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.

We could love like
Johnny and June
if I could just walk
the ******* line.

We could love like
Bonnie and Clyde
if I could just rob
a bank with a smile.

We could love like
Romeo and Juliet
if I could just ****
myself with a vial.

We could love like
Edward and Bella
if I could just live
forever and still care.

We could love like
Samson and Delilah
if I could just pull
the columns down.

We could love like
Zooey and Ben
if I could just write
a song that showed you.

So lay me down
in the coffin beneath
the sea, that's exactly
where I want to be.
Salt water building pressure
on the wood like the pressure
that you put me under each
and every day. Let the wood
splinter like so many lost lovers
and friends and let the water
fill my lungs and ears, bubbles
exploding from my mouth like
the arguments we use to have
to the backdrop of silverware
falling on linoleum. Let it fill my
body with **** and vinegar and
let the light that you cherished
so much fade away from my eyes
like headlights in the distance.

I want to be the one
who holds your hand
all the time.
I want to be the one
who gets to call
you mine.

I'm scribbling little notes
on the back of my hand
to show you that I'm not
the person you traded
kisses like punches in the
front seat of your car. Breathing
your name in a cloud of ink
that eats through this paper
like a thousand lies through my soul.

I'm not the same person
you traded punches like
kisses with in the front seat
of your car. I'm not.

You crash lips like I crash cars.
You smile smiles that make me want to die.
You make me want to live.
You make me want to try.
You.
You.

You laugh, you cry.
I lie, I lie.
You love me.
You hate me.

I'm weak. I can't do this.
I'm weak. I'm not a man.
I'm a boy.
I.
I.

We're stupid. We're cute.
We're perfect. We're life.
We.
We.

I'm smoking cigarettes
to the filiters, inhaling
carcinogens and rat poison
and urea like oxygen,
while you're dancing,
dancing around words
and the bedroom floor.

So with pictures and
letters burned, where do
you go after you've been
baptized in fire? Flames
licking your lips and words
like kisses from lovers past.

After all, when it's said
and done, you're just
lines scribbled in a green
felt journal and I'm
the least of your concerns.

I surround myself
with words like
a caterpillar in
cocoon.

Don'tcha know babe
that misery loves company
so grab a hand and smile
a ******* smile that
hides the scars in your eyes.
Because misery loves company
and nobody wants to be alone.

So grab a mouth and kiss
it like it ******* matters
because, don'tcha know babe?
Misery loves company.
And I'm tired of being alone.

Don'tcha know, babe?
I love company,
and I'm sick and *******
tired of being alone.

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.

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."

I can't always let it be
forgotten like a flower is
forgotten. Withering in a
vase on a kitchen table
next to the finest china
and silverware.

Your legs are draped over mine,
eyes closed, smile slung
across your lips like the
make-up across your eyes,
chosen as carefully
as a ****** victim.

My fingers slide up
the side of your leg:
soft and smooth
like the words that
come out of my mouth
and pass into your ears.

Your breathing slows
to a pace comparable
to my own, and with
one arm wrapped
around your sleeping
frame, the other composing
lines on a laptop,
I know that I have found
my Aolde.

Words are trickling
out of this fountain
pen that are not my own.
Plagiaristic. Echoey.

Your words forming
on my lips and fingers.
Your art, my life.
How I yearn to make
my voice the one
that is heard.

Instead it chokes
like Casey at the Bat.
It splinters like
the spreading chestnut tree.
Where I should have never
kissed you and you
never should have kissed me.

craves attention
from all like the
***** of Babylon
and every girl
who never knew
her father.

These are the words
you wish you'd spoke
out loud when she
shoved her tongue
in your mouth.

Guttural screams
that force the veins
to the surface of
that porcelain skin.
Cast to be broken
in my arms like
every single note
that pours out of that
******* busted stereo.

You told me once,
"Sometimes when you
fall, you fly."
I didn't believe you
at the time,
because it's such
an awful thing to
fall. Such an awful
thing.

And to fly? To soar
above the clouds like
a bird? How unnatural
and silly. But you told
me once, "Everything
changes and nothing
is truly lost."
And, I'm no longer
afraid to fly.

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.

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.

Goosebumps crawl across my skin
and the hairs on the back of
my neck and arms stand straight up.
There's a hole in the pit of my
stomach that's being filled with bile,
and **** and vinegar, transforming
myself into a hate-spewing,
relationship-destroying monster.
It's been this way, ever since
you gave me up.

Follow the clues
to my apartment
door, and turn the
handle. I'm here waiting
like a terminally ill patient
just biding my time.

Turn the handle
show yourself in
you've only got this one
shot to show yourself in
to my heart.

Follow the clues
I'm still here waiting
I'm always waiting
on you, on you, on you.
Make a decision, call your
friends, tell them how much
I ******* mean to you.

Your fingers run through my hair
like dull daggers, sending a tingling
sensation through my neck, like
an electric charge, giving me
vigor and life.

You wrap your arms
around me like the prettiest
Iron Maiden, clinging as tightly
as lost children, as the morning
tide.

You watch me with eyes
of wanderlust and fear
like an out of work
actress, starving
for a chance to show
the world and me,
exactly what you're worth.

There's a grin
cracking across
your face like a burglar
into a safe. Swift
sure sentiment
that envelopes
your face.
Fingertips sliding
slowly down
my
open palm
clenching
close enough
to keep me
content.

And I know just why
the willow cries
in the dark, with no one
to comfort him
but the bark and
leaves that cling to
his body like a
leech to swollen skin

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.

Your heart beats in a parasitic pattern
Clinging and stealing whatever
and whoever you **** well please.

So, hide behind that ink pen
and wit you're so proud of.
But I know the truth.
You're like a child
lost in a shopping mall.
Alone, clinging to passersby.
Wanting to ask the clerk to
page your family, but too
shy to suggest.

So, hide behind your so-called
friends
and flee from your idiosyncrasies.
But, you and I both know you're
a deserter.
smile and laugh with them,
but you're still coming home
with me.

So, hide behind your charisma
and guile. You're not as clever as
you think because, I'm still here when
you close your eyes
And you're still taking me home
with you.

Looking for answers at the
bottom of a bottle like
it's the antidote to the
poison pulsating through
your veins, harsh and burning
like a California forest fire.

Indulging yourself
in people and places
that are so comfortably
unfamiliar. Scrambling
for another hit,
another drink,
another,
another.

Running from your past
with an empty glass
in one hand and a burnt
out cigarette in the other.
Smiling all the time, nobody
knows just what you're hiding,
behind that ****-eating grin.

Take my hand, and we'll
figure this out. Take my
hand and we'll leave this
******* town in a cloud
of dust and smoke.
And I'd do just
about anything to hear
you laugh again.
Anything,
anything,
anything.

I steal pieces of your
character like a teenager
steals music from the Internet.
A victimless crime. "Just
trying it out, I'll buy it,
if I like it." Sliding it
into my ears and straight
into my brain. I turn the
idiosyncrasies that belong to
you and you alone, into joint
property whether you want to
or not.

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.

So, go ahead and push.
It's easy if you try.
Just go ahead and fall.
With no one to catch you,
be free, and push.
It's so easy and
so free.

Go ahead, breathe.
Inhale, exhale, like
a cancer patient.
Deep and gasping.
It's easy if you try.

So, go ahead and laugh.
Carefree and childish
like the days when
the snow feel fast
and deep.
It's easy if you try.

So, go ahead and cry
just like you do when
you go home to your
empty apartment
and crawl cowardly into
your bed.

So, go ahead and push.
It's easy if you try.
Just go ahead and fall.
With no one to catch you,
be free, and push.
It's so easy and
so free.

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.

You're playing
on the phonograph
in my basement.
On repeat and shuffle,
scrambling back and forth
across memories, conversation
pieces like an orchestra
tying together my heart
with yours with
each vibration
across the needle.

This is the sixth day
in a row you haven't
slept and you can
still taste the cigarette
on her breath. On your breath.

This is the first night
you no longer scream
into your pillow
words that you scribbled
across your stitched tongue
when she was still yours.

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.

What are you looking
for, little scrapper?

Behind these eyes
and words lies a
man you can't defeat.
His language beguiles
and deceives, like
the Opposer, and you
carry no flaming sword.

I've become quite
the actor.
Going through the motions
of the days I have to endure
without you like I'm on autopilot.
or drugs.

I know where you hide
in the shower stall
for hours at a time,
letting the steam
and vapor cleanse
your soul like so
many unwanted
prayers.

I know where you hide
in plain sight, with a boy
on your arm and a smile
on your face like a child
on a bicycle.

I know where you hide
in my bed, with your arms
wrapped around my neck
and lips placed oh so
delicately on my neck.

Shelly says nothing
ever really turns out
just the way we expect.

She's right. Nothing
turns out just
the way we expect
like secret hand-holding
in backyard trees.

Or the way maps
become our enemy.
That impossible geography
that separates two halves
like the years lost in
a flurry of blows
and caresses.

You were never my muse,
Despite the effort you put forth
you made pages fall blank.



Your sirensong passes
through my ears and delves
into my soul like a flight of Furies,
corrupting, estranging, smashing
me against the cliff side.

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

it's like a smile
Simple and contagious
spreading from person to person
infecting everything it comes
in contact with
crippling them at the knees
and swelling their stomachs
till they burst.

So, when you find
the girl downtown
with the smile of a
saint and the weight
of sin on her shoulders,
look her in the eyes
and nod. She understands.
She understands.

She'll look you
right back, never
glancing away and smile
the smile of a saint,
she's asking for help,
but isn't really sure how,
like a child in school. So,
just look her in the eyes
and nod.

You could offer your
hand to her, but she
won't take it, she refuses
to be a burden, like a martyr,
she only wants to help.
So just look
her
in the eyes
and
smile, because she understands
she
understands.

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.

I see you do the things
you do with a hidden grace
that burns the ineptitude
from my limbs like a match,
smoldering underneath
my lips like a whispered word.
Chasing pride and happiness
through my veins like a shot
of whiskey. Warm, embracing.
Fire scarring the fields of
neuroses from my mind.

"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.

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.

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.

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.