the sun released a photon
into my lap.
stretch. yawn. shiver.
to curl back into a
liquid-smooth pearl diver
or engage with the peril
of my own biology.
the question of the day
isn't rhetorical. it's a ripening, decaying
flesh eating virus
that itches like a plague.

i can hear the bomb ticking.
it’s a nursery rhyme that I want
to put me to sleep forever. to stare,
patiently, as it preys (prays)
on (over) the weak and forgiving;
i want to it to detonate.

change brings the most frightening
transitions of my life.
change means that one day,
I might learn to love myself.

I'll save that for another lifetime.

fingertips against
a glass pane, smothered.
paint drips from the ceiling,
peeling back its exoskeleton.
it's bare, rooted in rotting wood.
let me in.
i could do it forever.
one ounce of indiscretion is tortuous,
but it is my remedy. guitar strings are strummed
in the closet and the drums
were not ready for their awakening.

it's a christening,
a birth in reverse.
fragmented sun rays refract onto
the shards of glass created by
grandma's mason jars.
sweetened fruit is neutered
and calmly packaged for spaying.
the curtains dance with the breeze
till they're tired. i am amused.
my feet gasp for air only to have its
wish smoldered by the nighttime.
i can hear the dew hydrating outside.
is it time for sleep?

our holy coronation
has fallen into the inkwell.
it splatters. it is primal.
it stains as it enters
to transcribe lines of
sapphic poetry. no one
is a lover alone. what is shelter
without a body receiving the
thermodynamic tendencies of
an atom dance?
the veins are etched in our lungs.
how unstable the collisions.
how sonic. how real
!

between the crevices of my lips,
there is orange soda no longer carbonated, hibernating
until i wipe it off with my sleeve.
sometimes i like myself, when the caffeine dissipates
and my anxiety subsides.
are you loving yourself? are you taking care of yourself?
i didn't shave in the right places,
i didn't comb my hair this morning.
i've grown fond of my ***** roots or at
least that's what i've been told.

i touched myself this evening. i caressed every fold
and counted the lightning bolts to help me sleep.
masculinity is torturing. the bed springs attach to
my spine, embracing my face. there are no second chances
in heaven; in purgatory we have no one. cuts under my eyelid
tell me i'm ageing, but this is what happens
at the edge of history.

i can no longer pretend or hide. the newports grapple
my esophagus and i have been pinned.
why this and not that?
tomorrow is our spring awakening, and whether i'm up or down
or left or right - my sense of direction is permanently broken.
tonight.
i know one thing is certain. there is no love, no harmony.
i touch myself.
for a chance at true intimacy.

i am my own fiona apple record;
choking on my exoskeleton and
bleeding into the lake. it makes pretty
whips with red and blue interlaced more loosely
than my emotional stability, and the religious faith
that succumbs to the chrome pattern cracks on my wall.
it's after midnight and i can smell the cotton clogging my
esophageal lining, secreting on my taste buds. my retinas are wired at
the lead in the corner while centipedes crawl beneath the muscles
of my kneecaps. it's only two a.m. i pretend i am a neon zebra,
reflecting light onto all my insecurities because the coffee mug
never felt so cold against my shoulder. i wonder if i am
insane. Morning time. Sunrise.
The ray of Light refracts onto the window, bolstering the
cotton breathing within me like a parasite.
i am an enemy of my Being.

But tonight passes.
Seldom passes.
Today, I am
SanE.

my heart is a gasoline guzzler
running on the fumes of burned out
memories, thoughts, and breaths.
my veins play jump rope with my bursting capillaries
and beneath the seam of every heartbeat
is an arrhythmia that smiles back.
no longer is every intake an oxygen a dutiful task.
rather i, as a sovereign animal
convert the anguish into carbon dioxide
because i don't care for the proton pumps
or the electron chains. i am negatively charged
and hidden inside this bubble is a dark cycle
beseeching for the spotlight.

our bodies are melting jellyfish,
stinging beneath the ocean's surface
for a chance at reincarnation.

racked across her burning shoulders
i was the pig but on a flaming spire
so close to the ethereal cotton.
i was suffocating
and only a snap of the neck or a crack of the joints
provided a release of oxygen that set us aflame.
we don't belong here and the belittling braces
our salivating frontal lobes. it's still too dry,
and from this moment on, how could this moment bring
more tears than my own death? i float atop the spire once more
to lay, to decay, and to fade faster than the last words
you spoke to me.

remember when the parabolas were to steep

and the martyr flew out of the sky to save us
all?

exposure to the curves bent us, but we stood still.

icy syncopation in our eardrums and no one could stop
our cadence.

we were cold and chilly, and our bodies began to flush out the

heat, but we stood firm. the wind whipped our eyelids,

and the river crashed into the trees.

our own metamorphosis was one of tyrannical thoughts

but purity lied between our veins. i stared at my hands for hours,

webbed and amphibian-like. we weren't ourselves

and after the fifth of March we fell into the vespertine.

transformation complete.
androgyny in its fullest form.

every strand of your hair is another level of
complication. the tangles are lathered with a devotion
that has bent me broken.
my story is one of splintered wood
and nails made of toxic metals.
an ocean of surprise swept over me,
and the splashes didn't hurt me this time.

ice-cold fingernails keep calm when the moon
is up; there is an effervescence underneath my covers,
and tonight i will love myself.

my mouth is a genuine, hollow spread
of an apocalyptic obsession.
that yellow thing in a sky reminds me of daisies,
and everything that isn't permanent.
if it goes down, i'm going down with it.
uniformity is path of broken arms and twisted ankles and
i've honored my emotions for the last time.
every other touch, every **** has been corrupted.

my lungs are aching from the smoke
you bore this morning.
i am the glowing, shining thing in the sky,

waiting for that fallen ray of light.

after a moment, i see you glance across
the black lake; a symbiosis enriched
with mud.
i create a sculpture engraved
with her last breath. all of it.
calling out from beneath the torn branch,
a shade a fog becomes my own mask.

danced into a puddle
of rain that condensed too quickly.
she caught me. every last whisper
and sound and grievance
was heard.

green fever,
thin lips, skinny thighs,
and a mask to hide it all.
red cheeks,
rosy eyes - dark with a
twinkle of sunlight.
so far off into the galaxy,
a shining crescent resides for
us to play and sleep. we are children,
not bound by mental insurrection.
and we daydream.
gossiping, holding, feeling
until we drift into adulthood.

tears on a tongue,
dried, graveled peppers scorched
her skin. it's damaging
to think the ground possesses the
fury of a pagan god.
it's an intensity, unmatched;
a handshake, five fingers.

she makes me want to hurt myself again.
my sanity lies on the edge;
the circumcised periphery,
make me whole.

maybe if I understood
that this loneliness is forever,
I wouldn't be burdened by
the sadness.

i slipped into a wooden box encased with
childhood trinkets and the smiles
i once possessed.
four walls, i circle around
scraping the remaining abdication out of the corners.
the light fights the cold so i don't have to
and i'm still here,
exerting the force stolen from me.

what do i do when you're not here?
the pleasure of absence is so refreshing.
it's like i'm feeding off that piece of rejection that
you'd snorted.
i am hurting;
my limbs can't push down these walls.
a constant polarization tainted with darkness
clouds the sky and the wooden splinter
and i am still here.
I am still here.

right now isn't the time for love
or for dutiful thought.
i just wanted to mean more than i meant to you.

hit her with the knife;
mouth caved in.
dressed without purpose
feeling sorrow within.

dancing on the chimney;
smoke packed down.
bullets in the moonlight
cries broken down.

the conveyer belt spins;
jumps into the ocean.
skies plunge deep
without their kin.

o' how i miss you.

swanky hip-shuffles;
they care on a different capacity.
they're still learning.

foster the acorns
that feather the surroundings.
bright lights & smaller hope.
indefinite misery lies
on the periphery of regret.

come on changeling.
the hairs on my arm stand *****
for the hot knife to crackle.
show me the silly side.

i'm here still waiting.
arguing for a concept that
we both could waltz to.

there is some divinity
beneath the soul;
scorched.
numbers floating
around the pendulum.

crack into smaller pieces
and hydrate.

numquam ama nimis!

ashes purify;
watery sockets sponging
what they can contain.

stitch. burn,
turn into a kindling fire.
is this desire?

you're a day too soon.
my thoughts evacuate,
molasses lips - don't flee.

reach in far.
let's cross paths.
eventually,
death by chocolate will occur.

suffocating cellophane
wrapped explorations.

my end has begun, dear.

pleasure flowin'
with blue skies full of cigarette smoke.

puff. feeding the king,
make sure she's full
'cuz she's going higher.
not enough for me.

time out, clock spinnin'
like a skyrise,
cracking from its own demise.

queenie chuckles precociously
and the diamonds embedded on her tongue [staccato]
turn to tar.

i would **** for silence.
i smother her with a pillow.
she touched me there,
on the cheek. [accelerate]
i saw her wrinkles turn to corn stalks
and i looked away.

i was always wantin' that pleasure.
my release was at the bottom of stale marlboro lights.
where is QUEENie?

now i wonder where we land

i know you like that.
i know you like that.
i know you like it.
i know you like it.

bubbling treble on the eardrum's hibiscus-smelling
lobe.
crave me.
red-blue yellow follicles frolicking on the echo of a stain.

you have always been that moribund ****
and i am deathly ill.
i saw the crystallization of your emotions.
watch them shatter and break and dance.
whisper to me
goodnight

ultraviolet.

twigs dangling from their medium.
bodies tearing,
aortas stretching.
smoke doin' the tango with the esophagus.
salination forming in the crusts of receptors.

i have no concept of time
other than it soars.
i am a bald eagle,
soarin' high till i am shot down,
left on the ground.

love don't live here.
embrace me till the sun rises.
i wanna stay down
'cuz it feels alright.

i am at the bottom.
and I kinda like it
struggle for me.

isolation is a wonder
aggressively pacifying
the unspoken.

what warmth
when you realize you are
slowly self-destructing.

o melanin
'tis of thee
sweet land.

what's your modus operandi?
i am ageing.
my muscles ossify
and i become stiff.

the bullet grazes the hair on my bicep
and my heart fires a lightning bolt.
i made it this time.
undo.
unison.
undo.
and leave me be.

the voltage got to me,
shocked me.

there's a blueprint
covered in molten chalk,
a morse code,
uninterpreted.

the white roses ripen

an unearthly simplicity-
concave and narrow
sweeping below the marrow.
like rotting danger.

the white roses ripen

pulsating thumps on my thigh
as my screams vibrate
off the ozone.

hear me holler.

the white roses ripen
the white roses ripen

the white roses ripen,


christen me.

save me the time.
the rotary patterns
click, click, click
till sound drowns out.

chasing dust,
go 'round my spine
and crack my incisor.

o, i am here.
standing beside you,
and in front you,
and underneath you.

tick. tock.
tick. tock.
till the blood rushes down.

my scream
it created a tsunami
that drowned a man.

we're all on the same team,
screaming and sad,
lonely and isolated,
dark and moody.

i'm intoxicated,
walking straight down a line
into my own downfall.

retrieve my belongings
and fetch for my things.
i created a windstorm
that blew away everything i owned,

i am the carrier
falling into the margins of the paper.
dry in the sand with infallibility
and crust like the corner of my mother's eye.
i am cracking in quarters wrapped in Cupid's inverted
arrow.
i feel unloved.
and i am in here in the lonely hour;



i really wish i weren't alone tonight.

wheels are independent of themselves
they roll as if they were children at a playground
the concept of regret doesn't trigger visceral pain
and doesn't eat them from the inside and out
and their pale expression as they touch the concrete
resonates so softly with their exterior,
and they give no *****.
and i wish i were a wheel
i get no breaks with physicality
but at least i know i won't wake up sobbing in the middle of the night
wheels are my esoteric dream
and that's okay with me

i've manufactured a new identity.
i tried to love myself this one time,
and the ghost of my new self possessed me
with all of those insults.
i'm a new person now.
and all i ever asked for was to be happy.

//oops

the paint in the corner of the wall has dried
and become a brittle piece of its former self,
condensing like a melting milkshake
inside a trash bag.

far from the origin, there is a gap that widens
to the tears of every adolescent that has thought
of committing suicide.
and around the corner, the lemon sheds,
souring the moods and the smiles of everyone
who didn't think about harming themselves today.
and there i am, in the shadow of my new self,
coping with the lack of self-loathing -
relearning how to feel something other than hate.
now,
that gap ceases to exist.
depression weeps at all of the giggles
every survivor smiles.
the moon shines bright,
reflecting the pearly whites that are now visible.
the skin has healed. and so has the heart -
but the mind goes through constant withdrawals,
cycling and cycling
till the process is repeated.
but we unite, strong as one,
breathing the same breath -
dreading the next breath.

there's nothing more pleasing
than looking at yourself in the mirror
and not crying because of what you see .

what is a mirror
when your eyes are repulsed
by your own reflection?
tiring mental games haunt me daily.
I'm afraid to develop thoughts -
they dig deep trying to penetrate my skull.
they want to swim down into my nerves.
they want to see me hurt
again.
A mismatched pattern of self-hate and envy,
loathing-stained skin.
my hair follicles have the sensual smell of the depression
I thought I overcame last week.
I'm drenched in my own mental hibernation,
and waking up means I might not make it to the next day.
so I sleep.
i sleep hard.
i shower myself with mental gifts and compliments
because i have some hope that I
can win this
battle.

splitting the coconut down the middle
to see what it has to offer.
partition the edges,
clear the debris the storm created,
wipe away the mess I cried,
and i'm still grappling towards the ground.
lonely strings only vibrate when i cannot speak,
and i'd rather dissipate into thin air than
circle the drain,
trying to find the strand of hair
that haunts me in my sleep.
there is a clear reservoir in the horizon
where the animals go to preserve their livelihood,
their essence,
and in the horizon,
there is a place where i go,
to heal,
to hurt,
to surrender
myself to shame.

my own little succubus,
deriding me at every intersection,
every curved point.
following me, my own personal stalker,
my little stain of happiness.
it's my friend, my mate,
my backbone -
who i lean on.
my own pocket of disdain.
my broken clock with a rhythmic tick.
it's my shadow,
peering out of the window
to stare - to ignite the flame.
i trust you.
turn my lights off.
my own sparkle of sunlight,
it's past your bedtime.

my bones tremble at the meeting of hate and stones.
it waves unilaterally for a truce between
the marrow and the muscle
to no avail.

i pay my fare with loneliness.
my journey always ends the same.
contemplation.
it won't stop till
a halo shimmers around my skull.

feel my breath
on your neck -
misty with an oxidized smile.
don't say no.
i cannot take more opposition
but across the universe,
my breath resonates like an unpitched percussive.
the sound is inaudible
but the sun in my mouth plays loudly
for no one to hear.

cradle me tenderly
because this broken heart won't mend
itself.

i like you.
all of you.
can i **** my time with you?

in a circle,
it spins.
a double helix.
my own personal dna.
genetically modified.
underneath the core
lies truth and honesty.
something we're not destined for.
cylindrical oppositions.
and yet,
we are not allowed to
reproduce.

my memories are stained with a heavily liquored frown.
i drown in my tasty ***** imagination.
smeared with Smirnoff,
my veins can't transport the blood anymore.
and sometimes i don't want them to.
my hair is laced with the hennessy that
evaporated last night,
but those **** dreams wouldn't.
and i dig the hole deeper
until i'm entrenched in chinese soil
because sometimes foreign matter
reminds me of the reciprocated
foreign love we all desire.
but i'm lacking it.
so i turn to the brandy in shelf.
i wish i had someone to **** time with
but instead i'll **** my liver
till I turn
red, white, and
blue.

the liquid over my eyes does not tingle
with every ****.
instead it fades.
quickly.
the snowflakes dance around my thoughts,
piercing the shadows.
i try not to stare,
but i know the enigmatic art does not exist.
saucy and treacherous,
i emit a howl that illuminates images
that only i can see.
i'm not crazy.
my heart has been permanently severed,
and it beats to the rhythm
of every pill i am forced to swallow.

let me go.