rip out my heart
feed it to the wolves
and tell me that I am OK
strike me down, you gladiator
you torch bearer
and wrap me in feathers till I sleep

my words are not mine
I do not make them
my mistress sinks them into my well
and I merely pour out the bucket

this strangling weight
pressing on my sternum
(it is not a weight)
I cannot find myself
to push air into the lungs
unless I can succeed
in forgetting them

I cannot

burn me
burn me
burn me
I am on fire and still I battle the cold

your voiceless throat is split
red choking your clothes
and my vision
and you say
‘do not remember me now
remember the chocolate
on my forehead
at lunchtime
remember my head
on your chest
(breathe in/let go)
do not remember me now’

I don’t want to ask you where your story dies

I just want to see your face and smile


*I wish life would tear me to ribbons

the nights are growing cold
I sat outside to finish reading a book
about love and cancer
extremities growing numb
falling foolishly in love
with the pretty girl whose face
gave me the courage
to sit down beside her
on a bench
in the sun
five minutes before my next class started

I found out her favorite author
but neglected to discover her name

in the sunlight
YOLO only says to live
and it’s easy to forget
that I’d like to have
a future

my night sky consists
of millions of tiny, ferociously burning
pin ******
and one heroically loyal mirror
reflecting more brightly than ten thousand
500 million year old projections
of dead stars

I am doomed to fall in love
with a girl who can honestly tell me
that fear of death
and love of life
don’t really feel any different

I wish I could choose
the type of fool I will be

but I know that the moon
has never been in love with the sun
that she has only ever revolved around us
as we revolved around him
waiting eight minutes for his light to reach us
until night falls and we finally notice
her cold, bright eye
slowly blinking at us
doing all she can to be like the light
that we love
her,
reflecting the old, distant light at us
seconds after it touches her surface
she is the closest thing we have to a companion
to a light source
yet we still spend our lives reaching for the stars

I have no belief in a God
I know the sun
is a ball of burning gas
expelling particles and waves of energy
into blank, full space
and that the moon
is a dense space cloud
with a reflective surface covered
in craters
and darkness
and brightness
and a few human footprints and I know
that the night sky
is full of things that can **** me
and everyone I know
with no warning
but such a fool as I am
I can do nothing but love
the cold, lonely face
that looks down on me as a reflection
of my source of life

she will only ever be my beautiful mistress
of untouchable hurt
and so I am doomed
to love that which will break me
if I ever get close enough to touch it

I can’t tell you whether my heart is dying
or if I’ve finally found a way to live with myself

walking toward the sea
I am dreaming

(your voice catches in my throat)

sometimes strange faces join me
oddly unsettled I march
and their lovely presence
lightens the miles
until they are gone
to their own destinations

(my heart is whole now)
(thank you)

with tired legs I find the sea
violent in the dusk
and in the depths
I know
is silence

(I have found a way to live)

holding my pace
the first wave strikes me
and I awake

(finally I have peace)

and my strange companions' faces
come back to me
as those of my closest friends
somehow forgotten
somehow lost
like my own name

(but I still have to die sometimes)

My Face is held on with old shoelaces
loose and sagging at the top
the grease stained hat holds it together
tight and neat till my shift is over.

My leg bones are gone,
transformed into balloon animals.
silly, flimsy things that wouldn't stay inflated
if not for the bicycle pump
I keep in my back pocket.

Every few hours I slip into the bathroom
just to sit and awkwardly fill up my legs,
Tom & Jerry style, through my big toes.

I say I try to live in the moment,
but I don't when I'm here.

Daydreams about suspiciously well prepared hoboes:
"No cash? That's fine. I have a card reader."
Memories of friends and stupid mistakes;
the smile is real, but the eyes...

the eyes are where I fool them
the eyes are where I hide the fact
that my mind is anywhere, everywhere else.
My eyes will never tell you that here,
I wish for summer to be over.
That here, I'm scared to death
that three years from now, I'll still be here,
and summer's end won't mean ****.

The only friend I have here
says I remind him of himself.
He is pushing six years.
I just passed two.

So.

I want you to beat me into unconsciousness
with a giant, squeaky toy hammer.

The kind you can only get at the fair
for fifteen dollars or feats of mild greatness
confiscated within the first ten minutes.
Silliness so intense that our parents
destroyed it as contraband
to protect us from the poison,
our bloodlust of absurdity.

Club me in the head with it.

Please.

I want my legs to deflate.

I want to be a giggling mound of confusion,
rolling around on the floor,
within inches of enlightenment.

I want my hat to fall off,
my shoestrings to come untied,
and this stupid mask to splinter into tiny,
stupid pieces and form onto a real, stupid grin.

But most of all, I want every single note
of your noisy and utterly useless inflatable bludgeon
to be the first thing on my mind
the next time I walk around here
in my slip resistant sneakers
scuffling along the greasy tile floor.