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.

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.

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.

words hurt.
have you ever been stabbed by an adjective
or ripped up inside by a verb?
how about those adverbs that modify
the emptiness we all feel inside?

words are a living creature.
lurking over the enjambment of the letters,
terrorizing those who hear them.
and yet;
we still use them.
pushing us over the edge
as they're muttered by those who
are not worthy of their power.
of their
grace.

but nouns hurt the worst.
razor blades and lemon juice
are like an ant to a human
compared to nouns.
and the only way we can combat
these fierce enemies
is to not listen.
but how can i cover my ears from
something i adore?

and how can i cover my ears
to protect myself from words when
i need them?
i need them more than Tina needed Ike
more than Lindsay Lohan needs coke
more than Beyonce needs Jay
more than Lucifer needs God to stay alive.
And how can I shield myself from words
when all I want to do
is hear the phrase
"everything is going to be okay."

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.

Slumping in her wooden chair,
she began to become upset.
Tying her blonde strands into a bun
(far from messy),
she began to bite on the eraser tip,
tasting the frustration in every nibble.
And when a tear fell into the margin,
she panicked
(and silently)
balled up the paper,
and threw it against the wall.
She soon became relieved of that stress,
and when she unraveled the delicate lined-paper,
the tears ran dry.
Reading the unreadable words,
she muttered what she had been longing to hear:
"Time to wake up."

play that saxophone.
crash those cymbals
and shake the tambourine.

fall into the trap.
wrap yourself inside of your insanity
and fall into the ditch of despair.

taste the moving colors
and those stifled emotions.
let loose and make your engine roar.

twist your hips
into a spiral.
don't recover from the spirit dancing inside of you.

paper hurts the same
way life hurts:
strip all of the dense air away
as the margins of our memories collide
with the graphite of our instrument of pain.
words.
shelter us with your actions
and as the mind wants to get foggy
so do the memories of that everlasting change.
thoughts are nothing but the imagination,
uncontrollable because let's be real:
reality *****.
and as the words begin to flow
so do those thoughts.
they appear.
it rumbles my consciousness and
stirs those repressed feelings.
the unspeakable.
the hatred.
the sorrow.
the love.
and I just lament my feelings into the paper
because I know the pencil won't hurt me.
and i keep on writing and writing and writing
till the rush of death sweeps over me
and Lord knows
I just want it to end.
So I write.
I write some more.
And as my hand because just as numb as my
heart,
I know it's over.

to that one girl over there*

chock-full of intimacy,
i can't stop looking at the wrinkles in your hair
and the way they caress the curvature of your ears.
every smile drives me deeper into insanity,
and as your upper intersects with your lower,
i heave a sigh of pain.
waltz there, waltz here - your every move is like a dance
God Almighty choreographed himself.
My soul is like a bird - fluttering to the unknown,
but every season I come back for you.
your thighs were sculpted my Michelangelo,
your voice was crafted by Ella Fitzgerald,
your grace was gifted by your parents,
and my love burns hotter than the passion i have for 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.

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.

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
!

The mirrored shattered into pieces
and as she tried to put it back together,
her reflection catches her attention.
Aching with anger,
she becomes pregnant with rage
and begins to step on those pieces.
As the blood began to flow from her foot,
it also began to flow to her face.
She doesn't know why she's angry -
but then she remembers.
*How can a person remain
just as tattered as this mirror?

this self-loathing is too much for me to bare.
i mean i bare everything:
the actions, the words,
the snickers with
an inflamed chest.
and the struggle cannot be conquered;
i am no soldier, no fighter - subhuman.
i struggle for a sense of purpose
like an infected toilet brush
or maybe a half-chewed pencil eraser. quality beats quantity
but i cannot quantify how many tears i have shed
or the glass-stained memories
that leave ****** scratches on mind.
all along there was no end to this journey,
but shattered dreams paint a more vivid picture
than happiness ever could.

touch.

touch me like you're a snake.
wrap your velvet fingers across my velcro exterior,
then puncture my interior with your deadly lust.

touch me like you're a dog.
place your paw inside mine
and lick the sorrow off of my face.

touch me like a cat.
nudge your face against mine,
and when i stroke your exotic fur,
i want to hear you purr.

touch me like a tiger.
bombard me with your hate
and attack me with all of your pain.

touch me like a shark.
eye me from across the sea,
and when i least expect it,
you will sweep me off of my feet.

and touch me like a human.
you can have all of me
as long as i can have your heart.

Let's go on a trip.
Maybe we could see the world together?
And when I see you face,
I cry because I know I am not worthy of
your ethereal beauty; and then your smell.
Oh, your smell.
It's like a collision of the sun and the moon
produced 100 red roses, radiating a smell so pungent
that even the Lord Almighty is intimidated to inhale.
Love.

Incensed by your beauty.
Enraged by your body.
Inflamed by the way you make me feel.
Valuable.
As a the smoke of the train encapsulates my body,
and takes away my breath,
your voice is the only thing I think about.
You ingrain hope into this slender body
and give me the will to go on.

I'm so sorry I love you so much.
I'm so sorry I feel this way about you.
I'm so sorry that I worship you in secret;
You mustn't know how I feel.
And as I type these words into the computer,
and your life continues to go on,
Just take this advice;
Don't ever change what God has given you.
He has blessed your body with innumerable  sinusoidal curves
that gently compliment that warm, tear-induced smile.
He's blessed you with those thighs,
Lawd! (Oh how I want to integrate those thighs.)
But you're more than that.
No *** object of my amusement,
but a Goddess that is worth constant praise
and a Goddess who must not know how
I really feel.

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.

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.

you pull on my heartstrings,
plucking with a sensational force,
encroaching my temple.
you shake with such a sensibility,
prancing across the barren trench
of loneliness.
tiny toenails scratch the surface of the skin,
scarring my edifice,
emasculating my core.
but language has power.
it swarms,
creating the metamorphosis of a human -
from a body
to a living creature.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

my tan skin is only the reflection
of the dark I have in my heart.

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.

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.

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.

it kindles with a passion
only met by her deep hatred for love.
it blossoms
like a girl losing her virginity
by force.
the pedals are silky,
releasing their insides on your outsides.
the sidewalk blooms with rocks and cracks
and so does her image of herself.
the desert air is as dry as her personality,
but the indian blood
flows more heavily
than it does from the cuts on her arm.
but she fakes it.
we fake it.
her spin graces the stage
in a frenzied, intricate pattern.
she closes her eyes.
counts to three.
till time loses itself on her body.

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?

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 dust falls at night,
scratching the surface of light -
destroying the plight.

Shaking all loveless,
diving into the love pit,
it all falls to dust.

Dance in the corner,
smiling without purpose,
the tears ache with pain.

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,

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.

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.

i don't know why it happens
but i feel it happening,
and i am tortured.
i'd rather not discuss matters of the heart,
but my mind compels me to do so,
and for that,
i am tortured.
i soak it up in vain,
dancing around the horror of my reflection.
broken and shattered,
i am tortured.
the glossy whispers are muttered
with their sound waves vibrating in my ear,
giving me a pulsing sensation
to lament
silently.
and for that,
i am never the same.

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.

rushing to the non-relinquished title of happiness,
we turn with such blind faith at reality
for that once chance of obtaining a smile
or maybe even a grin that is involuntary.
but joyful stories are myths and glee is a lie
because how can anyone move those mouth muscles
with such abject sadness in the world.
i try to eliminate my feelings because feelings are feelings
and i'd rather not feel than feel bad
but no one wants to here a sob story.
i softly add fervor to my daily life for it to be destroyed
but valiantly i survive the day
but unfortunate my pillow won't -
drowning in the saltiness that emits from my eyes.
but it'll get better, that's what they always say.
but what if doesn't? should i be forced to drown in the misery
like my pillow or will i learn to not succumb to my feelings
and triumph over the cold air running through my hair.
no.
they will win.
they have won.
but i will come back.
higher than ever.
dancing on the empire state building because nothing will
consume me except my nerves.
because i am valiant.
not.

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.

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.