You were a threat to my stained glass sanity
Armed with rocks and a voice
That could cure a feminist
When I tried to tell you I love you,
I need you slipped out too
I found childhood dreams in your smile
Dressing up in mirrors for prince charmings
That never amounted to the ones I found
In bottle bottoms
Cigarette smoke
Your rescue was less brief
Supernova beautied death
In your Hemingwayan terse verse
"I love you, sweet.
I must go."
Darling
Tattoo my initials in your mind
(As I've done yours)
Just the way we carved them across town
Marking places we'd been
And now you lurk in
Every shadow
Of my
Every memory
And I can't do much
But cry
And smile
At our bittersweet demise

She empties bottles
Like she empties men
With a mouth that reeks of lipstick lacquered lies
She plays pretend on a siren song
Strumming his ribcage
For a tune that will stick in her head
Long enough
For blurry eyes to make a muse
Of amusement

18 feels like..
Being caught between the door and the wall
In a game of hide and seek
A gasp hanging over your head
A breath shrinking your chest

18 is the eager freshman
Stumbling down the hall
Schedule in hand

18 sounds like it should be some bigger picture
Than 9x2

18 feels like an adulthood indoctrination
For the forest fairy believers

18 is the first trip to a strip tease
Full of chanting and discarded dollar daughter smiles

....

18, you could've done worse to me
...


18 makes me walk as though I've atlas' own shoulders
Like a puffer fish,
Bulking up
As though I am anything but prey

18 makes me wonder when the world shrunk so
The house has never felt this small
And I,
Grow ever more aware of just how much space I occupy

18 needs not hold my hand as I walk across the street

I know how 18 goes down like age old whiskey
The burn must come before the warmth

Dark lips that bled of a love
So raw it could be spoken only from a drag on your mother's cigarette
Dark lips to match a soul stitched of runaway lovers
Lifted from your reach
And I can no longer find the horizon in your eyes
Stolen
By words he forged of hades blood
Rolling about in your mind even still
You carved them into you
To mask skid marks of his love on your thigh
Bleed out the memories
External scars to match the internal ones
Your tattoos
You say you imagine one reads "strength"
Another "fearless"
"Punishment"
The only beauty you see in the girl in the mirror,
Is the beauty you undo

I only wanted to feel the heat of the lighter against my lips before I blew it out

Flooded seed and an itchy tongue. Daddy told me motionless creatures in the road were only listening for earthquakes, now see a disaster less natural. Lightless life ***** food from a **** stained trough. The homeless man eats McDonald's in a community garden, we vacation in resort report portions of third world countries. Dont wanna see, eat tv screens when our popcorn runs out, bury our waste beneath the ground confound endangering species: we, dont appreciate nature unless we're festival campground packing wrapping drugs in the litter of something like liveliness post pictures with plants we plucked from a place think land is ours if we occupy the space but this isnt like we're used to cant just hit erase and if we're a part of this future why cant we look it in the face

"Good night"
Teasing words
You know,
the night is no longer good to me
And I am no longer good to me
When the sun retires early
I follow
These days
Sparkles of frost step in for dew
Sharper
Reaching for the edge of my fingers
My toes
My thoughts
Become one in degrees
With the dark
The cold
Takes siege
And my metals
Are more brittle
Condensed
Prone to a snap
Awaiting
A warmer expansion

I can't remember
The last time
I didn't
Write
Your name
In pen
In hopes that you
May be
More permanent
That way

You've been hiding out inside of me for six weeks now
Playing dormant
While I played dumb
Bean sized bundle
Cells,
I tell myself
Cells
I tell my cells
I'm sorry
I don't know
If you would be benign
Or cancerous
To the me that does exist
Call it selfish
(At 19 years, I'm no philanthropist)
I know
Bean cell bundle
You are a part of me
But
Now it seems
Loss lurks at either exit
For if you stay
A part of me goes
The young heart that yearned for the harbors of far shores
You would possess it instead
The mind
Imagining futures brimmed with possibility
Unstoppability
Would then fumble with responsibility
(There are days I slide alongside time
Up hours past the alarm
Don't feed myself till supper
Bean bundle
I could offer you existence
But I can't say it would be any good)
What if I offered your existence up?
Stats say 8 years would go along before someone would call you their own
8 years
Old enough
To wonder what could've been
And why
Your life looked nothing like the tv sitcom smiles
Feeling a heaviness in your heart
They say
If you see a suffering animal you have to put it out of its misery
Well you haven't had the chance to suffer yet
For the quarter inch of you cannot feel pain
Preemptive maybe presumptive
Fate may have fondled you with joy
But
The world is not often this kind
And
Though a part of me will go with you
Crying,
Bleeding
A corner of my heart away
I'll do my time
wondering,
what could've been,
And why
But
I can't bring you into this world
If I know
It may serve you only strain
Bean sized bundle
Of cells
My cells
Whatever part of me you may have come to be,
I choose me
I'm sorry

Deranged distortions thinking i could contort just right foot red left foot blue twist and turn on trembling tip toes so i might fit into pocket or palm, remain calm if claimed clammed up im bearable woman being rearranged into commercial jingle ring "im good, how are you" stuck in head or throat tote a hoarse smile stinking of another blah facade forlorn forewarn follows fake plant growth in (t)his sunlight promised life to the rubber made grade points plucked like pencil pushing excuses, effort isnt tallied into parking lot anxiety attack lacking attendance peer remembrance of your presence in bleeding nailbeds ****** into sweatshirt smothered eraser faces, forgetful social graces self slap lap up launguage barrier breaks cant breathe without letting words escape race to wring the worry whimpers that echo out of bitten lips split a panicked pulse quicker and louder shout not now mouthy mislead slink in your seat enter dark disengage garble gag on empress embarrass

What beauty the blank page holds
Like fresh fallen snow
Before the kids shake their slumber
Before the earth has begun to yawn
And I like to watch it wake

As fragments turn to sentences
Turn to fragments
Turn to villanelles
Turn to sonnets

As people turn to leashed desk job dogs
Or artists
Or lovers
Or dust

As I turn to what this page becomes
And ay there's the rub
As endless pages in days won't
Turn to endless days in pages

But the blank page remains
Timeless

I get goodbye glimpses
When your voice is like an exhausted father
And mine, relentlessly stumbling over apologies
Premonitions
Of a cold current
I'm paddling behind
Can't keep up
I'm sputtering,
Choking,
Watching you wade away
Without worry
You're only 21
How don't you worry?
I am 19
With ducks
That form more of a m o b
Than a row
I know
It's far easier to blame the tide
Than the self
******* it
I'm trying
Shawn, I promise
I'm trying
But, you see
Adulthood is the branch that taps on my window
With the storm
To shiver me awake..
I hear you two have tea
In tangled talks of a future
That doesn't include me
Well
If it's so
I need the definite
The finalizing punctuation
It's like the cigarette you toss aside
Unfinished
I get it
You don't like endings
And
I smoke mine to the filter
It's like the book
That sat on your nightstand for months.
With a chapter to go,
Past due
Is the means to an end
You chose
The sentence that trailed off
Into an all but empty stare
(Wait, I was listening)

You said her voice was like nails on a chalkboard you say mine is mommas lullabies and until the shrieking shattered glass cries you said you never knew I could sound like a familiar pain. I show you how its tacked to my shadow, say how a stay in the dark wont offer me escape. You said her cries echoed wolf to a choir and when the preaching drowned you out like school hall lectures you found yourself waiting for the bell to ring. You said her touch was like a doctor checkup and mine was family reunion hugs each time we met but I warned you I wanted to be the footprints in the sand before the tide takes me along cause I know she was searching your smile for a glipse of forever but I've been so hooked on your now that I'm hoping the future finds reason to wait. You said the shards of your heart she trailed you along have turned to lillypads in my presence and I tell you I know you must walk on water because I'd never believed in such holiness before, you say you only wish to make me feel full in no higher a power than the moment to make, I tell him to feed me freeverse compliments at no stakes cause the past cant catch us in its wake and we won't plot a plan for fate's fingers to break cause all I want is my now in a kiss I will take

All I really want
Is this heartbreak
To feel less like your sadism
And more like some punishment

In this house,
Volumes raise
In drinks
As in voices

Days dependent
On dad's dependency

Some nights
Bottle bottoms
Brew brutal words
Wonder if he bully's himself with them too

Warned watchfulness
Wait
For the wind up
Hope
For the wind down

Mom's voice tiptoes
When his snores begin to sound
This house
Sighs deeply

Rudimentary
You hold me like a child
Embryonic
Needing
Those hands that give life
To my skin beneath them
Awakening
The hibernating smile
That's away when you are

I want to hug you and squeeze you and punch you and verbally assault you and ******* and tell you I never want to see you again

The sky spits dancing flecks of ice
Shaven from your soul
We catch them on our tongues
But they vanish
Much like you

I think of you like the moon.
Even stealing my sunlight,
You were beautiful;
And just the kind of imposter
I'd come back around for.

I'm giddy again, little girl note passing butterflies, you're fluttering through my veins again, it's like the first kiss  but I don't even need the touch, hours apart but I'm weaving through these memories like keepsakes in a box and I never want to lose it, I never want to store them in some dusty attic, you deserve more, you deserve a space in my mind I'll call the best kind of nostalgia some day, and some day when turmoil has its say I'll open up this box and feel your warmth, even if I'm hours away, I'll whisper my good mornings and good nights into these walls so you can surround me once again. I'll carry your burdens on my back and call them mine. There will be bad days. Promise me you'll never let them weigh down on the good ones. Make me your nightlight and I'll fight off the dark. When you lay down with the sun, remember I am there to be your glow. And we can rise together with the day and greet it as an old friend. This old friend I hope we can see again and again.

Theres always lights on in my house
A few dishes in the sink
A pile of clothes here and there
Some folded
Some furrowed in baskets
Hiding under beds
You can find drawers of everything and nothing
Half missing decks of cards, candy, broken crayons, photos flooded in boxes and albums of our lives
You can find pieces of my mother
Scrawled in notebooks from freedom times of her youth
She would never tell you about
Youll be greeted by a wriggley pug with shoe or couch cushion in mouth
No, she will not stop kissing you
Theres always food in my house
Fancified labors of love
Shoved in saved salsa jars
Theres the old fireplace wrapped in wooden shelves and books and books and books
Drafty walls meet creaky aching wood floors
My house was warped with time
The attic is twenty degrees hotter than the basement
Likely from my pubescent years there
Sleeping at night you can hear mice or birds or bats in the ceiling
Scutterring a rhythm of cohabitated life
Id beat on the walls
Theres been renovations
Live ins
Move outs
Break ins
Move back ins
Divorce
Remarriage
Dead plants fake plants and growing gardening
My house is a changing ecosystem
Bustling beside main street
With a cemetary stare past the back yard
Buried lives and versions of mine
Youll find life and love history and family
Holy hurt with
Heart and soul
Best thing is
The doors always unlocked

Do you ever show your love like that squeaky dysfunctional shopping cart wheel because same

Maybe I just wanna sabotage this
While I wait for you to do it
Western style
Locked and loaded
Who's gonna draw first
**** a white flag
No truth in our truces
Well this time,
You won't catch me with my guard down

Meaningless
Mist veiled eyes
I missed the mark
Again
I feel less
Slither into caves
Burrow to sleep
Shut in
Shut out
Sorry light
Creeps in
I sleep through it
Didn't want this

They say decide what you want to be
In the time when we are still finding who we are
And maybe that's why
So many end up unhappy
In some mundane line of work
"That will earn a steady income"
But I'm not sorry
I can't do that
I'll pay in laughs
For smiles
I'll never return to the store
And they won't get it
But that's okay

If I collected our memories and put them in a jar
There'd be withered petals
And prestine fake flowers
There'd be im sorry notes
And I love yous
There'd be a finnickey watch
And sandy bottle caps
I'd see crumpled concert tickets
And chipped nail polish
There'd be flamin hot peanuts
And pictures slightly burned round the edges
There'd be tears
And ***
And magic mushrooms
There'd be dirt
And eye crust
And sandman dream dust
There'd be eyebrow hairs
And recipes for laughter
There'd be more than I can see
Then much more beneath
And if I close this lid
I wont know what comes after

Sopping sorrows
In drenched trench coats
Droop
Drop
Drip
Like
A shivering spine
Quivers, slithers
In a crafty coil
Spoils spit take smiles
Nothing about this in your files
Lurking lies of lullabies
Plaster flaccid ceiling stares
Glares
Inward turn
Nail biting churn
Thicker than the tired tracks
Rolling robbery
Wrings a pathetic apology
Out of a gum wrapper
Nothings new

Late nights in my brain like walking down a dark alleyway barefoot lightly clothed in the idea that everything will be okay thats what they say streetlights shone on pothole streets beats my face reflection to a wavering wonder something will come here caught a wiff of a wayside street wanderer finding sleep in a corner covered in ****** on life of been then being hard to know who im seeing am i still me? Hardly walked in my shoes let alone others loose unused excuse for solitary misuse find time in pocket phoned life we aspire to be more like look alike lavish facacde comradery in journalistic honesty all is well when i burn in hell follower frontier founder of warped mirrors and fun house on acid play my show to the masses how to see oneself clear in lie prescribed  glasses

Skimming the surface of your sweetness
Creamy rich creme brulee
with a je ne said quois kick
Skin of sprinkled seasonings
Looks like art
In all sensory scintillation
Delicate dashes
Deliberate divinity finds
A splash of savior savory
Boil up smiles
Bubble over in rounds
Popping sizzle
Of a new recipe spark
Invite chance to the table
And me without manners
Fumbled elbows atop a table
Unrefined as an innocent palette
Fear finds fruitful fools as I
Always want another taste
Insatiable sensations
Shake me
Never the same
A want to swish you in my mouth
So you know my words stir smoother sound space
Than my mind lets on
Imagine a ticking timer
For me or you
Cant just swelter in the smell
Saliva sweat on hot stovetop
Tease your texture between teeth
I find gritted in a past
Of al dente pasta
Not quite my liking
But always filling
How hard to be full
Of a hearth of health
When i've been so long
Waited on by baited service
Couldn't help but take a bite
I got hooked
Reeled in line to choke on breathing
Luck lifeline
To see release
Catch a nibble
Insist I taste
Your full flavor
Ever evolving buds
Dissolve new resolve
From tongue
Of trepidation
Swirled in soufflee one day
Tiramisu on through
To courses I never knew
In glistening garnishes
Playful plating
Dining halls of hope
Glazed eyes
Fancy this feast
Mixed anew
Set you a place
Its fit for two

Firsts of the night:
Handcuffs
Backsass scruff
Back of a paddywagon
Band of boys
But before
All this
4 outfit tries
Opinions of three
Butterfly pre potion
Then
Long hair and ripped jeans
House party
Warm smiles with new faces
Tittering across a stage
Teasing a held gaze
Before
Judgement in blue
Drunk remembrance
A Mugshot sentence
Social network presence
New name infamy
Self loathing
Backtrack scruff
Pins and needles
Sleeping pill sequel
Leads up
To a new year repeal
At the altar I kneel
For a self forgiven
A better year to live in

If this were a roller coaster ride
We'd be plummeting
Wind tugging at our faces
Your hands high
Salute the sun
Maybe wave goodbye
While mine cling tight
Petrified
I wanted to let go
I could feel my fingers loosening..
But then we were swooped up
Speeding round corners
To a tip top peak
Joyous screams
To nervous laughter
Here comes the drop once more

A single sneaker rolls down the road
Dog barks at empty room corner
Off key church hymn humming heart
Cheap.
José guzzle, airy gag
We shoot half assed smiles

Always find a way to pick pieces of glass from rock
Softened by the waves
Thought theyd make it harder
But the edges in search seem smoother than my own
Won a green beach glass laugh
To match the hints in your eyes
I couldnt make them stay on me
Hard to see own needs
When wide asleep in your dreams
So it seems
Need comes with a warranty
I never read the fine print
Drawn to a captive glint
Of being belittled by your
Passion aggression
Never learned my lesson
Weary words adorned in blessings
Prayers of tomorrow will be different
Change in an inference
Instant
As if
I could lull a dull duo
From festering
Within a soul ******* sorrow of desire
For you or something like
I met a boy with your same birthday
May be my lucky day
You could say im not through
Whats new

Nature boy,
Dont write to me when the grounds you tend wont be fertilized by lies, like vines weaving their way, crawling whispers to crack your hard head cemented soul (hardly even believe your own *******, why would I?) Dont write to me when you wish your life flourished full as mine, rays of being youll never see someone near as divine. You tried to catch me in the wake of a watered down climate.. guess ya cant count your corporate chicks before they hatch, huh? Don't write to tell me a sorry hunter story. You've shot down too many birds to tell me you wish I would've flown. Bird call claim to live a life without wondering what life is worth.. well, i can tell you its more than paycheck work, more than parents approval, more that shiny things to shield eyes from your lack of self work. I think if youd had it all together you wouldn't have pulled me into the dirt but it seems you stirred the soot between my toes. I'm taking root, cracking ground bound in renewed resilience. Oh, and nature boy? Just know, it feels so good to grow out of you.

I pierced my *****
Maybe so she could have teeth
So she could bite back
Maybe to reclaim my body
Maybe just for bling
I pierced my *****
As a ******* to pain
As a “no you didn’t” conversation piece
As a **** out of here if you can’t handle me
I’m not fragile
May be ******* broken
But I break myself on purpose just to watch me rebuild
I pierced my ***** as a ******* to fear
As a ******* to an ex boyfriend
An ex lover
An ex ******
An uncle
A parent
A precedent
A deity
I pierced my ***** for ******* fun
For fun *******
Maybe I pierced my ***** so I could write this poem about it
I pierced my ***** to make people uncomfortable
Did it work?

Please please me
No its not easy
And yes ill strip down ******
Tucked flesh into trembling teeth
Nothing like this sweet release
Mindless sheath
Where I
Forget my shame in feeling
Faultless to the blind eye
When we are done
I turn away
Faced with the feelings
I cant cover in play
In fantasies i see
A me that is free
No hand on shoulder or hip
But I must concede
A need in needless desire
Roundabout thoughts that conspire
To wrap my worth in a bedsheet
Bite mark or bruise
Evidence
Im wanted since
Another he showed me
Warranted power
But im no woman in a tower
I track testosterone
Like if i dont ill be ever alone
Settle in snug
Caught another slimy bug
Bedroom reuse
Refuse
To love me
Without a he
Powerless till i arise
Stripped off self disguise
Sand off hand marks
Of heroes who couldnt hold
An aching empty mold
Tell me again
I can fill it with a friend
Or a poem
Or a pen
Scream that i dont need these men
Take them off the shelf
So i can tell myself
Please please me

Soliloquy shake in neon light
Bare bones brittle smile
Stomp waves of green
In stand alone heels

Grisly dogs groan and reel
Pant in heat
Gritted teeth show slobbering snarls
Scraggly smirks
You showed among lost mutts

Put on your begging eyes
Limp tongue hung
Wagged lingering shame
Hard **** in hand
Go **** yourself

****** off stripper spit
Loose lips
Eyes locked
On wallet
Congrats, slick
Close up on a slimy siren trick

The music of my words falls on dead ears
You could care less for my poems
My sadness
But oh
How you care for my body

Dry wind
Leaves wave goodbye
You rake them into piles
I missed the crunch beneath my feet
The patchwork blanket of fall
Shuffling stir of crisp remembrance
We've little control at all

A hassle, you say
Between swift step breaths
I haven't known it once
"The gutters are full the yards a wreck"
"I'll burn them all away"
Gaze upon those driven eyes
My only concern what's for brunch

Solitary confinement
Hard to find a need
In ease of social security
Though funds run out
Seldom sought future of own
Unknown
Selfish disclosure
Going without
Relished reality me
Found distractions in each we
Covergirl coverup
For a face hardest to face

I can't feel you anymore.. but when I think I almost can my ears burn hot. I swear it was your breath on them that made mine quicker. I've felt the way your lips laquered my earrings clink against your teeth I don't think I can hear my own voice in my head anymore you've slurred it all to a resonant mmmmhmmm. Funny how frogs won't jump out of boiling water and i'm choking on another vision of you choking me, hard inside me. I guess I knew you never wanted to hear my real voice. Just a throat crushing squeak never easy to shush me but I let you. I let you whisper inadequacies into my soul till I wasn't sure I had one but I was always more soulful seeping so I thought your shriveled heart could soak me up. Soak us both but you wanted a stream line trickle. Predictable, not so fickle. Im nothing if not an intangible tide tossing showers of sediment to swirl in new space. There is no space for your sturdy stillness settling was something I tried to do for you. But the breeze doesn't stop when you're standing still, I couldn't pause the tides of will. Still see you so scared of drowning never treked past where toes could touch. But boy I am much fuller than you'll feel, much deeper than you'll see. Seldom stray far from shore shapes shallow eyes caught beneath. I've been listening to the clouds. I've been singing a new heat. Tell myself again, I'm worthy. I am worthy of love from me. In a quake of sadness shake dust from the places you touched. Solace in the touch of a new he. Nothing like a brush with your body but I'm remembering what it's like to feel free. Wavering joy with sadness missing you and hating you and forgiving you and forgiving myself and forgetting to love myself remembering loving you then finding the hurt you gave me and piecing it into a poem I've lit on fire twice now, rewriting my mind won't be as easy as I thought but my heads above the water and the sun might take a peak. I know there's forces fear won't foster. Trading past for future cut like a movie scene. Where I command role of self. Self assured. Rest assured my waves will crash. I will stop hating them the way you taught me to. Some soul will swim strokes with the fish, learn their names and places. Some soul will surf my biggest waves, tuck them into the shore. Calm and twirl my tides with ease it was easy to believe you could catch with such bait but I can't blame you for getting sea sick. For slight of heart has no place in mine. I wager these waters will draw a Poseidon sink or swim.

Ghostly nostalgia
Train hopper
Restless receipt
Dream itch
Shoo fly
Full sigh
Track tie
Leftover glances
Slapped happy
Wind swivel
Velcro catch
Flu faced
Stake claim
No reentry

Say hello to poetry
When I say goodbye to you

You are not sinking
You are naturally buoyant
If you only breathe deeply

Whats to be done in the wake of an earthquake, rapture the ground concrete with memories seeming more now like lava flowing through cracks burns the heels who walk a path dont try to look back there is only rubble there now heathen halt in the dusty mist of what was squint your eyes for the finding of freedom in the form of a face or a sky in the drink you gulp by maybe stray cats nestling a *** ankle or the weeds taking over the yard there is no fault in being the persecuted only fail when you see yourself victim rather than hero for the downtrodden need to see your smokey smile lead on the packs no chip off your shoulder we will have your back

I've a crawling suspicion
this times got a mission
Like a gasoline strike
Split hardrived for fission
Or a slinking for something
That daunts my remission
Dissolves my uncertainty
Spells out a vision
Found harder and harder to see
Past the dreams you're in
Whistling wood
Won't spark in such thinking sin
Stoppage of time
Much less knowing what world I'm in
Prying for clues
Precious words in the passing wind
Eager for something
Fresh liveliness I'd expend
To reality
Renowned discoveries
Flip switch from extinction ends
Granting yourself as a new kind of fruitful friend
Harder at first
Than your expectations would have found you in
But much less a curse
Than relying on you would've been
So im searching my purse for that ******* lighter again
Though the glow so can find me
If I only look within

You sleep much like a citys night
Squealing brakes on subway grates
Trickle down a rusty pipe
Leaky faucet to showering snores
Swingin **** chatter
Lining to living walls
That bear witness at
Writhing renewer
Shut out shut in
Classified conglomerate clasping
The thunder of a thousand thoughts
Or Dreams
A thousand thoughtful words
A thousand thoughtless
A thousand oohs
A thousand aaaahhhgonies
In repitition and random order
A hum to a hammer
A breath in harmonized heartbeats
Follows a breath plucked from puckered lips
Lush like advertised kisses
Stolen from a squeezed tight chest
Wont wake with a start
Even when your body quakes
To try and yank you from a mind
Unsettled
Unsettling
Hearing you murmur
Idle chatter at existense sans consciousness
Id like to caress your unconsious
Breathe calm into cavities
That slow that iron heart tempo
Astral project
Bait switch in place
Not a pain to replace
But if it could be the case
Id slink into your shaking skin
And claim it my own for the moon view
Then you may know a restful slumber
In Opposite minds rewound anew

In some corners before sleep we are lovers
I **** a soliloquy off your thumb
In starlight solace
Lament to lunar eyes
Sometimes too bright to look upon
Swelling softness swarms my gut with a glance