Her bookshelf to the brim and bursting
With pages worn, and well
Remembered for the virtues
Lost
And husbands in the war

Fallen woman--fall, and women
Harvests sown and reaped
Moon of full, of wax, of
Wane
Her heart of Shadow's seed

Hand of diamond and of band
Ashes, ashes, dust
A love once lived and now, one
Lost
The pages' faces face us
And sages burn, away

Genderless with scraped knees and
A lipstick crush on one who bore the same name as me
Uncut brown hair untouched by bleach and
Stealing kisses from my best friend while my parents lied asleep
Lying in the grass with a picture book on faeries
Listening to the wind whistle through our dying trees
Jumping on the bed with my ***** and my bubby
Giggling hand over mouth when my mother called him "hubby"
Daisy chains and he loves me nots
Unbrushed teeth beginning to rot
***** shoes and ***** shoelaces
Visiting imagined places
Pink striped socks and a skirt to mismatch
Waiting for robins eggs to fall or to hatch

O, to be a child and to live within a dream
To lie awake at ten past eight, imagination like a stream

Hands
calloused and strong lift my veil, carry me over the threshold
Turn shadows into birds when wings falter, cup round the flame biting my cigarette
Tilt my face to share a sweet kiss, rest gently against blushing cheeks
Shelter from the cold, warm me in and out and in and...
Flip through musty book pages done up with dog ears and underlines
Brush curls from his face, sweep sweet sweat from his brow
In the dirt transfer love to the life created within it

We rearranged the furniture and I sat like a stone, wondering
what it was like to be a stranger in one's own home
The floor creaks are unfamiliar but the bed is known and
The coffee is always stronger when boiling water is left alone

Black lives matter
Not a war cry, but a plea
An affirmation, united nation
A cry of passion and a
call to action
The coming together
Of "we"
All lives matter--or rather--
White lives matter
When the police say, please
Put the gun down, cease!
As our brothers and sisters lie deceased
In the streets
With their murders captured, viral, shared
Not a human, but a piece of meat

The enemy of the people
The enemies of "we"
Sit high upon their thrones
Dictating laws for you
And me
They tell us we are free
While they force us to our knees
Our enemy is not beside but
The persons above, who reside
"They" "the man" "big brother" "the suits"
Obama, Trump, Clinton--Bernie Sanders, too
United we stand, united "they" fall
And perhaps, on that day, we can say "all"

But for now
Black Lives Matter
To fight is our choice
The power is in the people and
Our collective voice
Stand together, make things better
And hear humanity rejoice

Burn sage
          Pineapple sage
Read books on massage, potpourri and herbs
And never forget to
        help   one another
        On dishes, on dreams, thoughts in a stream-
ing consciousness consciously
         love   one another
And never forget
Why he came

Telltale signs of paranoia ***** at the hackles that run from head
(to heart)
down the spine
        drown the mind
Psychotic neurotic autistic artistic
Imagination whirls like wind through the pines and
The hair along my spine
        Is standing

Let's lie in our bed
Among pillows and threads
Wear your hair on my head, as a crown

Borne of Brautigan's dreams
Rainbow trouts in the stream
Watermelon moonbeams trickle down

Grey clouds gather plump and perfect above my crown
   A moment of silence held sacred by the birds
   A moment to settle before I am washed away

Rainfall rolls soft and supple from our mother sky
   With gentle thanks do the leaves cup the sweet nectar
   With ancient thirst the soil drinks her in

Dirt darkens wet and washed within our mother earth
   Eyes open and breath rolls slow and low like thunder
   Eyes close and senses gather up her scent

Full flowers sway sweetly beneath a rockabye breeze
   Petals dance gracefully to the beat of each drip drop drop
   Petals lace their fingers together and bow in prayer

Slither within my spine
Wither, within my mind

Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde
One coin, two sides

Upon my untrimmed brow the light doth lie. I wear her luminescent perfume and return to when I lived within a weary rose and leaned, unnoticed, against a weather-worn white picket fence. The fence was built by the hands of my father. I think too of the way I have "grown", innocent and hopeless, ever seeking to cling to the breast of my absent mother. Tonight I am neither the rose nor the daughter scorned; I am the Luna moth beating angel feather wings and flying, unceasing, toward the impossible light of my ever too distant mother Moon.

Methodically planning
   steps
and    stretches
Muscles twitch, anticipating
                   The Climb

Grey clouds gather plump and perfect above my crown
   A moment of silence held sacred by the birds
   A moment to settle before I am washed away

Rainfall rolls soft and supple from our mother sky
   With gentle thanks do the leaves cup the sweet nectar
   With ancient thirst the soil drinks her in

Dirt darkens wet and washed within our mother earth
   Eyes open and breath rolls slow and low like thunder
   Eyes close and senses gather up her scent

Full flowers sway sweetly beneath a rockabye breeze
   Petals dance gracefully to the beat of each drip drop drop
   Petals lace their fingers together and bow in prayer

Observe the sky from three varying perspectives
Fore, middle and ground
Watch the way the tree line reflects in the water
See the symmetry swim
Waving

70 years before today She was in this place
sultry magic abounds
I heed Her call

Honey Moon radiates from between my legs
An angel at my gate

Succulent strawberry
Bite into me
Send me rolling sticky sweet
Teeth to lips to cheek
Rosey gold
Ready for the picking

Rest within my crown O Mother and sing me to sleep
Siren's Solstice drift through my being

Shine upon me
Adorn my halo with your seeds
Be with me
I am with myself

Nestle me in your womb as 70 years before
Sultry sweet and mystical
I adore She

Sweetly, swooning, he laid me down, adored my being into morning
Baptised in his sighs I bloomed under soft caresses
Sacred bird song echoed round the clock face and stars gazed upon us, smoldering
Lustrous shine glared white
there was a stirring in my spine
tender kisses within, without, our gods meditated  on pleasure
Tears rolled lash to dimple in hushed prayer and with quiet thanks he received my offering
Our words too human, our bodies left behind
I was delivered
Eyes closed and breath steady goosebumps flowed over flesh, we consecrated this place
The rosette center of my labyrinth unfolded and thus I saw, he had been sleeping sound in my petals

I slither under flesh like cool breezes under sheets
goosebumps haunt skin blanketed by the shadow of a serpent
all forked tongues and vampiric teeth
2. Sultry is Madame Night when she pulls her veil over her brow
musky perfume is spellbinding and perverse
boys will play rough under the full moon tonight
3. His irises swell and swim when the stars return his gaze
head back in a pantomime of defeat
there is an abyss surging within his body
the threat of overflow is sensual
4. Ghoulish girls adorned in faux fur and red lipstick are on the prowl
cemeteries and Poe are all they know of romance
Anabelle Lee's young orphan lies weeping

Put me in a chokehold and press my face into goose feather
Pillows
stained with mascara tears, acid rain rolling down translucent
Cheeks
glowing and painted with rouge the color of
Fire
hot in my heart and pumping to the furthest reaches of my
Limbs
bound and held captive by smooth black ropes leaving me
Helpless
to go against your will, I am at the mercy of games we
Play
rough and don't treat me like I'm fragile I'm not meant to
Break
down barriers and ascend stairs toward the gates of
Heaven
Is found in leather and lace, cuffs, safe words and
Submission
resonates with angel wings beating as drums

I dreamt one night of my mother gently moving the clasp of a shimmering necklace back round to my spine and
Bringing the charm once more to center in the middle of my chest
This act, this scene, caught something within her
Perhaps it was her reflection in the chaon links which pleased the poet  
Perhaps she got a flash of memory, a moment of pure nostalgia--
Anyhow, "why" matters not
Only that she smiled and felt inclined to say
"someone special has been keeping you in their thoughts"
(As if something so shallow were worthy of swooning)
Instead of smiling I laughed in her face cruelly
I pondered the absurd tales of love
Love, as sung by the unhappy ladies in the church choir
Love, painted by Poe as tragedy and death, as something leading to doom
Love, felt by shy children in the neighborhood, kept alive so long as giggles and scraped knees remained
Love, church, husband wives and babies, happy home and all the comforts, jewelry boxes brimming with diamond rings and necklaces
I laugh at the belief of a god who allows himself to be held hostage in the mind of a man
As if I would feel honored to be thought of by anyone, as if I felt I needed this god or this man to know me and to love me
As if love could ever be so important

Magical, ethereal
A dark angel tip toeing on heart strings and violins
Smoke and mist and vapor dancing something ancient and secretive
A siren on the shore and a mermaid at the depths
Darkness and light incarnate
Effervescent, eternal
A black hole imploding, a star death
Beautiful and mysterious
Unending
Infinite, enticing, intimidating.
Perfection to the core, perfection in and outward

Tripping over his feet like so many shoelaces he danced clumsily
Calloused hands holding loosely onto the featherweight of my neglected body
Breath
alcohol tainted and stained with years of nicotine inhalation
raises goose flesh on the whole of my being
My vision is doubling
the dogeared books decorating the walls of his room
pristine white candles glowing hot and soft on the altar
wine glasses silently radiating with a deep maroon
He spins me slowly round
I imagine I look like the ceramic dancer
inside a music box
Inside a fantasy world all my own
My head is getting dizzy from the alcohol from the smokes from the movement
and I stumble
Everything round me slows to an unsure crawl as the world shifts horizontally
Hands grasp the air as my feet pinwheel
Flowing fabric floats away from my body
an angel falling
Mouth opens and a soft gasp is allowed
This happens within the seemingly unending seconds
between leaving the relative and drunken safety of his arms and
Cracking my skull upon the altar adorned in so much white flame
Everything stills and again
There is silence
I do not
hear his screams as my heartbeat matches that of a hymnal I used to sing in church and
I overflow with the memory
As my blood pools beautifully
Complimenting the darkness of the wine stained crystal
I imagine
The altar had been built for me
The corners of books folded to please my eye
The drinks the music the melancholy all exist for
My epilogue
My epitaph
My eternity

I feel if I move from this place the sharpness of my knees will cut through the skin shrinking to be closer to my fragile bird bones or that upon lifting the body I am allowing to deteriorate the blood may rush too quickly behind my eyes leaving me unable to keep from tumbling and shattering in a beautiful spray of technicolor

I ****** a boy with an evil smile tonight; he kissed me, said "don't be afraid to fall in love" then called a cab to bring me home

I move swiftly like a switchblade run cooly through your veins
no matter how you try to leave I will eternally remain
there is something in the wicked way you smile and say my name
there is something in that wicked way that helps me stay insane
and I drop down on my knees confessions spilling from within
you spit coldly in my face and thank me for my sin
I know I am not beautiful I know I am not kind
cause when you hurt me baby you leave mystery behind
I am swift as a switchblade the baddest lil girl
the shadow of a ghost haunting always in this world

he wants to be inside me but i say
three is a crowd
myself, she
plus He
3, the holy trinity
i rip my hair out in a manic fit he
rips my hair out in a ****** fit he
pushes my face in the mattress
suffocates Me, suffocates She
we are One In The Same
(give yourself to me! / don't say you're in love
direct your eyes at me, please / look away
i feel so alone baby, hold me heal me make me yours / i hate the roughness of your hands, i hate your ***** finger nails
i cant live without you please don't go / i despise the way you look at me, leave me alone)
WE crave
love solitude *** motion security independence sweetness hate
HE craves
love company *** stability security companionship sweetness affection

human nature tells them
love comes from destruction

SHE tells ME
they are in bed together

I no longer feel love is a necessity and even if it were it remains elusive. Many lovers passed. They came they went and all I truly miss is playing good or bad girl long enough to get off. Get undressed, get on your knees, get wet for me, get ******. !Get ******! Lust leaves a softly pulsating crimson sheen behind my eyelids. Lust feels like when you have a blindfold on and you strain to peek through, to violate. Lust is Loves' true enemy. Lust takes without apology/lust punishes/lust is the arms I am taken in. I've never been the best at "please" but in Lust's wake I pout prettily saying "yes please, and thank you".

obsessing over how badly i want to die i find i have been hitting myself in the face pulling at my hair scraping my milky skin to an angry and passionate red is this what going crazy is like or am i simply growing up never learning how to cope taking solace in hurt wearing my misery on a scarred up wrist no one sees but the angels///he holds me and places soft kisses on my skin palm to palm our hands differ by a centimeter maybe two in the night he lies close to me he trusts me curls his body around mine i am enveloped in his sweet caresses his scent fills me to the brim i spill over in his hands no one sees but the angels

before there was Disgust there was
Pity
for the pathetic way you pant over me
at the feel of your thin lips trying to make love to my body
the animal noises that rang through the house cut through the same playlist played time and time again
old shaking hands grasping at my delicate skin

in a past life i could have adored
maybe even loved
the way you lay worship at my feet
your eyes surrounded by a network of deep lines
trained on me while quietly i ignored you
i could have stood proudly on the pedestal you break your back to uphold

in this reality however i feel
Pity, i feel Disgust
all your money all the wine
shy in comparison to how easily i could
break you ruin you shatter your foolish dreams

mesmerized by the collected way you talk to me
how your lips no longer speak into me across paled skin
i slowly lower my lids
i leave this ?time? i travel back
***** wooden floors gravel drives *** smoke empty bottles love made flesh bruised lips bleeding i travel BACK
i see your eyes the metallic glare behind them
in my arms you were soft
is that why in the night i couldn't hold you?
composure is everything !be vulnerable for me!
you're hard you've been stamped on by the feet of god
crushed into powder bone dust compacts you wear it inside you
you wont let me feel it wont let me see
i tried to consume wanted to drink you up eat your beautiful flesh
i didn't heed the warnings i ripped through you hungrily
you have a *******
a pit like a peach
shards of my teeth lodge there
you cast me aside collect the molars as a keepsake
had i known i would have swallowed you whole
and carried the blackness in me
carried your love always eternally unceasingly in me

I fell in love with distance disappearing drifters
The way his eyes dance across me sometimes, other times lay to rest
I gave him my ***** in the hopes that he would make a home there
Said "my body is a temple" then let him desecrate me
He worshiped inside, slapped prayers into my flushed cheeks
When he goes away I am endeared to him I hate him
I curl up in his abandonment, in the silky sheets
I wrap his scent around my shoulders and touch myself, send whispers to the universe to
Please oh please remain, don't stay away for too long
I close my eyes and imagine the moment he walks back into my reality
The quiet way he will open the door, pass the threshold with a soft scent of smoke and whiskey
He will sit down beside me where I will have decided to be angry at him
To walk from him with the same ease he achieves so easily
When his spring leaf eyes meet mine however I am once again wrapped in love
I am once again resigned to be in love with a ghost

Her body flows like milk
Between her legs there resides a **** cherry
She is the sweetest of angels to bless this sullen place, she is softer than the silk of wedding night lingerie
When her all seeing eyes come to rest on me a wave of euphoria overtakes me
The strongest of drugs
Cheeks fill with blood like nectar when her lips move against mine
The rise and fall of her sleeping chest is a poem
It captivates me, forces me to memorize the quiet motion
Her feet fall and she dances like a sprite on my heart strings
She is purity and delight, she is precious emotion
In my arms she is light and when is away the feeling she leaves behind radiates
Never have I loved something so sincerely
Never before have I been graced with something so stark white, child like, familiar and altogether new

Slipping into my skimpiest dress I scream and smash all the softly twinkling
Glass
Embedded in mother's wedding heels, I totter on the edge 40 stories
High
In a stranger's bedroom, eyes low with a gun to my
Head
Away from relative safety, dance past a sign reading No
Trespassing
In the life of a married man, drinking wine and letting him
****
This life, light another cigarette, burn my palm with the dark end of a
Match
Made in heaven, made in hell, keep on
Moving
Inside me, out of body, casual notions, perpetual motion

I WILL
step unsteadily, inhale exhale cigarette 100s
dance through the smoke and make love to the starry night
dream of sending a part of my body to you
write letters, admire van gogh
get lost in window reflections, get lost in myself
imagine tendrils of your hair on the soft red pillow
pay for love, pay with my blood my heart
give my soul if it remains in tact
be your vessel, please fill me up
love you through photos until you love me again
forget the past, prepare for the future
hope for a future
try try try
promise

angel wings shielded my vision as i peeked at you through silky white feathers;

i whispered in a devil voice "i will make you feel what you never imagined--
i hold holy secrets and unholy sins"
i got on my knees for him but god knocked me from grace
(i am a fallen angel tempting sinners, lovers, fathers and hopeless romantics)
cut off my wings
remove your ring
undo the buttons on the stiff white shirt, beg me to fill what was lost on sermons and hymnals 

(moonlight illuminated my naked body)
(i made a deal with the devil while i danced beneath the stars)

come willingly to the edge and fly away with me or
fight my siren song and face the hand of god

Succumbing to the feel of pampered skin gentle caresses
I recite a prayer soft as baby’s breath to
Please,
Please o please
Cast me from angelic light
Force my knees onto an altar of broken glass.
Devil Darkness Reaper
He is in me he is in me.
The backdrop of my eyelids is deep **** swimming
Lips of lovers chapping Cigarette burns scarring Strawberries slowly rotting
He is he is he he he he he is in me.

tattoos poked into my upper thighs read “DAD” “MOM”

i am a ghost of the girl in the photograph hanging in the same place same wall same house

i touch myself in my bedroom i think of him tonight, another tomorrow

casual ***, *******

i’m not your little girl

i’m not their little girl

i belong to no one i drift i fall

into the arms of someone who does not love me

out of the arms of DAD and MOM

i see in their eyes they worry they look into mine

measure the size of my pupils tonight wonder if i look dull cause i’ve been getting high again

or if i’ve succumbed to another bout of depression

maybe they know me at least they think they do but

how could they have me figured out

when the ?person? i am and the person i was

haven’t been acquainted since i turned from

DAD and MOM to

the things that came with being 19?

he gave me afterglow, soft, radiating through the translucency of my skin

makeup running breath catching

eyes black deep poetic

consumed me

Borderline personality disorder Unseen people unseen energies tickling my back Distrust paranoia Longing for love unwilling to accept Dreaming of self harm of boys in all black Who am I to you Trust no one not even your best friend especially not them Avert your eyes don’t look at me I don’t see you I hear things that aren’t there I hear things they whisper my name want me to follow Casual *** casually falling in love Relapse around the corner need to see my blood I smell blood I taste it Close my eyes move to music become a ghost Crying in my bedroom crying in public No one sees I am invisible Think horrible things think about killing A certainty that I will end up alone This sounds like a suicide note Want to be art want to be in the ground burned to ash Who AM I ******* daily In love with love In love with being on my own I can’t belong to anyone I want to belong to someone Can’t be a girlfriend can’t be a best friend Can’t lose me that’s all I have in the end I sound ******* nuts Borderline personality Don’t smile Won’t smile Bitterness bitterness Too afraid to hang myself Punch myself in the face Spit on me Respect me Degrade me Take me away take me in What the **** is wrong with me

Older men drinking
They surround me want to be inside me I shrink away
I shrink AWAY
He tells me I’m beautiful says
You should be a movie star
He wants to ******* to a still of me on the screen
His wife sleeping in the other room
Men disgust me I wish I were dead
I wish I hadn’t drank so much
I smell like cigarettes my eyes burn
Don’t ******* cry don’t
Think of the way his hand on me makes my flesh curl
The one I love is gone he has always been gone
I’m in love with HIM
An older man he is off limits he can never be mine
I love him I know I am enough
He wants more than what she can be
That is me
Other men touch me and I want to flee
To flee into the arms of someone who has never held me
Outside of my dreams and confessions
I wish I could see more straight
I want to run away with him

Music pulsing

I smell sweat I smell

Beer spilled all over the ground like secrets whispered to the girl in the stall left of mine

I look at him I try to look through him I can’t

Perhaps I have met my match

He is enticing he is beautiful

The contrast of our skin is the make of ink on parchment paper soon to be love letters

Burn them all destroy what could have been good for me

What the **** is good for me I’m good for nothing for no one

I close my eyes I move

Sensuality

Pushing pulling me away me to HIM

He used to scream in my face to breathe hot breath into my heart

Wanted to ruin me he did but

Not irrevocably

I am more now I am less everything is overwhelming underwhelming

This life this human shell is it mine

It all stares back at me in the silver backed mirror

I shake I shiver

He makes me tremble but not like HE did

Anticipation for love he makes me come

Anticipation for /uninvited pain/ he made me whither

I dance I move my hands my hips

Contort my body think of me in bed

He kissed me gently his arm around my shoulders

HOME

Protect me invite me to stay I want to STAY

Pitter patter shoes on the pavement

A young bird watching falls in love with the sound of

Soles on the ground

Souls on the ground

Shoe laces knotted neatly

Scuff marks on the toe

The young girl sits below she

Cries she lifts her eyes she falls in love with the sound of

Music ringing

The bird, singing

Feathers float slowly down they rest on the tendrils of hair

The tendrils of hair float around her eyes they frame her face

She is alone she is

She is She is

Who is she?

She is giving up the bird is getting up

The bird fell in love with the way her sadness caused

Eyes to avert caused rain to fall pitter patter on the ground

The bird falls the bird falls

Gleaming black eyes peer at the girl

Peer past the scuffed toe the knotted laces the knobby knees

The downcast face the tear stains the braces

Broken wing broken wing

The bird is Broken but it’s little heart flutters

Never has anything looked so beautiful as

The sun forming a halo round the face of an angel

Never has anything been so beautiful as

The tears that are falling for He and He Alone

Varicose veins stitched into her thighs she is beautiful in the way
Her skin is soft and quietly dimpled
The places around her slightly down turned mouth
Her eyes that have seen
That have SEEN
Into the hearts of many a lover of a weepy child
Eyes lost and found through the window pane overlooking the slowly rotting rose bush
Her stomach is like linen sheets it is delicately wrinkled delicately lined
The labor of child birth the beauty of carrying a child
She has given herself she is reborn she is eternal
Stretch marks slightly more pale than what they cut through glow In the moonlight she is angelic
Shimmering grey hair twinkles against where it has splayed behind her
A halo a crown of settling dust
She is illuminated
Her body is art she has been delicate she has been rough
Her ******* hang they have fallen softly from the gentle caresses of Father Time
So softly she is touched
The light of the night surrounds her and in all these things
Silver trands velvet skin
A maze of veins on her palette
In all of these things she exists
She EXISTS she remains ever beautiful ever daunting
She is She is She is
And she will always be