She's the kind of girl that laughs at her own jokes.
Not in the way where you are left thinking
she is the center of her own universe
but in a way that makes her the center of yours.

My friend Murphy knows all kinds of things about everything.
Like the chemical composition of LSD and how to dance ballet.

He told me once that there are an infinite number of universes,
where each possible variation in life has happened and I think
it's kinda funny and I think it's kinda sad

that I'm stuck in this one

I am a warped vinyl left in the sun
by your careless hand.

My voice has become so warbled
it's no wonder you can't hear
all of the times I screamed "I miss you"
into that tin can microphone
so many songs ago.

The surface noise has grown louder
than the instruments
and now I know why
you never dust me off
the shelf and play me anymore.

I'm sorry if this seems long-winded but everything I write is short
because I'm not used to speaking without you cutting me off mid-sentence and I must get these weights off my chest before they crush my lungs
like the pressure that surrounds me as if I'm a deep sea diver
and you are the ocean. I used to liken you to things like that.
The ocean, the color blue, famous women that have courted my heart
from their places in the history books:
Jeanne d'Arc, Bonnie Parker, Amelia Earhart.
But the wars you wages in my name were lost and my name could never rally the troops like God's.
And the banks we robbed never satiated your expensive taste when everything I could offer you was more brass than gold
and for that I am sorry.
I never wanted you to get lost in the ocean. Your plane crashing somewhere in the vicinity of Howland Island where you sent out your last cry for help
and it choked for life in the static of my busted ******* stereo.
I know that this is coming out in pieces and my stream of consciousness
lacks the stillness that Nature tries to instill like a watchful mother
but I can't help the way all of these words and sentences keep bringing
you back to life and I know now that I will never stop
because what can Nature tell me about the way your lips moved
when you whispered my name.

1) 12 thousand tweets and none of them are substantial. They're becoming less and less about you though. Maybe that's what is substantial about them.

2) Something in the way you wrap sin in worship.

3) I'm an arson waiting to happen, is the funeral pyre really necessary?

4) Writing about you angrily isn't doing it anymore. I want to smash bricks through windshields that used to hold flowers I bought you.

5) Looks like you're not at the bottom of this one either. ****.

6) My love has always been leprosy.

7) You're the interlude, not the chorus. But, that's okay I'm a terrible vocalist anyway.

8) She wants to date boys that are self aware and boy did she hit the jackpot.

9) You smile with the grace of grandmothers and I'm a bad boy like your grandpa after the War.

10) Can I cut out your grin and put in on the wall next to my framed poster of Bob Dylan and Charles Bukowski?

11) Trace my outline in chalk when I finally drink myself to sleep. I'm euthanizing the pieces of me that belong to you.

12) If I find you in Heaven won't you be in his arms? If I find you in Hell won't you be my torment?

13) You make me feel as insignificant as God does and I think that says something about prayer.

14) I quit paying my phone bill so I'd quit dialing your number like a suicide hotline.

15) My teeth are rotten like the lies that spill out of my teeth. You find me beautiful and I've never been more self-conscious.

16) Your silence fills my abdomen like daggers and words clot where crimson should flow.

17) Loving you is *******.

18) My heart is at a crossroads and you're drowning in dust in the rearview mirror.

19) You prefer the subtle burns. The flames so hot they sever nerve endings when they lick your fingers the way I imagine I would.

20) She sings the body electric and I'm forced to worship her through computer screens and the scratch of needle on vinyl.

1) Your heart is so entwined into mine that I'm not sure if it hurts you or me when I pry it out with a crowbar and leave it on your windshield.

2) You're letting boys ****** you sweaty in your backseat and I just want anyone to write about me the way all my blank pages scream about you.

3) I've always been one to root for the underdog and baby we're a million to one shot.

4) You're the Dragon and the Damsel and I'm not sure what to do.

5) You're the draft I've been writing on for months. Art is never finished.

6) I'm wicked and I'm proud, just like every fallen angel.

7) That's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's your eyes and I think I always knew it was.

8) There is no salvation. There is no damnation. There's only you.

9) And I'm sitting outside the Pearly Gates, cigarette perched in my lips like a crow.

10) Or maybe I'm sitting on the bank of the river Styx, I'm not much of a cartographer and Dante doesn't have time for fools like me.

11) My poetry is a lip-synched prayer and my goddess has turned a deaf ear to them.

12) I was replaced by we and me by us and you wonder why I don't know who I am when you're gone.
12b) You wonder why we don't know who we are when you're gone.

You are a dinner set for two
and I'm late like always.

The candles have melted into red and white puddles on the tablecloth
like wax seals on the unread love notes
I leave tucked under your windshield wipers.

There was a story I read to you
from the internet about a man
who paid his dead girlfriend's phone bill
for months after her untimely demise
just to hear the sound of her voice.

You asked me if I'd do that if I were in his place and you were gone.

You're gone now.
And I'm still calling.

I quit pills the day you left me
on the stairwell.
"Not by choice." I hear you say
in my ear, in my phone, in my dreams.

I quit crying about you that day too.
By choice.
But your name is my favorite drug.
Not just the sound of it,
the way each syllable hits my veins
like whiskey fire, but the ritual of it.
The way it feels rolling across my tongue.

There isn't a building tall enough
to jump off in this town.

1) The sky is the color of cracked television screens and in your sleep you're mouthing silent screams that sound like needles on vinyl.

2) I'm scared you've done lasting damage. I'm scared I was a monster before I even knew you.

3) The moon is just a paper plate and the stars are all LiteBrites.

4) Pictures of girls that are prettier than you, cigarette burned around the edges.

5) Betraying myself with every line I write. But my old heart beats like your knuckles on my ribs. Like your teeth on my lips.

6) Romeo and Juliet except the Capulets are pill heads and Romeo is an orphan.

7) I'm getting pretty good at not controlling my moods. It's the only thing that makes me feel like the passenger seat of your mustang did.

8) The alcohol burns but only half as bright as you do in my heart where you sculpt horrible ice sculptures with cigarette butts and bics.

9) So now smoke is all I breathe, gasping deeply at the chemicals that help me purge you from my system like a sickness.

I locked myself out of the apartment,
so I find myself sitting in the stairwell.
The same place you left me days ago.
Weeks ago.
Months ago.
The air is a little warmer but it still bites
wintry and frigid like your teeth on my neck
when you were biting back the screams I made you
scream.

I strike the Bic lighter
and flame erupts.
Like a miniature Pompeii,
Heat searing images of people,
Places, things, nouns and verbs
across my forearm on ****** skin.
Your face and words taking their place
Inbetween the small tattoo on my wrist
and the cigarette burns.

There's an airport in my heart
Where I stand in the terminal
waiting on your flight to come in
so I can kiss you just the way I did
when you boarded.

I threw a little funeral for us.
Gathered our things.
Photographs and poems.
Your bra and tinfoil and straws.
All tucked tightly in a little oak box
lined with all my hopes and dreams.
And I buried them in the backyard.

I'm tired of giving away
Pieces of myself like
Free samples.

She doesn't read poetry.
Everything pretty I've ever
wrote for her has remained
unread like junk mail.

The English language falls
terribly short of giving me
the ability to describe how
I feel on a day to day basis.

You changed your clothes
right there in front of me.
The dust no longer clinging to your skin
like little specks of angel dust
Smiles fading into harsh words and tears
whether there's an audience or not.
A love stained like the sleeves of my shirt,
mascara-streaked and frayed along the seams.
I still can't handle real life.
Those inbetween moments where you're in his bed.
Where you're writing love letters on Valentine's Day
even though you hate it.
Your broken boy is still in pieces at the bottom
of your toy chest. Voice warbled from dead batteries.

If you use me
as an anchor,
toss me off
the side of the ship
like little plastic rings
that ****** dolphins,
I'll sink into that cold,
that dark. Bubbles rising
to the surface, with each and every
pop you'll hear my last thoughts
as the pressure chokes the life from my lungs.

I'm spitting teeth onto the pavement.
Cracked grin cracked across my mouth
like your fist as it splits my lip again.
And again.
And again.
Ribs splitting from the laugh
that is echoing across the bricks
laid psuedo-symetrically like our
best-made plans.

In this corner weighing in at 115 pounds
we have the hopeless romantic.
All featherweight and bones.
All martyrish and faithful.

All of time is happening at once.
I am forever sharing that awkward first car ride.
Knees bumping in the dark.

All of time is happening at once.
I am still sitting on that couch
stealing glances at tattooed covered arms
from across the room, wanting them wrapped
around the small of my back.

All of time is happening at once.
I am forever at the tip of your tongue
Syllables echoing like the Big Bang.

"There are fixed points through time where things must always stay the way they are." - The Doctor in "Cold Blood" (2010)

"You're my fixed point."
She claims, face hidden
by geography and hands
that cover tear-brimmed eyes
like a spacesuit.
All self-contained and protected.
All exoskeleton and isolation.

Stainless
by Kayla Corder

I was going to change clothes
but I didn't. I'll cling to the dust
like we cling to those memories of us.
Those lingering smiles. Sweet touches.
Breathing heavily on my neck as I melt
into your caress. Love too pure to be real.
"I can't handle real life..." You tell me
when I've found someone new.
But nothing can replace what I found in you.
My broken boy. Found me. Saved me.
Repaired what I didn't even know was broken.
This tattered heart, parts still cling to you.
Like the glue that sticks to the steel. Stainless.
Like this love.
Stainless.

The funny thing about memories
is that when you find an effective
tool to blot them out, say a bottle,
A bottle of whiskey, a bottle of Valiums
a bottle of white out, they adapt and
change like some Darwinian monster
come to fill your mind and heart
to the brim with ink like longing.

I was gonna give up smoking
when that clock struck midnight.
Rash and unhindered.
But the smoke in my lungs
tastes just the way I remember
you and it echoes the promise
I made a year previously,
when the clock struck midnight
and I vowed to always be by your side.

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff." -The Doctor in "Blink (2007)"

"Remember that time we.."
Her voice calls to me from tomorrow.
From yesterday. From a flat in England
in 1969, all **** carpets and counterculture.
All go-go boots and ginger hair.

"Can't wait till we.."
Her voice calls to me from today.
From nowhen. From the bed
a few blocks down the road.
All apologies and heretos
and whyfors.

"Spoilers.."
She says with a smile
that cracked on her face
yesterday and ends
somewhen.

She's all class
and manners.
The way you imagine
your grandmother was
when she was a twenty-something
Army wife while your grandfather
was eating mud for Christmas dinner
in a trench outside of Berlin.
All smiles and pearly white teeth
and slow dances for one.

I conjure you in my dreams.
Grecian Goddess that you are
arms and legs lined with colors
that bleed out of your tattoos
like the prettiest pieces of heaven.

I made you something for Christmas.
Nothing that could ever satiate your
expensive taste. More brass than gold.
A little worn, a little old just
like my apologies and all of those
"I miss you"s.

"Maybe if you're lucky"
she says like the dealer
at a blackjack table.
The representative of the House.
Of the Competition. She fingers
the deck of cards that hold my
fortune with whimsical interest.
Whereas I can't take my eyes
off the flop.

They were just talking about you
right before you turned the corner.
Whispered words, hushed hurried huffy
little things. Like pinpricks on the back
of your neck.

Or worse. Maybe they weren't talking
about you. Nobody is talking about you.
Nobody FEELS the way you FEEL things.
All capital letters and **** and vinegar.
You are alone in your intellect and alone
in your
FEELINGS.

I'm just an unlabeled mix CD.
Slightly scratched at the edges,
worn with the labors of love
and the empty rooms with the
twangs and bass of my soul
resonating off the wood panel walls
like they were midnight cathedral halls.

Your car confirms your existence.
When I see it stopped at the gas station
I wonder if there are new hands pumping
your gas, opening your door.
Making that laugh ring out in the night.
Tracing hidden messages on your back
with fingertips and lips.

Nothing I could
ever write would
capture the way
you make me feel
when you're not even trying.

My heart beat stopped with a wimper
like a cry swallowed by the night. Stifled
by the
prettiest
little
monster.
Hair like Hell-fire licking the sides of
her face tracing cheeks like lips in the dark.
Fangs hidden behind smiles and honeyed words
that put me at ease as easy as a lullaby.
I am the perfect victim and she is
the prettiest little monster.

She only tells the truth
in the mornings.
Sunlight cracking through
the windows across her
face just as sure as the grin
that I put across her face.
Whispered words that
make her grin echo across
my face.

She only tells the truth
in the mornings,
but I wouldn't trade the nights
for the world.

And all of my cigarettes taste
stale since you've become
concerned with my health.

Enthralling. Captivating.
These are the words you
spoke under your breath
just loud enough for me
to hear. For you to hear.
I find myself clinging
to your words like
a child to a blanket,
warm, comfortable.
A barrier that I slip around
my skin the way your fingers
trace my side, my thighs, my fingers.
Words chosen as carefully as all
the boys broken at the bottom
of your toy chest. I still long
to hear you say those four
little words again.
"You're more than that."

They say if you believe in something
enough, it'll happen.
I believe in nothing, and it happens
every single day.

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way." -Charles Bukowski in Notes from a ***** Old Man (1969)

It's always been like this.
The intellectual and the artist
ripping each other to shreds in my head
like wolves in winter, so desperate to eat.

The teeter-tottering back in forth
has left me as barren as my ambition.
Soulless homunculus. A perfect rendition
of a man, but still lacking.

Will I ever find a balance
between emotional and intellectualistic
murmurs? These unheard whispers
whistle in the dark while I weep alone.

String me up like a marionette.
Pull my strings, watch me dance.
Dance my way through relationships,
friendships, sinking ships.
Watch me give you an Oscar-gold
performance. You can't tell that
I'm as hollow as the o in love.
As hollow as your smile
to everyone but me.

I am the abyss.
That great gaping whole in the sky.
In the Earth. When you peer into me,
the dark threatens to swallow you whole.
A cold, calculating, Nietzschean monster.
I am the perfect predator, walking amongst you.
Aggressive mimicry, I dance, and I laugh, and I cry.
Counterfeiting emotions so well, that sometimes
I even convince myself I am but a sheep among the sheep.

Your words taste
as sweet as candy
and I catch myself
cutting them off.
My lips pressed against yours
in anticipation. How could
anything be as sweet as your
smile, your voice, your eyes?

I'm drumming my fingers
on the outside of the car.
Keep your hands busy, Charlie.
Don't let them wander across
the space between your seat and hers.

You've got this smile
poised on your lips
like a mousetrap.
Tense with hesitation
and a million neurons
firing thoughts through your head
that I'll never get to know.

Light up that cigarette, Charlie.
Keep those hands busy.
Let your eyes wander.

Words that you cling to
just like the way I want
to cling to you. My hand
pressed in your hand
as you squeeze
unwanted comfort
from my fingers like
an IV. My thoughts
and feelings pumping
through your veins
repairing wounds
you never thought
would be healed.

Your voice is electricity
that shoots through my ears
and down my veins like
Frankenstein's Monster.
Reanimating the dead
cells and tissue with
surgical precision.
Arcing across my back
and shoulders singeing
hair follicles and chattering
decrepit teeth in my mouth
like dice in a cup.

Your voice is electricity
and it's clinging to my chest
like a defibrillator, sending
shockwave after shockwave
through my heart and soul.

You messaged me yesterday.
Snide words about present company
and then wanted to see me. I agreed
because I no longer remembered the
sound of your voice. Those tones
and inflections that make the
ugliest insults sound like a church choir.
Spiritual. Soulful.
Your laugh rang through the car
like it has through the hollows
of my mind every night when
eyes are closed, beds are empty
and I try to remember the sound
of your voice.

You are a rummage sale
jigsaw puzzle. Pieces missing.
Colors faded and edges frayed
exactly like the edges of our smiles
as they crack through the masks
we wear. Faces half concealed
like the Halloween party
where Red seeped through
and made me feel again.

I surround myself
with words like
a caterpillar in
cocoon.