all I do is wait for your number
all I do is wait for your call
what's the point of even keeping tract now
why do I have any faith at all
when did you stop caring if I called you
when did I start caring that you stopped
now I only fumble through recent contacts
but it never says "missed call"

When I was 6 the Devil spoke to me
told me not to believe all the lies they had told
that nothing was real, not even myself

At 9 I met God
he drove away with my mom in the car
she waved goodbye through the window pane
said she was leaving for a better place

Then at 18 I saw them together
both holding pills of different shapes and sizes
I chose the red one and when I awoke
You stood beside me
said it had all been make believe

So I packed my bags
and drove off in the night
praying to heaven or hell
it was just another night

Mama there's boys in my bed, they won't let me out
I cry and yell but they hold me down tight

Their faces melt together, their bodies grow big
They wrestle and fight, my blood filling their mouths
I lay pinned and fastened
I'm cold and I'm wet

Mama there's holes in my clothes
and I tried and I tried but the tears they still rolled

I stand at the kitchen sink
pull the tiny glass from the cupboard
and make sure no one is looking

I keep my ears alert for footsteps approaching
take the bottle down from behind the coffee cups
pour it quickly
drink it fast with eyes closed

I feel the burn run throughout my throat and chest
clean the glass
put it away

I sit back down
eyes heavy now
brain mushy

Do it again in an hour

my depression's thick and heavy
cold & wet
I run towards mountains
the cold air slapping my cheeks
& freezing my lungs
their white tops gleaming in the distance
-catch me if you can-

I want the years back
they took when I was young
make them disappear
walk away from those sociopath lovers

I stop running
there's a part in the trees
stare up & I'm blinded
-Seattle's always sunny-

I write my name in the tree's skin
& it suddenly doesn't look right
you write yours next to it
draw a heart around them
I smile at you & shake my head yes
pout my lips & say "no"

my eyes open
it's all gone
it's still today & I'm naked in your bed
**-better than any drug-

I fell in love with a girl
who picked flowers instead
of arguments and had no
time for bad things
because she so carefully
curled herself
against them.
you were summer recklessness
but you always had these
two rules: stay with me
and don’t become a ghost.

My depression hits hard and heavy
like black curtains on the windows
like nothing your medicines will cure

I sat in my window today
watched the birds gather on the roof across from me
their feathers fluff and flatten
flatten and fluff
decided to stay there until they flew off
enjoy the beauty in the landscape
then had thoughts of jumping off the sill
(13 stories down)
it seemed like a normal train of thoughts

it's been windy lately
leaves whipping at my door
stems bending as it blows
hurts my bones and makes my body ache
but you'll never understand

I watched you drive off through rain stained windows
too angry to stop you
too shocked to move

Since you left nothing's been the same
stars we once saw
they've all gone dim
I haven't seen the sun in weeks
the skies permanently gray

I saw your sock in my laundry pile
I washed it
couldn't bare to throw it away

The seasons keep changing
from warm brown to cold black
and I still get your mail sometimes
but not your calls
I run my fingers against your plastic encased name on the envelopes
and hope silently you don't stay gone

fits clutched against the bed sheets
pulling in strides as I come
holding on to that moment of ultimate control

"when did I lose my mind?" she asks no one in particular.
"was it morning? were the birds singing?"
" I don't know my love. It is hard to say" I respond.
She sighs, "I only hope that it was beautiful. That the sun was shining. "

my throat is numb from screaming your name
coiled in the fetal position
**** parts pressed against bed sheets

rapid dancing feet
cigarette flames burning
all mouths open wide

My depression hangs heavy in the air
black curtains on the windows
dim light casting shadows on the walls
I yearn to stay away
but I'm held captive in the couch's cushions
eyes planted on the TV screen
drooping because they're too heavy to keep open

sun kisses your face
your scent forever present
no noise but the waves

she cowers down
her cape draped around her shoulders
holes litter the shawl
allowing the snow to chafe her

the raw air punches her face even as she attempts to cover it
she dreams of invisibility
that the cape was transparent and white like the snow and the forest
that the darkness could encompass her
but it doesn't

she still hears footsteps breaking branches
deafening in her ears
her fear is palpable
it feels heavy and suffocating
her eyes are clutched tightly shut
afraid to see what will develop or appear

louder now
the footsteps
a branch nearby snaps
the wind slows down
quiet for only a few moments
but she knows that's what she should fear most
the silence before the storm

fingers swiftly scratch at her cape
rip whip marks through her backside
so severe she can feel the blood before it comes
she wails but nothing comes out

the hand snatches her
his long slate fingers pulling her towards him
his nails stabbing her skin
too much pain to even cry

she waits for the bus
feels the fat pooling around the top of her jeans
like drunken donuts
the white milk licking the sweat
off the insides of her thighs
her muffin top
round cheeks
stare back at her in the passing car's windows
reflecting her embarrassment

she stares down at the ground
thinks she'd rather starve than be fat
tears pressing at the corners of her eyes
the bus comes
her stomach growls
she gets on the bus
decides to order a pizza when she gets home
tells herself
she's had a hard day

I wish I could take photos on the rain like photographers
perfect light bouncing off beaming rain drops
pictures that cause people to feel something
instead I walk through the puddles
my eyes still tired from last night's party
the drugs still whispering through my veins
it's all a routine, isn't it?
if you don't feel anything?
just get up
move on
get it done
go back home
do it again
and then I'm standing in a river looking at the sun set over two bridges in Yosemite and I feel something
a moment of satisfaction
of exhilaration
and the routine is all but forgotten again

"Just drop me off at the next corner.
I need to get out."

I'm amazed I've lasted this long
I have a **** in my side
that's got to be puncturing my spleen or liver or something by now

I stumble out of the car poorly
hand the driver a $100 dollar bill
and as he speeds off
my eyes adjust to the lack of light he left behind

I look around for an awning
pick the black garbage bag up from the damp ground
feel its weight in my sweaty hands
heavier than before

I pull it along side me to the back side of a bar
toss it gently on the ground
I feel fortunate I've found an awning
as it begins to rain again

I finger the scratch marks she's left on my arm
allow the rain to wash away the blood
as I glance at the garbage bag again
and start to choke up

My tears burn my cheek
begin to irritate my eyes
I feel lonely so I pull the top of the bag back just a bit
and look at her eyes
the skin around them is turning blue
blood's pooling at her mouth

The tears start up again
I'm sobbing like a baby without a bottle
as I lay down next to her
it
place the metal muzzle against my spleen or liver or whatever
watch it blow out the right side of me
and that's it
I see black

I swear I could be better*
the car sways through the hills
I feel your pants press against mine
just a piece of fabric separating
your skin from mine

my palms are sweaty
my heart stuck in my chest
my mind racing to bed sheets & sweat
the secret we could have
oh, the mess we could make*

you walk away and don't say a word
our silence sexier than the anticipation

when the clouds all seem to disappear
when your insides are singing
exploding at the same time
when the music blaring on the radio
is exactly the right volume
you text, Everything looks good!
as a group message
your cheeks hurt from smiling
your anxiety a part of your past
given way to euphoria
you look down
place your hand gently on your belly
and say quietly
*"I've been waiting my whole life for you"

my lids are heavy
held down by pain and dried blood
I can feel the ground
my fingers wet
the smell of a public toilet
it's dark
I feel like I've just lost my mind

Two days later I'm pressed against hot benches
light blaring down on my
now red
bare chest
I know I can't move
"Sit Down!"
if I stretch my legs
just for a second
I could be in here the entire day

Five years later
sewing in thick gloves that don't fit my once feminine hands
I can see past the windows that can't open
men walking in the grass
gray clothes
gray hair
walking together as if they were chained
or had been
for far too long

One year later
the walls laugh at me
their pathetic attempts at a
"***** feel"
I see my friend in the corner of the room
I'd missed her
I start walking towards her
and notice her chin caked in spit
and her eyes glazed over
with emptiness

will I ever be free
will I ever convince them
will I ever run again

*will he ever find me

oh father how your face has grown old with defeat
oh sister your arms have become so gaunt

the men march below my window
a beam of light crosses my tattered dress
how can there be beauty at a time like this?

the store fronts are empty
just the soldiers in their black uniforms
feasting on all of the wine and banquettes
we aren't allowed to buy with our ration cards

the children walk with their faces towards the sidewalk
the babies never cry anymore
they've lost the energy for all of that

but the birds they still sing
that sad and lonesome song
"I would like to leave it all if I only could"
and we said quietly to one another
"C'est la fin"

I never knew how to tell you when we first met.
Those long silences we exchanged had such meaning behind them,
I was afraid to remember myself.

It was so different back then,
in those memories of youth
now turned to sickening realization.
In the beginning you would always ask me to show you pictures
or tell you stories about my past,
but how could I explain something
I didn’t want you to ever have to understand?

How was I supposed to bring up Bobby J?  
You didn’t even know he existed.
How could I begin to tell you about how he and I would sneak out, without bursting into tears?

We would sneak out
after dark had just covered the rooftop of our house,
down to the riverbank that was just feet from our backyard.
On warm summer nights we would dip our hair in the water
and pretend we were sea creatures,
back to rid the world of humans
and giggle for hours.  

He would always call me Chrisy back then,
a name you’ve never known.

“Chrisy,” Bobby would say quietly
as the stream whispered in our ears,
“when’s that man getting out of the house?”

I would splash him then and tell him,
“When you stop lettin’ him bother you!”
and we would continue to play
in the wilderness of our imagination;
pretend we were soldiers in the deep of a war,
or wild cavemen with swords made of wooden sticks.

Momma always caught us coming back
but it didn’t matter none back then.
She would catch us sneaking in the back door
and she’d grab us and throw towels over our wet,
creek watered hair
and say what trouble we were.
“Just two bundles of trouble these two!”
she’d always say to us and to no one in particular.

We’d go to bed then,
afraid he would be coming soon,
and then all of Momma’s logic
would go up in that crystal pipe he’d bring over
that got black as Momma got stupider.

How was I to tell you about the night everything changed,
when the bad got badder
and Momma didn’t make it?

I didn’t want to remember the good days;
I didn’t want to remember any of it.

I just wanted to forget the sound of his gun,
the way Momma screamed,
and how he shouted for us to keep quiet or never see her again,
and Bobby J was never good at being quiet.

How could I tell you that one night
I kissed his ***** bruised face and walked away?
That I left that horrible man,
the only home I had ever known,
my real name,
and my baby brother,
and I never looked back.

I see myself
through the windows of trains
in different cities.
Sometimes I have earphones in
and I’m staring out the window
as the light passes over the tops of buildings.

Sometimes I have a girl asleep on my shoulder
while colored houses
line the hills.

Sometimes I’m crying
and no one on the train notices.

I see myself as an outsider
looking at a picture,
or a movie frame,
moving quickly by to another moment
that will be documented.

It's sweltering hot out there.
I can feel the heat dripping off of me,
the sweat falling off the bottom of my sunglasses,
and my upper lip beginning to become moistened as well.

I leave my sunglasses on.
They make the freeway an orange tone that matches the heat perfectly.
I'm not sure if the air conditioning is broken in my car or not
but I don't attempt to use it I'm so serene in the California sun.

I keep putting my hand out the window although it
doesn't cool me down.
I just feel the heat in between my fingers.
I close my hand because I'm driving so fast the hot wind is beginning to
hurt my hand and I curl it into a small fist.
The image in my rear view mirror is that of a deformed child's hand,
all curled up and pressed down by the speed.
It makes me laugh and reminds me of when I was a child
and I use to distort my face into the ugliest face I could make.
I would stand their in front of the mirror staring at this ugly figure
and ask myself if I would have any friends.
I always thought that I wouldn't even be my own friend with that ugliness,
and then I would change my face back,
so thankful that it was only a game and I was beautiful again.

I inhale another bowl,
the pipe was left in my car and so the tip of it is so hot I can barely press my lips to it.
I feel the sting for a second and then exhale a huge gust of
marijuana smoke that bursts into my steering wheel and then
dissipates throughout the car and rushes out the open window.

I am happy,
exhilarated,
it's April and it's already 103 degrees.

When I fell I wasn't scared.

I let my arms throw themselves wildly in the air like you'd see in a film with Alice and the white rabbit.
I let my hair whip around my face,
slash it,
as the wind twirled me down the abyss.

I didn't cry and I didn't scream out.
I just closed my eyes and pressed,
flung,
drove forward.

It must have been two when you called because the neon "Miller Genuine Draft" sign had just gone off on 4th and Alamitos.
I remember picking my cell phone out of my pocket as I fell,
saw the blinking red light with your name glowing across it but I didn't pick up.
I could of, but I didn't because he was there and you weren't.

I licked the **** on the carpet and the car seats,
felt the lint and dog hair attach to my tongue just as I came in the abyss;
eyes rolling and body arching sensations of ecstasy ******* my insides.

The drop was like falling into a down comforter;
soft,
comforting,
generous.

And one,
two,
I was out.

She doesn't look at people,
she looks past them like they're not even there.

She pushes the Push sign on the glass door and breathes in.
The air is stale inside and full of young children holding their parents hands,
teenagers with braces and sweaty foreheads.

Everyone around her barely glances so as not to be the fools that stare,
but some men still do.

When she stands in line to get the few items she has in her arms,
a cashier immediately becomes available and stutters over the total,
glancing too long at the pens, lifesavers, and Chap Stick she’s purchasing
while handing her cash back to her.

She's that type of girl,
the type that men stop and stutter for.

When she exits the store
a man jumps back to hold the door open for her.

She's the type of woman whose jeans fit her *** in the right way,
and her stomach is perfectly flat against the soft touch of her top.

She exits and walks towards her car,
hands tucked lightly in her pockets.
She opens her door and feels the fresh cold air brush her cheek
as she turns her head and throws her brown hair towards the night.

In the car she empties her pockets
of the handful of things she had stolen
and smiles at her reflection in the rear view mirror.

Silently a wave of euphoria runs up through her chest
to the top of her ****.

She turns the key and the radio’s music begins.

The rain had eased at about two that afternoon
but now
at seven
it was revived again as I drive the thirty-minute route to her house

It was romantic in a sense
seen through the tinted windows
the drops swirling down gently through the freeway’s lights

But I didn’t want to feel romantic
I wanted to feel apathetic
or dominant
or confidant
but none of these
by all appearances
was meant to be

I had always been obsessed with numbers
especially when
out of a random collection of figures
something meaningful seems to be bubbling up
So it was
as I observed the clock turn to 7:07 pm
and I was listening to song 7
on Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
Subterranean Homesick Blues

The night is unusually dark
almost moonless
like a black hole
or a road that leads to nowhere

As I’m driving through the hills that separate me from her
I can barely see the sides of the road
only charcoal rolling mountains
and twinkling neon lights blinking far off in the distance

I finally reach her exit
I forget which way to turn after getting off the freeway
and it’s not the first time
I drive for fifteen minutes through the now pouring rain
not knowing I’m going the wrong way
The storefronts are all a blur
their lights spraying in front of my eyes
making it impossible to separate the stores I should be passing
from the ones I shouldn’t be

I go up a huge hill and I know I must have gone too far
I feel stupid and turn the music up
to block out my sudden poor self-esteem

     I turn around and head in the right direction
my heart speeding up as my car races through the rain
my attempt to make up the time I’ve lost

Her house appears up ahead
encircled with a wire fence
stray cats swiftly making their way under it
I question why I’m here again
remember that I told myself not to get attached
and yet...  

I grab my purse and turn my head
just as she appears next to my car
Her outline is as I remember it
I feel warmer
The rain has stopped

I see you everywhere I look
this ghost daughter of mine
in the backseat of the car mimicking the songs on the radio
in the grocery store holding my hand tightly against your tiny one
in the morning sunlight picking out your dress for the day

I hear you everywhere  
you introducing yourself to guests at the front door
saying your whole name proudly
first, middle, and last
your voice screaming, "Mama!"
when you don't get what you want

I feel you everywhere
dancing in your tap shoes to L.O.V.E. by Nat King Cole
putting your arms out at the end
smiling ear to ear
jumping on me when I get home
holding onto my stomach with your arms
pulling on me
telling you what you've done today
your warm forehead when you're sick
and the feel of your brown hair in my hand as I pull back your bangs
I've never met you
but I miss you always

Breaking up is harder than it seems
pictures on the mantel
dusty images of memories

Her face pressed against the bed sheets
eyes enamored by the tiny lights that stream through the blackout curtains
her stomach in knots
mind imagining what is to be:
loneliness
the quiet streets she'll now watch at sunset
going to bed alone

and yet there is no choice
*"I have to leave"

The dragon's tail
will whip the **** out of you
stay close, don't wander

There's only trees and whipping vines in front of my eyes
I'm moving forward but I still feel their branches
slapping my cheeks like ice

I relate everything to the cold
my nose
and toes
and stomach
are always cold

I bolt forward through the pain
You're screaming at me
I can feel it
You're tearing things
throwing things

The river's current is louder now
closer
the sound is excruciating
and suddenly I descend
wrenched and dragged by ice arms

I watch you as you become smaller on the land
and I'm underneath
my body numb now
surrounded by silence
I close my eyes
*Goodbye girl
Goodbye world

sometimes you just have to take off in the night
move quickly with aggression

You have to open your mouth
gasp for air like it's your last breath

Driven by ****** frustration
intent on mind ******* you

Your hair was long when we first met
you would crawl under the blankets
and I would feel it tangle in between my fingers
your skin was porcelain cream
the taste and feel of honey

In these moments of silence we created a world of fantasy
holding each other
we built buildings and temples
then watched them burn down
from the holes we had dug

I'm trying to make money by selling my soul on the side of the road
unfortunately it isn't worth much
so I'm not selling

suffocating heat
sun pressed against sweaty clothes
the dog is panting

I was always proud of you
you were my hero
To watch you grow old
forget your words
repeat yourself
is a painful experience
I was never prepared for this
but time is altering us
so I keep my distance
preferring to remember the past
when I was so naive
and you
still tall

I relinquish control of others
and assume the role as leader of myself

I feel a throbbing for self gratification
and I'm going for it
pushing and kicking
until I get what I came for

Love is my feeling
I control it
******* too
they're all mine

I feel a need for freedom
so I'm packing my bags
and leaving town with the wind

If there are two things I've learned
it's that the tide always changes
and nothing lasts forever

words like hard punches
so painful she doesn't cry
Corn flakes for breakfast

I searched for
girls that like girls
within 50 miles of me
have dogs
under 5'2"
not white
and there you were
a big fluffy white dog in your arms
I met you in a sushi bar
I talked and talked
while you smiled

you always smelled like home
something I had searched for my entire life
someone to laugh with until we'd cry
to say I love you
every time we get off the phone
to kiss and snuggle in the morning
to watch survivor marathons with

you appeared unexpectedly
big eyes like a puppy
brown hands on white skin
how could there ever have been a more perfect love

You can't keep going
The preacher says to the *****
The candles white light
Burns hot in mama's eyes

past lovers, white lies
the power of empty rooms
secrets they possess

I've found a place you can't touch
a place where you're hidden,
tucked away
You're not even up yet
so you barely even exist
I'm blowing smoke out my driver's side window
the extravagant houses flying past
their enormous trees and driveways
glowing in the sun's rays
No one is on the street
not even the BMWs and Mercedes
just me
with my music blasting
and the gardners