springtime;
walking
under grey-blue clouds
the lazy herd
moving slowly
above the crows
ravenous

for life
for death

my feet crack the salt and pebbles
below me and i may
slip on
the milky ice
and hurt myself
on exposed pavement
i may slip for you
and show you
something real
this
spring time
because i know
now
that the trees
never died
**** and bold
they bear though
they persevered

as will i, dreaming of
the green
foliage
the fullness
the silent heat
of your body
near

sitting on the exit step
of the roof again
it's cold again
but i've never sat here
as it hailed
like right now
ice pellets
join the spread of little grey rocks
i'm in a world of graphite sketches
monochromatic
made to express
a solitude
in existing like this
like me
like everything and everyone
for these rocks aren't a spread
but one million together
different
side by side
alone and grey and hard

we were driving
with our love child
dead in the trunk
dead in my gut

thunder road on
repeat
reading in the
passenger’s seat
six pack in the back
fingers moving up
bare thighs
begging for some.
a bottle of sailor jerry on the
beach
licking the salt off
each other’s lips
and the word forever
worn as a promise ring.
snapped a photo,
me in a red
bathing suit,
which you kept on
the dashboard of
your Honda civic
98. it’s still there,
i hear,
lying flat
even though
forever
couldn't make it through the year.

we were driving with
our love child
dead in the trunk
dead inside my gut

I’m thinking about Joni Mitchel’s River
How in the midst of
Describing her lonely stale Christmas
She breaks out with
“I made my baby cry”
And of Hemingway
In The Sun Also Rises
Describing the night, the bar,
The scene and then says
“and with them was Brett”
I’m drunk and I’m thinking too much and
Aching for
Something to stop me on my heels, my pupils wide
My obsession burning on my lips
It’s my first day of school tomorrow
I’m scared of mediocrity
So I’m drinking hard tonight to make
Sure it never gets to me
My heart will always sing
Let it be blue
Let it be dark
But it shall sing
I’m smoking cigarettes like I have no due date
Give me a thing to make a mess of, life.
I’m bored and begging. I want
The wild heart searching like a lioness in the
Heat of the savannah night
I want my nails dug deep into it
I want it to squeal
Life, give me something to
Make a mess of
It doesn’t have to be this way
But it is
The clock ticking
Towards midnight
Like a knife
On my skin
Give me something right
And I’ll make a
Mess of it tonight.

A whining rottweiler
By the tracks
A freight train
storming
crashing the night
Like thunder
He's snoring
My face is warm
From drinking strong
Japanese beer
3 hours awake, feel like i
Haven't slept in a year
And i want something more
Than a gentle touch
His hair is thick and
Black
His sweat bitter
His scent sweet
Fiji deodorant and ****
My face
Is warm and hot
from nicotine
Too much Japanese beer
My body is hot
I want more
Than a gentle touch

The evenings are grey and overcast
I walk home after work
Climb the steep
Dank stairs
Into my apartment.
I push the door open
And sigh
But it is not a breath I exhale
I say your name
And it echoes in my brain
As I drop the keys on the
Kitchen table
Your face is blurry in my mind's memory
Aside of your green eyes
Which are all at once
Sharp as steel knives and
Aching with hope

What were you more
Than a love I was bound for?

4 pm looks bad on this saturday's
frame
it's hot and humid
and the cicadas cry
sounds of roasting pain
and i'm on the
cold white tiles
lying on the bathroom floor
mess of hair
glasses upturned.

this is another one
this is another one
and i can't anymore
it feels like i've
been doing this since i was born
the salt swells
the skin of my cheeks
i know now this demon
is nowhere near
slain
and i can't anymore
but i will
cause this demon ain't dying
but i'm still trying
heading for a place
like a heavenly home
and i'll take it
there, drag it
if i have to

i'm taking my beast to
a place
beautiful and strong
and once i'm there
he can suffer
he can enter
the dagger to his chest
for all i care
'cause i'm heading there

it arrived on the doorstep this morning

the clothes I kept at his place
spilling out of his old
gym bag,
reeking of
tobacco ash.
my body and mind have been
sorting through it
as a team
separating
colors, darks, whites
while my heart runs
past me
back to those
apartment nights.

and I taste the cigarettes
on the floor of the balcony with our
legs dangling in the air,
in the kitchen frying pasta,
in the bedroom
ashes sprinkled on
velour, on skin,
in the beer,
in the ashtrays that
made this laundry so
*****.

i taste the cigarettes,
and indulge
their flavor
until I remember the
other girl and
know for certain
he must have shared
cigarettes with her too

my ***** laundry
as a helpless witness
on the floor.

you live
in the mess of my print, in
the meaning
of words that come
before your name

the blue of
pen ink and bruised
skin

you are the liver’s thirst
and the beer bottles
thrown
against stagnancy
you contort my dreams,
working through
sleepless nights

the deep blue of ashes
bruised
skin
my pen ink

you
coming in all forms
except  that of
mercy

he wrote something
behind a paper coaster
folded it, threw it
my way

where are we going next?

no, no. i shook my head
i am not giving the next day
to a hangover
and a bad lay
I AM FEELING INSPIRED
i  can make tomorrow beautiful
cupping it carefully
in my hand
it is waiting to burst
and expand ...
...

tomorrow is now today
and I am in bed
sheets over my head
although it’s 6 p.m.
i was good
and went home last night
but i cannot escape the
sickness of my mind
this creature,
unable to breathe
in fresh waters
preferring the swamps
of the heart,
reminds me
there is always
tonight

start over

it is time

to shower,
pick up the beer,
there’s a handsome
man who lives
down the street
from here

the nights with you
are long
red velvet
carpets
rolled out for majesty

the moonlight is caught
on the iced-over snow, on the satellites
and metallic edges of the roof.
i shiver and
smoke my last cigarette of the night
it tastes very good breathing in the frigid air
better compared to those words i was forced to inhale downstairs.
screaming sounds, the two of us in an awful row.
but on the roof, in the cold,
with the fresh textured wind,
i could think straight.
i knew it was better to have you like this
than not at all.

we are two things boiled in love and
tempered.
yours, sparky and quick
mine, swollen and infected
but i let mine and myself deflate because tomorrow is new
and i will probably
jump into your arms
as i did yesterday and the day before

i spend
another moment here
calm and alright
the smoothness of the satin night
slipping through
me
sweeping the mess out of sight
with its beauty,
its forgiving might.
and i know, even in this now,
you and i
we are greater than tonight.

sitting on the curb
smoking cigarettes
the falcons
oscillate
above us
and the palms
in the dry air
clouded sky
windless day

goodbye

the white van
here she comes
rolls forth down the
driveway
to where we've
crouched ourselves
by the gate
packed bags to the side

goodbye, myrtle

the devil needs a new home
hell is in the skies
today
hell is in the heart that
cannot let go
sometimes the things you think you need
turn to fired lies
and shoot away
to leave you with a metallic aftertaste
what is a day off
what is a vacation
what is the hot summer
what is the sun

if it cannot feed my hunger
like you do

The emptiness
Stretches wide
In the pit of me
In the pit of the night
Cracking open a second
Bottle
Of wine
I want something so badly
I squeeze my fists hard
So hard
To subdue it
To soothe it
It doesn't come
It doesn't come
The dragon stretches
Its long neck
The raven its black
Feathered wings
Why do I need something
So *******
Badly?
Myself high up on a barstool
Bait them
Bait them in
Give me them, pull them in
I want them
Teeth and nails, here's
The skin
Of my shoulders, my neck
Something alive
Slightly stinging
In them
In me
My heart is singing
Up there high
On the barstool

I feel
Your fear
And
Recognize it as my own
A hollowed space
With dark willows

You're lonely and proud
I'm stoic
I'm a cathedral
I walk around
Pretending not to be
Ruined

Dark and harrowed
Weeping willows

I'm a cathedral

Stoicism breaks
Like stained-glass windows

(But I'm a cathedral, I'm a
Cathedral)

we muted our feelings
and hung
in the awkward
quiet
in the pause, the stillness of a love
meant to flow

these times
only measured
the gap, the distance
between you and i

there were moments
however
we'd sink down
together
meet at the place
the pivotal spot where
beginning and end
inlock
entwined in embrace

my dreams as my life
my life as my dreams

the birth, the first
heartbeat
the reason
the breath

ecstasy and pain don't sound
here
they exist
locked down
smaller than a needle's point
larger than this world

locked down
together
you and i
the home found in one another
the source, the all
the truth
in our silence.

like the titanic tragedy

when my mind
is hushed
then the stillness
of something complete and filled
comes to me

it is then i know
we can be right
and i don't need
to prove
or justify
or explain
with recycled thoughts or old memories
or differences in our personalities
or with what
anyone else has to say.
i feel myself
weeping
with equal amounts
of sadness and joy
with equal parts
of everything known and undiscovered
as if all i have learned
was simply to get to you
and love you
and all i have yet
to come upon
will greet me
for the sheer sake
of keeping you eternally

i nearly threw the blender against the wall because it stopped working in the middle of smoothing my drink. instead, i yelled and cursed and banged things and punched the counters, then i unplugged the machine, re-plugged it and it worked. my drink was very very good. i broke down, however, half way through Bowie singing Sorrow, even though it's not a sad song. i cried like i haven't in a while and i felt a bit better but also tired and slightly dizzy. i stepped outside onto the roof with my coffee, sat on the exit step and the sun warmed the left side of my jacket and it was delicious and i grew hungrier for something so i smoked three cigarettes one after the other and thought of this morning as an episode of sorts and thought of writing and being pacified and thought of  the wonderful things Hemingway wrote about Ezra Pound in a Moveable Feast and i thought of you.
how you're never coming back to me and how she's never coming back to you and how you must love her and adore her in her beautiful ways of being and how much i want you to love me and it will never be. i wondered how we will make it out, the both of us. life holds us in the palm of its hand. i always wanted to fall in love forever. more than anything, i wanted the taste of the eternal and i thought it would be delivered as a hero, as my savior, like peace sweeping up a battlefield, the ****** and gore erased. i thought i'd be graced one day. then i could die and i wouldn't mind. but today, everything appears distanced and i know the next few years will hold hardships and be far from simple, and something weak inside me inflames and cries about it. i don't want to go through with this anymore but i don't want to die. i don't want to do anything other than be held in the palm of life with you, our own palms pressed against each others.

curled
in the dark with you
it's cold
and we use the 11 p.m
news
for conversation
between
the two

lying on your couch in silence and
hunger, my muscles are in pain
and my skin, goose- bumped
and i think unimpressed
half-dazed
"really? this is how it is?"
then you ask me
how i am,
notice
my frozen hand
and
hold it, bring it
beneath your fleece sweater

and my mind curls inside itself
like a soft kitten
while my heart
sings
yes, this is how it is.

i cry all the time
in bed
with you
while you're asleep
or looking away from me
(as you often are)
i cry in the middle of the satin night
awaking from
a dream
where it's daytime
and we spend
ourselves
under the sun
sitting on a park bench
drinking coffee
talking

i cry because morning
is arriving
knocking
and i'll have to go
because i can't have you
because you are the dream
and i am not yours

i cry
because loving you
is falling off a mountain
into a volcanic storm

my love is black and wet
i cry
at night
in bed with you

Lovers’ shadows cast on alley
Brick walls
The night whining
The street lights trembling
The cobwebs glowing
The beast asking for me
Like a serenade.

i'm *****
been lying in the muck
these days
too long
my skin is drying with the mud
they blend as one
in my ditch
where i've asked for it all
to leave me
alone
do not disturb
but the world doesn't
care
and why should it?
the worms don't care
and crawl around me
the clouds drift above
and the sun
shines
blinds
releases

the world doesn't stop

handsome men in sunglasses walk
the urban streets
sipping on coffee, eating
pastries
the subway ticket booth
attendant
stretches back in his chair
dozes off
the waves come in and
on shore, the foam surrounds
the thin ankles
of a young girl

the wind smells like his cologne

i get up

this dirt is but another chance
to polish myself
again
now tomorrow forever

old friday nights
resurfacing
as i emerge out of the glass globe
of work.
old friday nights
coming back
to me
impractically
like i'm trying to
grab
a handful of velvet
from the dark sky
(and i remember
the
excitement
of those nights
drilling
outwards
from my heart to extremities,
the end of
my week shift
suspended
like a good cliff-hanger.)

my memories are mischievous
ghouls
throwing punches
at me
that never miss

no,
it is i who miss
those old friday nights.

Others can be good
Let me be this
Pathetic scrawls
In a notebook
Let me play again with my
Deamons
Let them take
Over
Let them swirl in the night
Like my tongue in this stale beer

You haunt me with my own impotence
I spend the days trying hard not to regret, trying to forget
But I am lost and confused. And it's not you.
This is me
Without a lover to have and hold
This is me in a restless frenzy
This is the needle
This is the sound of your laughter drilling at my chest.
This is the hit in a bathroom stall
This is my heart cracked open like a walnut.
It is not you
This is me reaching out
in the dark
For the the green of your eyes
This is my sickness
Love like the hot breath of a beast.
Love like a nasty stickiness on my skin
Love like dancing goblins around a burning stake
Love like a dry heat
The sun torching the sun
The sun torching
Icarus'
Wings

i understood loneliness
after my shift one day
sitting at a table of the
steakhouse I worked at
eating a
sad soggy salad and this
woman at the bar is
on her own
looking around
making uncomfortable
faces and frantically
searching the restaurant
with her crazy eyes
it’s awful and it makes me
feel bad for her
i cringe because
i know she is looking for the barmaid
to talk with
they've become friends and now
she needs her and her
need is all out there
displayed in the open
desperate and pathetic
i am sickened by the sight that I can’t touch
my salad
i feel so bad
i don’t want to be in
the vicinity of her but it also
makes me sick to think of myself
because here I am
sitting alone and
who is to say no one is
across the restaurant and
feeling bad
watching me eat this
sad soggy salad

you will fade away
you will fade like the others
did too
you will fade, my SOS
and leave me with this island's truth on solitude

i rode as passenger once
in a boy's car
i had named Bessie
Bessie grunted and took naps
like a narcoleptic
we drove together
me and this green-eyed boy
in ol' Bessie
through the construction of the Yards in the summer
with our windows
rolled down
smoking cigarettes
under overpasses
on a highway bridge
the city swelling, heaving
over us
and the wild winds
splashing my face
hair tantalizing
impatiently over to his side,
my downtown apartment waiting like a desert flower at dusk
throbbing to bloom
David Bowie sang heroes and i believed the song
could never mean anything more
than our moment shared

years pass and summer nights choke me again
i'm in love again

thundershowers knock on my window
David Bowie sings
but i don't think of that green-eyed boy anymore
now, it's you
tall, spectacular man
spritzer of mystery magic from your hands
i think of you
but i'm alone in my apartment this time
i climb out of the fire escape
thunder cracks the sky
and i let the rain soak my bones
i want to hold you, but
you will not have me
completely
like how this storm
is finding
its way to the last inch of me

i close my eyes and
give
myself away


you won't be the last of them
i know
my story of heroes and lovers sits on the doorstep
of a vacant home

you won't be the last of them
i only dreamed you would
like the sight of a ship too far from shore

sirens wailing
in the dense
long night
my thoughts as
melting ice
in a whirling
glass tumbler

you finger the hair
off my face
in a dream
i had
a lifetime
ago

the night air humming
and the warm wind
grazing my
skin
the streetlights buzz
like fireflies
whirling around me
the moon hangs
superbly
at the end of a downhill
boulevard-
orange, fired
giant
and aliened

the day never died
the moon robbed
the sun
and my love
waits for me
in silence
on a park bench
tonight

I

something calls out to each one of us.
on hot nights like these I hear
the sounds of the ocean
the pulling and expelling, the cold pressure,
the black magic of the deep sea

II

i stepped out onto the hot concrete
walking towards the corner store for
cigarettes
the sky in the Northwest was streaked
with colored ribbon of
neon orange and hot pink
above and behind me the sky was
a dusty blue
i thought of you
how you'd see the world tonight, how you're taking in the view and
if
you're okay there alone
far away from me.
i am alone and tonight is the kind of solitude i crave from life.

i am alone and i think of you and wish for nothing.

you are a part of me always. how can you not?
you are my love
you are the warm fuzz
and nothing that I love is without you.
i speak to you through
the falling lilacs and the bleeding sunsets.
your voice in the gut of the night.

the sighs between words
the darkness between breaths

my life
this moment
caught with you
in a silk web.

she studies the history of colors
in a building that
lacks it
i study garbage tossed on
the side of the street
and worn out faces on the
city bus
i write simple words in
a coffee stained notebook
she writes long, complicated
sentences, elaborate
explanations, provides examples
on crisp white paper
Font size 12
Ariel Black

she asked me what
do i do?
and i said i am a hostess at a restaurant
but hopefully, one day,
i’ll get to sit around
and do nothing
when she left, i thought
our exchange went
smoothly
the next morning i heard
she said our conversation
was awkward

this will be the last
sitting
on the staircase
of your apartment building
balled
chipping salmon-colored walls
leaning on the black
shining railing
i've gotten closer
with this railing
than i ever did
with you
i've familiarized myself
with this cold step
the mornings after
makeup dripping
on my lap and hands
hair spilling in tangled dreads
my body and soul worn inside-out
like ***** socks
from not being able
to say
i love you

this cold step
it and i
shared our moments
last

the nights with you
are long
red velvet
carpets
rolled out for majesty

standing in the
exit
that leads to my rooftop
door slightly ajar
there is a tornado
of wind and snow and
smoke from little
chimneys
twisting in the skies

one brave *******
of a bird
flies
through it

i am drinking chai tea
smoking a cigarette
wearing
fluffy tiger-printed
slippers
sirens wail
tires screech
off the highway
this early morning
and i am warm

this life is but a loan
what remains
is to care for it
as our own
until time calls back
its due date

blared a fired shot
wept like falling feathers
in dawn's light

i am sitting on the exit doorstep
of my roof
smoking a cigarette
talking to you
feeling you
can you hear me, lover?
speaking to you through this night
staring at the mauve clouds
heavy with
the reflection of grey city lights.
this night is cold and glossy
twinkling
serene
and i'm remembering
all those other nights
speaking to you from a distance in the dark
the nights
since the beginning of my life
now
you're a stranger no longer
i know those green eyes
and that tenderness running
its fingers on my thigh
the warm voice of home
the still silence
standing with you
on the back porch
smoking cigarettes
watching the rain
the snow
and soon the sun will
shine strongly again
the cats will come
out from hiding
they'll wander, strut in the
back alley and parking lots
and we'll be there together
standing still

glass jars are often knocked over from the top
shelves of Grandma's kitchen by
little candy-wired brats
we're going to shatter on the old wood floor, my friend
and all around they will hear the loud
crash and be stunned and horrified
and we will spill out and the
damage, the freedom could never be
undone. i feel it. a change is
going to come. we are not meant to be
kept like this.

a change is going to come, i don't know when
or how but something is starting
i feel the shift, pressure is building and
breaking. is it discomfort? an unease?
restlessness? it feels as if disconnected
parts of my life are stringing themselves
together, to form some new textile.
material beyond the imagination and
of utmost beauty.
i feel like i will finally be
pushed to do that which i always
wanted and wished to do

write.

the pen is my lover, and i only scribble
on and on and on about heartache and the paper
understands, and i wish i was graced with the ability to write
about people and exotic places and beauty
but my heart is sore and so i
scribble on and on and on about the boys, the ones I
could never have, a love that was far-fetched
and an idealized romance

my inspiration comes from one place
an empty bucket with a fat leech
rolling and squirming at
the bottom
the leech is the dream
to the leech i drain it
give it away
let him feed on me

at the airport i see a tall man
with green eyes
the bucket fills, i'm allowed to long
and believe
i write
as the dream slowly *****
the juice away

my nails
tapping
on the mahogany coffee table
echo this

friday night alone
again

tell me again
all those nice things
you said
at the bar
after i confessed
i was crazy about you

tell me again
as i hold you against the door
of my bedroom

and once you're through telling
me
i will jump on the bed
up and down
several times
like a child
like a monkey
like a lunatic

because for a night
people can be really happy
for one night
it happens
people will feel
the need to jump on a bed
repeatedly
and not care about
waking the
neighbors downstairs

because it's just one night
really, the only
and all that ever happened
before
was leading up to

this.

early morning at the
coffee house
toasted sesame bagel with jam and cream
cheese
coffee and cigarettes
crazy sparrows jumping in the hedges
of the patio
you and the old men
steaming cups, unraveled
weekend edition of the newspaper
on tabletops
you and the sweet, quiet old men
only they understand

going for a long walk
you hear two boys shuffling behind on their
way
to soccer practice
singing about the sunny side
of the street
your blood sings with them
blood is not of a violent
theme
not today
it's what keeps you alive
keeps you moving along
loving more
wild smile on your face as if you know
the damnest joke
a real good knee-slapper
a killer
of all solemn thoughts and
a promiser to
to be better, behavior and heart
a re-fertilized mind
from now on and ever

entering the city
the day smells of beach nights
lingering scent of sunscreen, sand, dark ***,
vanilla cigarellos
the light turns green and you
step off the sidewalk
catching yourself in the
reflection of a skyscraper 
emerging
from a busting, exploding crowd
looking like you always wished you would
a ballerina on-the- go

you are not a ballerina
but you whisper thanks and
keep the magic of today in your back pocket
like a paycheck
you've been owed

you are the autumn
in France i never
spent
the courage i
couldn't summon

stars shoot
when i stare at
my feet

you are the poem
that never came

there are days the melodies
rise from opening
earth
and wrap themselves
around the branches
of trees
blossoming
wet lavender
petals
they drip down
note by note
fall into and
return
to the earth
again

looking down a city
street
you tumble
into the memories
of cradling sunsets
cradling arms and bodies
of past romances

those are the days i know
i couldn't help loving you

i loved you like the champion
the beggar
the defender
the gambler
the martyr
i loved you
with the sun-stricken craze
of a woman
who knew not
what else to do

but give it all
like she was meant to

some days it gets so restless inside me,
i cannot breathe new air
i am vacuum sealed
there is only tossing and turning in tight space
you gnaw in me, demon man.

the sorrows of lost love always serve as the muse.
i want to
write about something good, something fresh
and beautiful
but some days it gets so restless i could pull my thick hair out
and drink myself sick and burn my skin and parade
the streets in fierce strides as a torn thing
what is this pain?
i imagined it as a kid and materialized it to reality.
why does it hurt so much, i asked, to fall in love?

this has been a deep slice
the answer bleeds warmer
you are getting there
closer
the knife pierces
the truth rushes  free
yes,
here it comes

I know what is there
I know the love
waiting in your chest
a fist
ready to unclench

friday nights no longer
have their after-glow
the buzzing silver light
guiding me to you
to the beers
to a place like home
warm, naked
entangled in your
bed

friday nights end
flat-lined, alone
the work shift over
at midnight
my muscles quake
my spirit rumbles for
something more
than this.
the streets
holler and i ignore and
sit in the cold
smoking a cigarette
with the smelly, crazy-eyed
bums
in the shelter
waiting for the bus
which will bring me
to the place i sleep

but i have no home

i no longer stare
at its sleeping
face
and wait
for its eyes to open
and bleed
a red hungered morning
i am no longer obsessed
or terrorized
i do not want to catch
the beast
before it bites

i am living
too busy
to look back
or care for it

death, you're going to
have to
catch me
now

i'm missing the
flies circling
the streetlight
i'm missing the
beads on my
pores
and the orange
spills of sun
on leaves
i'm missing
the songs of
cicadas and
crickets
and the dusty
horizon of the
city, seen on
the bridge over
the freeway

the satin of petals
have been forgotten
watermelon waits
to quench
and i pass
right by that too

i'm missing out
on the wonders
not somewhere
but everywhere

life is begging

and i trudge
along
ignoring
the asking cup

i see nothing

am unaffected
by all

i turn inwards

the mind numb
to senses
the heart
knowing
one thing

i am missing you

the loneliness is stiff
in the air
of this apartment
wine and menthol
cigarettes
quiet cat
in a corner chair

that’s you
pointing to the stereo playing Bruce Springsteen
then pointing to me
you’re going to
explode one day

i cried and shook
my insides contracted
and released
sitting in a corner
of the kitchen
i asked you to turn
the music
off, but you had
something to prove

you’re going to explode
one day*
you said again
and finally i stopped the
crying and looked up to
you and my face
let you know

i will explode one day
and you will not be
there
to see it
you’re going to miss the show
and there will never be
anything else like it
something that was once yours
will no longer be
but it will continue
going, building strength
and power
till it erupts
and the sight of
the smog sky, the ******
sun
will not be yours
but another man’s

you understood and
left me in the corner,
alone and longing for
that day