The summer air, I fear, brings a sort of mania.
Starting with the breath of mother nature's warm breeze
through my car window, and ending with my face pressed into the ground.
A sort of emotional and drug induced black out. In between is a madness.
Flowers bursting from their shy buds inside the bones of my arms.
Fireworks up the filaments and out the anthers.  
Sparking the tribal chants and patterns trying to live inside
my white blood cells. Forcing them to expand
and break, releasing a fever for sun and soil.
A sort of combustible stage production inside my veins.
Yes.  The summer air, I fear, brings an awful mania.

I tried to stop you
like a baby deer tries to stop a freight train
so

I am grinning blood and guts at 70 miles per hour.

But it happened so fast

I still think I'm all here.

My spine makes a flimsy quill
When I first penned this poem
                                     crown
It meant          and               of me
             sole
Now I just hope it sounds naked
While I recite it with clothes on
As if I could turn a dial to show
The part of my heart it lands on
Here feigning an emotion so well
While in real life, I fight like hell
To hide it

Lovers and strangers, we've been both before.
Lately things just aren't the same
And I'd sooner turn to the bottle to find a familiar embrace.
Lately you're just not the same
And I'm not sure where to turn anymore.
I painted a picture of what I thought my life would be
But the colors are running and it's far too gone.
I never learn a lesson but I've memorized the broken stares
From those I used to know and that will always include
You and I.

the only calliope
i ever really wanted
has already decided
she's through with me
without giving me
a chance to speak.
-
and she's polyhymnia
in the comedy of hell,
raising voice in praise
of anything she respects
and in that she garners
all the power intrinsic.
-
no need for erato
when she's around
to keep my arteries
and thoughts clear
of emotional plaque
and writers' embolisms.
-
she is euterpe on a stage
of all the beautiful words
in all the beautiful languages
that can never be explained,
only known, and loved
and said in blissful ignorance.
-
she's thalia and melpomene,
comedy and tragedy,
laughter in her steps,
and springtime song,
and the ache of departure
evident in her wake.
-
terpischore at play
when the music starts,
involuntary, a reflex;
dancing is like breathing
to she who will break
my heart so many times.
-
she is urania --
she keeps my eyes
on infinity and away
from sights that feel
like shaky index knuckles
on unforgiving pistol triggers.
-
she is clio, keeper
of simple night histories,
because those are what
she lives for,  and those are
what i've always mused upon
living for -- with her.

painter of dreams
living through imagination
a fragment of reality running wild
I release all my sanity for fantasy
don't wake me up

raise your standards
self-hatred is weak

he moved his body, I followed
I touched myself, his hands

such a disgusting beauty
a silent high-impact force of comfort
his anxiety traded for a poison
my poison traded for his nectar

don't let me go

not much left
it's incredible how easily one becomes jaded
how easily we forget love in the absence of presence
the top of the mountain isn't so intimidating when you're being carried
the bottom is the hard part

our purpose is to fall
building friendships, fragile beginnings with shattering ends
trying not to be so intimate

leave me alone

weird crazy stupid
there is no room for elegance
elbow to elbow, hip to hip
I'm a ******* paradox
leave me alone

all i've been able to think about lately
is a poem written by fingers on a keyboard
attached to a left hand not yet responsible
for being blistered with cigarette burns
or lifting can or shot or handle to lips
with which to stain -- barley, hops,
potatoes, rice, and alcoholic love.
and i've been thinking about how i felt
after i read a poem written the night
before by a left hand now singed
and swollen, and guilty of lifting
many such apparatuses bearing
many such inks to blot out
mistakes and scribble over
all the misjudged words
that have spilled from
lips stained with barley,
hops, potatoes, and rice.
and i've been thinking about
the content of that poem,
and about how differently
i thought of it two nights ago,
before i got my own matching
business card with a followup
appointment for next week,
and a matching warning
to allow 24 hours notice
before changing the day
or time of an appointment
in order to avoid being charged;
and with it came the opportunity
to write my own poem about it:
Christina M., LMFT,
Wed, 4-17-13 at 4:00 PM,
and it has a sacramento street
address with a phone number
i have no intention of calling.
and i've been thinking about
how i met with her today,
and what we spoke of,
how i told her about drugs,
and how i told her about drinking,
and how my grades have been slipping,
and how i realized that
my poem is his poem,
just eleven months too late.
and that's why i told her about
this party i went to this weekend,
and how i'm passive, and i have trouble
speaking up for myself when i need to,
and how we sang until i left the room,
and how i went outside in the cold
after i came back inside to notice
something i wasn't expecting
to make me sad, but did.
and this person with whom
i have another appointment next week,
and most likely the week after that,
for however many weeks it takes,
told me that it helps to tell a person
how you're feeling without
gluing strings to the information,
or getting upset, or lying,
and so i guess this is an attempt,
albeit one made out of cowardice
and impatience, and some desire
for there to be an easier way
to tell a boy i've loved him
ever since i found this stupid website,
filled with his stupid words,
and his stupid poem about
a stupid girl he used to date,
that clinically broke open
my amygdalae and upon them
tattooed every feeling
of which i was never sure.