look over at
the empty passenger seat

and imagine
you’re there and wink
as internal asides
chime out loud

showing you
eyes that go

where all the words
have fallen short

each dawn I rouse
increasingly light(er)
like midnight realized
she dosed me improper
siphoned back sludge
in the IV dropper
and daybreak snuck
pre-op biotics
that kick in as
I flutter

I feel
the veil

lift.

and guise of years inside
you’re sanitized from the outside
custom toxin bubble confined

pop
and deflate

I’ve been guarding me
for so long.

after you live in prison
upon your release, you still
put walls around yourself
don’t trust don’t trust don’t
believe

anyone

is.
safe.

your create bars
to stay that way
just like home
penitentiary

that tucked you in
told you howwherewhen
you didn’t get to
make decisions
you didn’t
belong

to you.

then when on your own
you still don’t feel you
belong to anyone

I was so used
to playing small
I kept shrinking me
habitually

but
I. am.

uncontainable
and part always
of the all

as love culture multiplies
in open air beyond
illusory bars

I look up so high
level with my own
open eye

realize I’ve been
sitting under a table
in the broom closet

when I coulda been mingling
in the party just outside
where lights don’t chase, just
reflect iridescent cocktail dress

and there is laughter
with not one nanosecond
false, forced or choreographed

for the bones just know
and move
in song

tummy turned queasy
fraught patterns carbonated
think it’s too much brains

this skin and under
to the electric wind’s
seventh spectrum

to aerating icicle
lagtights of dust
clinging below
dichrotic glass
in thaw, like

blood flooding
arms gone numb
braced for cave
of ceiling

now gifted full
with rush of needles
reminding live
and it’s OK to

breathe
this

as the cube
evaporates
it sparks

cutes me all
electro

with flickering green
between silhouetted ribs

of underling
arising

viewing
of

past preceding
swirling now

it calls eyes
and demands
walk-thru of heart

I knew
the other night
was gonna be
intense

when I put
the chemicals in
the ones that tend
to make elate

it’s what
they’ve done
every time
since
you

to varying
degrees

they’ve become
therapeutic purge
leaning lone

just sit
in my ****
under the gloss

you are not alone
in thinks
in feels

they want air
and mouth
and hands
to catch

you know...

facing you
was the hardest thing
I’ve ever done

harder than
walking
out

of that
dead-end

it summoned
every shred of every
insecurity ever felt and
every failure face-planted
every inner negative creep
and ear-jammed program
the toxic false news
of six long years

to think I
get something that’s good
and not just good, but like
made special just for me
with this secret switch
somewhere that goes
glowy unknown
like too few are
lucky to know

after sucksessive bad
it just didn’t compute
when I looked
in the mirror

if you had not been
so ******* stubborn
I would have
never

returned.

I can spin
the webs in mind
so thick, my stories
my characters
and how I’d
painted
self:

plain, dim
undeserving
unduly inadequate

it comes up
for processing
not to road-block
but be cleared...

thank you
for what you said

I needed
to hear

precisely that.

the residue
of smoke remains
but I know

soon

I will
breathe deep
get meshed with
dodecahedrons
trickling down
my walls

whispering
the things, all

My Abandonment Issues cordially invite your Abandonment Issues to usurp their lack-of-****-togetherness with a fusion of festivities!

What: A.I. Fusion Fest
Where: Sunny Padded Land
When: Now - You Can Never Leave

Activities Include:

- Acro Yoga
- Tandem Biking
- Graffiti Affirmation Wall
- Cuddle Puddle Grotto
- Synchronized Trust-Falls
- Sock Puppet Heart-to-Hearts
- Fear Archery w/ Custom Targets

Don’t miss the main event!

Three-Legged Race

Utilizing all the greatest affixing technologies (including, but not limited to: rope, Duct Tape, Super Glue, Gorilla Glue, wet cement, bungees, resistance bands and all variety of *******), the race will begin by the Fountain of Unknowns, ascend over Mount Paranoiac and finish down in the Valley of Chillax AF, where there will be infinite punch and pie.

No need to RSVP. You’re coming.

:)

the night before
the moon grew bold

I felt the darkness
move in from above
in ominous grey
opaque

it reached for me
half asleep, I
acquiesced

relinquished
pillowy clutch
splayed sheets
like legs

for his
chatter bones to chill
where my sallow
is tissue thin

his hail knuckles
affixed to wet tongue
drug me to the floor
raking my hollows
over and over

reeling terrors
on sepia filmstrip
some scenes repeating
some to-fro rewound forward
some hovered gory ending:

frigid tools cutting
to expose my insides
stirring entrail with bone
tugging ruddy strings
to see what sounds
they made as I
buckled; choked
on my leaks

I closed my eyes
tried to escape body
but he projected on
my shuttered
darting

knotting esophagus
around the backbone
fingerpainting my end
on worn flesh walls
in char-red spectrum
choreographed in
perfect harmony
with rote fear
chanting

this is how
you die -

alone

I felt it all
happening.

dangling my happy
memoirs with nooses
ungraceful reanimating
decayed draggy dancing
Xs where bright eyes
were once upon
and wide

open

every ache and
smothered secret
chirped by dark faeries
too quick to swat

but when all
the pushed down
were given mallets
they crescendoed
into discordant jarring
and in its peak came
a piercing shriek:

so loud -

all stilled
to look around

I couldn’t tell
if the voice
was him
or me

but after terror climaxed
the hear ripped and
grip released

I allowed myself
to loosen, breathe
headthrob slowly
melded into felt
beats:

limbs and tips
all pulsing
relief

and I
could see
no one was there

but me.

wielding expertly
book in my own hand
thick with tested maps

to exquisitely torture
every tenuous strand
in my fragility