hangover guides me home again.
old news spews through
the screens all around me.
lies are subjective
and time is a flat circle.

we are somewhere near the eye of the storm.

high ground is the sure plan to suffer so
save yourself by submitting to flood.
mirrors reveal your fastest escape plan.
clouds are coming no matter how hard
you blow back, so all you can hope for is snow.

we are somewhere near the eye of the storm.

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.

Confetti settles in the crease of the carpet.
I wake up with pints of honey buzzing
in the center of my chest. My eyelashes cast shadows
like tick marks on my cheeks. No chaos.
The backs of my legs are tender
from crawling through the window to the roof.

We watched a paper mache moon from the roof
the night before. Small towns are boring liked threads from the carpet
but the people have hearts that are tender
like living peaches, always buzzing.
Just one picture of us, five sorry teens with internal chaos
dancing through string lights and breathing shadows.

Harris has a fascination with those shadows.
Her membership would be awarded with a dive from the roof.
She always loves the smell of checklist chaos,
or formulating plans while lying on the carpet
of her room. Her emotions are pulled taut and buzzing,
resonating fear when she forgets how to be tender.

Julia’s wire existence couldn’t try to be tender
She is a fat slap of clarity across your dispositions. Shadows
can’t cast new shapes across her buzzing
body. Her ******* pointing toward the roof
and her feet sinking between carpet
folds. like every time she is around it’s chaos.


Britt’s eyes reflect blue waves free from chaos
and each word skips across his tongue gentle and tender.
His clothes, Goodwill and kind-of-used-carpet
and camera casts light to evade shadows.
Short prayers dare scrape the roof
of his mind. Send heritage and denial buzzing.

Nelson is 7 years of swallowed gum and buzzing
alarm clocks, warning the world of chaos.
He climbs up rusted ladders to the roof
to shout of love and it’s lack of tender
tendencies. He is a fall breeze where leaves force shadows
across the laundry line, too weak to leave a hole in the carpet.

I glide through my days alluding tender
my mind scoffs at the chaos of my daytime shadow
but under the roof, i'm just a chalk outline pushed into carpet.

Smoke floats between
the damp sheets of linen
in my mouth.

The vacuum of my nose
***** it out.

I perch on a faded lawn chair
browned from the 2000’s sun.
It’s February and 34 degrees.

I spent all week getting lost
in my phone for hours on end.  

Some people sip green,
barely dancing,
the neighbors’ presence.

I tell lies so lightly
to my new friend.
She is 21 and well read.
Someone put a hole in her head.

We think we move in circles
but it’s more like jagged lines.
Her dramatic lines pair
with my new found mind.

We speak of the fear of speaking.
We porch hop, chatter box
to couches and beds where
ghosts hang over heads.
Sunlight causes it to end.

The morning windows open
and the roof is wet.
I sip coffee and delay regret.

Looking down is dirt
and up is salvation

but what is this layer
where we dabbble in poison
along with the rainfall

I look to my left
to experience the
epitome of feminine
and to the right
a boy whose shoes
are tied tighter than
the knot locking up his chest
suppressing emotion's stress

but what about the one
whose mother loves Mary's  
reflection in the sun
while his birds fly above
and summon a song
we chose not to title

They would rather see him
become an animal
than paint on lipstick
and love another man
shifting identity ***** up their plan

If we picture the universe
and all its ringing layers
spread wide with eternal ashes
we do not understand

and then we see a stump
raw bleeding facts about the death of a tree
I know that their layers are the same
circling melodies forever played

Maybe everything is stuck on
the ring of a circle expanding with time
but love is not linear
we label these layers with our crass syntax
with love, place, race, and sexuality
when really our DNA
is just tiny a rotation

tops spinning until the lights turn off

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

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

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

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

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

grave robbers placed
undead fingertips
into their pockets
and the daisy's never hesitate to bloom
glass eyes arise from expectation
and we rarely discover
the braille found everywhere
the sky cries for it's simple routine
and the echoes of marching shoes continue

tonight i'll place my heart in a mug
and miss you from across the Atlantic

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

Sometimes I get up and walk, hoping that I will be lucky enough for some stranger in the street to grab my shoulders and shake me awake. But the city does not give me the validation that I am there. The machinery is too big. We all trek sidewalks while colors conduct buses and horseless carriages. Where else do I exist other than in a flash of eye contact with a stranger? It’s quickly forgotten in a space called later and it can take as long as a minute.

Gears in gadgets briefly remember the certain touch of their match’s square angles and the time between their touching is named “experience before comprehension”. This is the foreplay before language’s conception.

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

we bloom in
shapes, colors, origins
spread across the ground
that they plan to bury us beneath

invisible support
like green ghost hands unseen
we thread together
while the day holds ****** weather

congress can't
congress won't uproot this grid
because we support
all the branches we are made of

and what we are made of is unity

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'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

I am haunted by those green and white nights. I felt it; every time God was kissing the pool water and we pressed daisies between our synchronized heartbeats. We used our womanhood to make the tree, with a furrowed brow and beer stuck in his knees. Curly headed boys tickled his cheeks with broken guitar strings; I was drinking in the moss and a mystery tune. The lights strung us with lustful dust and  that yellow trail was the beginning of what might need to end. The stars feared for their innocence as they kissed in the fields but I was halfway in the warm earth, telling myself that a bed of pine was as close as I could come to heaven. The reverberated sunrise revealed veins wrapped around a palm tree but the indie rokkers shivered through the night into a painless red. We were jumper cable lips tied to fountain limbs and I wonder if we ever even touched the ground. He placed
nervous ticks into cargo pockets with syllables of vibration pulsing warmly through his skin. There were some nights without any ghosts but there are so many shades of blue shoved into the happy memories. Haunted by the royalty of trees, our plaid poems drank all of the extra beer and you always whisper friendship into my ears.

You live in the wrists of a boy with wings
as I continue to buy pretty things

I'm occasionally halted by eye contact
and the brush of skin
between strangers' knees
two round bones
clinking together
like drinking mugs
in silent celebration

The Peroxide Obituary lives on
but our stereo knobs have rusted

Now it's all about two boys
growing ivy vines from their skulls
trying so hard to deny that
the body is just a vehicle for guilt

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

Infidelity can exist as a distorted fairy tale

A love
Different from that of
Numb happiness

If we seek senses of the aftermath
Maybe we can peak through
Bullet holes in the front door
Of a twisted mansion
Where she washes her hair
To be free of old companions
While she still pays the bills
Sponsoring memories of ghosts
A boy singing Greek hymns
Into her old Tupperware
Diamond encrusted distortions
Can't heal past decisions
And good shrinks are really only
What you choose to give them

Divorce

It is powerful enough to make my uncle cry
at the sight of navy ships

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

close your eyes and think
every part of you is slightly moving
that white light
that infects us all
that white light
that is the side effect of consciousness
that electric current
reaches every horizon of your spine
and down through the thighs
it laces your rib cage with ribbons
and insulates your brain

our matter is priceless foam
full of reality
leaving space for fantasy

our matter is a strategic trick
to make us think there is nothing more than this

our soul is our blood

infinite epitaph written in radio waves
crystal desire drenched in spray paint
wooden windmill heart
and accordion lungs
green blades of grass for the suicidal one
keep time to the music
and let's have fun

red is the color of release
white is the color of death of the clock

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

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

he started the night
wiping beer sweat
down the wooden
paneled insulation
swallowing his hair
out of fear
that the girl he loves
has a body that's here
but a mind that's
been buried under
tin cans full of desire
we used to admire
him when he chose
to swing from the tree
limbs into oblivion
snorting the fall leaves
in through his skin
his helping hand
was glued to the
door that jealousy
continued to open
and close as fast
as she could scream
for privacy and yet
he was forgiven
in the morning
he laid on leather
shame and she found
herself above the grave
floating through
apparitions of
blonde hair as
white as a hospital curse
she never saw him burst
but maybe that wasn't him
it must have been
insecurity personified
into a little boy
with a lit candle stick
and a girl who never
learned that she is
allowed to jump
without the shame of
plaid skirts that handicap
the brain until its grey
but its fine

all is forgiven
i heard that violence goes away
but never does sin

God is a drag queen baby
so colorful
rainbows are his black and white photographs

God swallows glitter by the ton
and who the **** thinks
he's still reading your late night texts
he's moved on
the world spins on his heel's axis

God wears gold chains
and face paint

some all knowing clown
mocking the rules we sorted out
when he bothers to look down

Body is sorry
Body came from Other Body
Body absorbed symbols
Body combined symbols to describe
What it might be like to be Body
Body saw pictures of its inside
And held an old brain
Body's pain is created there
In Nucleus hell center
A space to water the certifiably insane
Vortex of tubes that will rot into mush
Body released  pheromones once
Body couldn't help but blush

Now Body lays in the dark
Body purrs as memory whirs
About times that Body bruised
And lost its ability to talk about Body
To represent Body
All the times that Body walked on without itself

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

that’s her. the patron saint of gluing words together with chewed pieces of gum. feeding the public with consumable bites of confusion. saint dipped in jewel tone yellow. consistently writing notes to what she believes in. blessed and consecrated into siren lights. crows feet dragging along the sides of scrap metal. a cartoon closet with the inability to settle. fisherman’s sweaters that owe the intended man a blistered *******. black night gown thrown out an open window. velvet second skin rubbing the walls of mountain homes. the patron saint of birthday candle wax blowing through strips of hair. scaring away bits of violet holy air.

the cherub in the corner ******* on bits of blonde boy’s fingertips. she prances numb toes over bike spokes. wings are tattooed on her back to combat numerical rebellion. logic climbs spine as she tries to change lenses. her sunset tilted on its axis. renaissance painting on fragile ceiling tiles in public bathrooms. garden party with one flower to examine. eyes vacant as to avoid witnessing rebellion. little crane holding paper organs in place. bodies of water pushed into vacant sacred space. sleeping close to statues and warming brass within. the cherub angel floats above all girls with silly sin.

the apostle tied to few words. a ghost for a mother and piece of machinery for a father. exhuming quartz from 3rd degree burns. a smile painted on a German Shepard. thrift shop candy born because of ***** quarters. heels grinding coffee grounds and unbelievable pearls from an ungraceful mouth. spitting up fishhooks into fat tire beer. the apostle staring through crosses for a year. wiping down windows with the horizon’s morning breath. pouring peroxide onto ignorant mumble of wealth and egotistical evidence.

the dove predictably flies in upper atmosphere to avoid being seen. squeezing through sharp pieces of mosaic, evading gendered fantasy. birds eye view with potential to burn. landing on rocks watching serenity waste by. most absent parade. mourning in front of an uncertain feeling’s grave. without action there is nothing there to shame. animal comrades using up his skill of throwing wires to wind and sparkling in fields. ukulele vibration uncomfortably close to ski slopes. exhausted idealism underneath of secret thunder skies and metal tube lies.

the temptation from hell’s revived angel. her fall ungracefully surpassing earth’s quivering rotation. blood reborn with rocks for teeth. soft skin easily ripped during the denial of immoral needs. bubbling rapids sailed over with caution, weighing clothes wet as a reminder. favorite songs played forward and backward. promise of vengeful bulbs lighting autumn’s vivid memories. old prose inserted into the fat of your syntax, catching and toying with the rats in your mind.  demon angel not as red in old light.

Crack the window
Find me in the left lung of the house's chest
I close my eyes
and let the sound of white wind trace
the shells of my ears with it's smallest finger

Ghosts sleep in the morning
Electricity finds its rhythm in my veins and
I start up again
Angels wake with bed head in their best denim
I pierce the bed skin to find feathers
                                            
wear metal
wear silk
wear flesh

I paint time lines in a circle
post them on the ceiling
and sleep with one eye open

I dream of feeling-
shut inside
believing perverse or the reverse

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

moonlight rises,
rolling tide in its grave

we try to balance inside our bodies
with eyes locked on black horizon

spinning circles, wearing hats
scratch our backs on green dew grasses

beer cans folding like a fan
sent to flames in reckless fashion

moss as natures velvet
mold in nostrils causing scratches

ghost of tire swing pendulums
and dirt as common ashes

tossing voices through particles
hand creases soaked in secret passions

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

***** 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

Please stop telling me that God is a boy
like testosterone is the invisible particle
unlocking sacred doors

Please stop telling me that a womb
is just a silly tomb meant to house
potential life when you stop treating
yourself like you are sacred

Please stop passing around the
silent secret that kissing girls is
supposed to be written off as weird honey
like we don't already live for the sweet and offbeat

Please stop silently tracing
my sides, measuring my size
placing limits on what i can
attempt to wear and inflicting fear
at the sight of a stomach roll

Please stop using the unspoken rule book
we all know that thing needs to be burned
or returned to a foreclosed library
because limiting our love based on
expectations and one night stands
leads to a lonely existence where
we forget to see through the smog

Please stop ignoring the sky
It's limitless  and colored like the inside of our heads

Please put your judgments to bed so I can attempt to escape from my bedridden aftermath
I've been stapled to pillows for days

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

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 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

I am just hapless Delilah
Chopping at heads as I go but mostly my own
I never loved me I never loved you I never loved anyone
Placebo boy
Troy didn’t have the capacity for your wars
Your scalp needed to breathe and I needed one more night with a vulnerable man

Samson
What is a man

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

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

i am brain speaking through the features we both know

hello

blood chugs along like a train through the veins of my brain
giving me permission to change my motion, feel emotion
like warmth from the sun
hitting the bumps of my skin
hiding the horizon behind microscopic flesh mountains

close your eyes
see sunrise at any time
this is my religion

if clock is the only fact your body knows, say hello

picture a train pulling into the station past the snow
feel it's echos shake the loosest joints of your body
like radio bass attempting to wave the ***** of your face

stay licking your wounds and

imagine
the theory of God
as some printing press
producing repetitive lines from an expired advice column

imagine
hugs are confirming
that we're both just body

imagine
me as before and after
LiquidinOrgan and SomedaySoil

imagine
being complex enough
to have one word
to express the undefinable mess inside your chest

imagine
uttering one word
just to feel this poem

we could board the time machine
in your split screen mind
or we could stay here
to watch as everyone's hair keeps growing longer

I want to write the same poem in every possible way
but velvet and pine and freckled laughter are fleeting

I want to watch snowflakes fall from your eyes
and see your reckless guitar strings vibrate

I want you to read me your poems all night
I want to move to California
I want to build us a future solely from our past

I want our teenage years to last

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

isn't it funny how we can now
identify rivers from the air

i see colored squares of grass
living beneath this metal machine
a vantage point that
humans sought from birds

we were always searching for flight formulas
or aiming slingshots toward the stars
maybe writing songs for the gods

sweet melodic pleas
so we could levitate-
separate
into angel dust

precipitation-
sweaty droplets of liquefied soul
drowning the mississippi
in pulls of poison
from my past lives' organs

the very air
that dares to guard the rain
contains all of the oxygen
those bodies had
smoked to stay awake

If I die, and our words never solidified into anything but dust
At least I would have loved them
Each and every one

writing in red pen
and blowing smoke through my head
Regina Spektor plays in my room

hey remember that time
we were spinning under pictures
remember that time i touched
your knees on that red patterned carpet
remember green lockers, rust, and catholic dust
remember molding clay and
all those times you'd run away

there are times i remember the stories in each scar
and decide to trace patterns in the stars
looking up, i get lost wondering

are we the only survivors
are your lungs just balloons full of bus fumes and regret
are your eyes crossed by love

remember
my hands tracing your pant seams
and barely touching your shoulder blades
i should have gone in the river that night
i learned to wade in bath water
but feared the drain was full of snakes

i want to wait to give you all my love
but i fear it is too late

everything written is subject to change

hymns, hallelujahs, notes circled yes or no between elementary lovers' shaking palms, poems and songs, the shape of the world, the current moral obligations of all who inhabit it, letters sent to say sorry and thank you and hey i'm still here, proper language sizzling on the tongue of time, the rules for last century, the rules for the future, graffiti scraped from urban walls in the rain, the paint on a window pane written all over houses in a single stroke of the brush, the language of where flowers choose to erupt, words of knowledge in uncertain classrooms,  constitutional rights and the terms to legal fights, the letters like saints suffocating under pine trees at night

a text saying everything will be alright