I've opened my chest up
so many times
a floodgate of feeling
rushing rushing.

I fear all that's left
are tiny droplets;
that sometimes drip
when you grasp my hands.

I wish I could have held it all in,
so I'd have more to give.

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.

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

breathless bodies
churning into a wave,
your eyes not quite like meadows
but rolling
rolling ,,
fuzzy green horizon,
the sun smiling with a thoughtless
prayer.
battery acid dripping from your hair.
i like when your body
makes my body blue
a carpet of rust,
textured,
contrasting the forest floor.
maybe i would be a bee keeper,
folding all the boys
up into honey combs.
a hive of
uncertainty.
lonely hearts still beating
a bruised remorse.

Soft glowing
Lights
Hang from emptied corridors
And the night melts into

An


Outer space
Dripping pinpoints of light

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.

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

tulips waltzing in wonderland
wind chimes singing the hour

we are but ghosts
observing the memories
captured by photographs
held in twig fashioned frames

fingers like the branches of trees
when the seasons are in between
and its cold
but you know warmth will smile down
opening the timid flower buds
chasing the blue dusted dawn
with plenty of tomorrows
to be held up
towards the morning
sun

My body has become a wasteland
My skin crawls with decay
You open my flesh
Analyzing the fossils,
the fingerprints of past lies.
Can this cage hold my soul,
I'm separate from it all
The sewage water running
through my pores,
Recreating over recycled trash.
Lock my limp form
in the county dump
so I can rot
Alone
with no one's
razor sharp
touch
to hurt and scorn.
Just matter decomposing
with the worms.

burning white metal
your touch scorches my skin
it feels so good
to not be numb,
your lips are a wound
running

dog eared books stacked on dusty window sills with warm laughing light spilling through beveled glass a grandmother's plate of gooey cookies staining teeth and lips with sugar kisses and wrinkled feet from barefoot running in the streets sing me to sleep paint a picture of outer space make sure my star collides with yours so we become a blazoning life form of galactic fire

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

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.

standing on the love-lock bridge in paris
i felt the hope secured in each metal contraption
thousands upon thousands
every link of fence occupied
sharpie and custom prints
revealing the names of lovers,
dates
some present, some new
a timeline of love
efforts to have
some minute, impossible
control over fate
thinking lifeless objects
and cast away keys
will keep people together

I am unhappy*,
This thought, this emotion, tears through my being like an angry wind leaving despair and destruction in its wake.
It feels as if I'm merely floating in places, day in and day out, with the simple,
itchy realization that nothing matters.
Nothing can make me feel.
I've bottled all dreams, wishes, desires, and hopes into tiny little cans to be passed out,
sold for the highest price;
Leaving me empty, but not quite...
There's still an awareness I hold of the desolate
heart I own.
And there isn't anything more agonizing than that.

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 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

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.

lying with my ear
cupped to your chest
your heart spilling its
secrets to me
your warm living body
soothes me
comforts me
our breathing slows
into one deep sigh
a sigh for this moment
a sigh to slow down time
a sigh for feeling
incredibly alive.

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.

**** format
i'll place my words

wherever
                              i
want




         how           ever   i want

and if you    disapprove
                                       go read




Shakespeare.

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

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.

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

Here's how it goes, the magazines, the tiny jeans,

A continuous circle of hard feelings,


When it's not this, it's that.

Always something nibbling away at my mind.

My skin, it isn't clear today, my hair hangs in a limp mess, my clothes feel too tight,
suffocating my breath. Too pale, too much of anything I'd rather not be.




I'll get out of bed anyways, and face the human I am, but not "supposed" to be.

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

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.

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

we are nothing but bones
constructed into two small
houses
skin made of glass;
so you can see me
and i can see you.
see your chimney with it's glowing fire
i'll watch as the flames spark
alighting the rooms
in white;
only when i'm near
does your heart glow
so intensely
how fragile are we
how fragile

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.

Bitter, sugar sweet
Tongues dancing too close to cheeks
Flushed with red red heat

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

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

under a purple night
the moon a pale freckled face
laughing at me
through frosted
windows

before
my body
was a dump.
a place for him to fill with
trash
to relieve himself
of hormonal
frustration.

i
felt
worthless.
i never wanted
it again.
never wanted
hands
upon my
skin.

but
then
you found me.
curled around
dumpsters.

you picked
me up
softly.
and unfurled
my petals,
and i thought
you were the sun.

because
for once
i wanted my
body
to
open
up
and
be filled
instead
with
love.

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 sky looked
like layers of birthday cake
and my eyes were swimming in a
sunlit haze
autumn golds
all melding together-
sepia toned-
dreaming of dancing lips
and coffee shop bookstores
where hearts will beat in mocha lattes.
and yes;
this is happiness

Let me keep you warm
From the sorrowful winter storm
With my hand on yours

I know I'm one of those people who will never laugh and mean it.


The world is a lonely place.

One day, I'll choose to escape.
And when you find my body;


Just let it be.

Keep your virtues lined along your shelves,
like pretty painted china dolls.
So fragile and pure, but so easily cracked,
with the force of concrete
and dirt.

Your grubby fingernails
cannot veil your thinly coated lies.
A coil of lace
simply won't erase
the disgust you
parade upon your brow.

During the hazy summer days,
I'll reap and sow
the last tears of my love.
And once they're
buried below,
nothing will grow.
Because what you made me feel
was plastic
and plastic seeds
grant no life;
instead
they linger
while time wears on
the darkness enveloping
the hope they never
possessed.
Forgotten,
Along with the decent memories of you.

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

Orange plastic bottles
filled with pills
that slide down my throat
like cherry pits
1,2,3
i'll take more
until it's all empty
and i've fallen to the floor

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

The world feels like its breaking
when you discover your parents are, in fact,
humans too.
What is a girl to do,
when she realizes they make mistakes too?
How can she cope when
the rocks she envisioned in her mind
are nothing more or less than her, herself?

What does it mean when she discovers they are
one in the same?
Is this what its like to grow up,
when you find the pieces
scattered on the ground,
and have no one else to turn to,
no wings to shield,
Just your bleeding fingers
as you pick up
the broken shards,
All by yourself.

icelandic glaciers
forming fingertips, a cold caress
felt in the heat of summer.
diseased plants
spitting oxygen through decaying lungs an atmosphere of ash
flesh boiling over.
an unopened letter and your sightless eyes
a hanging
shadow

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.

i
am hands
a leaf that spans
the winter
hemisphere.
you
holding my body
cradled
like a fetus
you nurture
rag doll bones.
burning
vision no longer necessary.
i've known
your
face
without waking.

i took a bath in chemicals
making love in dark rooms
while polarized pictures
developed under naked wrists
our bodies
became film strips
projected on grainy screens
scratches
looping in on ourselves