Oh, I should have been fog and not a person.
Fog or sunlight,
Something untouchable
And unintrusive.
Something easily waved away or shaded from.
It is so tiresome
To be a person,
To *crave the way souls do.
I am sorry, love,
That I am so coarse and revealed,
That I cannot fade into the background
So quickly
So seamlessly
As I usually can.
I promise I usually can- I have made a life of it.
This is bad form, on my part,
A slip, a trip-and-fall, a faux pas.
I have been undone
And it seems I'm caught unaware and unprepared,
Scrambling, trying to tug my skin over the parts of my soul
Where it has unraveled and failed me
Its usual disguise.
Where, I wonder, does my mind's gory skin-and-bones sense of touch come from?
Maybe my body
Is where the feelings live and char everything.
Maybe if I could lose the canvas and frame,
The paintings in blood scrawled by all my stumbles into love,
Maybe this gauche, needy thing I call a soul
Would get gone too,
And I could comfortably be something....
Untouchable- Fog, or sunlight.
Something less lonely and less weak.
But I have this pounding pulse
And this fluttering stomach
And this aching heart
And these bones full of hollow light,
And they control me,
And my skin is a fragile lantern that makes a blazing holocaust look like a tealight candle
From outside.
It is flimsy as wet paper, stretched tight
Over the searing claws and fangs of a soul
So
Hungry for this world,
For the things I love
That in fear and resignation my heart
Scores little hashmarks into the cage of my ribs
Counting each tremulous day
One more
That hasn't ripped me to shreds just yet.

yes, i have not removed an inch of makeup, these
past three days.
i can still taste beers and united kingdom’s colloquialisms
on my burdened  
tongue.
and i have holes in stockings and black-and-blues
brushing my collarbone.
weekends, two and a half days, winding among unbolted
doors that lead to what you want but can’t admit
sober.
yes, i still feel every inch when i saunter through flaxen
leaves. how did i never notice such colors
before?
let the world be your oyster, except i’m vegetarian. so let it be my
sea. ocean. every drop that i never tasted.
fingers taste much better when they’re being
shoved beneath your front teeth.
five in the morning is the perfect time for screaming at lies
you cannot see through. for falling onto beds that cannot hold
more than one person but you trytrytry anyway.
yes, i do not know where i am going anymore,
but this tingling in my toes must mean
something.

I wish I could be brave.
The dragon leers it's angry head,
throwing flames so hot they peel paint,
scorch my heart,
and yet instead of donning my helmet and vanquishing the beast,
I clamber at it,
clumsily,
my armor too big,
my sword a child's toy.
Can it really be as hard,
as my quivering knees tell me it is?
In the movies,
the beast is defeated effortlessly by the lockers in school corridors.
"Hey, I've seen you around, fancy doing something sometime?"
But this is not the movies.
I ask the question
"What's the worst that can happen?"
but the visual replies that flicker through my mind are so unbearable,
I shut them off.
Instead, I stay mute.
I live a thousand lives,
a thousand moments,
with all the different dragons I encounter,
but the coldness I feel when the dragon and his flames have gone,
tell me I've missed my chance again.
I have a voice.
I can speak.
So why do the words elude me?
Just as I go to stutter something out,
my tongue a diving board of could be's,
the dragon roars
and warms my cheeks red,
my hands clammy.
Perhaps I first need to
love myself
before I can offer my being,
and my love,
to another.
But then again,
don't these sick,
twisted dragons enjoy
a girl with insecurities?
Instead,
I best stay silent.
Instead,
I best first conquer the beast within me.

I stretch,
my body limber,
cat-like, and spry.
The right hand corner of my mouth
turns up into a smirk
as I sing my own praises.

The highway sign screams through my windshield.
Service parts and body til midnight!

What if I entered the body shop
waltzing in broken (down) splendor?
I am here for service
parts and body
til midnight.

So, you've read my poetry?
You've skimmed the lines and picked out words you think are pretty,
delicate, intelligent, or odd?
You understand me now, I see!
I'm yours to dissect, pick at, ****,
but never keep, of course not that.

Yes you've read my poetry,
but did you know I sometimes cross my l's as t's and often wish
to travel far and far alone.
Alone: myself and only me.
I'd adventure, danger-prone;
You would only slow me down.

So what if sometimes late at night I want to dance on balconies and feel your breath upon my ear?
That really doesn't matter
for I don't need you, and you don't want me,
even though you've read my poetry.

Even when I face problems miles high and fathoms deep
my books still make me cry.
Sometimes love in stories rings truer than any reality -
it is close to that I'll keep.

You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.