in the morning i peel you from my eyelids like wet leaves. still breathing out cold smoke. clutching at an empty space under small light.

yesterday’s lipstick creates footprints across a quest that deems me the villain, i am angrily embossing (could not press the pen hard enough) what does friends mean anyways, what does touch mean without ALL of you touching ALL of me, the invisible rope around my neck is a vindictive love letter explaining how much i do not need you but those words keep me open and pulsing for the day you will curl up in my hands like a sick bird. i will feed you curling ribbons of half chewed words while i curse the clock.

our timing was always movie theater doomed, a sad fate tastes like blackberries, but when my empty bed becomes too much, memories of your wet eyes swell. what could have been, hurts, what could have been makes my dreams wet with tar, what could have been

haunts your harsh hands. but please, keep them on me, eroding the illusion that you

ever

could have stayed

could have loved (me)

have you ever looked at a word
looked at it again
and read it as if it were your first time
reading that word
as if all the other times you wrote "night"
the letters were somehow
different

I saw your picture on my nightstand
I don't believe we've met

Did you know, Alexandros,
that when you chiseled her hips
you cast aside the confidence of her sisters?
That when you decided she would be
just that much thinner,
you held a century's breath
and cracked ribs with corsets?
Did the name of Venus
conjure lust in your soul?
Is that why you tore off her robe?
Did you know, Alexandros,
that with your steady hand
you changed the shape of beauty?
Did you wrestle it from the hearts of homely mothers
and press it down to fit your mold?
Or did you steal it from your youngest daughter's smile
and replace it with vain ambition?
Did you cry when she told you she was ugly,
that your sculpture had transformed her to swine?
Was it then that you fell into your lover's arms until they broke?
Did you know, Alexandros,
that stone is a poor canvas for beauty?

I locked eyes with the street last night
and it dared me to turn away
turn from the injustice
inequalities
ignorance
move on to some romantic scene
that lives outside the grey

I wrapped its cold wet skin
around my neck and began to shiver
as the rocks began to scrape
scratch
slither in my veins
as one hundred unknown faces
paddled their way down river

I tasted grief and empathy
and the mix was all too vile
more bitter than any sympathy
symbiotic
synergy
gears were painting machinery
cranking out disquiet and bile

It was then I found its corner
and the music it seemed to breathe
and despite my hesitation
hysteria
hellish intent on fiction
The asphalt smile began to grow
and pave my mind at ease

The air is charged with eminence.
Red-bellied birds lose their song in the wind.
Just when will the sky crack open?
When will the screaming turn to tears?
Send the drummers running
and, before their sticks hit the ground,
give face to wide-eyed fears.

I can smell you from my window:
Amalgamation of mushrooms and clover.
Just when will you crack me open?
When will my primal state lie bare?
Strip me of city sophistication
and, before the drummers come running,
wash me well beyond my years.

I shall hold thee again! Some day, at best.
To hold you close, tight to my chest.
To hear my heart, beat, and rest.
To feel love's keen jest.
But alas you shall never be mine to hold.
From our youth to the days of old.
And I love thee, truth be told.
But you were never...never mine to hold.

You are not beautiful, I say,
but beauty.

You are the standard by which I judge the skies
on crisp winter evenings that flow with milk and honey.

The lilies, as they peer from their silk pajamas,
aspire to one day be placed in your room.

Your eyes are the song the meadowlark sings
as he bathes in the mid-summer's heat.

The forests blush vibrant, then whither away
humbled to be called by your name.

You are not living, I say,
but life,

that I should have you all of my days.

I dreamed last night.
And for the first time in a long while
it came back to me with the morning.
A man who appeared to be a doctor entered my home unannounced.
My parent's delighted faces sent rays of light into my mind.
I looked at my cracked hands dazed away.
An uncomfortable presence filled the room with an eerie smoke.
He continued with "We are going to make you beautiful."
I never asked for this.
I never knew about this.
beautiful.
The word lost it's true meaning.
"Pick out your new eye color."
"I'll close the ragged holes on your ears."
"Better hair."
"Smaller nose."
I awoke in fright.
Then I wondered,
Out of all the dreams, why did I remember this one?