I don't want babies.

These are Victorian days

I reckon I'd die.

Which came first:

The chicken or the egg?

Well, the **** of the walk

Of course!


You ought to know, silly kid,

That he has always ruled the roost, —

Kicking up dirt

Crowing all the live-long day

Fighting anything that he sees

All to prove his strength.


That's how he has always been, —

One day, he just wanted to take his dominance

That little step further

And so, the world gave him a hen.


So quiet and gentle

Sweet and demure

She balances him out quite nicely.


She spends most of her days

Resigned to her coop

Laying egg after egg

In her warm, dark room.

She attends to the ****

Whenever he wants her

Then becomes a living factory once again, —

Producing babies and food

Food and babies.


She does this for most of her life, —

Until she gets too old, that is.

She dries up, gets fat

And, by Sunday,

She'll be on our table for dinner.


Laughing and chewing

Clucking and squalling

We'll sink our teeth in,

Never once thinking

About how her entire lifetime

Was defined by giving

And the ****, —

Well, it won't take him long

To pick out a younger, prettier chick

To take her place.


Which came first, —

The chicken or the egg?

Obviously, it was the **** of the walk, —

The one who screams his triumph at every sunrise

The one whose meat is too tough for us to devour

The one who will never, ever die.

Everything else is just a page in his never-ending story, —

Everything else

Is merely consequential.

His hands are an artist's, —

There's power in them

To sculpt

To create

To demolish, —

And she's letting him

Make her his subject.

She looks up at his face

As he molds her like clay

Whispers to him:

"I don't like you

But I love you."


His eyes are like a hurricane, —

Wild and vicious

Ravaging everything

That he **** well pleases.

He tries knocking her down, —

Tearing her apart

Stripping her bare

So she'll have to rebuild, —

But she stands still.

Back straight against the wall

She tells him,

"I don't need you

But I want you."


His mouth is like a hot knife, —

His tongue gleams like silver

Beneath the light of a pretty lie

His words, serrated

Cutting deep enough

To make even the most obscure parts bleed.

She looks on as he takes a stab

Utterly unmoved,  —

The wounds he leaves

Are never more than superficial.

She grins at him

And states:

"You are dangerous,

But you aren't frightening."


His heart is a rabbithole, —

It's a long way down that dark tunnel

But, if you're brave enough to take the tumble,

Once you finally land

You'll come face-to-face

With a mere little boy, —

Frail and trembling

Trapped for years.

Gracious and graceful,

She takes the boy's trembling hands

In her steadfast grip

And offers the truth, —

"You're a vampire, you see, —

A predator as old as time,

But once I stake you

You're done for."



His skin is like ice, —

Cold and thin

Melting away

Beneath her fingertips.

She looks at what she's done

And shakes her head

Before bursting into brilliant flame.


"You kept trying to **** me, —

And one day, you might have, —

But, love,

I am a phoenix.

I've burned and burned

A million times over

But you know

I'll always rise again."

Mama,

I'm just a little girl.

You make me happier than anything else

With the books that you read me

The smiles you give me

The warmth of your body

As I sit on your lap

My downy blonde head

Rested, listening to the heartbeat

That lulled me to sleep

In your womb.

You tell me,

"Madison,

You are my sunshine."

You're mine, too

So I bring you

Pictures I drew

Purple weeds that I picked from the yard

Smiles

Flashing love, optimism

With my crooked baby teeth.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm not a little girl.

I like boys

And have opinions

And bleed

Just about every month now.

I roll my eyes

And speak my mind

And disagree.

I want to read those few books

You don't think that I'm ready to read.

I make you cry now

Almost as often as I make you laugh.

I remind you of the sharp, dangerous bits

Of your own adolescence

With all the added danger

Of my Daddy's set ways.

I'm sorry, Mama

I am.

I can only become a woman

In the ways that you teach me.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

You know I'm your girl.

I might have Daddy's face and sense of humor

But it's you and I

Talking about our respective friends

As we work in the kitchen

You on the main course

Me on dessert.

We laugh

And sing along to Courtney Love's mad howls

No matter how much everyone else winces in response.

Let me tell you a secret, Mama:

I don't want to grow up anymore.

I feel safe here

Always at home

As long as I'm with you.

I love you, Mama

I do.


Mama,

I'm still just a little girl.

It scares me to death

To see you hurt

When there's nothing I can do

To ease your pain.

Part of me wants to do

What you did for me:

Tuck you into bed

With a hug

A kiss

A ginger ale.

"Sleep tight

Night-night

Don't let the bed bugs bite.

Sweet dreams

Love you

See you tomorrow."

I want to **** this ******* cancer

Eradicate it

From you

And every man, woman, and child

Who's ever fallen

Into its hideous grip.

I don't want to ever have to leave your side, Mama,

Wouldn't do it

For anything in this world.

I'm sorry

For any nasty thing

I could have ever said to you.

I'm sorry

If the stresses

Of a single moment

Or years' worth of them

Ever stole a little bit of joy

From you and I.  

I love you, Mama

I always will.


I'll do anything

If it means we can take each other's hands

And kick this thing's ***.

Your broken parts are jagged, —

I cut myself when I was trying to gather them

And match them to mine.

Over and over, I bled bright scarlet onto your shattered China,

Until I created something halfway decent

And stopped to admire what I'd done.


I found a way to make it all fit

As if the Almighty had put us together like puzzles, —

I could have lied

Proudly stated how nicely

My sorrows played with yours.


But, my dearest,

That isn't the way

The man pulling the strings

Wanted this to work.

Our hearts never make the same clean breaks as our bones, —

We were built to spill our vulnerability for all to see

Hearts made ultra-sensitive

So that we'd always be sure to feel the pain.


Love's a bleeding thing, you see, —

We're all too likely to bite the hand that caresses us

Take a blade to the back we promised to stay behind

Highlight the worst words to come from the same mouths that we've kissed

As long as we get to see that same result.


Passion is not a selfless creature, —

It's an untamed beast

Taking delight in the heady lust of treachery

Finding romance in the primal notion:

If I bleed

You will, too.


Love is not for those without will

Or those who can not part

With certain parts of themselves

That will certainly be drained

By the vampire of devotion.


Love is for the well-meaning naïve

Much like myself

But, be warned,

Even those who wait on the suffering hand and foot

Are not selfless

Nor innocent.


Affection can be just as carnal a need

As a lust for blood.

It is a hunger

That might someday destroy me.

Until then

Here I will stay

Jagged bits of porcelain heart in my hands

Until I lick my own lifeblood from my skin

Blindly hoping that, this time,

The thirst might be sated.

Confessions:

They weren't created

To make us sound cool

Or look pretty.


They were meant

To make us taste the blood

That we never shed.


They aren't always

As simple as perfume-scented love-notes

Slipped nervously into the hands

Of someone you hardly know.


They can be as dire

As the details

That spill from an honest criminal's lips

Proving his guilt

Sickening the jury

Allowing the clarity of a set date

On which the monster will be slain.


They aren't something

We can stand to dissect too much

Once we have them all written down.

All they're going to do

Is tarnish the world's perception of us, anyway.

Why worry about our syntax?


They weren't made

For jokes

Or church

Or truth-or-dare

Or poetry.

Perhaps they were made

Simply for the dark, scarce rooms

That are the minds

Of cowards.


Confessions

Taste of bitterness

Sting like salt in a wound

Have all the power

To tear a person's whole **** world apart

With a gesture as small

As a nod of one's head.


They're the things we wish we could forget

The big mistakes

That make us want to pour ourselves

A large glass of Selective Memory

And settle in for the evening.


And, in order to get them off of her chest

A trembling poet

With the roar of a lion

And the heart of a scaredy-cat

Will wrap them all up in metaphor

Until she barely recognizes them

Then feed them to the dogs

That make up the rest of the world

For dinner.

The day is going to come

When I'll wake before the sun

When I'll try hard to look my best

When I'll spend hours behind a desk.


The day is going to come

When I'll start to settle down

With some man I'll keep around

Then we'll figure out the rest.


The day is going to come

When the clock will start to tick

And I'll decide whether to live free

Or spend my mornings, sick

And peeing on some test.


The day is going to come

When my life won't be my own, —

I'll be filling up a home

With books, boys, girls

Or pets.


The day is going to come

When my hair will start to fade, —

Blonde, brown, red

Then grayed, —

A reflection much older

Than the one I last met.



The day is going to come

When I'll have to figure out

What my whole life is about, —

Though it scares me to death

I don't think I'm close yet.


The day is going to come

When I'll shed the skin

Of being young.

With wrinkled, squinting eyes

I'll watch the sun set.


Thinking about it now

Lifts me up and brings me down,

But, God, —

I just hope I have plenty of time left.

Moonlight.

Summer heat.


Washed hair.

Clean sheets.


Cool hands.

Warm skin.


All the time in the world.

Patience worn thin.


A thrill like fire.

An ache like ice.


A terrible hunger.

This feast won't suffice.


Overflowing heart.

Short-circuiting brain.


The stabbing of longing

Nearly drives me insane.


Freckled and bright eyed.

Skin thin over bones.


In some world

I'm with you.


In this one

I'm alone.


Frustrated and frazzled.

Eager and resigned.


Thoughts of you call to me

Dreams not far behind.


Escape fading away.

Reality bleeding through.


I lie in a spacious bed.


I wish I was lying with you.

I think I want to bleed again.

My insides feel hollow

Empty, but like there's something there

That needs to spill out.


I've made myself numb

Denial pressed onto my old wounds

Like bandages.

I haven't let myself hit rock bottom in months

Convincing myself, time and again

That, not only would it be okay

But none of it was ever real

In the first place.


I've worn my struggles on my sleeve

Like an attention ***** badge

Become the poster girl

For overcoming.

I've tried shedding my old skin

Spreading bits of my new self

All over everything

All in an attempt to show everyone

That I'm not who I was anymore.


I've convinced myself of tomorrow

Where all those hideous things

Are reflections in my rearview mirror.

I've fallen in love

With the idea of life going on

Because surely

The truly awful things

Won't keep happening to me.


Now I remember

That I'm a fake.

Today's my day

To fall back down.


I think I need to bleed again.

It's not the mirror

Making me wonder

If I am, or ever will be

Good enough.


It's the angel on my shoulder

Arguing with the devil

Who lives in my mouth.


It's my self-control

Tarnished as metal

Beneath a heavy layer of rust.


It's the unfinished books

Collecting dust on the nightstand

As I crack open another.



It's all the projects

That I will never

Bring to a close.


It's the time that I spend

In a room by myself

Listening to my family's laughter, —

An open invitation.


It's the things I don't do

That I once did.


It's the things that I want

But may never get.


It's the things that I am

That I'm trying not to be.


It's yesterday

Tinted a rosy hue.


It's tomorrow

Threatening rain.


It's today

Slipping between my fingers

As I sit here

Trying to untangle myself.

Oh, my lover

Circumstance

You've gotten ahold of me

Once again.


Today, you have me

By the hand

Tomorrow,

Around the throat.


It's heady enough

To get me high

But that may just be

Because I can't breathe.


Oh, my lover

Circumstance

Come to bed with me.  

We'll settle down

Around the break of dawn

Rise from our slumbers

Well into the afternoon.  


We can't get our hands

Off of one another.

You can't take your eyes

Off of me.


I can't get

Away from you.

I have the feeling

You'll always be

After me.


Oh, my lover

Circumstance

How I wish

You would let me go.


Relinquish your grip

On my neck

Release my skin

From between your teeth.


My dizzy existence

Wants to touch the ground again.

My selfish heart

Wishes you would

Find some other poor girl

To 'love.'

Hopelessness is an addiction.

I take that little daydream pill

Washed down with a tall glass of desire

Every single night

Just to make me sleep.


Lust is a drug.

There's something about wanting

That can lift me right off the ground

But when I come back down

I always feel like I'll need more next time.


Envy is my lifeblood.

Imagining her limbs, all tangled in his

Makes my eyes light up green

Igniting a spark in me

That keeps my head forever spinning.


Wishing is a disease.

There are things I want to know

That live beneath another's skin.

Those are places that I'll never see

Lines on a map that I only trace in my dreams.


Indulgence is a vice

In all its many forms, —

A sweet-tasting concoction of poison

And I will surely keep drinking it

Until the day my insides give out.


Bitterness is an artform.

What else can drive a poet

To bleed out her most ridiculous fantasies

Filling her canvas up with graceful shame?

Not another substance in this world.

Sun in the sky

Sleep in my eyes

I rise slowly

Thinking of you

Thinking of me.


Passing of days

Nails bitten away

Waiting on you

Wondering if you ever

Wait for me.


Curiosity bites

Some spark ignites

Finding mystery in you

Hoping you find intrigue

Within me.


Obsession resumes

Compulsion consumes

Fingers crossed

That your intentions are pure

And that I don't dash the expectations

You must have for me.



Attempts of calm fail

Familiar loathing prevails

How could I trust enough

To throw myself into the things

That are invisible to me?


Life carries on

But the thought's not quite gone

A star that always remains

Dim, but bright enough to see.


Because, my dear

I never consider what is

Only what has been

And what could be.

I don't know you anymore

Please, leave our memories by the door.



Pack your bags

Take all your new burdens with you.

I won't be helping you

To carry them.




Waving goodbye

I'll bid you adieu

When you stare back at me

I'll take my bitter thoughts

And bury them.


Time came for us, love

That's the sad truth:

Not everything is meant to be forever.


If hope is a thing

That often shrivels and dies

Better late to bury it

Than never.


We don't know each other anymore

So go on

Leave our memories by the door, —

I promise you I'll take care of them.


Even if

We never see each other again

Know that, on my drunken nights

I'll be fondly sharing them.


You don't know me anymore

Set yourself free.

Leave your memories by the door.

My heart is breaking

Beneath all this agony

And none of it's mine.

While fiction is safer

Reality's much stranger.


(There may be a lie to suit your every need

But there's always a truth that would set you free.)


Stories will make you

Your own safe haven

In the arms of imagination.


(You might miss the path the present lights

Towards your destination.)


Living a life fueled by love

Wouldn't be worth a thing

If you didn't have a heart.


(But isn't your brain

An issue more pressing

When it's what's kept it beating

From the start?)


A lifetime is but

Some boring tale

If you don't aim for the stars

Leaning over the rails.


(But what if you fall

To your untimely death?

Are risks truly worth it

When there's so much time left?)


Live your life

Running fast

Drive your destiny

Foot pressed to the gas.  


(Listen to your intuition

Never roam

Where your soul feels safe

Is where you should feel at home.)


Jump from the nest

Fly your own jet

Make each brand new day

One you'll never forget.


(Don't spend your days in a haste

Not one moment's a waste.

Keep your time moving slow

Who knows what could change tomorrow?)


Dance when with the ones you love

Sing a melody when alone.

Embark on new adventures

Accept the unknown.


(Give a smile to your lover

An embrace to your mother

Try to never end your day

Feeling bereft.)


At the end of the day

Know that none of these choices

Are limited by right and wrong.


(They only ask you

To turn right or left.)

You grab ahold

I push

I claw.


Words fly from my lips

Like poisoned darts.

They'll cut you open

They'll rub you raw.


You spit my venom

Right back at me.

You squeeze my hand

Crush me with your grip.


All of a sudden

Something invisible

Stabs me.

A steely cold

Settles in my chest

Rather than blood

Hot tears drip.