well, now i've done it.
Got just what i asked for
fought for
and the sun keeps rising
and all horizons seem to picket-fence
the ruins of my waking life
when your head is beaten in and down
and your words are your banner
ripping from your throat
when you win the war
and all seems calm
larks and flower-like
you cannot fathom
the devastating cost

of rebuilding the world.

anguish (as a species)
is a most fearsome animal
came to visit my abode

it is bigger than life and
at once too vibrant and too shrouded to define edges
save the glittering Chesire rictus that splits its skull
like broken mirrors
reflecting original sin as if you were the author

it characteristically blinds its victim
before inserting a single spine into the cardiac muscle
paralyzing both beat and brain

you may open your eyes once
(it will allow you that)
before the end

so you may appraise its shark-like maw
jaw dislocating wide wide wide
to afford room for your entirety

when it closes,
it is not like going to sleep.
it is no gentle light.

a worser fate, it lets you live
in the acid of its belly
peeling away your skin
pickling your eyes

until from yourself you can draw a sword
tear from the taut and distended skin of malice
and ******* forgive yourself.

rolling in the rosy dish of my tongue
it returns in my mouth to
its most basic elements
a primordial alabaster foam
of corn syrup and gelatin
and unpronounceable would-rather-not-knows
i think: marshmallows
are the juxtaposition to my quaker pallet
microwave tap water&Fr;;'s Cocoa
awash and dissolve
my saccharine oral fixation
in jealous slurps of heat
that radiate down
down down
heat, you see-
(as a sakura flush
blossoms 'cross the
pale of my throat)
-has always been the key
here's a secret:
in solitude i
i'm a homunculous girl
all lips and all hands

To break is an abstraction.
To break what?
A noun?
Tangible?
Phoebe fell down four flights, fracturing her femur.
A verb?
Felt sharply in a sudden absence?
Singing Schubert and feeling a spasm of sorrow, his voice shattered.
Direct object?
A being, a destination.
I am. I am (what?) I am (broken).
Don't tell me I haven't failed
in the same sentence you tell me I'm not enough.
And watch me leaf-like tremble, fumble hands, cover mouth
A paper mask over shaking gasps that wrack me naked.
Don't tell me I'm not broken.
When I am (broken).

I knew a man once who could read the trees
He'd stand in a field with nothing on
And look at them for hours
(He couldn't talk to flowers)
But he would pour over every branch
Trace every knot and feel their bark
He translated a sycamore for me once
But oaks and beeches were his favourite
He said he just preferred their type.
The elbow bends told him of seasons
The trunk's tilt told the prevailing winds
Their denseness in relation to their neighbours
Told him all manner of gossipy things.
The colours and the hues told of the soil
The moulds and lichens the local fashions
He'd tell you if they'd ever been frightened
By hippies, chainsaws, axes or lightening.
And as I looked on, I realised something
As I read his naked body with no clothes
This man was obviously a stark raving lunatic.

intriguing, yes.
fleeting, yes.
waving hello like a helium balloon taped to a mail box.
flap
     flap
smack!

"Share your body, spread your love."

stumbling while leaning against a wall
your eyes are wider than when we kissed
and it felt worse than saying goodbye,
more than anything
wanting to forget how good it feels
to hold each other
                                                           you push me away.

kiss me, I whine.
your tongue tastes like peppermint slime
oozing words that avoid the intended conclusions of your premises
broken promises   [unspoken, I'm choking].

I'll **** you out before breakfast.

I'm a baby, much older, much younger.
I'll cry myself to sleep.

The smell of coffee and black sharpie fill your senses
Dragging yourself out of bed, you wrap the sheet around your naked body
Your head hurts more with every movement, every thought.

The sticky note on the door
written in small, squished, boy-like writing
"I never promised you forever."

Somewhere along the way the
silver threads that embroider daylight with dreams
have melted, losing architectured edges and I find
these days it's harder to tell whether I'm
even awake at all.

Trance chaos, but curiously calm,
considering and sleepy.
My corridor is long but I
have no reason to hurry.

Broken lamps against the walls
dusty apartments to spiders and fluff.
No lightbulbs.
Only husks of maybe
once upon a time ideals.

There is a familiar light of
gossamer gold murmurs over me
I've been here before and
there isn't much farther left to go.
Incandescent airspace
pulsing like a living heart
rising, ebbing, coaxing me on.

The lamps are a silent vigil to my journey.

Again I am here at my tabula rasa.
The door is laid with bricks, sealed by my own earthly hands
Will not open! Will not open! Un-opening door.
And as far as I've ever come.
Light all around, fleeing from robinred tetris brickwork.
Intimate, tantalizing, maddening
Bone aching Mystery.

Yet. Yet. Yet. Yet. Yet.
I yet.
Yet again.
I am here.
Crossroads. Yield to trains.
There is no last stop until I
play cartographer
and circumnavigate
Wasteland concepts. Swamps of muted wishes.

Until I put my broken lamps back together
I am here.
Wandering,
waiting,

a ghost.