"The only solution is to burn the body
And by doing so, burn your misdeeds.
Unless, of course, you LOVE him.
Do you LOVE him, Johnny?"

"I could never love any but you, Todd!
It was a moment of confusion!
You know how it is.
You toss the body onto the ground
To stuff and turn into a marionette...
The next thing you know you're
Playing hide-the-sausage with a corpse.

I regret my actions.
You and I are in LOVE."

"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."

Todd and Johnny
Had quite a time.
They went along merrily
No guilt for their crimes.

They maintained their lifestyle
Their corpses and love.
Johnny's puppet theater
Was a gift from above.

They stuffed all the bodies
And made marionettes.
Todd the producer
John taking bets.

For at the end of their song
The corpses all fought.
A fight to the death,
But a fight just to rot.

They lived long and happy
Raking in cash.
They paid off the suits
Not to look through their trash.

Todd loves Johnny
And Johnny loves Todd.
They're in TRUE LOVE
And the world will applaud.

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.

Tyra Banks was the first person
I touched myself to the thought of.
I didn't know what genitalia was
But her *******
seemed
so
inviting.

Twenty minutes, lost.
I though I had been under my steadily flowing deity for hours. I thought I had had a spiritual experience lasting longer than Genesis.
But it was only twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes
Of standing naked under falling water, feeling soap suds and scratchy cleansers and sharp tangles
Cleaning my skin and my soul of my physical reminder of my connection to the river
To the world
Thinking only flesh and water, flesh and water.
It was the mantra in my head.
We are all just flesh and water.
I was ripping through the harsh curls of my hair thinking flesh and water
Flesh and water.
I caressed my goddess, my god, my spirit, nature’s spirit
When I caressed the showerhead.
I saw it clean me of the plankton of the natural water and replace it with synthetic chemicals
To keep me sanitary and acceptable.
Twenty minutes.
It felt like that was how long it took for the blade to run across my skin, my wet-and-dry-sand skin. Twenty minutes running up from the product of the hills to the home of my womanhood.
I noticed how the man-made razor matched a section of veins on my wrist.
Twenty minutes.
In twenty minutes that were actually twenty lifetimes I became Pocahontas, daughter of Earth and sister of water.
I felt my connection to what sustains me and it changed me.
How did twenty minutes seem so long
Under the florescent lights?

All right, you.
Time to focus.
Get down to business.
It's game time, and you're dropping the ball.
Just like always.
But this time it's almost important!
So focus.
Stop distracting yourself.
Put away the cell phone
And the facebook.
Hide The Onion
And block out what you don't need.
Pay attention.
You need to pay attention so you can succeed.
Be like the other kids
And actually try.
Put your nose in that book

Oh but wait.
He needs help!
I have to help him
And make him feel better!
It's self-sacrificing!
It's okay!

No.
FOCUS.
You need to go and do this.
Take care of this first.
He's important too
But first things first.
I'll talk to you about him later young lady.
Right now you need to stop with the typing
And learn.
For once, don't be pathetic.
Don't just let stuff fall into your lap.
Ever heard of making an effort?
If you fail, you will be
A disappointment to us all.
This is the only thing you're good at
We both know it.
So are you going to tell me
That the one thing you can do,
You won't?
Pathetic.
Sad.
You are a sorry excuse for a student.

But I always do fine!
I don't need it!
Trust me.
When's the last time I suffered from my lack of effort?
Oh, that?
That's one class.
One grade.
Ok, two.
It doesn't matter in the long run!

Doesn't matter?
Is that why you are making your parents
Those who birthed and raised you
Pay thirteen thousand bucks a year for it?
Because it doesn't matter?
You are a waste of money.
They should've had a child
Who appreciated the things
They worked so hard to give.
Doesn't matter my ***.
Just go.
I'm done with you.
You disgust me.

His fingers barely brush my body
It may only be atoms connecting
Molecules bonding between the two.
He uses them to read me
As if my skin is covered with Braille texts
And he's trying to find the answer to a riddle.

The ache in my brain
May be from the alcohol
Or it may be from the intensity.
Maybe too many sensations
Can cause brain cancer.

The memories play in my head
Like a silent movie.
The kind with mustache-twirling villains.
Except in this movie there is no villain
Just a man and a woman
And whiskey and a pool.

Tomorrow his sweet nothings
Will run through my head
Though they're far more than sweet
And far more than nothing.

I cannot need anything more
Than his hands.
His electricity will power my heart.
I cannot need anything more
Than his words.
His soundwaves will bring me to perfection.

Impatient breath
Hands erasing, smoothing all ridges.
Skin to skin becomes just...skin.

You cover me and discover me
Your fire singes any thought I may have had
And all that is left is you
And me
And your hands on me.

As my desperation grows your movements slow
Until desire is all there is.

This is more than you and me.
This is us as one.

I have to get out.
Havetohavetohaveto.

If I stay where I am
I will become a black hole
Absorbing negative energy just by being.

Havetohavetohaveto.



If only I had somewhere to go.

It's kind of bizarre how totally in love with you I am.
I think about you and me, about us.
I think about what we could be.

I wonder if you'll have Santa eyes too
And what stories you'll tell.
Tell me, will I be there?

I want to be with you, now.
Forget school, forget work.
I want to lay in bed with you for hours
And feel you and me, connecting as one.
I'll feed you candy, you feed me your thoughts.

An hour, a day, a year
Let the seconds pass, but let them never end.
You and I will be two, but united by flesh, by breath.
I am in love with you-
You, yes, are my hourglass.

I've taken to piercing my body, when I'm at my worst.
What, you've never felt like losing a little flesh?
It's a little bit of loss
A tiny death.
le petit mort
The death of skin cells is the sweetest.
Just ask the vultures-
Why else would they feast on it so?

They are not war badges or battle scars.
They are circles attaching myself to my soul
A minute weight and reminder
To forget, to remember, to be.
To be as a vulture
To relish in what is found
Not beg for what is not needed.

They are not true predators, vultures.
They rarely ****
Rarely cause harm to the universe.
They are performing a service to you, sir.
Would you prefer to eat your dead yourself?

They never come for me.
They do not care for my skin
They do not care for my tiny death.

Pierce is the perfect word, for the action.
Pierce, meaning stab cleanly.
Pierce, meaning penetrate.
Pierce, meaning sharply, shrilly, briskly.
That's what it feels like.
All-encompassing, for a few sweet seconds.
That's probably the true reason.

Flesh is overrated.
Overabundant.
Perhaps the vultures will come
And take a little from me.
Someday.

i
don't
know
what to do.

i don't know
what you want me to do.

i just want some kind of sign.

I feel empty.
Tired?
Something.
He just left
And it doesn’t matter.
It almost feels like
He’s always around
So when he leaves
It often feels like nothing.
My eyes stay half-open
My brain stays in static
She whistles
She talks
She reads fan fiction
I sit here
Waiting for my Internet connection to work
And waiting to return to existence.

I don't think I slept last night.
Listened to country
Hoping it would lull me to  sleep
Until two.
Took a pill at three.
Laid there

waiting

waiting

waiting

For hours.
I may have slept at some point.
Four or five in the morning?
All I know
Is when my alarm rang at ten a.m.
I was half awake already.

How can you tell if you've been unconscious?

I wonder if it's harder for you
Or easier, or nothing.
It's hard for me.

Awake: alone.
Phone: silent.
Home: not home.

It comes in waves
And when I think it's stopped, the cat looks at me like that
Or you say "you can take the bed"
Or I see others, being what we were, long ago.
They won't stop coming.

Out of no where, torrential rains attacked
Leaving class, on the public bus
In the shower where we made love, once.
Twice
Three times.
It's over.

You
and
I

become sweetgrass
become riverwater
become cryogenics

Not
Frozen in time
Not
Slowed, stopped, surrendered.

A new field
With hope.
Timeless.

You? And me?
Yes.

Anger is weakness.
Temper is weakness.

I let it consume me for minutes
Reach the haven
For calmer thought.

Acceptance
Indifference
Strength returns to me.

What others do should not affect you.
They can do as they please.
Possessiveness got the better of me
But in reality
It doesn't matter

All is well.

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
DON'T
KNOW
WHAT
I'M
DOING

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm writing poetry
Or just journaling.
Is it the spacing that allows me to call it a poem?
Because I have no stanzas.
I have no "Dear diary" either.
So which is it?
I hope it's poetry. I hope it's art.
When it just falls out of my head like this
No otherworldly narrator
No rhyme
No beauty
I doubt it
And through my doubting, I make it doubt itself.

If anyone should have high self-esteem, it is you, dear words.

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.

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.

I was taught to idolize women
And the female *** in general
From a young age.
I don't think my mom ever realized
That that was what she was doing.
But that's what happened.
And now I do exactly that.
I see beauty and intelligence in women
Easier than I do in men.
In my mind, men are always second best.

Maybe that's why I question my sexuality so much.

i wish
i could just
have
everything

I feel like the literary world
Is turning against me.
Words were my aloe
Comforted me
Let my bad aura out.
Instead, they infuriated me.
I went to that
Sacred house of books
The calming station.
I thought I was safe
It had me
Made me better.
Then it too failed me.
Tricked me into passivity
And caused me pain.
The pain of lost hope is greater than the pain of irrational anger.

I think words are forming an army against me
And I can't fight that.

Words left me mouth
And fell down to the floor.
Giant magnetic letters
From off my fridgey door.

Colorful and bright
Who knows what they mean?
Once upon a time
They really said something.

They fall out of my mouth
I don't know when they got there.
The words I try to say
Leave my throat dry and bare.

Giant magnetic letters
All colors, no meaning.
You try to understand
But my thoughts, they are fleeting.

Jalapeño pizza burns my mouth.
Your persistence burns my patience.

You need to find another candle.

You are the glowing coal in the bonfire-
The one that stays hot and bright
Never to burn out or turn to ash
But to thaw frozen fingers indefinitely.

We are entwined and entangled
Bright eyes locked, greedy for each other.
Bodies held together like a Chinese finger trap.
You smile. I unravel.
Your lips put me back together.

You are the earth, the grass, the sun.
Revitalizing and calming, fantastic and real.
I breathe you in and I begin again.
With senses in overdrive and nerves in flames,
I take you in and we are one again.

You are more poetic than Donne
Smoother than Shakespeare

You are more romantic than Austen
More mysterious than Doyle

You are stronger than Neruda
More interesting than Vonnegut.

You are
Wasted.

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.

I can't really talk to you right now.
I know you want to
But it's seriously not a good idea.

If I talk to you right now
I won't be able to hold in my resentment.
I will put you on the spot
Ask you cruel question about
Why won't you get a job
Why won't you get back in school
Why won't you move out of your parents house
And that interaction would have only a horrible outcome.

You claim to be an adult
An all-grown-up man
But I feel like I'm dating a child sometimes.
This is unacceptable.

[the thing is, I'll never break up with you.
i tried once, remember?
i can't hurt you like that again.
i just can't.]

So you have to get with the program
Before we have to have a confrontation.

A friend
Is someone who will call you
At two thirty in the morning
[since they know your sleeping habits]
To reassure you about your body image.
And friends are beautiful.

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.

Sounds seem louder.
Skin feels drier.
People seem less important.

This is not ***.
This is the beginning
Of my final transformation
Into a zombie bat.