I knew a dangerous man.
You wouldn't know what he was.
But I could see the tight clench of broken fists.
The ****** tape carelessly wrapped around the
bleeding breaks in his hardened knuckles.
A murderers kiss is a rush.
It is a pool of water so hot it feels cold.
When was the last time you kissed someone
so passionately it caused your hair to stand on end?
It caused a chill down your spine- quick and ruthless.
I wasn't scared of dark eyes or dark mouths or dark hearts.
I wasn't scared of a bullet or a gun or an ******
that starts with a rope and a whip and
ends with bruises and my body pressing into broken drywall.
I smile at the danger in the threat.
Our intensity crumbled our surroundings.
We were the flash. The flame.
He was the thrill, I was the ******.
Have you ever wondered what hell was like?
People don't speak of the days they spend there.
They don't talk about the tortured memories that keep them awake.
A smoky afternoon and broken glass.
Cigarettes flung out the window with your decency.
Mangled innocence is okay as long as you
keep it contained enough to sweep out of the room after you're done.
Eyes like a black hole. Shaking desires.
And when he says beg, you close your eyes and feel the fire.
Have you ever loved a wild man?
Have you made him moan in the dead of night?
Have you ever been a pane of glass?
Have you ever had a brick thrown through you and been alright?
Have you ever known a bleeding devil and made his bed your home?
Have you licked his blood and tasted your doom?

He was Daniel Kingery to the police.

Daniel Overstreet to his friends.

He was Dollar Dan on the streets.

He was Daniel,
he was wet rough kisses and anger and lust to me.

He found me one day,
18 years to his 37,
he found me when i was still a question mark trying to bleed red.
From behind a lens pointed at my naked flesh
he became a man of mystery,
he became the object of my desires.

I was a young, naive girl who got caught up in
how his pockets were always full- he flaunted it.
The flowers and the exotic dinners and the alcohol and the touch...
oh god, the way we fell into bed,
onto chairs,
into walls.

Then i fell in love on a broken sidewalk.

I was blind to the empty shadows in his eyes,
to the lines he had recited,
to the webs on his face.

I made a god out of a sociopath and i called him "love".

I was his ******, his baby blue.

I became wild under his touch,
manic when he gave me his attention,
suicidal at his leaving.

I was a flower that once was his favorite,
but he left me on the windowsill at a slow, burning wilt
and forgot to water me most days.

Why water a flower when you could have a garden?

Have you ever hated what you loved
until even their existence ate at you?

I have.

Leo: Remember everyone is fighting. Be patient, forgive, but never allow yourself to be a doormat to those who care less about you than you do them. Forget the wrath. Find the joy in the power it brings you.

Virgo: Do not stunt your growth trying to entertain the opinions of other people. You know in the end, you have to be the most important person in your life. Grow.

Libra: Quit running. You will never find yourself in other people, so stop trying. Desperation does not look good around your neck. Hold your chin high and look inside yourself for what you need.

Scorpio: Go. Stop leaving claw marks in your wake. Know that what you think you need is not always so. You are worth more than what you have been selling yourself for. Pride is important to you, but it is still okay to cry if you need to. Say goodbye to what is less than you.

Sagittarius: It is okay to say no. Don’t apologize anymore for having an opinion. Speak your mind, let yourself be heard. Do not quiet your desires for someone else’s.

Capricorn: The past doesn’t matter anymore. Close the book, shut the door. Stop searching for answers and know that it all happened for a reason. It will make sense soon if you let it.

Aquarius: Do not make friends with your demons. Clean the skeletons from your closet. Take a long walk tonight and allow yourself to feel the weight of sadness like a moth eaten sweater. Fold it up in the morning and put it in a box. Throw it away.

Pisces: Stop being selfish and cruel. Put the bourbon away, put your phone away for the night. Sleep by yourself and see what you dream of. People are not trying to ruin you like you are them. Forget revenge.

Aries: Let go. Do not cling to what you think is saving you. Do not drink tonight, do not tell them you love them again if you do not mean it. Be careful to not push away the people who truly care for the one who doesn’t.

Taurus: It is time to stop caving in on yourself. Reach out to someone, stop to smell the flowers. Find beauty in this world again.

Gemini: You’re almost done hurting. I know your mother told you the storm never lasts forever and you doubted her. Let the rain leave you now. It is okay to not define yourself by your sadness.

Cancer: Let the things and people you are bitter about leave you. Do not let memories haunt you any longer. Wash them off in the river while it’s still warm. Baptize yourself.

It's late summer, too humid and hot to really do much of anything
without having your t shirt sticking to your back
like an extra layer of skin.
that time of year when the air makes the city turn still-
just for a second.
if you don't freeze the frame, it'll be like it never happened.

I'm lurking like a ghost in the woods,
my blue hair glinting through the trees.
I'm finding abandoned concrete jungles, broken skateboard decks
and graffiti scattered like memories from when everything was okay.

Sometimes, if I'm too sad, the universe lets me find a house.
One that makes me gasp; one that turns the air get a little colder.
I go alone, others tend to rush in,
spray paint in hand, loud footsteps and rough voices
echoing through the deserted hallways.
I am always quiet, always still,
i make sure to blend into the walls like i am breathing
with the creeping ivy.  

My heart is still searching for the place it will call home.
I've seen a lot of dilapidated houses and i'm still searching,
unable to find what I'm looking for.
My heart found an apartment in yours.
I never realized I was subleasing until someone better came along.

Its late summer,
and once a girl told me that it will get far worse before it gets better.
Well, its getting bad again but I'm still breathing,
so i guess that counts for something.

My body has not once been a temple.

I remember years ago,
sitting poolside with my grandmother,
her spidery, veined hands touching my knee:

"Your body is a grand temple,
only those who are holy are worth admittance."

And her stern sincerity made me laugh.

My body is a wet, lush jungle.
My body has been trampled through and lived in.

Destroyed, burned,
yet always continues to rebirth itself from the rubble and debris.

Am I any less for this?

My body is a mystery,
a slow wafer on the tip of a school boy's tongue.
A dark, cool place to rest your weary head.
A place to let your feet press into the rich soil
and feel like maybe you can call this home.

I think one time,
a man with dark hair and light eyes thought he could
reduce me to mere trees and rain,
not knowing the jungle is not a safe place.

Unlike those with temples for bodies,
my heart lives deep in a hidden cave guarded with
sharp memories that feel like claws.

My memories have teeth,
and my heart has a brain.

Ever loved someone like
laying on the carpet in pain
watch the shadows on their face change
see the door open and close
these days the sunlight always looks the same

following my most intense and secret obsessions mercilessly.

you left me,
hair strewn into the creeping ivy from the window.

I love you in the same way I hate you-
wholly and with my entire being.

you are and will always be a secret.

I'm sorry that once you were loved so carelessly
you now guard your heart like
the most expensive artifact in a museum.

I'm sorry that you are the worst thing that ever happened to you.

But that was before you knew me,
before you let something evil into your bed.

My moonlight girl is sleeping.

She finds me in my daydreams,
she creeps in and quickly leaves me.

She tells me she loves me- while I am unconscious.

I haven't heard her but I can read it in the smoke she leaves.

I can feel it in the wet lust that hangs in the air,
the sweet dew evaporating from my thighs.

I miss her when she is waking.

I self identify as the blood that drips down your thigh.

I want to fall into your bed and
rest my haunted bones until they
crack under the weight of your lies.

I caught you in a lie that you tell everyone.
You said I was the first person to ever figure it out.

That meant more to me than it should have.

In truth,I will never know you.

But you will never know me.
That's why you call me mystery.

He asked me, once:
"Would you die for me?"

I looked up at him, a smirk forming at my lips.

I slowly ashed my cigarette,
as if I was thinking of a suitable answer,
one that proclaimed my undying affection.

As I caught his eye, I said:
"Well, frankly love, I wouldn't even **** for you."

We fell together like we had no other choice.

We fell like two body bags in the back of an ambulance.

And suddenly you were killing me,
a razor to the femoral artery in a bathtub.
My own shirt wrapped around my diaphragm,
your laughter made louder by lack of oxygen to my brain.

And there was nothing else.
My wold turned black and gray because of you.

When I was a real girl,
back before I ever met you,
I would pray to god for a cleansing rain to wash me of my sins
so that I didn’t burn if I stepped foot in his home.

It has rained 729 times since then
and I am still stepping on hot coals.

Radioactive sunlight cascading over tendons pulling under scar tissue. Carved out, flesh eaten by buzzards. If she was a real girl, she may have cried. Vultures, all of them.
Hacking at marrow of the innocent. Lilies bloom in her eyes.
Harps in the distance, church bells interrupt to strike eleven times. Glittering like a magic something in the nervous heat.
The illegal existence.
She has bird bones in her box of Him. His prints deeply embedded, even now. He smiles in her memory, flashing teeth. Going extinct.
No longer an easy replication,
but she keeps her shrine.
In her kitchen, petals start to fall in soft disgrace. Time stops.
It has been said, late at night, you can still catch glimpse of her gleam.
May even catch the kaleidoscope in her eyes. They do not understand this. With briar and rose, she turns herself into prose.

Last night when we were both drunk off of gin and lust,
you told me I was like the song "ruca" by sublime.

I'm not your only one- but I'm the best one.
And I laughed at that.. Me being the best.

But you said it was true and I could see the sincerity in your eyes.
Baby.
You aren't my only one and you aren't my best one.

But I still burn for you
and when I'm all alone and on my own,
you're the one I think of.
That won't change.

You told me I'm a naughty girl,
a bad girl,
the worst.

That you can't handle me.

That in another life this could work
and I would be solely yours and you would be solely mine.

But what I do when I leave your place is none of your concern.
And truly- you don't want to know.

You call me a mystery and
I will always stay that way to you.
Again.

It's better that way.
Forever burning for you.

I was 7 when I learned the art of touch
but that doesn’t make me ******’s sister.

I was 14 when I thought I figured out *** and love
were one in the same.

So tell me why everywhere you touched me
I began to turn black like a the band of a fake ring on a child’s finger

I began to turn a colour I could not wash off
with soap and water.

The darker I became the more you began to
smell of rotting meat left out in the sun.

You were festering and the holes in your heart
burned through to your skin.

Sometimes in my sleep
I still smell you waiting in the darkness.

And sometimes in the shower
I still find deep marks I cannot ever seem to get rid of.

Everyone in this life might mistake the look in your eyes as love,
but I will never be so easily fooled again.

The way the cigarette smoke seemed to
hesitate in the wind of the half opened car window.
It floated out of your lips in small O's and seemed to linger
on your mouth for a fraction of a second before dissipating into the air.

2.
The glint in your eye as you pushed yourself into me,
my hands wrapped around your tan arms,
pressing white into the hard flesh.
The gasp and the way your hands moved to grip mine,
your lips at my neck,
pulling my hair as it tosses around in your sheets.
The spit, the lack of love, the lack of emotion.
The lust.

3.
The smell of you sauteing onions,
the streetlights buzzing outside your window,
the skulls on the sill illuminated with the glow.
The way the alcohol spills on your hardwood floor
and the way my eyes follow you.
The way my mouth waters for something that can not be fed.

Marble.
Smooth granite, melting, molding.
Lust making my legs heavy like I am fighting quicksand.

This is my call.

Seduction is an art, just like my body.

With curled toes and an arched back I fight my woes.
I can scrub their hand prints off with hot water,
douse my body in bleach and wake up clean.

My soul is one of the few things harder than my heart.
My soul is a brick through your windowpane
in the dead of a black night.

They call me names they do not know the meaning of.
I do not mind this,
they do not know how lonely I get without fingers exploring me, painting me like I am a canvas in need of
the perfect finishing brushstroke.

I am a woman, not an exceptionally beautiful one,
but I can still make your head turn when I walk by.
Not exceptionally personable,
but i know the power of a compliment,
and I will shower you in them until you think you have won me over.

You have not.

I do not belong to anyone,
I do not even own myself.
Remember you will never truly know me,
so go on and forget about having me.

When he asks you to purchase a gun for him-
one he is not permitted to have,
say no.
When he asks you to help him saw the serial number off of said gun,
say no.
Hand back his sweaty, clenched-palm, ******* tainted money.
Do not deny him in words,
this will only force him into a blind fit of rage-
One where he throws glass at his apartment walls;
the apartment he pays for with the crime drenched money of his "clients."

2. Do not tell him of your weakness(es).
Do not tell him about the men who touched your inner thighs
when you were waiting for a ride home from the bar
you were never even supposed to be at.
Never ask him for help.
Do not let yourself owe him anything.
When he tells you that you have "daddy issues" written on your face,
play kind.
Do not utter the word pervert aloud.
Do not make it clear that you know he touches you
when he thinks you are drunk and asleep.

3. When he asks you to tell him how you really feel about him,
deny your obsessions.
His emotions will not, can not duplicate your own.
Do not feed his already overflowing ego.
When he tells you "do not touch me", let him pull from your grasp.
Do not take it personally, fight your feelings, quiet your desires, shrug.
Laugh it off, check your phone.
Play coy, know that even a woman like YOU cannot pull off
desperation with a simple smile.

4. On the occasional nights he texts you at 12,1,3 am
and asks you to come over, say yes.
Allow him to take you, make you moan, swallow him.
Touch him, taste him.
Mesh your bodies like a woven basket and feel his sweat pool
on the bone between your *******.
Do not make it personal when he smiles while deep inside of you.
Never take it personally when he holds you close,
your naked flesh touching in a way that almost makes you burn.
Smell him, let his scent linger.
Press your face into his tattooed back, curl your fingers around his
chiseled arms, his thick black hair.
Feel him, but do not make this personal.
You are just another empty thing in his bed.
You are not quite sure how much is left of you,
but you both know he will **** it until it is long gone.

5. When he asks you to keep a safe of his product in your apartment,
bat your lashes.
When he offers you money to do it, smile.
When he whispers he might be getting followed,
when he tells you he will be murdered soon,
when his tires get slashed,
do not laugh. Do not say anything.
Remind yourself that this is all rhetorical. This is his game.
When the city comes creeping, comes knocking,
pretend it is normal.
When he triple bolts his doors- even his bedroom door and windows,
do not comment.
When you feel knives under your pillow and a gun under his,
pretend you didn't. Roll over. Ignorance is bliss.

6.When he spends days locked in his room and comes out smelling of
a box of magna champa incense and marijuana smoke,
stab wounds in his thigh, say nothing.
Patch his injuries, stifle his excuses.
Wet the rags, be ready with gauze and bandages.
When he calls you after a week of silence and tells you of his blood lust,
tell him of yours.
When he tells you of his pain, his sadness, his regrets, just listen.
Fight him in his kitchen with soft fists and deadened eyes.
Do not surrender, even when he pins you in a choke hold
a bit too long to be alright.
Stand your ground. Stare at the tiled floor.
Never take him at face value when he is like this.

7. He will tell you about his surely upcoming death,
how he is close to dying, obviously.
You will tell him how every time you pass the bridge on
your way home, you think of driving your car off of it.
he will look at you with poison in his expression.
Realize you do not know the color of his iris. Do not figure it out.
Know you are not the only, never will be the one.
You cannot change him, cannot fix him.
He has been a prisoner since he has been a son.
Remind yourself he has been behind bars for
longer than you have been alive.
He has no idea why the caged bird sings,
and he does not give a
**** about what Maya Angelou has to say.
He has fought too long and hard trying to break free.

Dripping peach juice down our chins,
chasing each other in the fiery sunset.

Veins popping out of your arms
begging something I couldn't quite make out....

You would draw me.
Charcoal.
My body blown up on the big screen,
my curves soft like the smoke you were blowing out of your mouth.

The ***** videos,
followed by the sweet ones,
the ones with the sun in my hair,
our laughter electric as we fell down the rabbit hole.

The spray paint we dropped on the roof
as we ran from the sirens in the distance.

Electric, electric, you are my electricity.
No one can catch us if we float on air.

You said
"will you be my girl, will you be bad for me?"
And I slid down the slide, my legs scraping the mulch.
"For you babe. And you only."

The curve of your spine against my arm.
The freckles on your back,
the fine hairs on your neck pressing into my lips.
The warmth.
The light coming through the blinds,
your face illuminated.

You throwing up under the streetlights,
windows fogged, sleepy eyes saying:
cmon love lets just make it home.
Everything is gonna be okay, the police are gone..
Cut your losses, let's make it home.

Christmas trees in bay windows,
we watched them jingle.

I would leave love letters under your pillow,
in your car, whisper them to you as you drove.

Magic.
You're a magic man.

And in your boxes- your hidden treasures..
I would stare at them until you set me under another spell..

Your dark hair wrapped up in my fingers..
Another sunset.

Asleep in the back of your jeep,
in the middle of the woods,
river water burning my throat.
Listening to you *****-
always vomiting,
always kissing.

Peach juice dripping.

God used to love me best.

He says I'm a fallen star.
He says I'll make it big one day,
I say it is true because I always get what I want.

Except for him.

And this is when I take a big gulp of the drink
I am pretending is not way too strong and
it is burning the back of my throat and
I think this is what hell is.

I do not burn in the hell of myself,
I have learned that hell is other people.

He tells me I am perfect and if this is what he wanted,
he would put a ring on my finger.

I have heard this many many times.
I am never the one.

It's not so much that I want to be,
I'd just like to have a choice.

I'd just like to burn in my own hell once in a while.

What happens when the narcissist
falls in love with the sociopath?

You can't really blame me, you know.
It's not my fault someone else's hands
can hold me so much better than my own.

Ah. the forbidden sense.
The tell us this is a true connection,
a fault in our armor.

To let fingertips raise goosebumps on your ribcage,
to know what it is like to run your nails on a persons scalp.

To let someone else have a sense of entitlement
and control over your body.
Do not tell me this is a bad thing.

A caress, a slap, an embrace.
Knuckles wrapping around your neck.

This could have been you.

I loved you, first.
I love you, even now.

I have never once liked him.
I have lusted for him, and I have desired to hurt him.

I have never once loved him,
but oh, how he has haunted me in my daydreams.

He either deserts me or envelops me at night.

I would move close to him in the early morning,
give him a solitary kiss on the forehead,
on his arm, on his chest;
wherever I felt he would let me touch without pushing my lips away.

He would grip me from behind,
roll us over and kiss me only to get inside of me.

At one point, I thought this was the same thing.

He calls me mystery, wild child, baby blue.

He is turning me into an apology of this girl.

I am baby blood lust.

Last night I saw him after two weeks.
He was 9 shots deep,
patron making his breath hot and
heavy on my face when he hugged me hello.

I was cracking open a second beer
while he cut into the chicken breast.

He grabbed my arm and
placed it on the cutting board.
He pressed the knife to my flesh while I took a swig of beer.
He pulled the knife through my skin,
blood bubbling as he said:

"ah. you almost flinched."

He then took me into his mouth,
my blood making his lips and teeth momentarily stained ruby.

I held his head to my cheek and
kissed his neck while he crouched to my height.

I guess this was too tender a moment for him
because he pinned me against the wall and
pulled my hair so hard my feet ceased to touch the floor.

He kissed me with desire,
he kissed me in a way that almost made me flinch.

He kissed me but it didn't feel like a kiss.
He cut me and it felt like love.

You have instilled in me a deep desire to never be anyone's baby.

You didn't pull the trigger,
but you gave me the gun and spring loaded my fingers.
You taste of fine bourbon and
talk with an electricity that makes everyone crave your attention.
I want it so badly that I do not care who you touch,
as long as i am your favorite.

That is a good dream, we both know I will never be your favorite.

I am aware that no one will ever possess you.
You are a wild horse,
you trample over lives and people
like flowers and
you never relent.

You cut me just to **** the blood out of my skin,
you cut me just to see if i would flinch.
I didn't, and I haven't seen you since.
I secretly hope they scar,
so i can prove to myself that you were once there and
this is not just a nightmare that keeps clawing its way back.

I was once one of the empty beings that you touched.

I remember the night i woke up on your floor,
in front of the toilet with my underwear pulled around my knees
and my skirt up around my hips like a schoolgirl gone rogue.

I never asked why,
I was afraid to know the answer.

You always did like to **** me the most
when I was too intoxicated to remember it.

You are something that haunts me,
someone I cannot wake up from.

How old are we all, really?
All the years you spent playing catch up.
Running with your broken legs.
More sinister than it seems.
No patrol, no not today sir.

Dead hair in sink drains.

I forgot everything I ever learned at 14.
Fell down the rabbit hole.
Ivy clinging to houses, pulling down walls.
You're pushing up daisies, at least last time I heard.
Somewhere your mother cries and the bells begin to toll.

Blowing old dandelions out,
trying to cash my expired wishes and bring you back.

Wonder how old you were the first time you died.
I was 7.
12.
14.
After that, 16.
Ask me again tomorrow.

Drowning in bathtubs.
Falling out of nests.
Our baby bird wings weren't ready yet.

Cutting your hair at night, rainbows blooming.
Empty train stations with bricks as our luggage.
Nothing left to dream of.
Green water spilling out from beneath the potted plants.
Life is a domino effect.

I've been living in shades
since the day they buried me in robins egg blue.
All I'm really trying to tell you is babe,

I miss you.

You found out I called you crazy,
but to be fair you were the same man who
stabbed himself on purpose and
picked at wounds just to see how well the scars held up
under your knife.

The same man who woke up with bruises for hands and
bourbon for breath.

You always slept with your eyes open,
glazed over like a snake ready to strike.
You said this was from spending 19 years locked in a cage
like a feral animal.
I see that didn't teach you anything.
Some beings can never be rehabilitated;
they should have never released you back into the wild.

You picked roses because they reminded you of your dead mother
and once you made me talk to her ashes
and afterwards you threw me on your pool table
and made a mess of me.

You said it was for your memory,
I used it for my art.

You would cut me up for fun and stalk me for pleasure.
You say bourbon and *** makes you feel real again.
You would always tell me I was too pretty for you and
we would laugh along to gory movies until our eyes half closed in drunken lust and all I wanted to do was drink from you.

You would lock your door and turn on the fairy lights
and touch me real slow and hard until I became cold from the
beating of your heart next to mine.

You always said you were going to leave,
I never thought you'd just disappear
and still be 5 minutes away from me.

You are a ghost that I wish would haunt me a little more often
because I am reduced to ashes now just like your cremated mother.

You turned me rabid and mean.

You never told me how to make this stop.
I just keep bleeding from the wounds you left.

You turned me into the same animal you are.

I met one of my soulmates once.
He died in Maine, my favorite place.
I don't go there anymore.

I don't think about it anymore, really.
Except for days like today,
when there are leaves in the air and
I'm stuck staring at the water.

Remembering how he put my life in limbo,
how he awakened a part of me,
who he made me become via domino effect.

The way his hair ruffled up in the salty air,
looking back to see his slightly reddened cheeks mirroring my own.
Him chasing me on the jetty,
staring out into the waves glinting like gold on the crest.
The sand and the sun and the movement.

He was a word I don't use.
I hide it deep inside of me.
I hide the loving adoration,
I hide the fact that I too,
had some of ******'s charm lurking in me.
Waiting for the right person to bring it out.

He stunned me.

He made me a *****, a wanton *****.
And I loved him for it.

My hair still curling at the edges,
like a young child's does.
I was a young child.
And he, a man much older,
a man daring and dashing and perverted
enough to make me lose my innocence.
To make me love.

He killed himself three years after knowing me.
He did this to himself.
We both know that, even now.

I still think about his touch, his mouth, his laughter.
It has been seven years since I have known it,
since I have felt him,
and I still am left with a burning need.

This is what a ******* did to me.
He may have hung himself that day in Maine,
but he did not **** the secret or the desire.

I have felt the toxicity of touch, and I seek it every day.

1.
I am sitting at a coffee shop but I am too nervous to go in.
It is the same coffee shop you were in a week ago,
before you skipped town with your new girlfriend
who has a brand new nose as part of her graduation gift.

The very same coffee shop in which you told everyone
you wanted to take a crowbar to my knees
and knock out my teeth.

You wanted to **** me
and cut me up
and throw me in a landfill.

Oh honey, you never were very articulate or imaginative.

2.
It's strange, human interaction, you know?
While you were wishing ill on me,
I was with another man by the river who is over twice my age
and he was touching me in a way that he shouldn't have been.

That's life for me now,
there are no other ways to it anymore.

We all know I have a desire for what is taboo,
you made certain everyone knew about my little indiscretions,
and that's no secret.

3.
In truth,
I still think about the sun dappled curtains
that hung over our bed in early spring.
Still too cold out to enjoy ourselves,
but warm enough when we wore heavy jackets
and kissed in the community rose gardens.
Just cold enough that lattes and card games in coffee shops
such as the one where you swore you would **** me at
were still something we could enjoy.
But..alas,
I find myself to be the worst type of romantic.
I have a hard time letting go.

4.
And there's this woman outside the coffee shop
talking on her phone in eloquent Spanish
and chain smoking cigarettes in a way that makes them seem beautiful.
Her hair is obviously very deeply chocolate colored,
it is coming through on her blonde roots.

And there's this old man who limped up
and felt the need to stand behind me
and stare either at my computer screen,
or the seedy men day drinking on the job,
laying asphalt in the early summer heat.
It is hot, loud, sticky work to do,
but I guess this is their life and someone has to live it.

5.
There is a big green heart spray painted
onto the white brick wall downtown
and it has large initials sprawled across it in vibrant colors.
I do not remember a time when this heart was not there.
I want that.
I want a love so interesting even the city will not paint over it.
A love so daring I will have my initials plastered,
glaring over the city with a finalized permanence that says..

"I win."

Because that's what we all really want.. to win.

All the world is a stage of course.

6.
I feel that I push people away without trying to.
But, what is it about me that makes middle aged men look at me
and say "**** girl"?
What is it about me that takes their compliments
without a batted eye and makes me smile,
reveling in the fact for at least just a few moments..
I was deemed attractive enough to make a comment,
no matter how simple or degrading?

I find myself in a mans car who takes me to an abandoned house
and talks to me about hallucinating
and how women OBVIOUSLY do not enjoy *** as much as men,
and I sat in quiet, smug, disbelief
and watched him talk about what he does not know about.
All while fantasizing about him bending me over.

They forget all the world is a stage.

7.
I am a very good actress.

Prepare for the ache, memorize the thin miles of blue green vein under your skin so you can chart the ebb and flow of potential bruises.
Victim. Masked girl, see how she flies. Falls. Dies.
Watch her make love letters in blue curls, blue dress, forget me nots, loves me yes.
Watch her play house, but never a mother. Watch her play brother, uncle.
Sundown. Sky grows darker with the grime of the underground. Cheap powder, high relief.
Glitter stills in the air, hanging on to dust motes. High jack.
Sometimes her knife slips. At noon, all doom. Darkened laughter. Because injustice. Because woman. Because even molten lava cools. Because razor blades. Because her seams are tailored, but not well. Hiding a secret, but never well. Because no door bell, no peep hole. Blind faith. Fate?
She played the death games with dangerous men and she didn't win. But oh, she didn't lose. Never lost. Just bit off more than she could chew. So she swallowed hard and waited for the hurt. The bleeding. Pain, she knows that old sting. Not quite a familiar friend but something nostalgic.
Watches the red blossom purple like her skin is spring.
The day has lost its luster. Lighting birthday candles, hoping one of these expired wishes will catch flame and spark. It's happened once before. The time she saw hell wallpapered in shades of peeling yellow.
Likes to play detective, fancies herself a good liar. Poker face of gloom.
No reason for polite, for stare, for hands shaking over hidden knowledge.
She is awaiting the burn. Summons strength. Face twisted into a smile pulled by string. Puppet, watch me dance. Show time. Red velvet knees and stained glass shadowed pages. Because ink dries faster than salt confessions.
Because uncle brother and mother are no longer child's play. Rosary choke-chains. Mary was never her savior, tell us, Pope: where was god? I know demon, I know devil. I know pomegranate and mother. I no longer play daughter, I graduated to something more. Silver screen harlot. She's got big, big dreams for a bedroom starlet.
Submerged in the toxicity of blue daytime. Remember when you wanted to make it big? Before your skin became scar and bandage, before you sacrificed body in hopes of keeping your soul?
Poor ******. Poor half-girl. Poor daydreamer, star wisher.
Burned alive, the headlines said. No one read the story, thought char and bone were enough. Didn't read the follow up, didn't read about the missing teeth after the third day. Can't be bothered with the Phoenix, didn't want to realize there is a creature empty enough to poke holes in her brain to let the sun in.
Some wanted fire. She bathed in kerosene. Carried matches behind her eyes.
Not slaughter, sacrifice.
They call her myth.
They call her live wire.
They call her contagious.
They check for symptoms.
They say her demise was a vaccine.

He said:
"let's pretend you don't come in waves of blue hair and mystery."  

Lets take these shots so you can be a bad girl for me.
And I stood there toeing a half empty beer can
with my beat up boots thinking
"what the **** dude?"

He said I want to get to know you,
I want to see if what they say is true.
I look up through the smoke and the lights and the crowd
and tell you "It is".

And this excites him. "Oh yeah baby I know what you are".

"What am I? I thought was nothing but a blue haired mystery, an enigma, a presence to be desired...",
and he leans in to me, his gin soaked breath in my ear:

"You love, are a ******* temptress."

So now I have been reduced to all damsel all lust all distress.
Those stupid princes never stop to wonder
if the pretty face in the tower even wants to be rescued.

Cause babe, I never asked to be saved.

Cause maybe I have built these walls to keep men like you out.
Or maybe I just wanted to have the chance to
invite you in on my own terms.

Maybe I just wanted to be able to escort you out.
This has never been my prison, this is my tower.
My legacy.

As Jim Morrison put it-

“come on baby light my fire”

Well consider me burnt

I am the embers of a dying flame
I am an ashtray in your heart

I am the curl of smoke on freshly lit incense

I am light
I am light

I am bones in a field

I am a solitary crow

I am smite
Baby, I am fading light

"Loving her was like shaking hands with the devil. "
Loving her was a soft suicide.

A bottle of pills and a warm bath,
candles lit around your head like a glowing halo.

Loving her was a steady shock.

A fork in an outlet and a buzzing in your spine.
Loving her was the agony of a quick snap of a bone.
The long ride to the emergency room,
listening to music you never liked.
Especially not now.

Watching her leave was almost worse.

Almost better.

It was the swift pain of a steel toed boot in the
soft part of your stomach.
The gasp of the crowd in the busy bar.
The realization no one was going to step in and help.

Yes, loving her was surely relentless, inevitable pain.

So you turned into a person who kissed feet and
fell to their knees.
Bandaged yourself up and then asked to bleed a little more.
And the truth is..

You almost liked it.

And I'm so dark, so dark. Dark.
Dark like heaven must be.
And they don't ask why I feel this way anymore.
They just say my name like it is a razor on their tongue.

And he didn't do this to me- I would never give him that power.
But he made me quiet.
Staring out into the rain pouring over the rooftops of this
godforsaken city of unforgivable sin.
And oh. Oh. I know of the sin.

Quiet. Quiet.
And he rages. Ah.
I am the dark and he is the red.
The blood.
The clench of broken knuckles, ruby.
Ruby. Say it slow. Feel it. Do you?
It should ache.

And the quiet. That should feel tense.
Walking on eggshells- so quick to break.

A quiet that snaps and shatters into his rage.
His quiver. His break.
His molten anger.

They say beauty comes out of destruction.
"They" have never known pain.

He is too loud, too loud, too much.
Then too quiet. Not enough.
I.. Am not enough for him.
And when I touch, he pulls away.
I hide my face.
Brick by brick, I shut myself off from him.
I'm almost completely unreachable.

He says: leave me alone.
He says: I don't want to know.
He says: what now.
He says and says and says but it's never what I need to hear.

I say: nevermind.
I do not say: *******.

We are in the car.
He swerves,
says: I should run into a pole now.
A tree. That red car. **** that *****.
I want to die. Do you want to die today?

He screams.
He rages.
He turns the wheel, hard. Hard.
He lets go.
Hands clenched and rabid and
teeth and gleam and eyes so black, so black.
I've never looked at them before.
I wish I didn't look at them.

I am quiet. I am dark. So dark.

He says: sorry.
He says: this is when you say "it's okay".

I do not say: it is okay.
I say: *******.

Rope.
You hung me from your neck and laughed at the choke.
At the blue.
At the fumble of breath.
Ownership.

And a month later, me telling you about the the others.
And the others.

And you- swinging. Blind. Crying.

And me. Laughing.
Teeth glinting in the dim light from the top of the basement stairs.
And the police, in all of their sirens and lights and urgency.
Saving the day saving the night saving lives.

And you- lying on the ground.
Help me, you say.
The police rush to you.

And the door- knives steady and deep in the wood.
My hands are stronger than they look.
My accuracy unmatched.

And me- handcuffed over the red spattering on my shirt,
being forced into the backseat.
"Who's blood is this?" They ask.
I am quiet. Cold. Stone.
I am laughing.
The darkness swallows me.

I am 18.
I have arterial spray on my cheek.

The officer asks for a reason.
A why. Why why why.
That's what they all want to know.
But I grind my teeth.
This car ride is boring me.

The handcuffs are loose, I slip my arm out of one.
I smile in the quiet of the backseat.
Life is too easy for me.

A November memory.

You and your reckless abandon made me feel beautiful.
I felt like Christmas lights in October,
still shining bright, still hung.

And one day,
as you held me softly in your arms,
you told me you loved me.

I was the only real "family" you had left.
On account of your father chopping up your mother and all.

Told me you loved me,
the words I've always wanted to hear,
the words I have made my tongue bleed on,
the words I have broken my jaw with trying to keep
them from coming out.

You told me we will never get married.
Told me to get a boyfriend,
and when I shook my head and said I "don't like anyone" ,
you grabbed my hair in your fist and kissed me,
your wet tongue sliding into my warm mouth.

"Ah, little one. But you like me."

I see you like I would see my father,
you see me like a little sister,
like a young girl half your age you can protect,
can kiss on the head,
can hold close.

A girl you can **** from behind, your fingers in my mouth.
A 19 to your 38.

A girl you introduce as "I see her as a little sister"
while you have my scent on your thighs.
A girl you can never marry, but oh god, do you love her.

You told him, with 70 pounds of high grade marijuana on the table: "This is my little girl gone gangster.
I'm leaving for a while but she's holding down my game.
Treat her right and she'll do you the same."

And I will.

In truth, I love to love you and I live to love you.

And I'll take your ***** type of ****** love over not having you.

I am Eve in the garden of Eden and
now I can finally see why she bit into the apple.

I am swallowing it whole.

You are a slithering slippery snake with a pretty disguise and
you are leaving marks on my neck and bruises in my brain.

You are breaking my bones in your tight coil,
and every morning I find myself again,
in your nest,
shaking scales out of my hair.

She wrote about guns caressing her body in the summertime.
She got lost in the mountains to purposely create panic within herself and kept walking through spiderwebs until they coated her eyelashes.

In August, she dreamed of October
but never wanted November to come.

At 5 am she takes walks on the river before the sun comes up
and listens to music that hurts her ears through headphones.

She goes to work like none of this ever happens.

She sits in the dark until 12 am,
when her mind finally decides the day is done,
there is no more suffering to be had.

She dreams about knives.
She blogs about columbine.
She blogs about him.
She wishes he knew the streets can't love him more than she can.

She touches herself until it hurts.
She pops her blisters.
She waits for him to come back.
She knows he never will.

She wonders what would happen if
she flung herself off of the bridge a half mile from her apartment.

She writes about him.
Panic and sadness ensue.

She knows people call her a mystery, she loves this.
She decides to deny everything that makes her feel human.
She thinks she can do without it.
She thinks if she could go without breathing, she would.

She waits for the sun to come up.
She knows it never will.

I have this creeping ache on the edges of my bones
like the way crystal forms,
slowly.

Like the way prehistoric bugs that live in caves die every day.

I think I forgot to close my eyes and woke up blind.

I live my days hoping to grow inwards until my bones
start the delicate tearing of my skin and
water fills my lungs.

I have longed for this to happen ever since i was 7 and
I heard drowning was the closest you can get to

euphoria.

I am growing faster than the grass
that covers our front lawn and somehow
I only need more affection.

I am often in tears after 4 pm.
I stay in my room wishing for things.

You might throw a question my way,
do not be offended when I stumble down
the dark hallway.

Do not be alarmed when I wear the same shirt for 3 days
and do not tell me I am beautiful.

Listen to me when I tell you I am not in the right body.
My whole life no one has believed me.

I only wanted to be perceived as worthless for three years,
I don’t know how you overcome that.

I don’t know how I’m still alive.
A lot of times I see myself as invincible.

How I wish I was not.
I get tired when the sun comes up,
and when it goes down.

I will die in less than ten years,
so all that I have strived for will be for nothing.
I will die in nine years and one month.

I know why my caged soul sings.
I’ve been digging my grave since birth.

I was born backwards,
racing towards something over the horizon.

I cry in the morning.
I hold myself a lot.

Some days I wake up blind.
Some days I want to carve my poetry into my veins.

I wish I was never born
and I wish you died in a fire.
I wish you never moved here from Chicago.

At 14 I cracked the veil and I went crazy.
I think there’s something wrong with me.

I think there’s something WRONG WITH ME.
I told you my secret
and you called me insane.

I wish you drowned in a bathtub as a child
I wish you had ugly eyes
I wish you got hit by a car
I wish I shot you in the head
I wish I shot you dead
I’m a sick girl
My head is coughing

My heart has a virus the doctors have no cure for
They stand over me with medicine
That I already know will not help me
I think there are worms in my intestines
I think my skin is rotting
My blood is turning to sewage

Do I smell yet?
I think I belong in a hospital

I am the leftover fragments of a violent dream you once had.
You can't seem to remember enough to know the details
but even still-
it leaves you haunted.

He told me once,
while climbing broken stairs in an abandoned house,
that what people leave behind is arguably more interesting
than what they take with them.

I find it ironic that he left me months later.

I am still illuminated in the glow of what once was,
it turns my skin a sickly pale green.

This has yet to make me interesting,
I am just what was not important enough to take with him.

I kissed daniel because
he made me feel like a little girl
and that's all I've ever wanted to stay.
I kissed him because
he made me feel like a live wire,
ready to sizzle
and pop
and maybe **** someone.
We can only hope.
I kissed him hard,
I kissed him wet
so I could feel the spit
break between our lips.
I kissed him good
and fast against the wall.
I kissed him goodnight
I kissed him good bye

2. He got me so high I coughed and drool came out of my mouth and
his friend asked
"hey.... Um are you okay?"
And I shook my head no,
but they didn't really care anyway.  And I walked down the long hallway in my tiny shorts so they could both see the sway of my ***,
the sway in the walk of someone
who has gone entirely mad.

3. Daniel said 37 is his last real year before he hits middle age.
And he's halfway through it.
And I'm turning 19 next month
and he says that's where the real fun is cause that means I've had a year
of adulthood to figure my **** out
and I've still decided to be a *****.
He says 19 will be my real slutty year, the year I turn this bag of meat
and bones into a **** star.
He says I'll always be the best.
He says I'll make it real real big.
He says he will watch me
******* another man while he's ******* someone else
in the next town he goes to

4. Daniel said I was evil.
I told him he was a horrible person and he pinned me down
and did the things horrible people do.
I asked him why he thought I was evil and he said he can see it in my eyes. Real cold and mean,
oh **** it's a real nice gleam.
Like sharpened knives and laughter when a chalkboard screeches.
He says I'll die within next year if I keep living like I am.
I guess he doesn't believe me
when I say I just really don't care.

5.
Bad girl bad girl sad girl they say.
Like how I can't make eye contact
and malls freak me out.
How I don't care how fast I drive my car cause I've got places to be,
like nowhere.
Knives don't scare me,
in fact,
cut me so I can show you how good
I am at not flinching.
Pull my hair and
pin my down and
I'll show you a good time babe,
cause this feels like love if
you're good enough at pretending. They call it self destruction,
I call it preservation.

When this girl crashed her car
going over 90 mph into a ditch with no seat belt on
and the music blaring she wonders what it looked like.
The story makes people laugh now
and they always ask how it happened but don't wait for the answer, they laugh and think about her body hurtling into bushes
and the car smoking something so foul
no one from the highway stopped to help
even though it was sunny and a Tuesday.
As long as you can make someone laugh.
They all say oh, she didn't mean to.
You didn't mean to
I meant to

2. When this girl gets drunk
and takes her clothes off and kisses everyone in the pool
and then ***** on the kitchen counter
where everyone can see through the glass door,
chains around her like that could hold her back, they laugh.
Ah, classic her.
"Haven't you heard she's crazy?"
One asks while handing his friend a cigarette.
Well yes he ******* has, thank you.
Watch the show

3.
When she leaves her fiancé for the felon twice her age
just cause he ***** better, they stare.
She feels it like little red hot lasers in the small of her back.
She is used to it.
"*****"
they manage to choke out.
Well, she already knew this.
She looks at them with indifference.
"Try something more original", she says.

4.
That man left which really just hurts her pride more than anything. No one leaves her and that's just the way it is, Ya know?
She floats on the souls of those who have loved her.
She sneaks into his house with the spare key
she stole to his apartment just to lie around in his bed.
She makes herself a drink.
She falls down the hallway.
"She didn't mean to", they say.
"Yes I did", she says.

5.
That girl.
She'll **** herself for a dare girl.
She's so crazy girl.
She's a sad girl,
"she wears her scars like a noose" they say.
"What do you know", she says.
They say "she didn't mean to".
I ******* meant to.
I let the darkness inside swallow me whole
and I let my heartbreak ****** me.
I am a fraction of a being but that's just fine with me

6. I ******* meant to

God is a lie.
I know this because you are Jesus himself.
Suicide watch you are but a sham.
A wolf in sheep's clothing.

I love you when we are naked.
I love him when he is inside me.
******. Fall. Climb.

I love him when he is kissing me.
Open mouthed gasps fall heavy.

He tells me he doesn't want to touch me too much-
he might get attached.

I wish he was sewn into my organs,
threaded between my ribs and heart.

He tells me how he will be murdered.
It runs in his family.
Premeditated death is practically genetic.
Something in his DNA that tells others:
**** THIS.

I just wish he would strangle me.
I wish he would spill my blood like communion and eat my flesh.
A church choir somewhere in the background hums.
The bells proceed to toll.

I am not afraid of him.

He tells me of his evil..
Something that slips in when he is sleeping.
Some part of him I have only caught glimpsing through his shame.

Something I can relate to.

I was strewn out over the covers on your bed.
You were criss-cross on the carpet,
your long legs straining against the fabric of your jeans.

We caught each others glance and held it as the seconds,
then minutes went by.

You were the first to speak:
"If you ever look at me like that again,
I will ****** you.
I know what you were thinking."

I laughed,then asked you what you meant;
how did you know what was in my head?

You said-
"You were looking at me like,
what the **** did I ever see in you?
How was I ever so foolish?
I wasted all my time on him ?"

And I laughed again, slowly, then quickly.

That was never what crossed my mind.

But it's what I'm thinking now.

I know how to hold my tongue.

As a woman, this has been learned.
I know the art of retaining facts,
the importance of remembrance.  
This has been drilled into me so harshly
I have become bloated with facts
about the War of 1812 and mitochondria.

And you.

I was never taught the power of no.
It was never written down in my brain until it stitched
and scarred
and bled its way into my mouth.

They skipped right over the importance of "I can't" .
I can't love you,
can't miss you,
we cannot be together.

I have been told I am beautiful , but never intelligent.
So when I was standing in his dimly lit bathroom
with red rivers running into the sink,
police on their way.
the door cracked in,
the words "I can't" were trying to bubble their way into the room.

I have taught myself to smile while bleeding
and to set myself on fire before I say no.

And it is ugly.

My calmer, my quieter.
I seek it in rage, in lust, in sadness.
I want to gorge on the quick intensity,
the flash,
the flavor-
metallic and sweet,
resting on my tongue.

I love things like creeping ivy,
I swallow it whole.
I once broke my jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt  it would make me soft spoken.

My mother said I was born in high relief.
I have spent my life keeping others from whittling me down.

Lips that look like blood pooling and
eyes like an exit sign.
This gun between my teeth, my face begging:

"Go on... do it."

silk sheets and a sunny day breeze...

As Jim Morrison put it-
“come on baby light my fire”

Well, consider me burnt.

I am the embers of a dying flame
I am light
I am bones in a field
I am a solitary crow
I am smite

Baby, I am fading light

Do you remember the day we jumped off of the roof,
just to find ourselves in a pile of leaves?

And you asked why I laughed the whole way down
and I said
"Oh but love! Did you feel that heavenly breeze?"

Wide eyed,
you shook your head and admitted you had been terrified.

And that's when I knew we were two different breeds.

Sometimes my hands get really itchy
like my bones are trying to crawl their way out of
the skin that entraps them

I get really nervous when I can’t write
You speak in riddles and you're making me crazy

And last night I told you that if hell was real
According to Dante there are 7 levels
and I think I belong in all of them

And we talked about heaven
and you said that you think heaven could be here on earth

And I laughed and said maybe in bits and pieces
but I think my heaven is all chopped up

And then it was silent for a long time
and I realized that you were subtly saying
that it felt like it was heaven with me

Maybe I just shouldn’t speak but I want you to realize is
I am all dark and sin
I am rust on your shine

The madness was inside of me,
but it ignited at the touch of your hand.

A single kiss started the fire and it has been consuming me since.
You are my bad disease,
the consequence of my desires,

and my end.