my room is clean,
my plants are dying.

the one peeping out behind the door
cannot get enough light where it is,
but i like the way it looks in the corner of my room.

my banana tree is slowly molding from the inside out,
has been for the past two years.
i tell myself if i keep ignoring it,
just keep watering it,
the tree will rid itself of its disease all on its own.

my room is clean,
i am dying.

i keep my surfaces shiny and dust free
the dirt from underneath my nails remains in the pots
but i haven't left my house in three days

and i feel the mold creeping up around my throat and down into the pit of my stomach.

i am just another plant that needs water and light,
maybe i need to be repotted.

my other plant is plastic, though,
she's doing fine.

******* as escapism
desperately rubbing out the pain
***** hair busting out of my underwear

i dont have anywhere to escape to anymore

a dull ache , i want to strip
strip my clothes , my skin, my subjective experience

curl up next to a warm body
water my poor dying plants
but my tears are too salty

the bodies too cold

too much sleepy snow up snot-filled black holes
now heavy weights behind and below the eyes

invincibility sparked by a drug exposed autonomy
like water
i can take whatever shape i form

i can occupy any space in which i put myself
all space

but i am sober now
i would rather occupy no space

cracks of the couch cushion too small
for me to slide into

tea makes me hot

ill sleep naked

clinging to only that which we can remember
only the imprint of something too bright that has been stared at for too long
we bump fleshes
we meld corpses
the mixing of secretions
until i end up covered in yours

i am not sure you see me anymore
but it pains me little for i am not sure i see you either

like a well worn fidget, a subconscious pull of the lobe or the twirl of a piercing,

or perhaps more like your instinctual grab at the farthest recesses of your fridge upon coming home positively toasted

through liquor soaked lenses i aimlessly ***** at the past while sober me of tomorrow awakes with nothing but the echo of something within

temporally filling the void between lips and ******
the void of my gut
of my heart

but a throbbing shadow remains

convinced she had no beauty,
she stared at her own reflection
into her pupils , down her throat , into her ear canals,
until her own face morphed into something unrecognizable.
she cut herself open , let her veins run like a stream , shed her skin, searching for any beauty that may exist
deep
deep
down.

and in her desperate searching
she found it ,
lines and bumps and curves she once thought were horrid
transformed before her eyes.
in her constant and endless willing ,
wanting ,
wishing for them to be beautiful,
they became.

and the world started to notice ,
eyes widened , heads turned , hearts opened , and groins awoke
and she reveled in her new-found power.
she wrapped men and women alike around her dainty but deft fingers,
shining jewels.
her beauty was a power ignited and fueled by herself alone
and she burned , a beautiful flame , with an intensity that left nothing but ash and scar in her wake.

exhausted after ******* the life out of yet another and already seeing the next one willfully align in her crossfires,
she tried to lessen the flame , to tame what she had now become ,
she wrapped herself in cloaks , shaved her lustrous locks , and swore herself to celibacy.

but her beauty was unleashed and could not be returned to her dark depths.
it shown through every crack and cloth and she ran ,
ran from herself ,
ran from the world.
touch became sinful and painful and unwanted ,
gazes became violating , haunting ,
and she cried out at the world blaming them for being so weak and lustful and victim to the wills of the skin

and she cried out at herself , brushing her finger tips over her own skin ,
for the power she had wished into being had become her greatest curse ,
the world , in which she only wished would see her ,
to love her ,
she consumed violently and she now found herself utterly alone ,
with only herself to love.

out into the white yellow concrete jungle
across heat soaked stone

she wished,
with a childish grin,
for a quest,
the whoosh,
she said
a twinkle in her eyes

and i,
tethered to her by locks of lustrous, thick hair,
followed her into the void
my world reduced to the slightest slits
tingly, weightless, floating, bobing on the heat,
following

and she
dancing just ahead
adorned in pineapples, and melons, and cherries,
and the tiny phone in the tiny pocket
nestled between her shoulder blades,

we looked for
the whoosh

"And in a funny way, the shaving of my, uh, head has been a liberation from, uh, a lot of, uh, stupid vanities really. Uh, it has simplified everything for me, it has opened a lot of doors maybe." - Stephen Malkmus, Jo Jo's Jacket

the first layer of skin i shed
was the bra

rid of the foreign metal sculptor producing a deep rift between skin
my third eye, swallowing gazes

rid of my **** , my ***** , my rack
replaced with sacks of fat and nerve and milk ducts
hanging, existing, for no one else
not even myself

the second layer of skin was the painting of the face
the concealing and erasing of imperfections, the lines of laughter of sorrow of life
redirecting attention and importance to the bow and symmetry of the lip

no longer did i have to put myself on in the morning
i woke up as i was, as i needed to be,
bare and uninhibited

my skin now breathed, and for no one else
not even myself

and then i grew another layer of skin,
made of dank tangles to protect my age,
i stopped shaving the years i'd walked this earth, shedding my womanhood

the skin grew to my armpits, little tufts of sweaty, odorous mother nature dozing in a fleshy convex nest

and to my legs, were the tangles wrapped around my ankles
preventing the spreading of the legs for every life
for not every life wanted what was not tame
and what was not tame no longer wanted to be.

my body did not conform,
for it was not brought into this world to be consumed for the pleasure of others

it exists for no one else,
not even myself

and as i was engulfed in this hairy wonder of my own body
i shed the last layer,
the shaving of the head

my brain, my being breathed
porous and exposed
vulnerable to weather and whispers

but i was all at once naked and calm,
having finally peeled away the layers of ***** over-sexualization and constrained femininity that had molded this meat sack that serves me,
a bundle of circuitry and solution balancing and bobbing on the neck

for i exist for no one else,
only myself

sitting, lying in his bed alone
balanced perfectly in a disinterested, nonexistent relationship
composed purely of ***** calls that i make
every so often
when im in town.
we dont really talk, at most a drink,
before we start ******* in his oversized bunkbed.
we didnt even kiss when he left this morning,
leaving me naked and untouched.

usually we **** three times when i come over:
twice before going to bed, and once in the morning.
this time we ****** once.
and i know he’s busy studying,
and i know i dont care about him that way,
so why is it all gnawing at me?

it’s probably the romance-soaked pages of the books ive been devouring lately.
movies, tv shows, films
cannot really capture the inner monologue, the lingering butterflies,
the lust one can have for romance rather than ***,
but still a lust in definition.
i want something, i want to have something that i want, i want to want,
but i haven’t wanted in a long while
and i’ve forgotten what it feels like.

maybe im merely and impulsively looking for a way
to ruin what i have so beautifully constructed, piece by piece, as i turned my back on it over
and over
and over.
im only interested in the disinterested,
so maybe im looking to blow down this paper castle of fuckery i’ve built around us,
as I interlace our fingers
as he takes me from behind.

last time we ******,
he told me he was leaving for germany in september,
and he wouldnt be coming back until he had a wife.
he is four, five years my senior,
but the thought makes me uneasy and a bit nauseated.
the closest things ive had to a relationship
are intense, but fleeting, three week flings with israeli boys with beautiful eyes who can barely speak english,
and what we have, four years of ******* but maybe once each year

we first hooked up when he was my age, 21, and i just 17.
it took me a year from then to lose my virginity before i would **** him.
it took me ******* up my flight plans a few years later for it to happen again,
even though i left a girl friend’s apartment that night claiming i would not be ******* him,
unlike the last 5 guys that week.

we didnt cuddle last night, either,
like we normally do when the AC has finally cooled our sweat soaked bodies
enough to handle non-***-crazed touching.
but i guess in the end it is always and just ***,
the budding of it at least,
for every time we spoon
it results in those lil’ hip gyrations, grinding together ever so slightly, until his **** stiffens against my ***,
and eventually, i allowed it to go there,
painful and ****-less.
but the ******* inside of me was delighted,
always wanting him to rough me up a bit more,
slap me a bit harder,
choke me a bit longer...
i’ll take the pain where i can get it.

this cannot be romance.
romance does not push your head further still, after gargling its hairy *****, towards its even hairier ***.
this is not romance.
i cannot paint these white roses red
for they are not even roses.
they are far lighter and more frail than the most delicate origami,
but a breathe away from toppling down,
sustained by
neglect,
****,  
and
*******
alone
in his room after he has gone.