I want to feel whole but I only
feel like my skin isn't on properly
is there a way to tighten it?
take it off and alter the way it hugs my bones?
it's all a mask and I'm only
trying to figure out how to rip it off.

I don't feel lust or admiration
I feel the weight of the past on my heels like I'm Achilles
who am I to decide when the sun should shine and when I should go?
It's taken me years to grow this measly inch, I wonder if I'll ever be able to stand up straight without my ego hitting the ceiling
I'm laying in a bed that's a bit more familiar now trying
to remind myself to stop making it about everybody else
this is me, here now, breathing polluted air and attempting
to turn my saliva into something a little more meaningful
I don't deserve credit, it's what all humans do
I find myself in junkyards often
I walk among the trash and kick cans and find rusted
cars that stopped running years ago unlike you and I
and our pasts filled with scenes of both of us sprinting full speed
we can only talk through our body language which is
why we find ourselves hating each other as often as we do
life would be easier if I picked up two of those cans
and put a month long string through it in order to
have a one on one conversation
I don't know myself
I need to leave this city and start over
because every few months I say the same things
my only ******* emotion is jealousy--
I'm jealous of you for living a life that
didn't once involve me. I want to do that too.

SHAPESHIFTING
7/25/2014
in under two minutes
I could shed my skin
my limbs aren't my own-
to be in your presence
to feel the warmth
hearing breaths, chest moving
If your arms are around mine
the shift becomes inside
like the plates of the earths core
positioning right into each other
filling each other, filling me up
shapeshifting
I'm not me when I'm with you
I'm indebted to this feeling
take my skin;
my veins -
rip out my entire being
shapeshifting
for you

BASED ON A TRUE STORY
[the true part]

you got there and I was already breathless. I'd been waiting all day for some sort of release, let's say, and when you arrived it felt like that was good enough already, as if there was some sort of ****** in your eyes. you came through the gate, went into my room, and at first we struggled through trying to figure out how to speak to each other after being inside of one another so soon, you spoke slow.

we smoked in my bedroom and the fumes [re: our fumes] went inside my ceiling and out of the fan, maybe just into the walls as if they were lead rooting, sticking, planting itself inside of the dry paint, coming out to make me sick one of these nights that you're somewhere else. the light turned off, the clothes came off, but I still saw an orange hue. I stopped and turned, we were both high and you were kissing on my neck, we didn't understand how to allow our bodies to just do what they wanted to and you didn't quite understand my hesitation. Infatuation tastes like gasoline and I looked at you in my dark room but swore I saw a light, a spark of some sort, I imagined the room on fire, ignored it, searched for your lips through the darkness but quickly opened my eyes to red and orange in my peripheral vision. I failed chemistry but here we are, I'm searching for cigarette ash in my bed hours after you've left because I swear to god, I swear to god we turned orange.

I sat there thinking about how I was going to write about my come to Jesus moment. could emotional, mental and completely internalized connection manifest into a physical light? Is there such a power in skin on skin, mouth on mouth, your tongue on my teeth all the way to my ******* knees?

An hour or so later we were sharing water [a spiritual post-*** experience] and you were chain smoking outside while I rested peacefully in my bed, naked, staring at the way you inhale. We were talking about something [my music taste vs yours? the story of my sisters ex-boyfriends suicide or maybe my dads drug addiction? your pattern with girls that wanna make you their boyfriend and each time you got suspended from grade school up until they outed you to your mom?] and I turned- the light was back, it was coming from inside of your mouth, it was coming from the way you breathe.

Maybe we were talking about ******* in your studio because you now have a key or the possibility of going as Rose McGowan and Marilyn Manson for Halloween. It wouldn't really matter because the orange shows up when you're there.

I am as strong as I want to be, because right now I care more about leaning out and taking in as few calories as possible. Losing the pounds in order to gain 'em back, you know? There's very few questions that truly have a right or a wrong answer, and I believe that with 98% of me. Sometimes a right answer simply means it is socially acceptable and a wrong answer is the truth, so in that situation you'd want to throw away your moral compass, clench your jaw, and hope that the lies that come out just result in pearly, shiny teeth.

you take a sip of something and it tastes like, ummm.. bad. it tastes like deceit, but that isn't totally possible (OBVIOUSLY), so in a literal sense it just tastes like the Coca Cola syrup that didn't have any carbonated water mixed with it. It's sweet, flavorful, but kind of tastes like it could erode my car engine in a matter of seconds, you know?

I feel the sip deep inside of my body, I can feel it trailing down my esophagus (is that what it is?) or maybe just my throat, a tube to my stomach and then to parts of me I better just not try to name out of fear of sounding stupid. fear of sounding stupid drives the majority of things I do, but that's okay, because at least I don't sound stupid.

the sip gets caught in the pit of my gut and I start to feel uneasy. I probably should have looked at the bottle before sipping it, huh? I probably should have asked for a detailed list of ingredients like the responsible wanna-be-vegan I should be? I call myself a wannabe most things. its just the person I am.

I take a seat because I don't feel good. this is going to hurt, this is going to land me in the hospital probably and might take a whole while to get over. this is turning too literal and I'm trying to beat around the bush, so ill just tell you about the time I took a sip of a coke can and a bee was inside and it flew around in my mouth for a solid 5 seconds before I managed to open, spit, and scream. that could be poetic if you really hunt, like I waited 5 whole seconds to get the monstrous bee out of my ******* mouth, I just sat with a confused look on my face for 5 whole seconds!!! thats a whole giant metaphor! I still swallowed the Coca Cola and it tastes like ***.

IMAGINE THAT people- poison only takes like poison once you've swallowed it.

in order for me to pick the roses and give them to you, I first have to grow them. it starts with planting seeds. I forget that a lot which only leads to feeling guilty that your hands are empty, that I don’t have something to give, but I know that one day I will. sometimes I find it difficult to find the time, energy or even simply the motivation to water the soil that’s clogging up my already cramped bedroom, but again, without these steps, they can’t ever grow and neither can I.

I want you to know that I sleep on my back now. in fact, I can only sleep on my back, but not in a I-never-really-sleep-very-comfortable type of way, more that I doze off peacefully, with my fan on full blast and my face pointed towards the sky. I am moving as freely as a flightless bird these days because I have two working legs but nowhere to go but I want to let you know that my mind is still moving a million miles an hour. the world looks a little different when my eyes are dry, in the same way that some of you look much less appealing when my conscience is clear. I pack a bag and drive to another city sometimes when I’m having a bad day, and it reminds me of how stationary I am- but only for now. it’s a good thing because this world is really ******* big.

I’m so happy I don’t have to take care of you anymore.
1

I'm polluted with thoughts I don't feel comfortable thinking. I'm searching for an on and off switch, constantly, but I still haven't figured out why the world looks so different when I don't take my medicine so it's hard to imagine cutting my own circulation.
I am a figure of irrationality.
I counteract myself more times than I can count on a daily basis yet math has always been my strong suit. I like right or wrong answers, it's easier when there is no room to debate, but I like to argue more than I like to talk, ask any of my ex-girlfriends.
A guy I knew from high school shot himself in the head on top of a hill behind his parents house on my 20th birthday, for days I only thought about the look on his brothers face when he found the body. everybody described him in different ways, but my only real memory of him was the time I got drunk with him for the first time and I ended up running off a 6 foot wall, I don't have feeling in part of my leg because but for some reason I still wish I could hear his final thoughts plugged into my aux chord in my car so I could listen to them on my way to work and attempt to decipher,
I only want to understand.
Understanding always makes it hurt less but I think that's just because I make excuses for people in order to make myself feel okay.
I learned really early to play dead. It quickly progressed to avoiding mostly everything and using my newfound skill to become invisible. It's all just so morbid now. I talk a lot and smile a lot and enjoy life way too much for somebody who has these thoughts but one of them is surface level; I'm not sure which, I'm sure one day I will though. It's not my place to think or feel any of this, I have no right to reach out to people, but I still firmly believe that I am the owner of all my experiences. I miss feeling nostalgic. I don't care about the past anymore and it's only making me homesick for the times I spent swallowing the noise. It's just so ******* quiet now.

Why did he do that? How did it get so bad?