i’m walking a pitbull
upstream against my feelings
it’s easier, neon contrast to my dull
sense of being human
i
am
better
off alone

warm red seeping through my eyelids
while blue skies wed the cloud’s soft white beds
a sleepy breeze whispering behind the shed
lifting the frozen winters head to force him
to peak and see the tread marks of summer
searing their words into subtle spring smells
the new season thaws the thoughts
that felt like frozen hell.

eager fingertips slipping
between the space where your hips
create a crevices against your jeans
and eventually finding those lips
oh, how your body crests on my eclipse
and finding pleasure like a photograph
sudden and immense and wet
i want to make you feel yourself again

**** these hands
that demand a hand to hold and
this heart that folds for nothing more
than something slightly more than cold

you drink champagne from a wine flute
but only on occasion
maybe socially, it makes you someone
people want to talk to
i drink beer
alone
at home
watching you

i’ll admit that i
have never been the type
to avoid being crucified
i’ve always been the one
to just shut the **** up

and me, deceiving me
so convinced that it’s bravery
a selfless act drenched in chivalry
the crimson handprint worn
proving i’ve never deserved much more

how do i walk away?
i’m collecting sediment
far to heavy to shift
whenever i try to run
i've always been so sentimental
so i trip and eat ****
lips and teeth rip
spittin blood red ****
train wreck, mayhem
can’t tell, me him
you her they them
cut at the stem

my timing is always wrong
i belong
to a select percentage
of men who consented
to a whole life tormented
by you

his name was something
i can’t recall
but we spent a whole night
playing pool, 9 ball

overhead lights hazed blue
chalk on my cue
made a shot or two
watch his turn from a stool

next game, someone called
maybe we'll play a split
it doesn’t matter who won
we were infinite

layers of lapping ocean
papier-mache mask elapsing
insecurities, the ****** scenes
the dark and dirt and gritty ****

breathing even feels distant now
a smog of hissing remembrances of incidents
i wore a fools hat and pranced and danced
and pretended it was happen stance
a lack of loving anything for so long
became the reason i could not love at all

spines quiver
in the bed
pleasure delivered
giving head

i never dared to call when you're asleep
another knife next to the card inside your sleeve
your laugh like cyanide everytime i tried to make you see
the darker half that conceivably convinced my wrists to bleed

too sober to feel
too drunk to feel
no in-between

the mornings always hurt too much
for the night to feel worth it
i’m broken and you’re a crutch
but in the moment it felt perfect

i think too much when i’m all alone
memories stinging like a funny bone
i think too much when i’m by myself
i’m just another toy left on the shelf

city skyline bright
your eyes lock in on my eyes
we felt every pulse

bathed in hatred
unscathed by your love
i am scratching scabs just like pavement
content to stay inside my asylum

i have felt the asphalt against my face
i have prayed and then played the same game
i have made friends and in the same breath
replaced them with an empty space
and in the hopes of status or capital gained
i have laid in wedlock against soft lace
and felt infidelity’s bittersweet embrace
i have  sinned in the face of grace
and i only wish i had taped it

blackout drunk and wrecked
a heartbeat felt in texas
a text, a match, a fire
a speck of ash that met an ember
and burned the whole casket

i am wrong
more often than not
tying cherry stems
as the seeds slide
back in my throat

my hand cramps
as my sanity scans
the sand for strands
of the aforementioned man

i’ve once again sipped beyond my limit
the mornings scorned and the scars adorned
skin feels dipped in flicked cigarettes
i penned a letter, licked to stick
addressed to me, every word as slick
“please, forget that i exist.”

the least appropriate
cornucopia of emotion
smothered in gestures
less love than lust
and gusts of envious
rust shaken off these robot bones
i guess it’s not for everyone

fluorescent orange
sunset soaring
sore and a syringe
stripping bone so cringe
get a grip, kid
puzzle pieces
biting creases
in my lips
until they bleed
you said you love me
so it's cool goodnight

you take your coffee sweet
vanilla latte with stevia
you treat me like concrete
as i dream of you biting my sheets

the sussuration of life outside my window let's me know i'm still alive. 'took the dive', it's been described less eloquently from time to time. the murmur of the wind in conversation that never ends with the whisper from the trees 'til mr. winter eats their leaves. but i survived, i mean just look at me. alive and took a drive, packed the car five stories high with all the people, places, things and love i would've left behind. from now on, i decide.

the impairment without the drunk
unconscious and subconscious all at once
a fleeting in-between of clarity
and feeling floated in a fog
in this space i meet the things left incomplete
and all their less familiar friends
like marbles underneath my feet

She’ll never know
The soreness on knuckles
The bite marks on fingers
Anger dispersed upon two by fours
Through veins she’s never felt the pulse of

But she is so beautiful
The stabbing of deeper grey shades
The moon she’s so proud of
The girl I’m so proud of

She’s never been more gorgeous
To me, than seven months
And scribbling on canvas

I beat the **** out of door frames
I bit the hell out of my own hands
I loved the soul out of a woman
And wasn’t even the man I wanted

hey
man
relax
he said

the
cops
are on their way

pay
the
fine
i try to comply

but end up in the newspaper instead

i’ve been daydreaming of you
a dark cup of feeling enthused
your soft lips on mine making me
awake at night when i should be
sleeping, maybe it’s meant for us
maybe i just don’t get it
maybe i’m still alone

i want a love that likes laying in my bed
wasting time but never losing tread
i want a love that can play me in pool
lose a game and then play it cool
(but in a cute way)

i want a love that will love me
when i’m too drunk and hug me
let me know that everything will be okay
let me know there’s another day
when this one’s done
and the rising sun
isn’t something to run
from but something to see beauty in

i want a love i can reciprocate
i want to be ready while i wait
for you to get ready for our date.
i want to love the way you hate
the toppings on our pizza
or how the Uber was late

i want a love the loves me
that feels the things above me
realizes I’m more than
my mental fallacies
and looks past all i am
to see what i can be

i talked to a stranger on the phone
it wasn't the face i've known
but i'm pretty sure it had his bones
i walked a minefield of catching up
with the hollow cheeked husk
of a man i used to love

“i never meant to hurt you”
her words like a lit cigarette on my wrist
smiling into this crochet mask i knit

“it’s been far too long
since your knuckles bled”
she said with her actions instead

we are static from a speaker
on the radio in the dashboard
my trough met your crest
and we both lay, flatlined on the shore

split lip
chapped like cracked pavement
seeped blood over statements
like a pact. in fact, the same cave
in which we saved the game
a new chapter
the last page stained

ice against a lad’s legs
last mistake a crass shake
knees buckle and you’re *** quakes

it’s beautiful
and tragic
destruction inside creation
the start of something wonderful
it is what i am supposed to become
its less uncomfortable than you believe