while you're
down there

I will
be here

trying
to see me
like I see you

eyeing the shine
not picking at
the cracks

filling them
with gold dust
lacquered soul

winking at flecks
in the fissures

I hope you find
what's calling you
to the bottom

and swim it to
the serifed shore

I'll help you
pick the seaweed
from your sunken shatters

and lick the grit
till I unlock
your lips

I am olive-grey churn
knocking the shores
out cold

on this crisp
morning without rise
sunblockblur of clouds

air arrests
and ushers
me back

like morgue A/C
on blast

I wonder
a lot.

and this
one wonder
keeps popping up.

it's about this
boy I just knew
with furrowed brow
and pained dark eyes -
he wore my insides
on the outside.

until he left
the shrouded cult
and aligned to the opalite.

the thing I
keep wondering is -
what would he
say now?

and I keep
settling on:

***** it,
I'm a dreamer.

it wasn't your honey
that got me

nor was it
your smolder

they may be
most dimpliest lines
but what shook me
from numb to sprung
violent stripping
my own *******
what woke me
from prison slumber
was

your dent fingers
shaking crimson

still
reaching

strife gone strive
leaning into lightbloom
curled in a corner
dim pulse knocking

how in the center
of rage-iced pain
tornado torn lone
you felt it

reflecting my own
pushpull oblong halo

still
orbiting

even our fuckits and flails
have aftertaste
of skies slid

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

sitting in rubble
lingering on leveled

before dismantle
scraped down cyan

this dust
this mess

jagged frags of us

it's all
still here

kissing smithereens

when the unbreathable
dark hole

I lose myself in

turns out to be a pocket
on iridescent disco pants

I picked grey for the sheets
to cocoon our tangles
and black for the curtains
to block out the light
after sleepless skin bliss
in the morning we'd drift
merging aural wires
where flesh cannot press
unified on a fraction
of new foam mattress
dew lattice charted upon
have breakfast in bed
then get up and eat
giggling over tea steams
poured in black and red
Japanese porcelain cups
I found at the thrift shop
with cherry blossoms
fired on their insides

life is a video game
we are characters
there are levels
things to beat
to move up

we’re all 3D
when really real is all
4 - 11 D (+)

there are hacks
to level up, my loves
(as far as I can tell in
moments that trump
my everyday numb):

see your patterns
own your ****, traumas
choose love
over all

and make better
different choices

in the face
of torment taunting

then the
record skips
and you find yourself

in a new
orbit

ya, ya, i know
there is a King Koopa mf
at the end, but like
by that time

we will be
stronger

and not
alone

those brains are delicious
- my favorite, in fact -

but let them rest
for a white-hot minute

rouse that ancient
heart center hum
om home, love

I hope
you make it

with
or without me

and you go all wahwah
Peanuts grownups

then fall
decomposes me
your lips always twisted
in silken wilting

just one petal adrift
detonates memorial landmines
impaling me permeable

with depthtruthfelt

hands held
for spring

so many things

resuscitated tongue
mouthpiece
heartbeat
more ******

and the iron will
to resolutely
saunter out of hell
immune
to the too few, too late
tears of the devil

with clear, dry eyes
I stared it down

outside of myself
by the tongue
into his mouth

and now
I don't know how
to get out

or if
I want to

but unless you integrate
really do the inner work
not just Be Dazzle your ego
with illumination memoirs

after something
skims your surface
you might go from repping
solfeggio frequencies
to singing, get on my level ***
finger flinging in the face
of head-spun girl wondering
what the **** have I done
got to Ctrl + Z
trapass stuck keys

undo
undo
undo

patterns will reemerge
unless you hack the ****
outta perspective lit up

(be it LSD or other
luminous peaks)

I lean toward the light
but am rather fluent
in the tongue of night

a full house lies
beneath corseted wings
slipped in ripped nylons
upper thigh clings

deal me yours -
iron fangs, claws, force
scrawl impassioned pains
branding your name
primal submitting
heart catharsis

although
you probably
should know

I can play
crowmistress
as good (or better)
than possessedkitten
if you push me
too far

my core
is prism pure
but I can make you
question that
hard

I was so mad
I forgot to be all my sad

survival gremlins work fast
packed most of it up
behind my back
stowed it in the attic

in a dust-draped corner
next to a heap of tangled wires
and a vintage Smith Corona

and now I see
your name permanent, on repeat
a cardboard Sharpie-scrawled
nonlinear timeline
stacked precarious

I keep questioning
why I'm up here
when I crack boxes
they siphon me in
to a grip of whys and ifs
that pin me horizontal

I think I like it
when they topple

pointy perpendicular assault
trying to impale inside
and paper cut

so pulpy marrow
can pry its way back
into my hollow bones

i’m glad someone is effing me this hard. tattooing finger trails along the spine of the universe.

just break me.
i don’t pretend to know.
i just puppet words and try to say
the stupid unsayable.

which is all so, sooooo....

much.

you know.
it is.

I ****** you dry
even when you were wrong
self-righteously

even when your words
snatched the fray
of my wind-whipped
stained white skirt
and reeled me into
the wood chipper

I wanted to choke
on every grain
of your black salt

relish and smother
in the undiluted flavor

and I savored

every last
bitter bit

righter
written down

all my weathery
carousel personalities
get a spin at the roulette

pen pushing chorus
into distillation

dipping 10,000 toes
into spectrumland
while I feign motions
on the outside

paper refuge
breathing trees
play with me

out there surfing
glowstick rainbow rings
in this bizarrebeyond
custom branded atmosphere
that only I could breathe

until we dropped
formality

and for some strange reason
felt free to be all of me
you jumped on board
not skewing my orbit

and all the members
of my lonely hearts club
ascended the stairs
to get a good look
at this kindred enigma
twin lucid in the sky

they pushed me forward
when feet fumbled

they wanna break free
architect realities over
trace-paper dreams

wordarts n' crafts
changetheworld dates

they wanna sit
next to your troupe
silently

gaze into open
continuum siphon
where words cannot go

exhale in sync
eternally

'cause behind mâché
is already seen

though the face in the mirror
has seen horrors
leaked tears

I am more
than those moments
I still can’t quite shake
though I’m not shaking anymore

I am walking forward
even when it’s a demoralizing procession
of eating pavement and picking myself up again

I am working on forgiving myself
for those egregious errors and casualties
strewn along my route
in and out of hell

I am listening
to the voice that shouts
that I need to dig up the dark things
to let the light inside me out

"Love is the only poetry there is. All other poetry is just a reflection of it. The poetry may be in sound, the poetry may be in stone, the poetry may be in the architecture, but basically these are all reflections of love caught in different mediums. But the soul of poetry is love, and those who live love are the real poets. They may never write poems, they may never compose any music - they may never do anything that people ordinarily think of as art - but those who live love, love utterly, totally, are the real poets. Religion is true if it creates the poet in you. If it kills the poet and creates the so-called saint, it is not religion. It is pathology, a kind of neurosis garbed in religious terms. Real religion always releases poetry in you, and love and art and creativity; it makes you more sensitive. You throb more, your heart has a new beat to it. Your life is no longer a boring, stale phenomenon. It is constantly a surprise, and each moment opens new mysteries. Life is an inexhaustible treasure, but only the heart of the poet can know it. I don't believe in philosophy, I don't believe in theology, but I believe in poetry."

— Osho, *Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now

who instigated
Block this Caller
functionality

but that MF
deserves a Nobel Prize...

digital deuces
while they prattle on

to no one

and I oh-so enjoy
the silence

to be corona flares

just
see me

that makes
me glow

and your reflection
visible

on the darkest of nights

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

stopped talking to me
for so **** long

I started looking for it
in everyone else’s mouth

maddening, descending
a downward spiral staircase

and at the bottom
there is a dust-frosted trunk

packed to the brim
with love letters & promises to me

reading them feels like
voyeurism into another world
another time, another — dream

I know some of my come-trues
want to come through

if I can just stop trying to be
and allow my me

to me free

we're all just after
the space where we plug in

over and over
mismatched switchboard
unfit cords and sockets

you can jam it in forcibly
breaking both parts
not meant to collide

but sometimes
two tools magnetize
gravitational field owned

by both

like the driver
screws itself in
compelled
intuitive spin

genius designs, aligned
moving compulsive

tugged hypnotic
beyond mind

we get to sit
next to each other
when the Akashic record
vids flip in inter-D
hand in hand

maybe then
we'll understand

and we get to see
how it went down
in verses parallel
arcing alternate
adventures

and
face-plants

you might be repressed if
the universe tells you to
buy hi-vibe crystalline
heal, align, energize
and rock her
holy alive

I am standing
at the mirror

loving every scarred
unruly thread unraveling
in this breathing tapestry

it wasn’t my fault
what happened to me
my patterns were scored
long before I knifed them in
over and over again

picking people and paths
to validate my false hypotheses

unworthy kept me from
letting you love every one
of these holy spastic molecules

until I loosed grip
on erroneous
self-loathing

and I am so sorry
I really needed you
but I couldn’t let you
be there for me

because I wasn’t

and now,
here I am…

scoping silver under glass
making silly faces for me
blowing kisses at myself
and giving a little wink
over my shoulder

as I walk out
able to embrace
the wild unknowns
that await me

my soul still
wants to frolic
in the technicolor fields
of our imagination

it's just this
earthly body
has ever-so-many
furrowed brows
eye-rolls and face-palms
(+ curt middle fingers)

I dunno
***
to do about it

the dangling thread
from the bottom of your
ugly Christmas sweater
strip the maypole

until it
and we

sink in unraveled softness

one endless line
shedding itself

into brilliant new
floor decor

coaxed by
billow blowing
my back toward
double doors

bloomy blush palms
grace cold chromium
transfixed yet still
slightly froze

by their magnitude
stellar statuesque
ornate etchings
on the outside

engravings tonging
somethings subtly
warbling up vertebra
no longer numb

and I
remember
this hand
this voice
this vibration
this harmony

a fifth or a third
resonant progression
of ordered chords
this same old song
never heard, yet
- known -

buried, now begging
eternal womb
to be born

the want
wavers fingers
in front of the bell
until the know grows
too large to hold
behind stately doors

craving light, space, time
to stretch and unfold

dew-spun carbon
beyond the threshold

I’ve always had a thing
for strange, dark men

it started at Jareth’s glam teased mullet,
winged eyeliner, magic dance moves,
smooth af tights and goth orb raving

no ******* wonder
I ended up with the Goblin King
trying to take my baby away
locking me in mazes

just fear me, love me, do as I say…

and when that chilly November
shook me awake
finally

the words I kept tasting
over and over
on my thawing lips:

*you have no power over me

at some point
I just have
to laugh

or else cry

and I've already
drowned
my eyes

pacing sordid circles
with rambling feet
shot off the curve
of this smoking hip

behind me
an errant path
of scar-let tracks

it's so silly
really

all the things we did
and didn't do

all the things we said
and meant to follow through

speaking of
the greatest good,
I have been devoutly
praying for it

for everyone in
The Whole dang club

wherever it
pulls flows goes
aside under over tow

even though I know
it's kinda like asking U
to tie me to a spit
à la *******-bi

with clock hands
slow-cranking circles
orbiting until dizzy
harshing me
pristine

and I say
yes to it

because more
than any one thing
I want to spread
pearlescent wings
glinting orange
off our star

and I believe
down to the marrow
regenerating inside
my chiming bones

my path to awakening
is submitting to love,
worshipping in skin

and all these
tumultuous turns
and infernal spins

this gutting
inner work

will be worth it

as preparation for
open-heart melding
melting into mellow

bliss peach cheeks
blooming on the
wisp-kissed wind

pulling toward
ornate saintly gates
unraveling metallics
with boiling points set

at incandescent
serpentine

every inch of me
is tattooed

with lines
of you

yes to the mess
yes to the lessons
yes to the illusions
cracking

yes to me
yes to being
yes to releasing
past ashes

yes to living
again

yes to showing up broken
yes to rising in blue and black
yes to bandaging crimson scar-chars

yes to
healing

yes to love
in infinite resurrections

we defied
societal op orders

usually it goes hello
then eons of pretense
merry-go-round
exquisitely painted masks
marveling at each other's *******

but we tripped
some secret passage switch
falling through corridors
landed abruptly
in the phosphorescent core
and tagged the pulsing walls
with lines visceral

it's a backwards procession
and we keep eating asphalt
imagining simple things
seems rather inconceivable
like tea...

and when I do imagine
it's usually a pantomime
of exaggerated expressions
giggles and holding back tears
from all that can never be said

it's safe to say
I'm lost
and confused

somewhere between

me
and you

to get laid
like, a lot

I just can't...

until I find someone
who can whet my heart

because the letdown
when it's not

I can't wash away
the disappointment

if high contrast
juxtaposed

equals equilibrium seesawed

like our yin and yang
69 the ****

into each other

balancing
complementary

perhaps not
but finding out

would be an awfully
big adventure

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

underneath all these
prosaic proclamations

the kind of poetry
that rises on its own
climbing your throat
from pump overflowing
and pirouettes off
the tip of the tongue
somersaulting thru ether
into sherbet blooms
underneath every
faerie footprint

and when I thought
perhaps I was
undead in bloom

felt so unsure
what to do
what to do...

dropped to knees, praying
for cosmic signage
like I do

and when I walked in
to my parents' house that evening
the very first thing my dad says to me:
we're watching this tonight

in his hand, a DVD
Pride and Prejudice Zombies

I can't make this **** up...

work out for you
real swell

being fond of my
I-told-you-so face,
that is

;)

a lot cooler
if you did restore HP
to old-school functionality
when things, like, functioned
consistently. reliably. simply.

there are so many
little things *******
that I overlook because
this place is part of me and
how I speak

it’s our mouthpiece for
soul love light dark scenes
so, just make it work
for our inners

and, plz -

do.
some.
testing.

kludgey af workaround:

save poem as draft
edit draft and save as public

he was always
wanting, waiting
to take this walk with me

back turned at the edge of the woods
I called to him, said I was coming

and when I arrived at his side
our feet synced and tongues entwined
in stride, aligned and winding along
this colloidal ladder of a path
inside vines climbing into curls

we were so green

verdant bloom mouthing heartbeats
in synchronic lightstreams

remember when
we stepped into the clearing
where treetops parted for the sky
we both looked up, then laid down
inside the other's mind
neither push nor pull
but stilled

entranced
by backlit rhythmic ribs
arising and ebbing harmonic
bathing in the shores of soul
they dive deeper, you know...

it didn't matter
when the rains came
because you stayed with me
even though you bemoaned
the falling wet charcoal
I tousled your ashen hair
and listened

then I straddled you
and spoke of rainbow spectrums
visible only
after the clouds cry

and you
you let me
crawl inside your ear
with whispers of black-lined blissings

and in that instant
the sky vibrantly bowed
arcing prismatic across rays
bestowing halos on us both
imperfect beings
perfectly seeing

when seeking truth
excavating sediment
and scanning density
of walls, walls, walls

we bucket and label
divide and ostracize
our grace felled

truth bubbles over
inside a *** of paradox
brimming with inconsistent
opposites

we force ourselves to separate
the mutually unexclusive

cutting the real
with ors

but the crux of true
lies inside the ands

real and surreal
easy and difficult
illuminating and confusing
painful and healing
beautiful and ugly
lost and found
utterly imperfect and
unparalleled perfection
never ready and
ever equipped

for

utmost exhilarating
and wholly frightening

I have a nexus
inside my mouth
but the problem is

how not to
further bind you
in paralyzing webs

it's gonna be whoa
it's gonna be more
than you think
possible

I'd prefer to
connect our dots
in open-heart throes
therapy sesh dosed

on a day
when we're ready
to say hello, let go
and scatter brimstone

fall up into roots
climb trees into pink
2,000 feet tall (at least)
opened fists laced
eyes blown by aerials
of this darklight karmic
forest we've grown