fractured innocence.

Diamonds do not shine bright
like Rhianna claims
Instead they glow red
with the blood of the victims
sacrificed
for wedding rings
Because what's a life compared to big
expensive rocks, right?

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.

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 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

red horses
swim across the green meadow
sinking like a mermaid's tail
and the yellow laugh
of your eyes
call from a chimney
smoking in early
novemeber

she ran her hands along the body of a tree
feeling the texture of the earth's soul
breathing
in soft echoes,
i held the light that spilled from their eyes
trying to store it away in jars,
or pockets
but it was too evasive to hold.
and she whispered
away into footsteps
kidnapped by twilight.

Who was I?
Who have I become?
I feel this whisper of an itch I've tried to forget.
Stuffing it down like ***** laundry in baskets.
There's not enough coins for this pile of socks, not enough cleaner
for these speckles of stains.
Stains that won't wash away.
Can't wash away.
Some damage is permanent.
And when it's committed to your heart, there's only so much healing
it can do, the beating will always be off.
Just slightly, but enough to notice.
To remind your soul of the December months when the tree's
spindly fingers grasped at your neck and the snow seemed to bury
you into the ground.
Like a corpse in a grave.
Don't remember that now.
You're warmer now.
It's less mechanical to laugh and smile now.
Although haunted houses stay haunted, even if they're freshly painted.
I will stay a cavern of broken dreams, even if I'm freshly created.
Appearances are illusions and I am a fun house.
Aren't we all just distortions in an array of jumbled mirrors?
Hiding our true identities from the world.
When we can peer into the ghost story and truly understand,
That's when our lives can really begin.
That's when I'll know; who I am.

it was an empty
gray day
footsteps
from a ghost
scaling
the layers of my flesh.
birthed from sadness
drowning inside
a mouth
swollen with
hollow words

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.

mouth wide open
face upturned
god smiles down on you-
i know this because
of the way the light filters
through the clouds
just right
into the pools of your eyes;
perfection like that
can only be explained
by heavenly
grace.

i'd like to get drunk
off of sweet nectarine
and make love to the sound of pattering
rooftop rain
reciting declarations written on
cafe napkins, bits of dreams birthed
from hazy afternoons
sunlight the kind that sends you into
a tantalizing dance, fleetwood mac humming
from the phono graph
a scratch along the window screen
from the neighborhood tabby
naked beneath your sweater
collecting lint
to be plucked,
absentmindedly away
as kisses collect
scorching the hands
that dared to pull
the crust of the earth

this is me being
angry
bitter
appalled
and disgusted with
humanity
men give children
guns
before they
learn the alphabet,
they're learning
how to put a bullet
into someone's
head.
They'll learn about the
color red
because their skin will be splattered
with it.
little children
with needles shoved up their arms
a drug for the mind
making the killing no harm
brain wash brain wash
that's all
young minds
are so impressionable
they don't ask why
"why did i **** my mommy
why did i watch my family die?"
so many of us
don't know
we just don't know

head split apart
erupting galaxies
cheshire smiles
hanging within
a bubbling atmosphere
too bent and deformed
to house life
but dead beating hearts.
stuck inside a beehive
with stinging ringing
rubbed raw skin.
a yellow
fever
running rampant.

Lillies bloomed from her irises
And her fingers sprouted minuscule green shoots
Climbing the earth like how I dreamed of climbing you
And nestling beneath the warm humming of your blood
A passage into a quiet meditation room
Spiritually feeling my arms inside crevices that I have yet to find
Yet to feast eyes.
Flowers bloom from feet, roots cascade into a woven basket where we both might lie

heavy lines intersecting
beneath the prisms of light
that flicker under
iris veins
the sound of rain,
god am i stuck on the sound of rain
slow long drizzle
dragging a limp body across the ground
snaking beneath apple orchards
man's first sin was my last breath
dilating pupils finger nails
itching the skin,
an addiction i was born into
he spilled the last
words of loss
coming to crack along the ground
plastic communities tiny boxes
and fissures in the family
chipped tooth, your grin
is beautiful

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.

******  analyzing
inside airports
buzzing machines and people's throats
quite the same sound
if your ear really captures it.
destitute and frail
the ******* ******
with too much
abandon
churning out empty husks of men,
a glory between legs
everything else
feels irrelevant.
squeeze
the insanity from my lungs,
a surgical reconfiguration
i'm constantly re-inventing myself
and this time
i'm stuck
on you.

Warm lazy light drips like honey along the brim of Summer's end,
Children scurry up to bed,
and the fairies hide away, once again.
My skin is still peppered in freckles,
and my feet still smelling of baked clay,
the Earth embedding it's footprint at the close of the day.