21 years or older but I asked to use the bathroom first.
Then I slip in when the bouncer isn't looking.
Naked bodies hanging on poles.
Men, smoke, 90's rap music.
On the stage, they bend backwards like dogs.
Dogs staring back, mirroring the position
and her self - esteem.
A woman approaches two men at the table in front of me.
Her fishnet wrap shows she's naked.
*******, grinding, tossing hair.
Some slimy guys buy us drinks from a table a distance away.
Dorena gulps next to me.
I leave mine alone.
Absorbed into this vision because I have to immerse
myself in this because I must write.
I need to tell people that her hand slapped her ******
like it did something wrong.
She made her hand do that because that man
was giving her dollars as I watched them slide off her back,
her legs; the sides of them.
She gave his friend a dance and a magic trick.
Setting fire to matchsticks she placed on her ******* and her ****.
He blew the flame away.
The dollars blew to the ground
and after her performance she went on her knees,
and picked up the remains.
Her dress, the money, her composure.
Afterward, she lit up a Capri, the type of cigarette
I craved all night.
I bummed one off her and she fled out of sight.

Experience morphed me into such a detailed design.
Any exposure taints, just ask the sun when it hits our skin.
The spiral never ceases, it merely expands into the nothingness.
Until it is enveloped in the blackness.
What am I without the drugs, the relationships, the maya, the physical?
My mind questions me when I close my eyes every night.
Planet Earth has taught me to love what is in my hands
with all of my bones,
and when it is time...
to simply let it go.
It is not simple.
To invest and to expend for the sake of investing and expending.
But I know this... and so I watch...
finger by finger
as I loosen my clenched fist.
Transcending the object I cradled with agony,
and with each release
I rise higher than I
and it.
Senseless liberation it seems like,
but in doing so I lose my senses.

Riding on the Metro Bus, I noticed a girl with a tattoo on her temple that says L.A.
why would she want to promote this place?
I'm crying next to a street light and a man...
no not a man....
an animal....
mistakes me for a ******* and offers me 100 dollars for a *******.
Anger and fear have a way of making one run like a cheetah,
I admired my legs, the way they effortlessly glide away from danger and death.
****** hiding in every nook and if you're lucky,
you might run into a needle.
Hot in the day and cold at night just like the people.
But on the upside... Marijuana is legal.
The downside is the degradation of the soul
that is acceptable here because a girl needs to eat
and an animal needs a quick fix.
This one demon said: you're never going to make it.
You're too young and naive and not willing to bleed.
I scratched my leg so hard while he was speaking
that blood starting pouring out of me.
I didn't say ******* because I would never sacrifice my body
to this poor excuse of a human being, even in language.
Instead I slipped out of his house while he was in the bathroom
like a one night stand.
Los Angeles taught me that in this society, I am just a body.

I never truly believed this would happen to me.
Aware of it, I suppose but only in abstract notions.
You're like my unique potion.
But I am running out of your liquid in my bottle
and with every major use I drain you out.
I never thought it would dawn on me.
The setting sun of a finished love.
A chapter turning and I am the page mid-flight
feeling your existence coming undone...
and regenerated into something I can mold.
My mental attachments transferred into art.
And through this my other half,
may be born.

Welcome to the smokers lounge
hit this joint, lay on the couch.
Through the smoke you can catch my flaming lips with ease
puffing, pouting, inhaling.
Welcome to the smokers lounge
this is where I sit and drown.
Setting fire to my heart
to match the spiritual pain.
I'm foggy can't you see?

Sometimes I dare to fantasize about how your eyes would feel in my gut once they meet mine.
A clawing perhaps, an agonizing gnawing like starvation or butterflies before public speaking I imagine.
Would I get used to it? Probably never.
Regardless of space-time your soul gazes at mine when the clock strikes dream-time.
I wake up to myself and try to forget your place in this *****.
In this safe house of memories that lie naked and dormant.
Potential energy that begs in wavelengths to please draw closer.
Maybe these punches will soften as I get older.
The memory of love lost left to die in a box rotting images of a parallel reality
sweeter than Radha and Krishna.

If I calculated all the time I've spent
lost in the vortex of your eyes
it would run past days.
The memory of your face
still fresh in my mind.
At the airport I resembled
some tragic human in history
awaiting there exile with fate.
After she punched my ticket
we stood on the side and
pawed and clawed at each other
one last time.
As I walked away something died.
I look back once
and see your figure from the opposite end
of the vast quarter waving goodbye.
I blow a kiss through tattered lips,
come back to me I whisper cry.
The plane rises into the mighty sky
I look below and bellow
Iowa, be good to my lover while I'm gone.

Trampling a rose
Trial by stone
hindered growth
echoes in a cave
resonate my soul
the definition of bliss
is this: What I know
I have to bear
but what I don't can't hurt me
knowledge is weighted with tragedy
better off intact by avoiding your reflection
my mirror shatters before the matter of rejection.

It's not me, it's you
these words they haunt beds
but I can sleep at night.
Rather be cold, covered, and neglected
than hot, naked, and rejected.
Yeah you're winning cause you have feelings
but nothing is ever what it seems.
Crying and purging at the thought of my body
but I won't let you see me because I'm shaking.
You're so far away from my tree that I appear
to be still but my leaves are trembling.
I never asked for thunder and rain,
you were supposed to bury the pain.
Instead I watched as you endlessly shoveled to find
the root, so the the thorn in your heart can be extracted.
But I won't let you get soil deep
forever bound
chained and held in my hand
curled up defeated
a snail in a shell.
Sicker everyday.... all because I didn't wish you well.

Shame
fingers point
and they blame
you.
Libra weigh the scales
I'm tired of the lower hand
I want you so bad it's stupid
It's stupid that I want bad news
Yearning centuries now for something new.
I want you so bad it's stupid
it's stupid that I want you so bad
so bad, my want is bad,
but I'm stupid for you.

The Victim and The Villain
interchanging between the two
chemistry ignited in red
but now we're entering the blues
The positions they change as frequent
as lies that transform into truth.
The Victtim and The Villain
they live inside of us;
and they live inside of you.

At twilight in the cave the bats gracefully emerge; sacrificing their lives to fly and play in the wind. Sweeping in diagonally perched on wooden posts the owls watch and wait for their prey. I marvel at gods game and sit in silence. karma pulls up and pulls out her self-division at the scene. I am magnetically drawn towards a single owl poised on a tree. I whisper to the creature, speak to me. The owl sings: puchu puchu! I sing back the crazy tune. The owl spots my red jacket nestled on my body and teaches me the blues. I come back a rainbow grounded on the green encased in a purple hue.

Vamos a ver lo que va a pasar.
It's cold outside so I get in your car.
I'm itching to burn away everything
that no longer serves me.
I tell you this with my eyes,
in response you pout the engine
and gas leaks out like you heard me
say it out loud.
Lets drive somewhere far where there's
no one around.
You can take my clothes off
and I can take you down.
Ecstasy like fire but we're swimming
in our soul.
Ground me with your words
and shape me out of thought.
I'll fill you with blood
and ignite passion in your heart.
Twin flames playing the Elemental Game.

Two and a half years of my life
spent pining, yearning, honing in your memory.
My dreams revitalizing your body but never quite able
to capture your voice.
Two and a half years of self-loathing, because you stopped
speaking to me.
Nightmares and day dreams, engrossed in the past or
the future with you in it, takes up the space meant for the present.
Two and a half years later, and you still treat me like **** but
now you have agreed to see me.
Naturally I was ecstatic, but indifference has knocked on my door
and I'm debating on opening it.
Unrequited love has lost its glamour and its edge.
One sip of your mind used to make me tipsy
but all those nights out on the town
has got me drunk on other men and other worlds
that don't revolve around you.
Two and a half years later, and I could potentially have you,
but what good would that do, if your love could never amount
to the intensity and the longevity of my love for you.
The door is still knocking but I'm shutting the whole world out tonight.
Two and a half years later, and I finally have the strength to overcome
your choke hold and take control of my life.

Call my shadow Sylvia Browne,
play with it like Peter Pan.
Pull it off the floor, and let the darkness
sit in my hands.
Roller coasting retrograde in Saturn's domain.
The moons rays shining backwards on my face.
My heart is bleeding coffee, bitter and strong.
My ego doesn't want to release what's wrong.
Negativity is something that appears to give you pleasure,
but actually gives you pain.
I let the King of Wands **** me raw and ******
until it feels like a mistake.
Hate me so that I can break free.

Healing requires a passage through a spiral
downward first to plunge the depths of the soul,
then upwards to meet the Self.
Time does not fix or alleviate burdens and weight.
A metaphysical step forward in all dimensions
sets you on the right track.
Forward motion is the key to harmonious change,
not waiting around for minutes and days with a heavy
heart to set you right.
Your head foggy with reversed archetypes hiding in your psyche.
Everyone needs to cry and scream.
Reflections help us understand where we need to reflect these feelings.
Go to the ocean and imagine that is the sum of your emotions.
Now dive in it, don't wait for the perfect moment.

Reinvigorate my lust for life.
This desert girl wants rain and red wine.
The mountains will lighten my heavy load.
I know this like the back roads on the shortcut to home.
Nature will undo myself.
The sun on my face will help.
Moving on the earth, I will find my place.
The location I must flee to locks me in, and I gravitate.

St. Claire killed a lizard for me and laid it on the staircase as an offering of devotion.
Lying on its back, the frill hanging out and its tail lay mutilated beside it,
Aaron my room mate said use it as a sacrifice for Isis in a potion.
Tonight I place the gift inside a cauldron, chanting the holy name
of the High Priestess to bless my spell with powers as deadly as poison.
I want you to know this.
I want you to visit me in dream world.
I yearn for this like a transitory passage
determined to carry me safely over turbulent waters.
I am certain as a stone that I will never cease
until I am back inside your magick circle.

Toska reigns.
The chariot is losing control, string by string.
Put my hands in the air and allow my shadow
to take me for a ride.
The horse gallops in destructively attentive strides.
Gone with the wind and I bear my name.
Pain kills my ego once again.
Death is not the same as the living dead.
The phenomenon of the world is a continuously paranormal event.
There are so many ways to die, veiled under unconscious eyes.
Freud understands me, he knows the beast needs to eat.
But I don't have the ability to choose on what the other side
decides to feast.
Polarity is grabbing my arms in opposite directions,
my skin and bones are wearing out.
If I don't burn, I'll drown.
If I don't climb up, I will keep falling down.
Love is a circle and pleasure is a tide.
The Hermit comes out with his lantern,
illuminating everything I have so cunningly
tried to hide.

I will take this tragedy one line at a time.
If January 18 was an object instead of a day
it would be raw steak that's taken me years to digest.
It comes around now disguising itself
at something else but although the air
is always moving away,the ground beneath me
never leaves.
And so I know that one revolution around the sun
won't ever bereave me of your implanted seed.
The planets are holding our bodies apart at a distance.
I stare off onto the horizon. The ocean meets the sun but I
am not afraid of the unfathomable.
I used to hide from mirrors but now I am suffering because
I want to be healed.
You point your fingers at the world and try to make them pay
for something that could never be bought on the physical plane.
We all make mistakes.
Do we really?
Maybe it ought to be this way.
This is the closest I am to touching this memory.

There's a Russian school boy with acid in his veins
tripping when he bleeds.
There's a gypsy girl with the wanderlust disease
traveling on dreams.
Yin and Yang meet.
Strangers spilling secrets while the world speeds by,
everything dark and sinister comes out at night.
Different people when the moon shines.
Grey hound blues singing
sometimes people are destined to meet
for stranger reasons than can be seen,
things collide and transform everything.
Grey hound blues sets the stage for new beginnings.

The time to change is now.
Transformation is nature.
Love lost found, sooner or later.
I want you to know that my feelings
are real and this is rare.
I'm still in love, but it's not enough.
I'm a better person now than I ever was.
Your soul forms invisible strings suspending me.

The silence speaks for itself.
Drunk and numb.
Can't you see that I'm breaking....
down?
There is no one to love, there is no one around.
There is a wine bottle -
drown, drown, drown.
I'm the closest to hell and a moment from heaven.
Despair and desperation kick in and cause
a whole new scene.
Anger is at the bar turning green.
Money turns humans into demon beings.
My eyes are telescopes mapping the correlations
of  my constellations.
What do you see?
Starry-eyed girl devoid of galaxies.

Full moon in Aries tonight
and I’m feeling like a bird in North Korea
with no wings
staring beyond the separation barrier  
the stars are aligned in radical change
and I try to imagine what it feels like
to be free of ******* and chains
everything beautiful dies here unnoticed
trampled under the steps of the Korean Worker’s Party
so I trail behind them seeking remnants of roses
somebody has to remember smell them and love them
just like people that are broken
in Italian alone there is one hundred ways to express I love you
in this place there is only a few and its mainly directed to the supreme leader
and in my world I channel that love towards you
my supreme ruler
I am ashamed of my loyalty
of a love so strong and dependent
but I am trying
I am trying to transcend
but sometimes I feel more ignorant than the city of Pyonyang
sometimes I feel like the guards
closer to the truth than some will ever obtain
knowledge can sometimes be a pain
and then there are the times when I feel like god
at the level of Kim-Jon Un
but I’ll never admit my greatness
until I believe in the light inside of me
reflected in the stars
and the universal power of the cosmos
I do not wish to live somewhere else
I desire to transform this country
by transforming myself
I feel like North Korea now
but I dream of no lines
existing anywhere
ridding my illusions of boundaries
everywhere is a free place

I can hear the rising and falling
of your chest
from continents away
even though you are not
that far
you might as well as be
my heart has no knowledge of time and space
if you are not in my arms
then you are not close enough
and I’ve been trying to find my place
in relation to the world and your life
I am a mere mortal
you are the sun
blaring down on my back
like a steady drum
I try to stare at you
but I cry
blurred image of you
is replaced in my mind’s eye
you leave me when I need you the most
at night
when my thoughts grow cold
and I’m forced to visit
the empty vessels
and broken ships
in my collection
of nightmares
you hang over me
like the temptation
of cocking this gun to my head
it does not matter if I get any better
or worse
you will not come back
the sun does not visit the night
no matter how many times
the wolf cries
instead it watches from afar
hiding safely behind the moon
i guess this is how its going to be
for the rest of forever
this is our positions
in the solar system

****** and sensual
I’m an icicle
glowing white light
suckled out of the soul
now where to go
live in my mind
hate travels in my blood vessels
and it pulses to the tempo
let go let go
catch and release
can you feel me
I’m feeling you
feeling this
is it out of reach?
tracing magic spells on your skin
and your telling me my hands
are your favorite sin
and I want to get deeper inside you
then just your flesh
read my palms tell me what’s next
I’m a flickering flame
live in my heart
love travels in my blood vessels
and it pulses to the tempo
let go let go
limbs and joints
worn and torn
take me back to the skeleton
death rebirth creation
I love your body so much because
its the tangible part of you

Am I the only one who feels your presence?

you thicken the air with unspoken secrets,

you’re the battle raging inside me;

my inner demons.

You pass the time by keeping me on your mind,

and on your leash,

and in your prison,

but its all invisible.

Your matter lasting shorter than a cigarette,

but you linger.

In my clothes; heavy smoke.

In the abandoned house

that left me in shambles,

in the memories stained on the walls,

housed in forever.

And I wander,

and you roam.

You're the ghost

with no home,

and I’m the body

with no where to go

but there is no difference.

So scream at me through your subliminal words,

see me through pictures,

visit me in day dreams and blurs.

We’ll play this game your way,

the silence between us is killing me but its what you deserve.

So we'll vibrate thought transference at different dimensions,

send me your hologram and I'll trip through your dreams inverse.

There is a ghost in the backyard of my father’s house overlooking the lake.
I only come by once in a while to rest my head from my travels
but when I do visit, the ghost is faithfully floating above the place that haunts me.
She never looks into my eyes,
but I know she starts her performance when she feels me around.
Her phantom is that of a polluted princess - acid rain.
Sometimes I sit and stare at her safely from the screen.
And she’ll start moving the way she always does.
Tragedy embedded in her every movement
and I can see the vibrations from her mouth shoot off into the night sky,
tears come to my eyes. But no one can hear her cries, except mine.
The tree branches encourage her misery
and they sway in synchronicity with her body.
She struggles for freedom, the branches lift higher.
She falls to the floor and leaves splash around her; elegantly descending.
Most times I look away.
I already know what happens next.
But then there are the times when I’m feeling morose and existential,
cigarette in my hand poised like a gun to my mouth; suicidal.
Those are the times I keep looking at her.
She then turns toward me, cuffed at the hands - dragging.
She doesn't want to leave. Her ghost-like body transcends the doors and walls,
and she’s heading toward the front door. She goes through me on her way out.
In that precise moment where we both are one, I feel whole again.
She continues on past my matter, and I’m vacant.
Gypsy living has taken me worlds away from my father’s place.
But I still think about the ghost ******* the lake and when I do, time and space
travel me down a spiral south bound.
gaped open, mouth wide, wide eyes transmogrify
the missing part of myself into
something someone can hold in the palms of their hands
that screams suffer, lover.
Losing you can't replace.
Darkness closing in settles in comfortably, finds a cozy place.
She is an extension of me due to my pain.
And I relive it every time I visit the lake.
Maybe one day ghost girl will walk through me and stay.

Sometimes your words are mistaken for poetry.
I made a note of this smoking stokes on the back porch with you
Overlooking the lake.
I asked you what you thought I was in my past life and you said a bird.
I couldn’t fly though, because as a baby I hit my head against a tree.
You said I did manage to fly in a circle a couple of times before I died.
The life before that I was part of a dandelion. A petal among the many petals.
I didn’t mind though. I thought it was cool and simple.
What about my life before that one?
You were the molecules inside of a Samurai sword.
But the man who owned me wasn’t a very good fighter.
He died shortly after, you said.
Sometimes I don’t know if you’re a pathological liar or maybe you are an angel
Telling me all these spirituals truths.
Nonetheless, I think you’re brilliant.
So what about after that?
Well, you were in the 12th dimension before then. I can’t see into that life.
But you’ve lived through four cycles.
You ****** in the smoked, threw it out, and gave me a half smile.
And I cocked my head to the right, squint my eyes, and read through you.

I finally quit smoking cigarettes. I'm sorry that I made you unhappy, but at the time that was me giving my best shot, putting my best foot forward, at love. Speaking of love, there are so many things I've learned that I would love to share with you. Each time I learn a lesson I think to myself, "I can't wait to tell him this one" until I realize I can't. Because I won't. Because its not the right time. I've had a lot of time on my hands. Have you ever felt that? The weight of time on your hands? It's slow and it's heavy, and sometimes it hurts too much to carry. I'm not alone anymore. I have too many ghosts circulating my veins and sitting on the front porch of my mind to be lonely. But you, I make room for you. In the back of my head, close to the nape of my neck, the place you used to grab with your hand when you pulled me in for a kiss..... that is where I keep you. I wish I could keep you. I wish I could take you away from this god forsaken place and take the next flight to Russia. Remember that time we spinned the globe, closed our eyes, and randomly pointed to a place that we would go together someday? I don't even remember the name of the place. And that makes me wonder if you remember me at all. But here's something I'll never forget. I'll never forget that you loved me, even if you did. And maybe one day you'll wake up one morning look across the street and realize I'm exactly what you need, and I'm ready to be that person. Or maybe every morning you wake up I fade farther and farther away from your heart. Either way, everything will be fine. There is a theory that our Universe may be just one of the many in an infinite "Multiverse" in which every possible event is played out somewhere. I'm sure in at least one of them, we're loving eachother.

Cracked out on moonlight,
hazy from coasting through the night awake.
I don't need drugs to feel this way.
I am in tune with the mystics, the insomniacs,
and the men who walk out of the *******
at 5 in the morning.
We all have our reasons to be alive.
Mine is lost in obscurity in between the lines
traced on my palms.
I envision God with a knife.
Carving scratches on my hands predetermining my life.
My mouth worries and my fingers translate.
And all the while I'm holding a book in my heart
enscribed with the message:
Beautifully Bloomed,
Beautifully Doomed.
Who can read this cryptic message?
The Moon.

Break down, forever crumbling.

microscopic sand brushes my skin like ashes

of dead ones poured onto Mother Gaia.

It whispers with the wind, I am still here remember me.

We both meet at the spot we agreed to unite at different times.

Does that devalue our promise?

One day we’ll get it right.

But for now, I write you into oblivion.

Seems less than what I dreamed of but my dresses

keep falling apart. I have become a seamstress.

I strive to prepare for that chance, where you will see my body

flowing and all things manifest.

Weaving destiny and intention into clothing

I offer to the Gods for my puzzle piece.