I walk tonight.
The sky casts no light.
The lack of shadows hides my solitude.
My dormant heart beats alone.
Awaiting to be heard.
Longing to be held.
By the one so wrongfully taken for granted.
The only one that truly cares,
If it beats at all.
This heart beats for you.
These tears fall for you.
These feet walk for you…

A gleaming light flickers in the distance.
Lightening is strewn across the horizon.
Such power given by gods to move mountains with profound toxicity.
A power given to slay the inexhaustible flame I hold deep within.
I have been stricken down.
By this hand of fate.
What you call an obstacle,
I see a labyrinth.
Twisting and contorting with layers unreachable by the most straining efforts.
To be wandered for eternity,
These walls hold me in captivity.

Adjacent lies the potent moon.
Tearing a lucid hole in the darkness,
Light pours in.
Thrown to my knees by the fiery fervor that drips so elegantly.
Diminutive under these chains of misery,
I look up.
And cry out!
But I am not heard…
I am not seen…
I am forgotten.

And so…
Once again,
The moon has fallen…
Left in darkness.
No shadow for company.
I hunger.
For another day.
Another chance.
To prove myself worthy.
So that some day,
I can again feel your supple skin beneath my fingertips.
Taste your succulent lips.
And embrace you for what you are worth.

Love,
andypandypood'npie

Today I wore pink
And all through the hours
I felt wide - expansive,
Like a Sahara of embarassment,
The blush of recycled shame.

The color made me think of you,
And how you purred over the shade
When she inked it into her hair,
A blonde head turned to bubblegum filth;
How you smiled and fell in love
With everything but me.
You used to carry sweet words
In the pocket of your cheeks,
******* them like peppermints,
Tumbling them like a dryer
Until your teeth turned red
And then your tongue went sour
And your mouth grew mad,
Spitting sparks and catching my skin on fire.
She wasted you, with her cotton candy highlights
And that incessant, stupid need to be free.
She wasted you, and made you new
For everyone but me.

My mind is a carousel, and my thoughts are
Bumbling to catch one another,
Waltzing and reeling in spirals,
And dizzying the dance with canned lullabyes.
The girl at the bookstore has a smile
That's all teeth and pink gums.
She's pink, if pink were living,
And she's following me like a lost silhouette.
He asks me if I'm okay and I
Nod my head and feed him excuses.
He doesn't spit them up; its easy.
Truth is, I'm a whirlwind,
A pink whirlwind, and the color makes my stomach knot.
The muscles in my chest are whining,
And going stiff with self-disgust.
I'm starting to think I'm only happy
When I'm torturing myself with you.

on the outside, nobody'd ever known he was unhappy.
he had his mother's eyes, soft and blue,
reminded me of babies for some reason.
he used to pop in every now and then to give me the news,
gossip he'd heard at school that day,
the what-not.
i was real sick at the time, mama had to keep me hidden away sometimes,
ya know, i think she was a little ashamed seeing how it was a little her fault.
i didn't blame her for nothin' though.
anyways, he came and went as he pleased, nice boy he was.
used to wrap me up in a blanket and wheel me onto the porch so we could watch
the cars and the rich folk with dogs jog right on by, like they ain't never seen a girl with no hair
and a boy as handsome as he was.
we was a regular spectacle, a bonafide freak show,
and them people they always gonna talk, but he told me that the only people that listen are
the ones doin' the talkin', and that ain't us, so we ain't listenin'.
i didn't find out about his daddy until about a month after it happened,
for some reason people have a hard time telling someone who's dying that somebody died,
can you believe that?
he stopped comin' around so much after that, figured it was 'cause a his mama (with the eyes)
needin' extra help round the house.
weeks, maybe even a month went by 'fore i saw him again,
but he wasn't the same boy, and i sure as hell wasn't the same girl.
he looked at me, with them eyes, as if he'd just lost the lottery.
ya know, he sat me down and told me that he couldn't be around me no more,
seeing as how i was dyin' and all. ( i thought that was pretty dumb, i may be dyin' but i ain't dead yet)
he held my hand in his, his was a little clammy, i think 'cause he was so sad and all.
we sat there for a few minutes, hand in hand, thinkin' bout life and death, and the johnny carson show.
now, he never said nothin', but i think he loved me. i never got to find out the truth though.
he disappeared after that day, nobody heard from him, his mama was all outta sorts.
i think he left town, couldn't stand seein' people lookin' at him and me all the time,
the bonafide freakshow,
couldn't stand bein' round his broken mama.
doesn't really matter where he went off to, he was gone just the same.
some days, when im sittin' on the porch, wrapped up in a blanket, waiting to die,
i feel his clammy hand holdin' mine.
you see, when you don't have much left to live for,
it's people like him that save you.

there’s this girl I used to know,
an old friend of mine,
she used to wear her hair in yellow ribbons
and watch the world through eyes so blue they made the ocean look faded.
she told me stories filled with “happily ever afters” and “prince charmings”,
and she believed in the power of God and she told me good always beats evil.
her long brown hair draped over her narrow shoulders like a cape,
and to me she was just as super as any hero ever could be.
she always said that there was a reason we were all here, and that
she was gonna find her reason and God was gonna give her his light.
I believed every word she ever said.
her daddy died when we was twelve years old, and I remember sittin’
with her and crying on her stoop, watchin’ the death limo take her daddy
away like he was a package that needed to be taken to heaven.
she stopped wearing those yellow ribbons after that, and she stopped tellin’ her
stories to me…that made me sad ‘cause nobody at my house ever told me stories.
her eyes stopped lookin’ at mine, and i just about forgot what color they were after a while.
she said that God wasn’t real no more, and that there was no reason to take her daddy like that.
I couldn’t think of a reason either.
her hair stopped lookin like a cape, on the count of she cut it all off one day when
she was real sad.
she told me that she didn’t wanna live no more, and that she wanted to be with her daddy…..wherever he was.
she kept on livin’, but instead of her momma tuckin’ her in at night, Jack Daniels did.
she told me he made the pain go away, but I didn’t understand who he was and how he did it.
we were both too young to understand any of it, but I’ll never forget the day when her light finally came.
when we was fifteen I found her bleedin’ all over her bathroom, her pretty blue eyes rolled back, her hair messy and matted, and a pair a scissors in her hand.  
through all the blood, through all my tears, I saw her in a way I ain’t seen in years.
she looked so beautiful, the way I remembered her before her daddy got taken.
she looked at peace, like she couldn’t wait to get all wrapped up like a present and sent to heaven.
she was with her daddy, and hell, even though nobody else thinks it’s right, I believe that was God’s reason for her.

We saw shooting stars
outside the kitchen window.
You put the knife down
and we ran out to the porch.
The stars fell in swarms
as you sat down on the stairs.
I was overcome
by the beauty of your eyes
as they caught the stars
and you said to make a wish.
You shut your eyelids,
trusted the world with mutters.
Back in our bedroom
you asked "what did you wish for"
Your eyes still shining
and your head pressed against mine
I looked and I smiled
and I said "nothing".

my poetry’s gotten darker
my heart harder
my eyes colder
my hands callus

my years have grown shorter
and my mind bolder
but all for the sake of weeping
the gnashing of teeth on a rock
and the bashing of my head on yours
again and again

i must have fallen on bad times, i’m writing again
this feeling in my gut tells me so
i’m feeling poetic, like before
i can only pray for what’s in store for me
i can only guess it’s bad

that feeling, like you know your body’s breaking
you can’t stop your aching heart
you’re being torn apart by each ligament
and all you can do is leak

my poems feel numb again
my heart bleeds blue
and somehow I feel I’m different
my poems don’t shine
they’re dull and dead
and filled with spite
and that frightens the **** out of me

I want the kind of ***
where I'm told exactly how much you want me
by the way your frame
fills in my every curve
and you touch so much of me
with your hands
and your starved eyes
I should be scared
but you'll call me beautiful
and I'll be your sweetheart
as your sweet heart beats
beats faster
and you fall into me