I am a wee banana slug with a broken shoulder
crawling with my train of sparkling slime over

the caracasses of horses I've beaten to death,

twice, for each, at least.

I
beat them to
death

beat it. beat that horse.
and I will bless it with my sparkly goo

"Hey, are you awake? Do you want to talk about it?"

No.

If anything, "it" would be a negative space,
really, the absence of something, maybe (?)

I exhale, smoke, look at the fire, slump down,
sinking into my aching, strained shoulders.

(wait please, silently, after I hit pause, until I come back to San Francisco, at least until after Yosemite)

I'll be able to articulate in 24 hours,
anything and everything I want(ed)

in the language only John Muir
and dappling sunlight through
the green can truly understand.

Baby,
I'll hang out with the Dharma Bums in the Tropic of Cancer for you
if you'll hold your promise to snort coke off my ****,

while Marvin Gaye tells us how to give it up
while you put your **** in my ***

and we shake our tail feathers to Royal Gate
and the symbols of our names clash

as we whisper our names to each other while I'm bent on the bed
and I say yours as I nibble your ear after.

Baby,
you got a girlfriend.
Why do you have a girl when there are girls like me?

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?

I dreamt, curled in the thick cut lines of "The Starry Night"
and I forgot what an old city feels like when I look out at the streetlights with neon flickering glasses

I forgot how to feel somewhere in September;
my lips pressed on a boy's from the Ivory Coast.

Face blistering on the Champs-Élysées, thinking of nostalgic songs I should be too young to feel

-

I remember how it feels to rub my hands into redwood bark
and how I wished for something real.

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.

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?

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.

sometimes i am
the dumb moth
that puts itself
in the little lamp

that everyone says to
no no you can get out
the window is there

go go go go go go go

be free

but i just go
      where where
and beat grey soft wings
against the glass

until
i say

**** it

and try
and try

to **** or fight or or or or
or throw myself
        onto the blazing light

antagonized, sullen, and unshakeable,
I rest under the shade of a heavy tree,
a crepuscular creature who lives most
at edged breaks of sun, dusk and dawn

my stamina grows in strength, as does my patience and durability,
but I know my insatiable pursuits will fade, or they'll be yielding;
if I want things, I will get them, I will have them, and they are mine

I look over, past the horizontal thing, "edge"
with all the weariness of a battle-scarred lion,
silver-striped with the accumulated congealed
****** flesh of foes under my scuttling claws
that scamper down the ridges of the slower,
quieter animals that I have singled out as mine,
until I am done with games and rip out spines

I am not long in tooth, but I am experienced enough,
to the point, where I do not want to fight very long
for what I have earned, and for what is entitled to me,
and if I must fight long, afterwards, I am vindictive

I look at the horizon, with all the prowess possessed
in my being, in my breeding, ingrained in my bones
I have a greater strength than I have even begun to
even actualize, and I just only started flexing, slowly

I am greedy for the world, every bad beast and cur,
with marrow in their bones, I wish to tussle with,
I will be ready for you, I await you with a sly grin,
come call me at home, for I will be biding, till then

In my imagination
I look at your mouth as I sit, glaring darkly
at you over my peach-flavored-***** drink

you sound like one of those screaming goat videos
and I
would li
ke
to kiss your little mouth.

I wonder
I wonder
I wonder

I.

If I tried to kiss you
when we are both drunk
if you'd kiss me back again

II.

If I showed up to a show
and you saw me from the stage
if it'd startle you enough

to realize I'd come back

I want to come back
and get you.

III.

If I stopped answering
you'd say what I've wanted you to.

IV.

If I kissed you in a way
that felt like more than a regular

If any of you boys would be worth it.
Would it be worth it?

a boy said he liked me last night and that he's liked me more than any other girl
and this morning he said we need to take some time apart

what the ****

happened
between

POINT A
and
POINT B

?
------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-------------------

I think it might have something to do with the fact that apparently
when he cuddles up to me when I sleep
I alternate between saying:

"No"
             "Stop it"
and
                        "I don't want this."

(Jesus,
psyche could you be more
  revealing/embarrassing?)
He said he feels like he violates my sleeping self with his nearby presence.
-------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­--------------------------------------

Someone is arguing pointlessly with me about
whether
their ex is a sociopath
and then whether sociopaths feel remorse
and the whole point of sociopaths is that they don't feel remorse so
(and apparently that's a politically incorrect term anyway)

I don't get why that conversation matters to her. I feel like we've had it before.
She just wants to be contentious.
----------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------
-------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­------------------------------------------
----------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------------

And I just want to take a very expensive taxi to work.
And fill my Odwalla up with peach-flavored *****.
And drink the day away.

Because I don't
understand

"people"

right now, let alone my own wants.

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

I lick the tip of my paintbrush and dip it into the black
I line and curl the tips of my eyeliner with a flourish.

Mismatched.

Art.

And my eyes have forgotten how to read with avarice.
And my lungs have forgotten how to breathe in smoke.
And my lips have forgotten how to form good lies.
And my fingers have forgotten how to wield a brush.

And I try. And I try. And I try to remember.

And it is not easy to remember every step and so many others are better.

I am weaker.

What happened to me?
I don't remember.

doctor words
doctor words

tiny white pills, the size of an iris
washed down after a hearty, final glass of brown burn

HOWL HOWL HOWL by Allen Ginsberg
                                          by Allen Ginsberg

A yearning for the hot press that comes with sleep deprivation and heartbreak, got my wish.

Cross my heart. Cross over my chest.
I pray to G-d my soul may keep, and (that all nights) I won't ***** and die in my sleep.
I'm not that ambitious or tortured enough to **** myself.

But I'm just lazy and heartless enough,
to spit acid at what I love, or let it rust.

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.

I need to stop thinking
                     about the way you tasted when
                     I kissed you

gripping your hair
gripping your ***

tracing an outline in your pants

while I quietly moaned

up against a wall

                this ***** is making me

thirsty

and there is something
insatiable

biting it's lips

in the

dark
        dark
dark

corners
of my bed

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

Angles of pulled, wrinkled eyelids with blood pooling underneath from long nights of looking at computer screens, searching for the next thing thing thing thing done (chimes)

that is he,
and I am me.

Authentically contrived. Do I dare say that? Weeks upon minutes of pulling clothes, tucked tags, and waiting, oh the waiting, and I don't know what to say.
I can't believe you like me. I can believe it fully. You bought me. You bought my story.

And it's the truth but I can't say the unspeakable real truth because it's a hollow
crisp lying dead and bloodless in a locker in the basement below the deepest rungs of my head
and I am cloaked in schemes and drama and white lies because I want to tell you of a better me

Because the truth *****.
And I miss him
And I miss him
And I miss them all in different ways, whether it be months, a night, a meal, or a glance shared,
I listened to what I wanted to and now I have learned.

You with your small hands.
You with your lisped words.
You with your pierced lips.
You with your soft, smooth thighs.
You with your stick and poke tattoos.
You with your faded green hair.
You with your German words

And you, with your dark eyebrows that look like a storm. You were made for brooding and I saw.

I miss you. But I don't want to have to ask for anything unless you wish to give.

cheap whiskey and cheap sheets are made for the sad business of liars and thieves

you can't grow a beard
you can't grow a sorry

I can't grow a spine
I can't grow sincerity

because I stop hurting if you keep hitting hard enough

and

you hit
you hit hard
you hit constant

and we love each other

but

but we don't want to be together
but we don't want to be apart

                                      so now I am sitting with cheap whiskey and sheets

and you are off

and only God knows where

I squeeze the white flesh on the underside on my arms,
gently, I account for bruises, counting each one by one.

like spilled ink congealing,
under my thin skin, purple,
yellowing, blue, and green,
= the colors in nature found

I stretch like a cat, testing my arms for reach,
and I wince, tears brimming in my eyes, hard

something has been pinched, broken, or ripped
inside, some muscle is not connected to another

some tick, hair-thin mark
graces my red colored rib

ripped muscle lies against,
some useless dying muscle

I want to go home
I want to go to sleep
I want to go home

to sleep, to heal, to die,
wherever home may be

Feet on a sunlit dashboard with the wind ruffling my hair.

We're sleeping under the starlit sky, waking up with the birds at dawn
Sleepy eyes struggle, illuminated by the glow of sunrise as long brown lashes press against a translucent cheek.

I made you breakfast.
I kissed your neck when you weren't looking.

You slid your hand into mine and then we ran away
on the dollars of our fathers and the kindness of employers.

Where are you now and when will you come?
Who are you and why are you seemingly far away?

"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."

Please give me a woman with at least the *** of Brigitte Bardot
or a man with a silver tongue, in speech, amongst other things,

who will kiss well, be as dark as a sunless cave, clever as a fox,

and let us be infatuated and watch French movies in the dark,
until we **** each other into oblivion and become enamored,
and set each other on fire with the incinerating aspects of love.

Yours Truly,

Glasser
aka Kay
aka Glasser

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 dream dreams of living in a skyscraper and having a shark tank
and then the whole building is turned upside down,

and out dumps gallons and gallons of water and then comes a crowd of

biting
flopping
ravenous

monstrous fish.

Then I wake up.

wrestling with metaphorical hard-ons

for money for money for money


and it
                    as a mean to be mean

I am ****** in the long run
for wanting the in-between

I find my self stressing and scatting,
foaming

and spent

for a non-existent God
I cannot repent
I cannot repent

for selling my soul
                                   to Satan (the great)

at eight years old

stunningly bored and powerfully dumb

I bide I bide I bide my time for success
I lazily rove eyes over ****** photographs
and crappier stills from my memory

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

vivid photographs may line my walls
but day-to-day it does not feel vivid, not at all

I walk the fine lines
between
by choice
more often
than I really should

it's more enjoyable
than being strictly defined
by all these -isms

and there's a bonus
of having the threat
of extrem-ism
hanging over your head

the world is grey
my moral compass
is questionable/ing
and wavering

black and white
how boring is that?

I am lucky to be able
to afford more than
two colors

I just want
some body
to think
I am

the

              cat's pajamas

and for me
to think
they are the

                dog's tuxedo

and then we
show off

our all

Unwish readings, rapists, unrepairable rips,

I wish to undo
the space between
me(                                          )you

and where I once wrapped my thighs around your hips
and the whistling trill of my sleeping breath once felt a home in the



cavernous space




between your head and your breast

and I
and I

found shelter in your curls,
pulling until they escaped from me, undone.

Mussed love, entombed in the perfumed past of white rooms by untouched oceans
and unsullied books, too occupied by the wonder found in each other, each others' bodies

and I lie awake with the ghosts
in haunting of my own accord and I watch at the window
                                                      and I watch at the window
                                                      and I watch at the window, waiting

I wonder
I wonder

could you need me, still,

now?

She stayed up past dawn to make **** sure that the sun rose again.
He stayed up till the next day to make sure it would go down again.

Midnight is the high noon for the impulsive, they want this night right now.
When they both rise from the east,
they might regret it
they might not
They'll be exhausted, will they be exhilarated?
They've seen something others might rarely do, if ever, and for some never.
They'll see how our stars are someone else's sun on their someday or Sunday.
They've seen the horizon become the furious fiery frontier of a madman's dream.

sorry for nothing-
---you stupidshit
sorry for nothing-
tightfisted-----kid
sorry for nothing-
for nothing, at all
sorry for nothing-
now---don't---call

I've stopped paying attention to them talk
and their mouth just moves, trite garbage.

FORCING//PROVIDING//WILLING

a dry-mouthed conversation.

I pull down my shades and **** on a cigarette.

GODFORBID
we sit and be silent

for like, one ******* hour.

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

I look at my broken purple-tipped fingers, holding a cigarette drawling with ash
cupped around the ghost of a brown beer bottle, the smell permeates my fingers

painted purple with polish named with "no more film"

No more film. Huh. That's not a question.
I click the shutter, but nothing's there to capture the permanence. To project onto.

Nothing will be lacquered with a gloss
a painting of time with a smooth finish.

There might be a flash, but still nothing.

I might have disposables, they're costly to purchase, costly to develop. Same-o. Same-o.
They cost around ten dollars to develop, that's cheap, but expensive, in large quantities.

my lungs hurt from the ashed bowl
this **** is purple, what a novelty
too bad it's as dry and not crystal-y

shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake

I wish I didn't have a ugly glass pipe
but it'd seem silly to invest in a ****

I don't like your dog, he smells.
You're twenty-one.
You can't take care of your dog.
What if they eat something bad?

You were stupid to get a dog.

I  barely have the munchies
let's make something cheesy.

I can't even get high anymore.

It's boring.

I don't like that it doesn't do anything in means I have to cut back or something
or I have to get into it more, which costs money that I don't have, on things that
I don't really need.

Smoking should not be a hobby, it's barely an interest.
It's just like a background noise, like your noisy dog.

But I need to remember, in all of this,
that if I'm bored, I'm just being boring

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.

I'm sorry I'm so mean.

I think I tried to sell my soul to Satan for the inability to feel painful emotions when I was younger.
If there is a God I hope Satan didn't listen to the wishes of a little girl.

The two could be related, but that's easy game.

where is the happy ending when it comes to mental illness?

All the boys and girls I had ever kissed were screaming together in a chorus, lipless, with open mouths, sharp little red teeth, gnashing.

In my head
In my head

And then I went to the green woods
For solitude and silence, and shame

And there, under the green boughs
I pulled the curtains of membranes
under their tongues, and my own,

over their heads, with thread
I needled, sewing up mouths

then I kisssd their faces like their mother, "goodnight"

and then they were mute,
and only could whimper

and then I left, feeling, yes

dark paint           your  l e g s

"The upper lid typically has about 90 to 150 lashes on it, while the bottom has between 70 and 80 lashes. Most eyelashes grow to be about 10 mm long."

Your eyelashes are p e r f e c t l y  straight and dark.
They really look beautiful resting against your cheek.

Hawaiian Electric Industries (HE) -0.25 (-1.05%)

he He HE

looks even better in my bed when he is made up in my head
but he's sleeping at his home and I don't think he misses me.

the roots, ripped from the earth, with veins hanging like hairs
curl, without the touch of dirt and water, from exposure to air
the red hide of bark hide whorls from burrowing black beetles

I am brushing my mother's hair with a plastic-bristled paddle brush, and
she closes her blue eyes. The very same ones that would shake in anger.

her mother, her sisters, her brothers, a red grove old
the survived burns and poverty is slowly collapsing,
under the weight of age and illness from what is new
and they stand silently and watch each other just fall
one-by-one they fall, surrounded by helpless others,
that can only watch with barren arms, little movement

She used to be, so strong
but, age makes all weak.

She had howled and screamed like a wretched tiger at young, quiet
me, who would keel over. I'd shut down at the sound of her gold car
as I shakily held red-marked papers that proved my name was mud
and I had finished nothing except a hollow swallow of deceit, found

when a tree collapses it gives a fragrance and a life to decay, then it
is the mother of life for all the creatures that need sustenance from
to every insect and fungus that feeds off it's fibrous flesh, that bores
into the bark until it is stripped clean, dissolving, into where it once
held prominence, where it once darkened growth that it fosters, now
it is gone, it has given all to plenty and needs nothing more to hold.

I wonder if that is how she is now,
she knows she is sick, succumbing
to the loss of energy that comes to
with a too-swift fall, scraggly roots

she is the mother to the decay that
feed him, feeds me, feeding us all
until, she returns her other grove.

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...

Her blue eyes--used to shake
those roars turned into a hot, low chuff

Now it's her head that shakes
Now it's her hands that shake

Cracked, peeling palms
she picks with worry,

no        No          no

-----don't do that-----

Wiping away tears like she used to, her voice crackling on the phone. She hides.

I'm am too young to help her.
I have an empty head and empty pockets,
shrugging with pleading eyes, I'm sorry.

So sorry.

Her mother
Her sister

**Her

they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back
they stare at me and I stare back

and then I hold it longer than they think I should and they get embarrassed.
Don't stare at me if you don't want to get it back. I'll hold it longer than you.

You've got brown eyes
Oh,
You've got grey eyes
Oh,
You've got blue eyes

and I'll watch you go

I don't make eye contact or say hello with the cute, talented boy in my class.
He's weird, but I know I could take it. But.
It's because I'm tired of being cut on the way up to the way down.

I hope that I can see him again when someone with more courage stands in these shoes,
that knows what to say and how not to use--
--to use and use these spots of mine
that shed with touch and the setting sun.

Spaces where the taxidermied remnants of partners lie bare
from the times I lacked the effort, or time, or was too scared

to ask them not to go, or ask them their name, or, "I'm sorry, forgive me?"

I let a hand go
I pull away from a kiss.

I don't know what's wrong with me
or who I do or do not miss.

cat-eye flick
and that tongue's quick

but not as quick as
the quick death that comes

from burning at both ends (ha)

I lie awake on two trazodones, a cup of neighborly sugar, and NyQuil,
remembering moaning your name with my fingers in your sweaty curls

and how I am only allowed a single Vonnegut novel on my birthday
and how I can't ever see your furrowed brow without consequence.

I wonder if you have realized
it's close to a year since I've knelt down for you

and that I am nothing you'd admire now.

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.