my body is several climates of skin
peak and valley
carcass and substance
stunted and growing
regeneration

my body is lucid
halted energy
machine parts turning
calling codes
screaming notes

my body is star bruise
scar tissue
weapon
cure

my body is every memory

my body is because of world
and I am because of body

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

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

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

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

Recall the night we shivered the river breeze
Outside the trailer, we wore those secret smiles

On hillsides, wet grass reflected August light
Your girlfriend on a long distance phone call

We danced and screamed our favorite songs
You slept on the white kitchen tiles so gently

That was the room I knew how I loved you
But doubt and fear sank into the sunrise

Forgive me for the pieces I am missing
My mind has given omen to delusion

University air, holding her hand in the park
My eye contact is now your nightmare

So I’ll hold a hostage grudge over silly crushes
and let those smiles simmer into bitter poems

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

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

you wrecked me by placing a stillness in my blood
my heart hurts as it pumps and pumps
for nothing

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

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

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

it has been so long since my head has bled flower poems about our friendship. they're always such a mess. recycled nostalgia and loose ends. the dark thoughts drip down the tube of my throat. but for now, let's share a beer and flood ourselves knee deep in poetry. what i mean is every mouth has a reference taste for memory. what i mean is green apple holds a photo of four girls in a basement. *** and coke are the boys that we played with. clementine is goodbye and ***** slushies are a bed of pine. whiskey is a winter storm with our queen jane. tequilla is a lost stitch and a baseball game. what i mean is we're a graveyards of tin cans and band lyrics about goldenrod and desire. i'm heavy with the times we reminisce about the two girls on fire.
i'm glad knowing dead girls are forever.

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

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.

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

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

spinning around through suicidal sounds
i’m feeling my false heartbeat
and baiting boys with throat noise

i admit

i’m an irresponsible owner
of this machine i call a body
ripping down and burning the curtains
that cover the window to my sunny womanhood
spitting acid through the wind
and blaring reverse funeral music

i’m back to writing in shades of red
i’m ******* sonnets and addressing them
to wherever the hell my family’s mental health is

this year, September wrote its own bird song
and i’m using Beer Bottle Birth Control

tonight Privilege is sponsoring
my pathetic recklessness


the wind is no longer gold dust and baby teeth
instead it's shaking for my dignity

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

emotional enslavement

you say goodbye with hollow hands and uncertain glances. your vocal chords will barely press together.
2. you sit in your car listening to their fingerprints plant into the grooves of your neck.
3. the world seems to pass by with the same kind of whirl that is found inside of a conch shell.
4. now you are working with gravity, planting yourself flat into the ground.
5. some sense more than sound has filled your head with phrases streaming together.
donttellhim.thewaythesunreflects.ibarelyrememberthattime.inevert­oldmybestfriend.whenyouleft.hishairgrewlongerthanmine.letsfindsom­ethingrecklesstonight.shewassoscaredofthechurchsteeple.onetimeont­heroof.
6. numbers progress through your chest as you swallow the clock.
7. you recall all of the formulated fists around the edges of wooden tables and the sweat on pints of beer.
8. the sun came up with few conclusions. your floral head rests on bedspreads with pints of honey buzzing in your chest.
9. you extract his name from your breath. your body is not fine but you know it will reconnect.

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.

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

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

Awake your wrist from the forgetful dream
Foliage covers us with reoccurring lust
As you fall in love with sinner's numb steam
Know I was your vice filling lungs with dust

Forgive me for pieces I am missing
Birth has given omen to delusion
Lost inside of mouths I'm forever kissing
Fact is warped by invention's fusion

But you helped construct wooden bed frame
As I imagine she spits acid memories
Of me inside stupor of liquid shame
Laying across the bed sheets so gently

I forget the best night we had shared
I'd drank all the *** on burgundy chairs

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

My hand, a guide to write and rhyme these lies
I spend my daytime stiff to gather dust
The rain will hit my tongue and it will rust
My head a silent film of stranger’s eyes
I walk across the map all wind and sighs
These human heads, balloons about to bust
The body, a vehicle for sinner’s lust
The face, a mask to hide the bottled cries

But why do we exist inside the light
So bright among the branches of my chest
Some careful kiss of guilt inside my sight
I can’t forget the day that she first rest
August’s angry moon all through the night
Awoke from slumber always facing west

                                 -

I’m caught inside my mother’s mirrored glass
Performance space where lipstick is applied
At one point every girl has surely cried
Because your mirror twin just couldn’t pass
I’d rather roll down hills and kiss the grass
A reckless rampage I have never tried
Forgetting every boy who called you wide
The girls are done with being made of glass

Living all inside is surely storm
The cranium, a sight of hurricanes
Clinging onto judgment to stay warm
Monitored to see if we are sane
Spinning through some disembodied form
No wonder they say beauty is just pain

                               -

Some sacred, manufactured in the brain
We wring out certain pain with all the lies
To chase the bits of light beyond our eyes
And recognize the body as our chains
It’s simply time to be a little vein
And love our mirror selves to feel the highs
And use our inner mind to really try
To know that we are really all the same

The matter that we breathe is priceless foam
Perspective tells us we are all alive
The pull to walk along, forever roam
The current running down your human spine
On this rock inside a little dome
I’m learning to be body, but revived

if paradise is a state of mind,
can i hide pieces of my idealism
between the lines in your palms?

will you fold your hands gently
next time you pray
or grip the steering wheel?

or will you wash yourself raw
to rid of my glitter?

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

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

it’s two in the morning and ninety degrees

we’re gleaming on the porch
******* down the stale air
from a father’s fat cigar smoke

my best friend pinches my pupils
with her fishing wire love song
launching her secrets
like bottle rockets
through the shells of my ears
blushing blue about how
she can’t help but savor a boy
who would rather linger with birds

she leans in close
mouth still blistered from
all those bees buzzing
in her sunset breath

she said we better start living out loud
because we can binge enough  
electric currents to stay restless for a while
kissing wrists through a springtime tantrum

i tell her about all the places i go at night
boarding time machines in a split screen mind
to when we were under that pine tree
burying letters to lovers like dead bodies

she asks if i ever look forward

i said all i know is time and air

but sometimes it feels like our rotation has paused
and oxygen might seem thick enough to drown

Tonight I was supposed to fill out paperwork

Instead I wrote a poem

the sun and moon are slightly out of tune
and i lost sight of my hands in the dark
we sparked last summer but we wont reignite
our flames had burned paisley blue once

a boy in his hat
and a big full of beer
he slept for a year
with a cross on his neck
and a heart full of fear
he'll never appear
because nothing is clear

he is water dripping in the shower drain
echoing senseless pain onto tiles
denying us the satisfaction
of setting these church pews on fire

down by the water
we never slow danced
to the same tempo
but instead wrote
each other forced notes
for a short term love scenario

dreaming of only Arizona roads
acting like he never loved the slow
burning of mountain sunlight

his purple tie lay limp below his ears
he'll never appear
because nothing is clear

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 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

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.

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

my view is navy
i drive toward your house
with sparkler finger-tips
not yet lit

our time is humid
we hush the fire
and rock to sleep, guitar wires,
manipulating sound waves

we whisper secret sounds in the wake
of airplane lights moving
across cheap glitter
in the night sky

we bloom into our minds
and heaven is the place
where clouds diffuse
to reveal the moon

i scratch my throat on sugar cubes
you burn your hands on
stove tops and cigar butts
we blister fuse together

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