I am trying to get my mind off
The usual morbid thoughts.
The ones about
How everything is temporary
And how I won't remember any of these people
In ten years
And how nothing matters.
How the world doesn't care whether any of us exist
And if humanity slipped out of existence
Mother Earth would probably rejoice.
About how we are nothing more
Than placeholders in the cosmos
And our existence is unnecessary
And unimportant.

Because if I stay on that path
I will end up in an
Existentialist state of
Suspended indifference.
And that is not good for sales.

I don't know the terrain  of my soul.
Am I a desert or a mountain?
Do rivers run through me?

I want to see the deserts I could be.
Climb the mountains and see if I'm there,
Sitting on the peak.
I want to swim the rivers
And see if I'm underneath those rapids.
How else could I know my geography?
How will I know what I'm made of?

Yes, I may be made of hills and cedar trees
But I might want to be an aurora borealis.
I might want to be more than dry dirt
Or at least be able to try to be.

There is too much, too many possibilities.
Highlands, valleys, oceans, skies.
Open, open skies...
I want to see it, I want to see it all.
I will be satisfied with no less.

I want to know: What do I see
When I am reflected in the Thames?
Or the Yangtze River or the Mediterranean?
Would the Nile show me my insides,
As an X-Ray machine from the gods?
That girl in the Arctic ice-
Can she get out?

I kind of want to delete everything
Because maybe then I could forget who I am
But with my luck it'd make me forget who you are too.

I need to believe that I'm good enough
But rereads make me think the opposite
And words in bed are too dangerous to believe.

You see something in me
And apparently I'm blind to it.
I've been trying-your words don't scare me as much these days
But I think I might be showing it more.
I guess I trust you, is all.

You scared me, bad.
Or I scared myself.
All I know is I had to retreat.
It wasn't intentional
Without defense mechanisms, war would be much faster.

Maybe it's a cycle.
I'm not sure which is the starter, my writing or my self esteem
But they both seem to fall terribly every few weeks.

The limelight is unflattering to everyone
Because lime green is such a horrible color.
I think it's the worst on me.

I don't think you can realize how big of a deal it is for me.
I don't know what I'm so afraid of
But nothing you say seems to help.
I still freeze
I still petrify.
It still makes me want to run away.

It was mine.
MINE.
Mine
Like a toy belongs to a little girl
Who's always had to share.
Mine
Like a private journal
I accidentally left in the open.
Mine
Like the boy who has my heart
And doesn't know what to do with it.

It was mine.
I didn't want to share.

Perhaps I have not been careful enough.

Perhaps I wanted you to consume me.
Perhaps I wanted to consume you.

Yes, I love you.
Yes, I want you.
But reality's setting in
And the sunspots are clearing from my eyes.
The solar inferno weakens.

I had built you a statue of emeralds and golden thread
But it's been crumbling.
The emeralds are turning out to be moss-covered stones
The golden thread, stiff hay.

I knew you were only human.
Maybe I didn't believe it.
I did not love you because you were immortal.
I did not believe
-With him, with him, I shall love forever
  With him, I shall touch the moon.
   We shall be created and destroyed, created and destroyed
   Forever, and together.
   Beginnings and ends in two become one.
Perhaps I thought it
But I did not believe it.
Don't worry.

I will adjust to your humanity
And I will build you a snowman, not a statue.
A snowangel, maybe.
But I am done trying to turn myself to silver.
I am done trying to become an inferno.

Yes, I love you.
Hopefully love is enough.

Your puffy shirts and Jerry curls
Haunted the dreams of many girls.
All leather pants and ***** mustache
Caused their ******* to turn to trash.
But now that you have left your prime
Your daughter takes most TV time.
Now you're left with the remembrance of fame
All that's left is your last name.

One day soon the eighties will return
Then their carnal desires will burn.
For you their ******* will once again dampen
And their cooch you can put your stamp in.

It's embarrassing
To never have an ******.
It's shameful
To not enjoy ***.
I crave it, sometimes.
I think of ***
And flesh
And joining
As much as anyone else.
But every time I try
It's just a big pile of ****.
It's horrible to know
That every time my juices get flowing,
There's no point.
In the end, I always feel like a shame to humankind.

Shame.
Self-loathing.
Slovenly, slobbering sycophant.
Stupid.
Scrofulous.

Should've stopped, sedated.

Staggering self-esteem? Sometimes.
Struggling, someday successful?
Supposedly.

Short-lived, surely.

More *****
To make me more fun
And let me enjoy life more.

More gym
To let me be healthier
And have a more positive
Self-image.

More work
To let me enjoy the
More complex pleasures of life
And afford some luxuries.

More life
To live
And enjoy.

I imagine
Clumsy kisses
And sloppy makeouts
If you were here.
We'd stumble to the bed
A single mass of flesh and cloth
And fumble around
For minutes.
We'd soon pull together
Via a team effort
Allow two to join as one.
Our teeth would probably hit
My lips wild run down your face.
Your motions would make me queasy.
Soon enough you'd explode
Or ooze out
(I've yet to see what alcohol consumption
Does to ***** production )
And inch out
Clumsy smile on your face.
And we'd both pass out
In a heap of drunken comfort.

I want to sit out at three a.m. again.

Tension instead of air
Stars instead of sky
Music instead of thoughts

Your hands on my body
Questioning

"How much do you want to live?"

The warmth
Of steamed, solids turned liquid
Thaws my frostbitten throat.

My solar plexus heats
Recalibrates my needs
And diverts resources.

Coffee provides what I do not receive
From a warm body gone missing.
My core solidifies, as clay in a kiln.

If I cannot have a hand to warm mine
A mug will do.
But if I cannot have you
Liquid is a poor substitute.

I understand
That you are going through a change
And you just want to have fun.
I understand
That your self-confidence is low
And you want to hear someone tell you you're pretty.
I understand
That you feel lousy
And you want to talk about yourself.
But please
Just this once
Could you please care about me?

It's your turn to work.
For a year
I have shuttled my life
Backandforth
Backandforth
For you.
To see you.
But now it's your turn.
You can come see me.
Use your gas
Use your time
I can't do all the work
All the time.

This is supposed to be equal.

Also, get a job
And get some independence.
It's time to be an adult.

Claw pierces flesh
And rips through layers of fat and muscle.
Tears capillaries in twain
While absorbing my blood.
It drinks in my cells
While the liquid oxidizes for the few moments it feels the air.

Claw is cleaned
Blood mysteriously vanishing.
Muscle reconnects
Fat melts back together.
Capillaries clot and join
So as to spill no more pathogenic juice.

Where does the blood go?
Where does the air between my cells go?
How is the hole in my flesh refilled?

She's not happy, you know.
I wish I could tell you
But I don't think you'd care.
She thought she'd be more.
She thought she'd be in love
With beautiful baby ducks all lined up
And a fabulous career.
Mansion included.
She's disappointed with life
And the dreams she left behind for us.
That's why she does this.
This was not what she wanted.
She needs a lot more
And she will never get it.
Would you be much better?

I've been listening to static for years.
Watching the black-and-white zigzags
Crumple across my screen
Defeated, without knowing the enemy.
Overwhelmed, without taking perspective.

Suddenly pictures are coming through
Sounds that don't just seem to be dying aluminum.
Laughs   smiles   conversations
Touches...
Gasps.
Heartbeats.

Those black and white zigzags are fading
Blurring out until you see the picture
They've been trying to form for too long.
And behold, the picture is clear.
Maybe the repairman upgraded me to hi-def.

But that repairman sure is sneaky.
Apparently the channel is now set on Cinemax
And I have no idea where my remote is.

My best friend doesn't consider me her best friend.
My confidante does not confide in me.
My peer doesn't see me as an equal.
But I always, always know
That the love of my now
Unequivocally
Undeniably
Undoubtedly
Sees me as the love of his.

Is he mad at me?
He won't respond to me.
Did he read my mind
And see my questioning my fidelity?
Did I send him a message
Meant for someone else?

Why won't he talk to me?
What did I do?

Unceremoniously awoken, too early, by nature.
Sunlight infiltrates my eyelids
Even my darkness is a warm golden tone.
My head pounds
And my stomach gurgles.
My body seems to be being punished
For the delight I take in Texan brews
But my mission was accomplished.
I am understood now
And that's all that matters.

I know he loves me.
And I love him, as much as I can.
I just get so
Frustrated
Sometimes.

It's hard to love from far away
When there's problems up close.

You and him
And the frogs and the crickets
Provide the only heartbeats for miles.
And when supply is low, demand is high
So your pulse increases
And you can feel your heart pump faster
But you're not really sure if it's your blood
Or him.

Gradually you stop hearing the crickets and the frogs
And the two of you are all there is.
And you know you're safe
Because you're away from the ring of fire.
Not the kind Johnny Cash sang about
More the kind Giuliani would talk about.
The ring of city lights that is so far away from you
So you know you're safe.

You can see the freckle-stars
And the half-moon
And the silhouette of his face.
You can see everything you need to.

Whispered litanies of love
Bliss. Perfection. Pure happiness.
You wish you could be so happy all the time
But all good things come to an end.
(Does that really have to be true?)

I shrunk down
To be an equal of one of those little green army men.
Not one of the weaponized ones.
That one with the Walkie-Talkie
Everyone made fun of for being useless.

I stole his walkie-talkie, actually.
I was scaling your mountain
So I needed some sort of communication.

From the sheets, I rose.
Carefully, clumsily climbed up you
Mount Olympus for mortals.

I almost fell
I almost dropped my radio
I almost got lost in you.
But I prevailed.

And when I reached the top
I said "I claim this"
But I couldn't really claim it
Because I didn't have a flag
And how do you claim something without a flag?

And in a way I don't think I should be able to claim you
Because claim is a word for lesser mountains.
You cannot claim what wasn't created by you
Or name it.

But I was two inches tall
With a tiny green radio
That just kept squawking
"Are you there, C? It's me, Ego!"
So I tried my best.

You words make me feel
Like I am an ethereal being
Both above and below
Made of nothing and all.

They fill me
Cover me
Take hold of my soul
And take it to beautiful places
Where words are the air
And verses are the trees.
And these trees are more beautiful
Than anyone can imagine.

Your writing takes hold of me
Softly alters my world
And makes me believe again.

The drive home is long.
Where usually I'm surrounded by cedar trees and grass
I see only black skies and cop cars.

Where usually I listen to skinny boys with acoustic guitars
I listen to angry fast-poets with hate to spare.
It's not the same drive
Though I'm on the same road.

I don't get that feeling of serenity
That usually makes itself known between the trees.
That flows between the rivers I cross
And melts into my soul.

Instead I feel an ache in my gut
And the buzzing in my head tells me
Something's coming.
Something I am not ready for.

He tastes like salt and sunshine.
I spend an hour
My hands scrambled in his satin hair.
My lips picking out the flavors of his flesh.
I taste down to his manhood
Still salt and sun.
My lips meet his head.
They feel the silk
And taste the soul.
They turn flat against his steel.
Hard-pressed.
What seems like hours of exploration
And experimentation
And suddenly I taste his essence.
His love.
His heart.
It tastes like salt and sunshine.

Acidic, buttery purple
Baby pink half-moons
Cleansecalm my aura

I shall be the conquerer and the conquered.

I like milk in my tea
And condoms on my *****.
I'm pretty good at Sudoku
And at laying there while you pound me.
I have a lot of traits.
I guess patience is the most surprising.

You know it's only because it's you
But I'm completely okay with that.
I'll be anything you want me to be
Because you do the same for me.

Mortality means that you can **** my body
With unlimited weapons.
Nature. Technology. Man.
All would end me
In minutes
In seconds.
Living is dangerous;
I can die just trying to survive
Without even recognizing my struggle.

In a sense, I am the least powerful thing in existence.
I am slowly rotting away as I write...

Nothing can stop it
And that is the beauty
And the cost
Of being human.
That is the beauty and the cost of being free.

Your lips may be my barbiturate
But your words are my poison.

I need you to dissolve me
Liquidate my mind
So I no longer must suffer from the toxins.
You cannot hurt a liquid.

Quick, put your lips to mine!
Crash them together to calm me, sedate me.
Your kiss will melt my thoughts
Allowing me to pick out the solids.
To pick out your crystallized contamination.

I need to build up a tolerance
An amount of your fatalism that I can take.
But I cannot do that right now-
Your poison has sent me to a coma.
Your poison is coursing through my bloodstream.

You had a black cat and a tiger cub
Equal in size, equal in ferocity.
All silk fur and knife teeth- you said they were just playing
But they bit and scratched only me.
Scars incurred were real.

You experimented, scientifically, with my childhood belongings
In the back of our broken down truck.
You didn't know they were mine.

We played chess, us and another
Someone unimportant enough to forget, I suppose
Since I already have.
There was a scandalous edge to it.
Something dark, dangerous. Exciting.
You made me a promise when you took my queen.
I couldn't quite understand what it was.

Later you played basketball, alone in the dark
You car headlights providing the only stars.
I followed you
Found you playing horse, a sad game alone.

There was electricity in the air
Waiting to shock someone.
Waiting to shock us.
You were about to say something magnificent....

If only I could return.
If only I could hear you say it.
If only I could escape the felines for good.

I’m doing Important Business!
Do not distract me, world!
It must be done
And you cannot stop me!
So get your act together
And get out of my way.
Because this is Important Business
And will be done
Whether or not you live through it.

I am but a mad girl,
And you have taken my love song!
He is real, I assure you.
But my reality,
Flawed and inarticulate,
Makes questionable my answers
Rather than answerable to my questions.
I am but a mad girl
And you have taken my voice, dear Madam,
And created a world of flame and fancy!
My love song must be less
For surely I must be less.
Please madam, pity the poor mad girl
And relinquish my soul
So that the seraph and seraphim
Can once again bring my love to fruition.

I don't want to write about farts
And limp *****
Or dry vaginas, as my gender would suggest.
I want to write about love
And laughter and beauty and joy.
Because maybe
If it's true that life imitates art
That is what my life will become.
And I crave that hope.

My mouth tastes like *****.
The internet says it's my
Swollen gums
And tooth plaque
Acting up again.
I just hope the taste
Doesn't become the actual thing.
My chapped lips wouldn't take kindly to that.

Purged of poison, but still not clean.
The aftermath has left weight
Hot, liquid lead swimming in my mind
Hardening onto my shoulders.

I could never hate you,
Could never even believe I could try.

Ideals should be made of spun gold,
Not cramped into twisted iron.

I just want to be free.

I haven't seen you in a while.
I almost forgot the feel
Of your lips on mine
And your hand down my shorts.
Thank god you reminded me.
Parked in front of a Baptist church
I would never go to
I jump over the car seat
Involuntarily.
I'm closer to you than I have been
In a long time.
Your mouth crashes against mine
Absorbs it until there's only one.
Mitosis in reverse.
You tell me you love me
You miss me
You only want me.
I tell you the same.

We feel each other
And demonstrate our words
In front of god and all her missionaries
In front of the Baptist church
I will never attend.

Curly, blondish wild hair!
Crown upon my head!
Forever you will be there
Even when I'm dead.
My soul will leave my carcass
But you will still live on.
In the depths of San Marcos
You can weave my life a song.
You will be my jester
And my throne-side sword as well.
If I'm sent back to years of yester
Or if I'm in hell.

"I am an open-minded
Gentleman.
If corpses are your favored ****** plaything,
Perhaps we can introduce them into  our life.
However
You would have to forgo your dreams
Of an undead puppet show."

"But
The Zombtastic Zhow is my dream!
The reason we visit so many
Pick ax conventions
In fine attire!
I could never give up all that we've worked for.

All I need is you, my friend."

Broken
Shut down
Demolished and destroyed

Brought down to her knees
Literally, literally brought down
Face to face with porcelin and water.

Purge, purge, purge
Empty the empty
Break down and out
Out, out, no way out...

Betrayed
Dismissed
Returned, replaced, retried
Falsify your family, break it down
Let it out

Praise thee, mighty nothingness.

My hips won't quit
But I've tried many times to fire them.
They continue to exist
In all their circular glory
Making me see my body
Through a fish-eye lens.

My feet won't stop
But I've tried to make them tire.
They grow longer and wider
Until I am convinced I am
The cousin of the Yeti.

My stomach won't end
But I've tried to find the bottom.
It keeps on truckin
Until I resemble a forty year old man
Who's drank several hundred too many bars.
Apparently there's always more room.

My body won't quit.
My brain won't stop.
My heart won't start.

Blood rushes to your head
And takes over, controls you.
The buzzing left in your ears from his mouth drowns out everything.
You try to move but your legs go weak;
Bone is not bone, but more blood
Limp and liquid.

You let him hold you up so he'll hold you down later.

You discover swollenlipsracingheart is not a cliche
It is a medical condition and you are a victim.

The cure is more
-more hands, more tongues.

Breathless, you breathe him in.

I wonder if they were ever in love.

I've seen one picture of them, together
Before me.
It's their wedding.
Yes, they look happy.
Did they know what they were getting into?

I bet she did.
I wouldn't be surprised if she had planned it all.
I don't blame her, judge her, admonish her.
She needed a way out; away from meaner men
A home for her children.
I think most of it was for them.

But he didn't know.
I'm sure he didn't know.
He wanted to be in love, I think.
He still wants to be.
I hope she didn't trick him.
I hope she did it honestly.

I hope they were in love, once.
I hope they thought this was forever.
I want to believe that they believed
Because there's nothing shameful about that.
I just don't know if I can.

Eight years ago my grandparents had their 50th anniversary.
All curled hair and black velvet
I danced on my uncle's toes.
He's been married more times than I know.

I know they were happy, sometimes.
I'm sure of it.
But I don't know if they were ever as they wanted.
I don't know if they were ever in it for real.

The skin on my *******
Has all peeled off.
I have shed my sea-goddess skin
And am now again ordinary.
The only memento I have
Is the continued ache
And the residual redness.
Both will soon be gone.
As my skin peeled I thought
I thought of how snakes shed their skin totally differently.
I thought of how the flakes coming off would never stay whole
Always ripping into smaller bits.
It was kind of creepy
And kind of awesome.
If it would rip off whole,
Maybe I could construct a clone
Or a doll
To have some company.

Back home.
Back to the comfort
Of a stove and vh1.
Back to my parents and my boyfriend
And a real bed.
In a few days I will lament the horrors
Of living with one's family
But for now, I am content.
Thank goodness for laundry machines
And ovens
And cable tv.

Sweaty, sticky skin.
Hair too long; touching my back
Heating me further.
Dying of the after-waves of fire
Not the flames themselves.

Need less fabric on my body.
Need less hair on my head.
Need less skin, less muscle, less blood.

I need a cold shower
But for external heat
Not internal.

I find your chest in the clouds
Your torso is made of cumulonimbus
For you are as powerful as the strongest raincloud.

Your eyes are created with moonbeams
And I will soon have your hands in the stars.
The wind will create your body and push it,
Tight, forming to mine.

Your voice is not the thunder, or wind
But the rich hum of the smoldering sun,
Warm, intense.
Your footsteps come closer, quickly
Softly stepping as that same sun through the clouds.

You are the earth and the atmosphere
You live in yellow grass and rain
(For see, that's the landscape inside me)
The breeze through these hills is the breath from your heart
And when it touches me,
I know it can only be you.

He sits upstairs, most of the day.
Most of the night.
Most every day, most every night.
He tries to fit in
He tries to be helpful
He tries to be wanted.
He is
But these people are too
Dysfunctional to show it.
Hiding from the dragon lady
He's been sitting upstairs
Alone
For twenty years.
I wish I knew what to do
When he comes down.
I wish I knew how to show him
How much I care
And appreciate
And love.
But I am too dysfunctional to show it.

I hope I don't do to him
What the dragon did to the towerman.
I hope we don't do to our spawn
What they've done to me.

Who are you
To undermine my reality?
I am interested in neither your validation
Nor your condemnation.
I am the beginning and the end of my world
As if I were not I, there would be no me
And if there were no me, I would not be aware
Of any existence.

I have the power to believe as I believe
And create and destroy myself as I choose.
I am Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma
I am the Alpha and Omega.

If I did not exist, the world would go on without me.
No lives would be lost had I not been born
And the Earth won't feel another soul escaping when I die.
I am one of billions,
Irrelevant and insignificant, in truth.
But if I did not exist
I would not be aware of you
Or your various philosophies
Or anything else in the universe.

Therefore, if I was chimerical
Unreal
A sham
You would be the same, for all intensive purposes.
And I am who I choose to be.

I am my own creator and destroyer of my world.

An open invitation-
Bring me the warmth of your skin
The vibrations of your voice.
Bring me your heart, pounding in my ear.
Bring me my release and my comfort.
Let me fall into you, into me.

The heat of a body is better than the sun
It is a sun, indeed
For why else would I feel these flares?
A black hole of comfort and contentment-
I want it to swallow me whole.
I want to fall into it
And be consumed, completely.

Perhaps inside the sun,
The black hole sings with fire.
Intangible, unknowable fire.
Perhaps inside a black hole,
I can be as hot coals.
Perhaps I can become whole.