she fell in love with the voices on her silver screen
their hollow pixels and their whirring noise
close in her heart, but miles away
like a dead thing
a broken girl

like aromatic plums in the plum tree
i will ripen and sink into the earth
and while bugs run over my skin
and i bleed a deep bruised purple and
fade into the soil my fragrance forgotten
you will laugh from the branches still
infinitely green

sound like nicotine
water etching against the bathtub
blood soap and porcelain
ice in the cavities of my heart
eventualities we left far behind
with the endless supply of could-have
and some songs sound like you

and they taste like honeyed ***
thats been tasted too long
like brain freeze i can’t stop replaying
because this sound
nicotine and you
is more addictive
than a burning cigarette

Trade your peace for some love
And your love for a pack
Burn it all down like dying's got a knack
Wishing you could turn back time
Wishing you could have me back
Wishing i still had your back
Wishing you could have me back

But now i've found somebody else
that has everything you lack
Maybe one day you’ll find peace and love,
Or maybe you’ll attack

Watch you burn and watch you snap
Wishing you could have me back
Now your worlds fading to black
Your new lover is the concrete
And the concrete’s
gonna
   crack

i couldn't tell you where
but she was surfing on her own
salty water in her hair
and a ribcage full of stone

surely i’m a waste of meat and bread
a waste of a heart and a waste of a head
i’d nourish the forest just lying there dead
but i nourish the sadness right here in my bed

it’s two am and i still can’t sleep
the red raw silence is raising a beat
and the god of my goodness is stamping his feet
i pray for the darkness
i pray for the sleep

you have a darkness in your eyes
fire concealed between the waves
the fold of the water around you
creasing your face and twisting your soul
skin now a membrane bones peeking
i could peel you into nothing but
crepuscular pain
i know you’re dying
your words settle like sea foam
murky in the room that we sleep
the ruffles in the sand
the cold silence in the air
you see faces in the wind
they will carry you to the sky

i have been given flowers
a tabula rasa of red and pink and green
and i have held them to my heart and smiled
but i have never been in love

i have endured champagne drizzled kisses
dancing in the blue night with you
with nothing but the smell
of you, sweat, and petrichor
but i have never been in love

i have cried at your distance
my skin so cold and bare
no number of sheets could warm me
yearning for your touch
but i have never been in love

and you have done the same
so why does your heart swell for me
like a broken wave
while mine lies silent
on some distant beach
i have never been in love

you feel like a coin on my lips
if I open my mouth to speak
you’ll fall in and I’ll choke

perhaps you love them to be kissed

but they are my lips

maybe I’ll learn to swallow the coin
and stop swallowing my words

the waves etch the land
the sea near where my home is,
a silver seat in the solitary rock,
draws maps in the sand
with the plumes of her waves
sad and languid turmoil
embrace the shore; and pile it up again
the senseless, endless, shapes of nature
i lack the ***** to understand her

I want the world to see my art
But only I can see my heart
Its easy to forget my soul and tongue
Are hidden miles apart

soleil, and I
came down to Italy for the summer
to see the boys with cigar colored skin
we stood in the balcony, all manner of cloths
and linens wrapped around us like an atmosphere of color
the sun drowned the flowers in her hot perfume
at the mouth of the balcony she bore holes into the stone
and we fell into the rapid streets
of bread and bicycles and more and more roses
seduced by her aroma, the olives proud little bullets
in a wooden bowl

i haven't been to the beach
or felt the sand
only his car, smoking ****, nights on end
they collect without linearity, bubbles stacked
in clear and indistinguishable chaos
and i'm the happiest i've ever been

maybe daedalus was wrong
about straying too close to the sun
this flights nearly over
and icarus wants to burn

I won't say yes
until you carve out pieces of yourself
and dedicate them
to pouring over my poems
anguished scrutiny of my soul

if you want entrance to my body
enter my mind first, dear

accept egocentricity
you will never experience true empathy,
only your own narcissistic consciousness

reject imbalances
there is no such thing as happiness on the edge
the horse is only happy out of his stable under clear skies

write neatly,
you have a beautiful mind but will only be rewarded
for popular views

and **** 12
always

I have come from the stars
they smell of peppermint
like you
and the only words
that they exchange
are your name,
and your beauty

i hate to hear
the disjointed chugging
of that hot and gurgling *****
pounding below my throat

with its sanguine deliveries
forcing metalled sludge
around my ballooning veins
it batters my senses

be silent
my heart
or be silenced

anger
black and bold
worms that flash from my eyes
and run down my boiling
cheeks and raw throat
fighting
to keep the roaring tempest in
i say something
whipping off my tongue
that i will regret

to fill my thoughts with august
so the sunlight and fireflies
can drip like honey
brim, spill over-
to the hidden, dark places
of my soul
and they only become
sunburnt
and wither
too much love, they retreat

is this the path to insanity?
is this the path to enlightenment?
do either exist?
is there any difference?

maybe i still miss you
maybe i could have fought harder
maybe i loved the way that you
said i was smarter
yeah you could have killed me
at least i’d be your martyr
but now i fall asleep
wishing you could have had her

have the force
of a generation

the fish
was pulled up too quickly
by that sparkling line
guts tangled to that rusted hoop
and his swim bladder filled
so he lay on the surface
flapping
abandoned by the fisherman
one wild barren eye
took in the sky
and the flashing white wings
of the gulls
and their sharp beaks
i sat in the bow
and watched nature take its toll
on another helpless soul

i **** myself
yearning for you
for a love unrequited
has as much chance of survival
as a barren seed
on the dark side of the moon

in the drear sun
i had a headache
maybe it was the salt
from the surfing that day
so i sat in the shade
and watched nightingales
peck at the red
and rotting
sea grapes

hearing your name
feels like drowning in the wind
in a dark molasses trap
kicking away sticky sheets from clammy skin
you are my skin
i cannot peel you off

pressed her fingers against the surf
so the gentle waves would learn the grooves of her palm
like they knew the stretching white cliffs
that glowed in the starlight
where her naked toes
would defile the sandy flesh of the beaches
as she danced to
whispered music
crackling sea foam
and the thunder
miles and miles away

the smell of cigarettes
can be gone with a shower
some of my whitening toothpaste
gone forever

tattoos, they have permanence
that an electric laser
can etch away with ease

how to do I rid myself of you
if the only answer is time
the only resource I need
and im running out

this morning when i split eggs
and watched the fluids fall into the hot metal pan
to bask in butter and oils and salt
two yolks drew clean of the shell, two smiling suns

and i wondered if this was a thing of luck
or a ghastly mutation
two unborn twins of an avian persuasion
about to go down my gullet

i suppose it is up for interpretation
the proverbial double yolk
two lives lost could nourish
the one i occupy, until i break and bellow
like that eggshell

look at us here,
desperate to make a new sound

but old money, new money makes the world go round

it will never change, and it will never rebound

i know that it will stay this way until we're grey in the ground

six months clean
sober from that driving knife
i have endured storms
i have endured hurricaines
without a thought of that ****** blade

- not today
and all for a raindrop
my sky comes falling

clattering in the kitchen
cutlery clinks as fingers angrily arrange them
knives and forks
her voice more pointed
ranting to father
just loud enough that the words slip through the cracked
bedroom door that i'm not allowed to close.
mother.
**** talking me again

i'm sorry that i missed your calls
i was scrubbing your name off all my walls
and you left my place with tears on your face
because you woke up to the sound of those weeping guns
this ended up being more than fun
but i never thought i would see you run
no i never thought you would see me run

one day we'll make it to the stars

light pours out from the day
observed by the silent sea
and the whispering waves
my nose is burning like a soul
and honey drips like wasted words
from withered lips
but you have come home
flightless bird
have you heard?

he is the fire
the burning, the flame
he is the downpour
and he is the rain
he is the sun
that's warming the sane
and I feel so lucky
that know his name
for now he is branded
inside of my brain

Lives in the poems in the margins
of dogeared second hand books
Her hair curls in the volute of the s
she inscribed eloquently
in the hair-lined second hand paper
in black ink
smudged by her finger
or a tear

she watches me through the screen
of an old crime movie
on a rainy day
her whispers are the spaces in between the words
the gunshots couldn’t say


She kisses me whenever I see the moon
for her bones twist like Diana
leading the nymphs in a dance through the woods
resplendent and divine


I will meet her between dreams
when it feels there is water in your mind
but she will be forgotten by the morning
lethes kisses made me blind
no matter what our distance
of her god will remind.
our souls are intertwined

he held my mouth "don't make a sound"
but I'm so loud
on ****** ground

your soul is eyesore
but it's you that i'd die for
wish i was one of your kind

and i would wage any world war
and sit in the downpour
to kiss the pain in your lines
id on all of your crimes

he will never reach
a blissful satisfaction
picking splintered timbers
from a beige sky

he will never love you
until you burn
and the clouds are red
like a forest fire

density of petrichor
and the depth of my love
she nestles in the ***** sheets
like a broken baby dove

and the words swell
at the root of my throat
like blood and sweet sweet bile
they drip down my rippling skin
i want to tell you, dear
i see how your eyes turn grey when it rains
and how you touch your neck
when you are afraid


but i cannot speak
i keep those angry bees caged down
between my vertebrae and muscles and sinews
because you're just a friend
and that's all
you'll ever be

I sat at the bottom of the pool
miles away from the turmoil and spray
where the day just warmed me
my fingers played on the tiles
illuminated in tantalizing fractals of sunlight
and apart from burning of my lungs
I was at peace, observing, quite separated from the noise.

Now I sit at the bottom of life
there is a joy in observing, not sharing,
the struggles of others
I could so easily swim up, it is within my reach- no
so until I drown, down here in the effortless depths
I am glad, to sit,
and watch the victors thrash to stay afloat

i think i left myself behind

her hair is pure indulgence
dark, pure, and sweet
it coils, like her name coils through my mind
and her eyes boil
with the effervescence
of burning ***
and raving teeth

long hair in my drivers seat
he has it dark and in a ponytail
smoke curves over his lips
it follows my gaze
his tobacco-chewed lips
and a spot of blood
punctuate the drum-filled silence

my hopes
my dreams
lay bloated and moist
decaying
somewhere among the trees
a half-forgotten burial

summer sweat
the fever of the mustard seeds roasting
the walls of leaky churches
and a soldier's pride
she was the storm swell
the tattoo, she was in my skin
and i was in hers

voice full
of mist sweat
and jungle sounds
arms warm
like leaves caving
around me
pulling me deeper
into the lush lull
of your breathing tides

half celestial
on the wet-metalled gorge
sprayed with crushed golden
fractals of starry reflection

all glinting, rolling clouds
lashings of precious raindrops
into a hidden alcove,
a fissure in the stone

the rinds of the stars above
reflect thee in the salt foam
glistening with effervescence
at the sight of hidden gemstones within