I designed on a string from my ❤️ to yours
the twists and loops of yesterday
Celtic rings in tactile squares
a monochromatic dream sequence
in patchwork futures of sutured memories

large squares of Bay Bridge yesterdays
smaller ones on seagulls' wings
I'm still working on a future
every stitch in time lost and loved

it smells like me...

a gift to wrap the long and lonely nights in love
where months of me are woven into miles
that tether my ❤️ to yours

I'd hoped to be done by your birthday
it lies unfinished
a bin of fragmented dreams...
...maybe I'll finish by Christmas

just to feel close to the ghost of you

I don't feel special,
I'm not unique.
I want to cry
but I can't even speak.
My hands reach out,
but they cannot hold
a single thing
but the bitter cold.
Everything's frozen,
I feel lost.
Even my tears
have turned to frost.
When I cut my waist
it bleeds black.
I'm so deeply gone
there's no way back.
This is goodbye

shackled to a notion
rubbing through wrists
in rusted remains
of beautifully easy

it's a slow bleed
through insults slung
in fear the unmaliciois
only noticed in hindsight

calling the innocent a *****
doesn't breed hate from love
the duke-yeilding cowardly lion
flings back like a monkey


##

breaststroking a marathon in tears
wading through pain I never caused
pelted with double-barrelled denial
THIS IS NOT WEAKNESS

there is no waver on my solid ground
torn flesh and compound fractures
cannot break harder than history

still, gavel strikes
in sucker punched cracked ribs
that look like a past that ain't mine

###

keep hacking off pieces
maybe I'll fit into those pretty boxes
your liars left as gifts
nasty reminders that trust has sharp teeth

maybe that's just you
biting back any hand that gets too close
pandering in placating platitudes
ain't my bag

flattery fails to flounce from unfettered friends


####

can't be beat into submission
with unspoken broken rules
can't run from a truth in plain view

this is what it looks like
to believe what you know over
what you've lived

I'm not running
I'm not biting back
I'm not going anywhere

then again, why would I
I'm not the one afraid to love you




https://soundcloud.com/user-166761247/a-fourth-in-time-to-cracked-selections-of-music

I found my grandmother the night she died
The room filled with mourning tears
My mother slapped me
because I hadn't cried in two days
At 18 how do you emotionally process a body that once held a life?

Disconnected from my thoughts
I felt neither pain nor love nor loss
How could I say that, without feeling defective
but I couldn't get past that shell with empty eyes
that stared at me until I noticed they weren't smiling

When the body turned to flesh
she was gone and I was lost
in those empty eyes that seemed to
hold a universe of nothing
and if I stared too long I'd disappear in that void
where her light used to shine

**

Too soon, I held my mother's hand as she passed
and watched the life leech out of her skin
The eyes were the last part of her to fade
I stared at her
Willing with all that I am that they would
spark and reignite the fire of who she was
But her skin ran cold the second the light ceased
So cold, yet so very soft.

Two days, and a blended family to hold up
Even with makeup, dressed to the nines
It didn't feel less... wrong
She was beautiful, but she wasn't my mother

I couldn't escape the knowledge
of invisible sutures
As I held her face and fixed her hair
I cursed those television shows I once watched with her
The ones that taught us how things worked
The ones that burned the knowledge of
the sutures into my memory
a memory I couldn't escape

Four days and two shoulders heavy with tears
Too busy with paperwork and wishes
to bleed tears of my own
Thankful for things to do
So I wouldn't get lost in her empty eyes
that stared at me whenever I closed my own

I sit here, grown, wondering how to
emotionally process a body that once held a life?
Praying that she will slap me for not being able to cry
Just so I could feel her

I lick my lips

they still taste like you
and I bask in the remnants of a dream
that seems
close enough to smell
through laundered sheets
blood at the surface of yesterday leeches
into tomorrow

on badges of honor that hold no shame
igniting the flame
each in the shape of animal love
primal feasts of flesh
and I run moist in remembrance
a response I have yet to control

the thought of your voice or your breath on my skin
burns fire within
without ever being near
I feel your longing
chasing my own

my body screams in liquid silence
your voice walking the line
entwined in the root
of my evil
vibrating a symphony in prelude
carried on a laugh that growls
to the beast that howls
begging to be beaten into submission
...again

I lick my lips
...they still taste like you

trapped beneath a fitted rubber sheet
a lump in the mattress
suffocating on
rancid latex sweat
and yesterday's dried fluids

who were they
the nameless in the dark
this one smelled of popcorn
that on howled in delight

a collage of senseless noise
scented by cats and Ajax
leftovers always go bad

Chuck-will's-widow
in the tree by the window
it must be after midnight

though noon looks the same
in this cage that gives just enough
to torture with possibilities
of breaking free

freedom is overrated
roses stain glass
with the bloodletting
of thorny mishaps

blurred by smeared wounds
ain't life grand
when love ceases to be a goal

how can one find what is
utterly indefinable
if it cannot be decisively named
it cannot be concretely attained

then again, love's fluidity
is its charm
no hard edges
ebbing and flowing
elusive and longing

**** me latex blind
unseen and used
by those who never did mind
a lumpy mattress

elephants stomping on my head
laugh as they draw blood
fragmented ideals scatter in the wind
as trampled dreams mix with dust

cemented in 'supposed to'
hiding behind other people's 'shoulds'
jackhammer disappointment
crushes bones with broken boundaries

play me a song
to make it look pretty
and I'll pretend to dance
with you in foggy yesterday's

karaoke soundtracks
to a stranger's tears
that leave the heart blind
tripping acid just to see in forgotten colors

breathing bacteria
from the soles of shoes
wiped on my forehead
as they said, 'hello'

a mosaic of skull puzzles
grouted in the remnants of the ****
left behind as everyone
just walks away

shadows smell clean in dark corners
where colors are left to die
in clouds of expectation
leaving truth buried in the ruble

...of who they thought I was

I will wait
blindly scraping through each day
on skinless knees
clawing through with bloodied fingers
searching for the truth to clench to

I will wait
in the bowels of a twisted mind
bending flickers to shadows
in endless search of the light
that teased with relentless promise

I will wait
for this Hell to freeze my bones brittle
buried in glacial daydreams
of a time that day meant
I could feel the warmth of the sun

I will wait
for the accidental happiness
that covered me like a puddle I fell into
while stumbling through existence
simply drawing breath

I will wait
in jagged darkness for the only reality
that makes sense of this place
for in that union is peace so pure
it washes the universe in light

So, yes, I will wait
an eternity of gaping wounds
bathed in the brine of silence
never giving voice to the grated truth
of the best part of who I am

Striated thoughts broken
by a life in dappled light
Shadows cool the flame
flickering wildly in exhalation
Stars mimic streetlights
in memories long left behind
Each speck a lifetime
and life seems eternal
Traversing shadows reluctantly
cloaking truth in darkness
A trail of flesh glitters
a path dragged on bended knee
marked by pieces of me I
just couldn't hold onto
Light debrides road-rash
unapologetically
Each transferred piece that replaced
a speck of who i was
slowly leaves a void in the shape
of the very damage the shadows blind
Can you see the truth
The light shines on the perfect pieces
for the world to ogle
as shadows mask the tattered flesh
of a life that tastes like
the muddy shoe that bludgeoned
it unrecognizable
Who are we if not who we were
Who can bear the truth
and still pretend to love the unloveable
Who can see what I cannot show
as fear has stunted joy
in the dappled light
that breaks each thought to pieces