every phone call ends in tears
and sleep becomes the devil

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//

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.

I fall in love with words; i die by the blade of words
their sharp enunciation's slicing through layers
of extraneous flesh.

There is no greater death than that done by
the seductive curvature of letters
or the eloquence of speech.
Words create the materials, the inspiration to love
to share your histories and overlap your stories.
It is with words that we can truly see.

All we have is
here.
Greedy for tomorrow.
Forgot yesterday, again.


If we could only remember;
the delusions would cease.
Our hearts could just *be

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.

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

lie awake
with the wilted presence
of mistakes
running down my arms
cotton fills my throat
i stay silent in your company
some day ill know what to say
but then you'll be oceans away
**** this is stupid
words
meaningless
stomach
sick with
poems about you

sip my lips,
drink me in
until nothing quite makes sense.
let my lungs fill your lungs
with an intoxicating fume.
smoke rings,
ripped jeans,
natty-bo's,
midnight shower endeavors,
the timidness of bare skin.

all the necessary ingredients
in concocting young love.
make me the subject of your songs
and we'll gaze at the stars
on those bright chilly nights.

a perfect pattern that fits together
like the quilt of life.

pixilating membranes
mucus dripping from mushroom caps
mapped out your skin
because your flesh
was like a scab
i tore off.

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

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."

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.

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.

generation of can't
generation of hate
blundering those who
get in their way
go on if you must,
hide your face
lock your doors up tight
the years will drag slowly by
and there
outside
we won't recognize

my throat is twisted up
jumbled and knotted
like the roots of an old oak.
your words bleed through
my pores
and i can feel them
trickling down my skin
until i am
covered
in
crimson