a light subsides on a waxed wick,
all blackhearted and brightly white-tipped

snuffed out under a bronze bell,
the wisps of smoke that remain,

blooms

under the duress of deprivation,
and escapes when released from the bell,

with a heavier scent and beauty
than that of the fairest rose.

Standing, waiting, my face blank, uncaring and staring
at the garish colors of their cheap and ill-fitting clothes.
Cramming in, fingers all greasy, raucously laughing,
jabbering *******, braying useless information, loudly.
Swarming, idly in hot  little dark holes of rooms, making
a suffocating stench from ragged mouth-breathing.  

Obnoxious.
******* disgusting, everyone.
Don't ******* touch me.
This is overwhelming.

"There's too many people in here."
You sidle up to me, saying what we're both thinking, and then we leave.
Both of us glaring at the ******* shuffling slowly,  in the way,
unable to meet our height or eyes, they remain glued
to the tiny screens in their sweaty and hot little hands,
as their annoying children are screaming and running.

You.
You, with your ****-brown eyes.
Silent and stoic, with a hard-edged jaw. Are you ******* me?
Like not making eye contact with me is going to shame me,
stripping me of something that you never even bestowed?
You think I'm obscene?
Mister, look at you.

I am tired, but, I am okay. I am fine.
I don't care what you otherwise say.

Alive and sober, awake and dying.

I am improving, actively evolving.
I am not devalued or retrograding.

*******.
Don't not look at me, as though I were a freak.
Don't sneer and scoff, and judge me, as meat.
*******.

You think you know me better than me?
You think you could even convince me differently?
                am I right, or am I right?

Go ahead, lock your jaw, frown and furrow your brow, you magnanimous hypocrite.
We're both autonomous, and rich, in Ameri-*******-ca, with freedom out the *******.  

You're free to judge me.
I'm free to say *******.

We both bleed red blood.
We both will do as we will,
loving, *******, fighting,
drinking, *******, coping,
hiding, hurting, smelling,
crying, begging, hating,
breathing, needing, eating,
sleeping, living, and dying
under the great majesty of

                                                               ­        A *******
                                                         ­            INDIFFERENT
                                                 ­                       UNIVERSE

where we both need to
stop thinking differently.

"I don't know just where I'm going"

Arms encircled around porcelain, clean,
wavering strength, and eyes closing feebly

"when I'm rushing on my run, and I feel just like jesus son"

There are many more people than I want to see.
I pull up against the wall and, for balance, I lean

"and I guess that I just don't know, and I guess that I just don't know."

whiskey, for the Father
marijuana, for the Son
prescriptions, just for me

"I have made the big decision, I'm gonna try and nullify my life"

Still though, Lou Reed isn't dead, just clean
and so, this night, just won't bode well for me

"it shoots up the dropper's neck, when I'm closing in on death"

It is hard to remain dignified when in a wasted state, vomiting.

"You can't help me now guys, all you sweet girls with all your sweet talk"

It is hard to remain dignified when someone attacks my integrity.

"And you can all go take a walk"

It is hard to remain dignified when I am acting so senselessly.

"Oh, and I guess that I just don't know,
oh, and I guess that I just don't know "

I try to sleep through,
while foreign fingers swirl softly on my sides, to feel my *******.

"And that blood is in my head,
then thank God that I'm as good as dead"

I try to sleep through,
while a small ring lies atop of a postcard, with an Indian head.

"then thank your God that I'm not aware,
and thank God that I just don't care"

I guess, I just don't know.

"and I guess I just don't know
and I guess I just don't know."*

after the echo, I need to leave.
so I go, again, and press repeat.

Upside down is my right side up
With too-thin skin, splayed legs
and lips ****** of substance,
I lie quietly on rumpled sheets.

a word some say that I've said too much:
s-o-r-r-y sorry sorry sorry

It loses sincerity when uttered often,
but I am sorry, I haven't said it enough.

is my chagrin charming?
is my self-deprecation darling?

(no response)

I'm told (insert compliment).
I believe it, I have heard.
I both love and loathe myself.

******* and flagellation,
brought on by the same hand
penance, paid; insatiable, still

Just sit, ******
and watch a martyr at work.

In filling the voids of others,
I feel like I'm filling my own.

(I wish I had said)

It is utterly inexplicable and incredibly difficult
to properly pin down a scrap of an idea of anything, or even feeling
for you, for me,
                 or for both you and me.

I don't mind now,
but I'll mind if you do.
But, I'm okay, alone.

+++++

But still, I know something and
I don't know much about this something or not,
but I know these few things:

first,
I've felt compelled to you longer than I'd care to say
second,
I think I would prefer for you to stay, or at least that I would*

      *if you ask, or even give an inclination you want me to,
    because I don't know if you do,
  and that is what worries me.

you:** stuck in a bivouac that I said I outgrew
me: taking my wants from some list I once knew

I constantly compound, touching just grinds,
for ever-expanding still means there are binds.

Now that I have it, I sputter, all spent
My strengthening will? Only stands bent.
Shaking, I spit, then sway where I stand.
Uncertainty forces a reach for more hands

I had come unglued, and you’d had no clue,
now I lie awake, losing memories of you.
A catalyst came, yet something is waning,
so I ask myself, from what is this draining?

With dogeared pages and vanilla smell
old, good books are all fine and well.

But, I can say, I'd much rather mind
kissing my way
                     down a drowsy man's spine.

throw fireworks at little brothers,
laugh, until they start crying, then hide

make mom cry, a lot. worry her, a lot.
make everyone who loves you cry, at least twice

run your ******* up a flagpole, steal a flag
smoke cigarettes at school

through bad ***** and insincerity
get drunk, then kiss everybody

borrow people's things
make them regret lending to you

throw up in such a way it'll ruin a party
throw up in someone's bed
leave it for them later

buy cheap drugs, steal cheap clothes,
exploit the good nature of others

spit at someone's feet

start useless arguments,
especially with bigots, especially when drunk,
especially when you need to impress people

get kicked out of something holy and sacred,
in the process, shame your grandparents

flip the bird, yell impolite things and trivia
at friends, strangers, anyone

set a plastic trashcan on fire,
leave it somewhere important
forget about it

pierce your face, more than once
pierce somewhere not on your face
show people you shouldn't

say trite thoughts, dress them up with $10 words
look pedantic, unsmiling, and snooty

put everything off, procrastinate
until it ***** you up, wonder what happened

finally,
stay awake at night, remembering all this,
then pity yourself, you ******* *******

flicking past overdone poems
on burnt topic of broken hearts,
these tear-sodden sonnets,
make me a little grateful
my heart is underwhelmed.

My name is called through crooked finger
or sidelong glances that linger too long.
I am beckoned by the broken, blue boys,
who smell of naïve, of sleep-deprived sighs.
No matter what happens, I always remember,
they think they could know me, but,
no, I know better.

poor, slumped over and broken strangers
for a penny, share their paltry stories, one by one
snippets and scatters of half-truths and fables,
so raunchy they'd make Aesop blush.
don't deprive me of your salacious souls.

rented sea views with mirrors and doors,
unlocked drawers and white ***** floors,
with freshly dead ***** in claw-footed tubs.
rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury rich luxury
does that second home taste too sweet?

ears swallowed by bubble bath suds
head underwater, eyelids crushed and
stinging from the acrid chemical perfume;
drinking the bathwater in an unclean tub,
tasting notes of freesias and ***** green-blue.

I get scared that I don't do much, and I get scared when strangers yell at or touch me. I get scared of whizzing cars that go so fast that they'd turn me into pulp and broken bones under the weight of their axels because I'm afraid of broken bones and of falling. I'm scared of being a coward and of sullying or destroying my integrity.

I'm afraid of people--especially boys--and how and why they make me feel because it seems I either care too much or not enough, and I get scared of both. I get scared and mean when they say nice things to me since I'm not very nice to myself. I get the jitters when they talk to me and I get scared because I feel and act dumb.

I'm scared of being stupid and I'm scared of being overestimated. I'm scared of apathy, and I'm frightened by the willful ignorance that exists everywhere.

Most of all, I'm afraid of causing others unnecessary suffering.

I want to be better, I sincerely do. It is just all very frightening sometimes.

Hail Mary! A pseudo-Buddhist
practices pragmatic paganism
with the guilt of a Catholic,
due to their samaric duties
handed from the true-blue Krishna.

But soft, through yonder window
a star collapses and light
is ****** through and destroyed
in a black hole foretold by
Hawking and, why not, Hubbard.

People are polyamorous
for their mono/poly theistic god(s).

But, how dare they be so bold
as to think they know about
anything about any-*******-thing.

Come on pilgrim,
vamos east
to Jerusalem and Mecca,
ferried from Algeciras to Tangier.

King James told me some stories,
he'd give me a ride, and

we can pull what we want
on abortion and abolition,
strung on a thorny rope
out of H. Christ's tight little *******.

Black Francis, Picasso, and S. Dali;
chicos guapos, you are good to me.

I fight Pablo, a different one,
through Robert Jordan (ingles)
Pablo, eres un cobarde, go and
get gored by your bullheaded stupidity.

General,
I'll wander the labryinth,
slicing up eyeballs (oh ** ** **)
unable to leave the room.
(they're only cow eyeballs, don't worry)

You Spaniards!
Yo hablo un poquito,
but those men
speak to my heart.

I subside on the constants
in waves and meters.

three am or pm:
one in the same.

apathy begets
apathy
in a circular swirl.

I remain insaitable
in my thirst for fluidity;
I foam at my breaks.

I remain solid;
jaw jutting against liquidity.

despite my pacifism,
I still cannot dissolve.

Father,
I must remind you that I am not you.

I cannot know yet the weight
the burdens you have carried
to bring me thus far,
but I know I've made them heavy.

I am unsteady and in disarray,
because I was raised in a storm and
you would not look at me, in the eye,
and so I grew up all alone.

Father,
I must remind you that I am your daughter.

I have your lonely hazel eyes
that observe better than others,
and see the quieting comfort
in a bitter brown drink.

I know you are a good man,
so I have not sought your approval
in the arms of inviting boys.
I sought it in myself instead.

But, Father,
I must remind you, I am me, alone.**

From you, I have learned
self-reliance and utility.
From your mistakes, I know
happiness is hard to keep.

When we are both older,
you may reach for my hand,
I will give you my money, but,
my hand may not be there.
          because I am your daughter, and I act alone,
                                                          ­                                       like you.

Father,
I must remind you that I am your daughter.

I have been hewn from
your own flesh and bone,
and though you may forget,
I am you.

Father,
I must remind you that I am not my mother

When you look at me,you see my other half;
I walk and talk and laugh like her.
You see my mother,
in my gender and my face.

I am more her than you.
We both have the darkness
that can summon thunders
and grant us empathy, unbounded.

Father,**
I must remind you that I am not your son.

When you look at me, you do not see
the same keenness of mind and
quiet grit both you men possess.
I am sorry I am not better.

I speak to him, instead of you
in times I need a masculine support,
and when I face moral quandries.
I learned not to ask you.

Babylon is gone.

Commonalities are gone;
speech was lost with every story.

I have time, I am young
I abuse it too much.

You don't have time and
I abuse what you have left.

and

you are beside me,
but I am alone.

We built Babylon, together.
In a quest for something
just, like-heaven.

You look at heaven and
I look at you,
the haven I once saw and

I can't understand,
(confusion of tongues)
and we've lost mutual language.

I crumble,
Babylon falls.

the two most frightening questions:

(a) what if I'm wrong?
(b) what if I can't right that wrong?

I was offered ****** once,
in a city now mine,
as I watched two men,
infringe on one's mind.

It created an unusual partnership, and
both men were mad, but
both have experienced
what few can say have.

"No, thank you."
I said, with a bit of a stutter,
to the (obviously) terrible
and perilious offer.

Curiousity still ensnared me a
little
inside,
and I wonder if I'll say
yes,
or maybe,
next time.

I would not say yes,
if my body was young,
but when I am withered,
why not just once?

Composed of the opposition,
I am too afraid of the meanings
within the reasoning and
extremities of polar ends.

Ex.
steadfast vs. capricious
sincere vs. contrived
sadism vs. masochism
expansive vs. nonexistent

(circle one)

Frankly, between my want to know every
     cloud-breaking peak and sunless crevice of my animal, me,
        on this circular search for a emotional enlightenment,
    
      I am exhausted, from the in-between.

Effaced, with myself removed from yesterday
I can think without unyielding pressures
******* my heels.

"It's always hardest the first time, the first day"
someone said. Maybe it's true?

I think repetition is getting to me,
so I must give liege to liberty.

tedious, tedious restraint.

my grip is bordered by white knuckles
that crack and strain under pressure.

arms locked, teeth bared, and jaw clenched
flexing against my self-imposed limitations.

distractions?
  insufferable.
activities?
  intolerable.
stress level?
  incendiary.

A beggar bleats on the curb of the street,
raving and berating the government that has done wrong,
for their crime of losing sight, hanging God.

For once his bride,
who he held as a trinket in
the narrow crook of his arm,
had been swept away by the tide of law
and pulled out to sea
after treading so long while
bobbing and weaving
to avoid his left and right hooks.

Answering to no one, and
obligations do not exist, if unanswered.
I want plastic tubes of garishly pink lipstick, with their
greasy glitter soaking in the folds of tissues.

I'll take the hard edge off of my face,
dust off my gilded tongue,
and promptly kiss a bathroom floor
after consuming something illicit that tingles my nose,
before dying with your blade buried in me, inelegantly.

Split me op en,
In eve ry
mean ing.
It would be
just.
*please

I taste
illness
and
smell
of
sick.
I am deprived,
just end me quick

Men become boys in the cradle of my lap, comfortable
  as I twist the tufted curls behind their soft ears,
  and I wonder how easy it would be
to cleave them in two with a rusted fish hook.

I forgot and now
I am stretched and exposed, a taxidermied specimen against the wall.
Pins punched through my achilles heels and wrists and
everything hurts so much, constantly.
What's the worst is the fog that's implored my drunken brain to circle
like a cat near a hearth, and s u b  d  u e itself.
It only stirs to blink m u g  g  y and gooey eyes at me before
it yawns and eats away at my body.
I am embalmed, alive, with no protest.

I forgot to get more pills. I forgot, I am so sorry.
I called them and they sent them and it's been three days
It should have been here by now.
I should've been able to move, to breathe, to think without being frustrated
by every insufferable task.
It will never get better, it will never be better.
I just want my p i l l s to be here by now I can't e ve n t h i  n   k

I see he and his beauty in bottle on a shelf
Pour me a glass, I could use some myself
So make the light in your face stay forever,
neither furrows or sorrows, would it be better?

Over the muttering, a sputtering candle is down to the quick
Flashing and flickering, the wick goes out

Rumbling skies threaten with scowling fingers of unappeased gods
Grey hairs curling in rage at eviction from Olympus
The sky then screams in a tumultuous rage:
A sacrifice is dire and desperately needed.

A maiden-green tree implores to above,
silently surrendering still arches
as she kneels in the earth, longer than any man has lived.
Cleaved by a fissure of light from something dark and then
a tremdous clap, thundering and thrashing
the towering tree, goes down, face flat.
A mother to decay she will become.

The rain drums into the humming hills, running down the mountainside.
It ruthlessly rushes tearing away grainy earth,
bouncing and bubbling in crevices galore,
turning all green and lush in an awakening as old as age.
The hills inhale blue and green.
Buds will flower, petals will die
but an end to all is not nigh

The curtain opens, and I am lit alone.

Chagrin is my monologue.  

On opera balconies, giggling wraiths shield themselves from my humorless improvisation.
Served on a platter, I am on stage, eyes squeezing out precious salt, holding my hands over my red-tipped ears as they still roast from the taunts of my imagination's cruel gossips, who sit, deliberately carving into my breast, intending to cut out my breath. Jabbering, with ***** claws clasping at tarnished silverware.

I stammer and my throat begins to hang itself with a velvet string and cat-gut noose.

I sweat, clothed by the filth of makeup, menstrual blood, and leftover food stains. Palms held up, dramatically surrendering on the condition that mercy be extended, for they have seen my miserable condition and that it is me. The cloying stench of uncertainty and greasy hair envelops me.

I cannot kneel, for the coals on which I stand,
make me suffer more from the pressure.
No water in my heels to soothe this felon.  

I cannot provoke or endure, my performance is to be left early. Hume would not grant me fame.
If you have a heart, do not waste ink or time or money on me. I am a clot of blood, clogged in the sink. I will die in a ***** bed and no one will care, not even myself.

I just wish it will be swift and fleeting if it is painful. 
Hoping harder, I am not remembered as a miserable girl, the way I am.

So, sing violins, and let me swing for the cannibals.

scorched
       singed
by the moon's hot rays
soaked
I wait,
drenched in a sea of salty sweat
choked by the twisted sheets as big as sails
my screams are lost in the folds and
valleys of white
that stretch tightly around my legs

hot sticky breath rolls out of my nose and mouth
I can feel my heart beating in my face

no anesthesia for the intolerable discomfort
of being
alive
when you
only
wish to sleep

pink sunsets crack through the blinds
along with dawns and afternoons and (maybe) better times?
hidden under covers of cloth and sheets and curtains of hair
I have burrowed too far to begin again (maybe)
I curl in my shell and I have fed on the whites that existed in my shell for so long
that I have drunk every last drop I came here with
I wonder if I have enough energy
to break out of the shell

I had forgotten there were emotions other than pain.
Thank you, please continue to remind me.

The world has jumped from east to west
My fingers can no longer reach out of my window and touch trees
They reach out to grasp the air
up thirteen miles high in the sky

I sit in my white tower alone
"She will be better because she is here." the people below say.
"It is better..." my sage said.

Show me why.

The dashboard is melting into a thick slurp of plastic
Clicking of keys.
Turning of page.
My frustration has edged my voice, dark and as raw as obsideon.
this splitting headache from my frustration with procrastination
has cut me down, cut me open
again
and
again
and
again.
Every time, I say I'm done.
I am putting it off until tomorrow, until never,
and until it is no longer useful.
It is haunting and I am corrupted by my own misdeeds.
My lazy impulse has morphed into a useless ghost of promises to myself.

I made you a crown of dried chicken feet,
it goes with your snake eyes,
like how dice stare back, irisless.

I bet fifty clams on Steady As She Goes,
I dug them up in Maine for chowder.
Well, my Friday dinner just walked away.

I put your hand in the waffle iron and closed it shut.
That's for trying to make a better pancake, good suggestion,
pretentious Belgian *******.
Next time I'll just stub my cigarette out your sweet Sunday brunch,
you'll eat the ashes out of the little cubes that are so fluffy and crisp.

Cleaning up a broken pillow after a pillowfight,
that's rough stuff.
**** feathers, it's a cotton from now on.
Let's practice making out.
Gross, I don't like girls, I was kidding. Get the ******* me.

They snuck syrup and chemicals into all your drinks,
but don't worry, I removed it.
You spit it out and say GROSS WHAT IS THIS THIS HAS GONE BAD
fine. keep ******* down on those chemicals cancer kid.

I stack my wishes next to the dishes,
the ***** ones that need to get done.
I leave the tangible next to my tangerines
and the apathetic with my apples.

When I was little girl,
I prayed and prayed that I would never have feelings,
so I'd never be hurt

When I was less of a little girl,
I stopped praying because I stopped "God"

When I was yesterday, and a couple of days before that,
I thought how much I wish I could have feelings

I know nothing is a feeling, but I'd like to have a little less of it, if you'd please?
My plate is rather full of exciting things
that seem droll now,
just because a little girl was afraid of getting her heart ripped up

What...gross cowardice...tsk...tsk...

Every want of ours is a need,
an everyman's need is unnecessary,
it is already fulfilled with a snap.
slip, slap, snap, just easy like that.

You are the funniest person I know. I am too.
We are the weirdest creatures,
so when we do normal things with normal people,
why, it's hilarious.
An ironic mockery of the everyman everyday.

Instead of being angry or rising against the system,
we play it like a fiddle,
and laugh at everyone and thing while we sit
smoking fat cigars and counting our money
before we dump it into our art and clothes
or set it on fire.

It's just so funny,
because we aren't like that
and we know it.
The world is our plaything and we just
laugh and
laugh and
laugh and laugh.
everything is just so manicially funny...

IF you get me a phone made of gold
I MIGHT call, finally.

But I can't listen to such pretty words
out of a chunk of plastic and glass.
...you're better than that...

Here's the plan:
This Wednesday,
meet me.
Someplace you like;
you always know the right place.

Slip a quarter in the lock,
it tricks into/with a key
The money pays and paves the way
to purchase what I need.

The sky is stuffed with the cleanest clouds you'll ever see
Carpet tacks and cut up glass launch into your knees
Sink to the ground as crumpled as a paper plane,
discard your feelings before you ever feel again.

The chips on your shoulder, off the block,
have filled up all your pockets.
The feeling you had when you stepped through the door,
well now, you've lost it.

Enter the exits, watch, you're on your way
Never to regain what you felt in any way
Touch your body
Touch yourself
You've been touched, it's okay.

After entering this exit, remember what you know:
every wall is a door, it depends on where you go.

"We both smell *****,
the way we're supposed too,
your adopted fragrance makes me sick."

"Your dewy skin is actually sweat,
from working too hard to keep me wet."

"If currency was lint and candy wrappers,
we'd be rich,
as our pockets are never empty."

"To put it simply,
If the sky had started black,
all of the sparks coming off from us
would've made the sky what it is tonight."

"A hummingbird the size of my knuckle
died in my hands today."

"Call my new phone,
it's the tin can and the string next the the wall over in
Mexico."

"Find the loophole, step on through;
to a fantastic place; to you it's new!"
the Ringmaster bellowed into the crowd
his corners all quirked and perked.

"If nothing is aboslute, then isn't that an absolute?"
"Your clipped wings and speech have tethered you, birds of a feather!
whisper Can you not see? (They're all on their toes)
Someone else controls you and he and she and we and you can't do anything without them knowing exactly what you do!
Your revolutions? Why, they are only circles!"

"All you can do is stretch and push these rules and binds.
Shape them as you will with the will of your mind.
There is always an exception, there are no exceptions.
Tend to your flock, I'll tend to mine
In this we have our own confine."

They all jeered with comical cheer
for the show had been quite queer

It would make my mother cry
to know I chose the way I'd die.

Oil slicks of sweat and grease are pushed up to the forehead in afterthought
Depressions under your eyes and cheeks are murky and dark and deep
made from too many days and nights
in a purgatory hell waiting for slumber
Mumble through the spit, you salivate at the idea of a thought
Your skin makes a scraping noise when you move and
broken-off hair lies in your hands,
blood is caked on your skin and nails and teeth
from a ferocity I cannot control or understand and
where did all these
scabs
scabs
scabs come from?
peeling and picking and flicking them off
undoes the perfectly sized wrappers on the wounds
and you are rawer than the day you were made

yelp and gulp, open your maw,
then scream as loud as you can
for as long as you can until
you are raw and rotten from the inside out

Interpersonal relations strewn across the nation,
across my the country of my bedroom floor.
My sticky palms give me shaky qualms
as I feel too exposed and shudder

Cluttered and muddy, my mumbling mind speaks
in fragile fragments secured by black brackets.
Memories linger, held fast to my fingers
to help me remember what I want to forget

Why, or what, can you do that I can't?
Speaking slowly in a voice with a slant
I'll tear up and down what "it's" "supposed" to be,
if you'll pay for my presence with an bi-weekly fee.