I hate my wandering lips and all of the people they have kissed
I hate all the times my mouth has calmed the nerves of someone else
To heal their wounds while simultaneously hurting myself
I hate the lack of love and the soul ******* power one unfamiliar kiss has on me
I hate the next morning and the empty dull ache in my head
And the smell of my breath like some wilting flowers
Growing hot and moldy in the sun
I hate kissing without love
I thought I would grow numb but instead
I am the only one with feelings left
My emotions will rush me to my death

we give each other flowers because they are the opposite of flesh

a photo i can't quite remember
i was smiling on my knees
in a plywood shed

danger and laughter
at war in the hollow insides of his guitar
nothing but oblivious red white & blue

a photo i can't forget
of two best friends
maybe lovers

laying in the flash
mother mary and two ducks in the opal light
their smiles were strings of pearls

a photo i can't quite remember
he and i sat on a burgundy couch
*** coke and wet grass

his small brown eyes
and our hands touched
we swapped big ideas when no one was looking

a photo i can't forget
of myself in a stupor
on the night of lost keys

there was warm love in the trailer
but the closer we got the river
the more our hearts unfurled

we never write about new beginnings
every piece is just getting more still
happiness is reached as a state of rest
it's all jean jackets and midnight rabbits
we're a generation of pictures of shoes
let's keep getting drunk
as an excuse to walk home hand in hand
let's just admit teenage love
might only exist in cars
let's think so long
we gather dust

i keep inviting you into my altered past
i keep inventing new religions
i keep forgetting that we're probably all living for a reason

i am mad at you
and the boys you keep in your back pocket
tied to expired nostalgia and jet black ink

we all have tried to run away at some point
and i'm so sorry that you need someone to fold you up
just so you can try to fly away

i am mad at you
and the way you might only see yourself
in every set of christmas lights

beer basements and fake friends
naps in strangers beds
none of that match the love and concern of four friends

so go ahead and load your gun with spontaneity
but i will always sense the planned
and timed rhythm between every shot

There was once a time
Before we were used
As a womb
Before we were one
With the moon
Where we were born
As bodies
At a magnetic zero
Our crotches smooth
At rest with no circulation; indication
Of what could happen next

We were born without predetermined regrets

Bodies as life without currency
Running through warm earth trees
Following lights into our
Tangible youth memorials
Eye to eye in the urgent wet dark

My friends are not made of glass!

I reiterate- - we are not made of glass

Midnight forced itself on us
And our chests grew
And blew up balloons
We were told to lock our knees
Handicapped by skirts
Told to stop climbing trees anymore

Becoming a woman meant putting dreams in the hand of pale knuckles and male grip

The boys were infallible; desirable
The boys were never accused of
Being made of glass

Becoming a woman meant shifting our frequencies to different notes
Bleeding and sleeping in separate rooms
Porcelain dolls with stillness for crowns
Others falling to unfix-able pieces on the ground

Slowly in the dark
We all shifted apart
To discover something new
Between our legs
But not necessarily our hearts

I reiterate- - **we are not made of glass

i thought we'd never speak again
oh my god those pink memories
i thought i'd never sleep again
eyelids always shaken awake
i thought we could have loved
but i forgot you also had to try
i thought you would care if i cried
but my tragedies were humble white noise
beneath her blaring melodies
i thought i was the crazy one
for loving something i couldn't name
i thought i'd lost my mind
in the summer of 2014
i thought by thinking less
and loving more
i could score a golden life

i thought that every glance was a promise chance of getaway

now i know they were just friendly looks of scorn

we’re both awake
with serpent venom veins  
you’ve been the hero
I’ve been the ****
you’re on a map
red pin running fast
away from me
The black hills could
have set you free
now you chase your fake degree
you’re on a map
in the place you’ve always been
never thinking always win
your pieces kept falling
like pennies
making an echo of your
crowded wounds
I dance in a crowded room
hallucinating you
you’re probably sinking
into all things pink and blue
I hope you still miss large pieces of me too
howling at the moon
you switch from dust to ash
in the corner of my room

What is love ideally? That feeling, the warm fuzz from the dryer swirling and stirring in your chest, or when your world goes from two dimensional to three. When you lock pupils, the most uniform part of the human, with someone else and you get the feeling that Icarus is still flying, and you feel the sun burn your face but know it will never melt your wings.

We could look at love romantically; we’re all boarding the Arc two by two, matching species, lost in hands interlocked with no room for disbelief. Once we feel the magnetic pull of our opposing match, the game is won and our perfect weather never breaks. Just keep searching for “the one”. It’s only a matter of time. The world is small and our destinies are large.

We could look at love scientifically. Love is a symptom of the inevitable disease of heartbreak. We are all warm bodies longing for animal touch. We create our own perceptions of the perfect companion, a hybrid of fantasy. But really, love is a chemical reaction in the brain, a handicap, a weakling’s way of coping with the fact we are alone. Our limber limbs trip up into pairs, carrying on the human result of isolation.

We could look at love as a tradition. It’s our duty and right to love, to match, to create. Pieces of you live on through monogamy, shards of yourself buried in divorce. Frost bitten gowns in a church as dark and bright as the center of the sun. Silver moon songs seal your fate to another, your reality shall adjust. Awaken to your chosen fate, let your legacy live on.

We can look at love as a possession. A hunt, a capture, a wrestling match. You keep working to be the best for me, because I am the best for you. Hands touch and never let go. Between living and dying, a ghost and it’s shadow. Both exist for the other, but lack substance. An apparition and a lack of light, living side by side but barely together. A flickering bulb.

Whether we learn to love or become love, it is something cultivated, circling our skulls like halos from our inner holy ghost. Dampened only when we accuse others of not performing their love correctly, we must remember that every person on earth is performing a different love.

What's left unattended ferments into hate.

it's like trying to filter something so large
nothing can escape
it's like watching something you never had
but know you would have loved
go up in flames
it's like every set of locked eyes as the first
it's like being a verbal mute
it's like hurting yourself before someone else can
it's like you lose yourself in what they expect
it's lonely as a safe house and solitude as freedom
it's like searching for the word
you couldn't quite find 4 months ago
it's word salad for every meal
and imagined conversations for dessert
leaves a good taste in your mouth

it's friends as sanity
it's like knowing a person for years or never knowing them at all

emotional enslavement

Our Young Bodies
we need to decide
what to do with their electricity

Translucent Lover
I'm not ready
to admit defeat
to my own judging policies

Mother of Ours
holed up in the house
no way out

Muscular Machines
moving through time
all around me

Sultry Promises
between crumbling bed sheets

Our Memories
crushed to powder
with the soles of my shoes

Lost Legacies
in the space between
your ears

Slung with your tongue

Vibrations of Tides
crashing against the cheers

Little Boy Burning
let the attic fill
with smoke

Lungs
expand with every single
Hallelujah


Wide Open Souls


the rest gather dust
in train stations

Old friends, I apologize
Your specters have settled
In the wrinkles of my hands

I'm in an empty room with 5 letters
I'll make things better
I'll send them to your souls in good weather

H: The West calls. You should go. Your hair is growing fast. Everyone knows about your whispers and I cannot stand your love being for creation's play. I'm sorry you never got your way but the Rockies will calm your seas if you let them.

T: Thanks for trying to be someone else for me. I hope you don't regret our rolls around the floor. Or nights on benches. Or the time tears fell onto my lips from melancholy bliss. I'm sorry I could never be caught in your light. I hope you learned to fall asleep easy, and make sure to tell the next girl that your heart is as tender as a peach.

Y: I'm sorry that I couldn't trust a mind that shines in headlights. I know that if you swim backwards you drown and I do want to say, in the past two years I have been caught in a constant backstroke. I replay my lost memory of you in a corner and myself in a stupor. I'm sorry that I tried to make an enemy of your differences.

C: Sorry I wrote our fairy tale without your permission. That's all I really have to say.

J: You met me in isolated pieces. You put me together to reveal a little girl in a costume of what she wants to be. Your disinterest became a lead blanket. Your retracted friendship left me with empty palms up, and no one has tried to fill them since our lost October. Light the candles, Say a prayer

the more noise you make
the less they can look away
but all that friction in your mouth
averts them from your eyes
and hands go wild
trying to pin desire to the wall
trying to scrape the mud from the linoleum bathtub
trying to hide from the pitfall in your chest
when you're surrounded by the smell of pine
trying to get home with all of your cinnamon welts
trying so hard to level the picture frame of your mind
that continuously leans too far to the left
trying to rest your dreams in a tiny wooden casket
a graveyard beneath your pillowcase

what counts is that we're trying
but gloves keep holding my identity hostage

smiling souls are nothing but black holes
and outer-space is everything that can't be a star

Yes it's true
There was a time we held hands and cried
There was a time her lights guided us into the unknown
There was a time with the ukulele on the roof
And we all wore those green pants
And vomited while her grandfather slept in the basement
There was a time with sharpie and antiques
Holes in our heads
And babies that were kind
Snow and sun ceased to shimmer
from the yells of rebellion
Bare feet and carpet friction
Pine tree ink on toes
We hushed the fire
The guitar speaks best after midnight
And the fall articulates with a resounding whisper
Of nervous hands touching in your mother’s car
Like once the sun goes down we all go mad
And teenage years squirm out of the grasp
Of slowly stilling blood
There was a time where we all looked up
And saw endless navy
Snakes in lakes
And ignorant love trapped beneath the tide
There was a time
I braided her hair
And told her to never cry over her freckles
We slept on cots and bugs and dreams
In the night the wolves were louder than
her slowly decaying soul
But now three years later
It’s the only song left in my mind

City skies at night
are the deepest trench of the ocean

I am in a suit
Grazing the depths of the aquarium floor

We all wear tiny lights in front of us

And who's to say that water isn't oxygen

Celebration in the courthouse
Too many loves, now the lack
She held most men's hearts
In a velvet dress painted black

Through the lens Jimmy saw
Icy hair, Snow blonde skin
Ribs,her birdcage of a home
Tops of trees lack of sin

Her heart boiled over
While she read Kerouac
She fully felt each emotion
Right before the attack

Unashamed in decision
Never lost how to live
Elizabeth had her two children
A man who couldn't forgive

Her too honest tongue
And her heart made of wax
Found their way into the hands
Of the man who came back

They both held together
Each crest was to merge
But hers started to shake
And unleash all her birds

Immune flew off first
Memory left near the last
Flying south in the winter
Seeping backwards to past

Now her fist's in her mouth
And newsprint's in his eyes
Mr. Jones holds the map
To where her spirit now flies

You sleep in, eat in, read in
Rooms with what feel like soldiers of learning
Bordering liberation
Kept quiet with papers
You look around and see
Dark circles and streaming hot cups of
Whatever today brings will make a good expensive grade
We’ll learn words right before we need to dispose of them
College is weird

You talk to the girl next to you in lecture
Just to take a break from looking at your phone
And for a second she looks exactly like
Your best friend’s dead mother
But her name’s Victoria
And she is a marketing major
And sorority girl
And she swears she saw you
At Steve’s party the week before
Dancing with a boy
That went to her high school
She doesn’t know that he kissed you in a hallway
And he sat in the fire escape all night after
College is weird

You can’t wait to lose syntax
And semantics on a ***** frat floor
Anxiety runs high but
Everyone silently knows
We are safe under Christmas lights
You black out three nights in one week
Spending the other four
Trying to remember
The names of the boys you kissed
For letting you drink
Straight out of the bottle
How kind
College is weird

You fall in love with the idea of a boy
And the maps of his brain
And you smile nervously
At each other under a tent
Both wearing dueling plaid
He drunk calls you on a Saturday night
And he plays your guitar
You both complain about TVs
He says that they’re like windows
That can never be opened to let in a cool breeze
And you can’t seem to disagree
He sleeps on your couch
And you both make breakfast
Smiling like your conversation at 3 am
Was the best *** anyone has ever had
And then he leaves and never texts you back
College is weird

On his 20th birthday
You bother him right before midnight
So the time under your digital words
Allude to a productive day
That was actually spent
Cultivating metaphors for how close
You came to kissing him
But you press send
A “happy birthday I still exist” message
And it’s left with a pity “thanks”
And you hear too many of your fake friends talk
Down about “catching feelings”
And “being clingy”
Because God only knows what would happen
If everyone pursued a feeling of joy
Or thought twice about
Confessing that only a boy’s words could make them happy
No we are only here in this Temporary Bookland
For good **** and a diploma
Fellowship and Emotion are not a general requirement
And now I can only explain
Nothing more
Nothing less

College is weird

***** porch smoke smell and anything Julia


The American flag is a reminder and cigars are meant for the mouth

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom [lady] I swear by all flowers
We promised to get tattoos
We promised to move to New York

braided blondes and rumored lesbians
i hit piano keys to avoid the talk of sexuality
spiked tea and Christmas lights bordering a site of mold
i lose my mind in some boy's teeth
wet grass and a waning moon in March
i close my eyes and i'm back in
the boiler room with a tambourine
i lost my mind in some boy's laugh
in a bed near nuns on the wall and drinks too tall
and i keep on drinking to destroy
that difference between Man and Other
hoping my numb will make me
a suitable choice for the boys who
would rather read books than hold my hand
Eternal Middle Eastern Sand spells Genesis in braille
and it weighs me down
filling my pockets with the choice
between desire and progress

I wonder if my girls stopped
looking at boys like Gods
would we finally get somewhere
or would we just be lost

Passion is pure and we're both alive bleeding some fantastic blood

Let's shatter the glass cases
And do something tangible
While we are still restless
Let's conjure up love instead of lust
Let's run in fields
Let's feel the dark
Let's hold hands with someone that makes us dizzy

This is an open invitation
To use our minds less like muscles
And more like souls
To craft something out of nothing

Memories

we're still alive so if you love me
DO SOMETHING ******

Hauling books and concrete looks
Weeks end and we do our best to ingest fire
We learn and learn to unlearn again
I am a number so far from one
And this cycle will never be done

The lucky ones end up with more space than they can fill
And the rest hide vices under numb tongues
This that and maybe a haircut
Everyone is blinded by the blue lights
We filter through screens in an endless night

Business men avoid cracks in the sidewalk
The homeless grip brand name coffee cups
The spineless try so hard to sit up
One day we wake up before the buzz
And see that it’s all so ****** up

I think that love may hold
a strong root in decisiveness

Maybe we deeply love a few
And the potential is there for them too

Maybe we have a handful of loves
But we can only pick one

Maybe heartbreak occurs
When we all choose to stir

Maybe the panic of church bells
And forced serotonin
Causes us to pick the wrong love

Last night I kissed two boys who do not love me. Last night my thoughts rest in the front pocket of some man’s shirt, somewhere. I brushed the dust from my memories of your hands on my neck. I wrap flames around sticks to bring to my lips, my body’s miserable mistress. My blankets smell of dissatisfaction. Big buses carry small loads and if the sky gives up every once in a while, so be it. Laughter and alcohol are an empty cure for our fate.

Sometimes one utterance at a stop sign is enough to form a friendship. Drunk talking about alcohol is just a reminder of the poison searing through our own veins. There were three birthdays in one night, beer bongs in a bathtub, nuns on the walls, and Jewish boys in foreign beds. Sirens tried to scream louder than the oncoming trains. Someone etched the name Billy into the wall and I have to wonder if it was a signature or a memorial. All that remains is a room full of satisfied silence. Our contained blood is as blue as the tip of every flame. The bus’s florescent lighting becomes a strobe and every word uttered is fair game. I get home just to pace by my bed, singing along to discs that try to understand.  The morning light will tuck me into bed.

Good morning Good Night and Good Riddance

You cut her hair. So what?
She was asking for you to cut her hair.
You were drunk and she pleading for you to cut her hair.
Her hair was bad.
It contained melanin and memories and maybe the faint smell of a fire.
It was gold and long and thick and strangling you every time you dared to fall asleep.
It held holly, sweat, and the sprinting atmosphere that lingers outside of car windows.

You both loved a man that would rather linger with birds.
You both feared the way her hair spelled his name in its strands.
You are blue and she is gold and between you is a black hole that is bound to destroy the sun.

She wanted a bow through her aura.
You cut her hair and there is nothing you can do about it.

When the sun fades out of the sky daily
There is a moment we are completely dark
Then the stars alight
And the planes take flight
Dear You
Find me a source of self control
And while you are busy
Sailing boats in your mind
I’ll douse myself in sunscreen and Pabst
American weeks will never end
My friends will never bend
I love every one of them
They know my love is an in-between game
But I am looking for truth all the same
In this search for truth I am losing my youth
And I am ultimately a hypocrite
But that doesn’t mean I can’t numb my lips
For my next fake kiss
Please someone grant my wish
And when you look back
Please Forget Me Not

losing love and feeling numb
she is strung through the trees
and i am at the bottom of a bottle

he will hold your hands
and i will brush your hair
when there is nothing good to say

we will weep with you
every night you need to
until numb is the new norm

august and everything after
will never be the same
because she died
and the leaves are racing to catch up

book bindings unwind
down all four  of our spines
and dormitory air is only good for nosebleeds

if i could sleep around a fire
with my best friends
every night i would

because even if we cant see the stars
we each have faith that they are still there

I bury letters like dead bodies

Beneath the trees I could never climb
About how endless jokes can mask the most depressed
The insecure are best dressed
And schizophrenic genes in youth suppress

My very own shadow whispers eventual death

I bury letters like dead bodies

One day when the glass bottles are dry
In the yellowest sun
I'll dig up my old letters for fun
With words pointing at victims like a loaded gun

Young paper and ink left there for one

I bury letters like dead bodies

someday soon
we'll pass in the streets
with one friend each
hauling books across yellow lines

we'll ignore each other
out of the corners of our eyes
and throw in a smirk
when it gets too awkward

i'll give half of a wave
and once you pass me
on that crumbling sidewalk
i'll shrug my shoulders
until I disappear

i know that every time
i pass you by the asphalt
the black brooding
stretch between us
will become the River
that broke my heart
and blinded you
for long enough
for me to kiss you
apologetically

now you can only
see me as the early morning sunrise
made of trailer trash and keys

two cans of blue moon
now i'm alone and drunk
two cigars on a porch
with churning stomachs
a life vest with no water
lemons and buckets of gin
sipping from rotten watermelon rinds
celebrating dogs and writing down lies
lighting a damp fire
he's slept in my dad's office
wine in mugs
Christmas hats
photos in tall grass
tickling laughs on a hammock
ears of corn
one year older
I was naked on the 4th of July
fake deer enduring endless bullets
glowsticks and roman candles
unlit wicks
root beer buzz
one sad night with the stripes
one flag in the park
blue hair and a blunt cut
one braid in the dust
one friendship but

never forget
the two broken hearts
from something that never was

They were failed gymnasts
while we fired endless bottle rockets
then he grew a beard to hide behind
he traced my spine
while i was make up free
frozen in a snowy car
we came back to a floral house and made love
but i was never in love
he was just a lesson in who i want to be
and who i want to be with
he did slit his wrists once
but he doesn't need me

He'll take shrooms and cut grass all while saying the rosary

Once a flower has been plucked, it’s death only brings room for another to grow

I'm sorry that I steal your sad songs

I'm sorry I ride on your highs
And coast past your tears with a forgetful mind

I'm sorry that we can't talk about anything real anymore without smoke and *****

I'm sorry that your grandfather died and I talked about my love life instead

I'm sorry that I'm a liar

I'm sorry but I am not close to being. The Real Deal

I'm sorry that you had to buy me another flour baby for school after mine busted

I'm sorry that I am always the passenger

I'm sorry that you had to cut off your bracelets for soccer

I'm sorry that he's gay

I'm sorry that I cursed the city for you

I'm sorry that I can't keep my mouth closed about anything

But I'm trying to learn the value of secrets

I'm sorry

Bookcases are falling
Stars are coughing
Dogs are sleeping

We are not together

The planets open my windows with a distant whistle
The dirt under my nails match my eyes
And my hair knots as a cry for help

Nostalgia is out of reach
Always intercepted the monster under my childhood bed

Flowers match flowers match flowers

A thief cries through the radio
One electric bulb lights my mind but
I am fading fast

I scale the roof because I hear Santa hides all unanswered letters under the shingles
and I know the taste of my words drive off the reindeer

Six months ago
I was lace-less and cross eyed
thinking to myself

Someday Yarn and Lights will cease to wake me
and Oxygen will become thick enough to drown

I feel like I am dying faster than my friends
And that everything I touch turns stale on both ends

its hard to realize that i fell in love with you
when i barely knew you

the space that spreads our interactions contains no stars
through i found myself looking through telescopes at you
imagining there was life on your surface

i got close enough to know, what i had been looking at for so long
has been dead for years

these metaphors of celestial sights are just another example of how i am a girl that needs to go outside to fantasize

almost every song i listen to, i wish i wrote

every smile of yours, i wish i caused


so lets let infatuation die in reality's grip

but know my memories of brushed skin will have to die with the sun

Tonight I was supposed to fill out paperwork

Instead I wrote a poem

Maybe black is nostalgic for the womb
Maybe white is when a soul can't bear its colors anymore
Maybe red is blood's mask
And yellow is gold's half sibling

Maybe we all are painted unwillingly by some huge spirit yes that must be it

Today it seems as though your ghost let itself in
I know it’s been wandering through my field for months
and I avoided the windows but today
your ghost burst through the door
into my room
and looked me straight in the eye
in a very afterlife way
to say
I’m still here

and I still feel every inch of what we were

It’s my birthday and I blew out the candles
but now they look more like pretty cigarettes yes
tobacco tainted and blood stained, you were nineteen
and my innocence lost has finally dawned on me
yes you let yourself into my house
reminding me that we lost our innocence
while we listened to melting pipes drip onto ***** coated floors
you let a map stain your walls
and white has never been a color of innocence
it’s the color of the absence of it
if anything black is the color of innocence
your only sight before you are forced from your mother’s lap, trust me this love relapse is only Regret’s quiet laugh.

Now I only see your grin, and taste the blunt forced gin that will quiet the wind outside the windows of the past

It was one of those nights
You know
The kind of night where you and your friends are fated to dive off of the nearest cliff
A night where your empty bottle is just one grave example of the spaces you can’t fill
In your bed
Your closet
Your fridge
Your piano keys
Your heart
Where paper cuts replace the sound of your name
And you wake up sweaty
Covered in American sadness
The knowledge that you have all that you need
And your greedy soul feeds and feeds
Screaming that happy is never enough

Look through the nearest x-ray
You will see
Your brain stem is the steepest climb of a roller coaster
And the remaining track is where you lose yourself

Removing the fuzz from the dryer is the feeling of rain
My growing anxiety is thunder
And the flickering bulb is homemade lightning

My depression nuzzles in the dark clouds found in my laundry room

Maybe the smoke in my lungs will thaw the ice in my bones
Maybe it will boil the ideas in my brain
And heat the memories too tragic to be saved

Maybe this smoke is the real way God wanted to baptize me
Maybe I needed a full body Ash Wednesday to make my soul clean
Maybe to dust we return and I'm starting early
breathing dead particles we all soon will be

Cigars are for the lips
Cigarettes are for the lips
**** is for the lips
You were never for my lips

Maybe I was meant for the stoop and you needed someone more pleasant
With empty hands and open arms
And posture keen

And now I'll remain in the dark
Only seen
Through the glow of a lighter
And a sinner's favorite steam

Catholics and their plaid

Green- the color of a boy with the worst case of deja vu
his formal dance suit
the feeling of jealousy when he won't look at you
the evergreen tree that should have fallen
when spoiled beer escaped from its graves
when anniversaries go array
fields frolicked and forgotten
the color of all outdoor background noise
the color you overlook because you are distracted by the blue of the skies

Blue- a heart in sailor knots
sandwiched between punchlines
cloth wrapped feet and wild hair
blood before its birth
every night she appears
the skies are more blue than black
and eyes bruise to match
all ghosts will fade to that
the color of our atmosphere
a shade to fight against
with a surface ironic numbness

Yellow - our beeline into an unsure heaven
with an ironed out halo
the color of her hair when she jumps from two stories up
or the ukulele strings
and every light bulb she breaks
cornfields through an x-ray
the color of a cat eyed miracle
and the fact that happy can still be bright when it aches

Black- trailer bile and trash bags
hiding keys and goodbyes
a man named Memory's soul
every pupil ever seen
her leather shorts forever smelling of beer
big cities on a map
sharpie used to wipe out a distant dream
asphalt I love you's
ink and ashes
our colorful world always returns to black

Red-some see the fires of hell
but i only see
the eternal glow of an exit sign
that exists only in ours mind

maybe i will spend the rest of my life
trying to marry your shadow
while the real you is one step ahead
holding someone else's hand

lay down your drink and gun
i know you speak from liquor tongues
as you string the stars across your yard
i chew on the glass shards
from the last bottle you blew your song through

it's not fair
you have tied everyone you love
to the stake that you plan on driving through your own heart

Pine needle spine man holding our memories in his hands his wife is crowned with midnight and starlight and smoked pipes climbing down rooftops into the night blatantly crouching on couches and corners watching the torture of being ignored play out into the morning where hope is found in sunspots blinding and leading you to the trees where bottles hold hostage secrets that you could never believe his sweater tightly wound around your knees and the deep blue of his soul has vanished into the public pool where green stripes and chlorine fights are left to surgically remove the sanity from your brain

and the only thing left are the words you can’t tame

Foreign ghost around the counter
Forcing foreign blood from his mouth
As we bash the bearded boy with leather tethered together
Today holds perfect weather

My knees bleed a different blood every time I fall
Remembering that each turn takes an inch away from how tall
I appear to our God
Penance is an afterthought when I'm shedding skin on strangers beds

Slashes in my palms
I imagine them saying
I Love You
The way he never did

Slashes on palms
I press them to my face and watch the luminescent red devour me
As I drown in platelets and plasma

He never wanted anything like this

i plunged into my own blood
and read the book my mind has planned
land and sea and sand

its all for you

every ******* thing i still do