How are you?
I'm fine.
Today, I managed to fake a smile that was believable.
I watched the Cheshire Cat disappear.
I found the bottom of a bottle.  Found myself in the same place.
I found alone.
I found it before, just didn't have a name for it.
Like when you built forts out of covers and cushions and didn't name it Fort Sky til the next day.
We fall to a place where flash lights expand iris's as fast as the drug.
Numb tongues make hollow words sound convincing.
We're still in Fort Sky except we're in our early 20's and the flimsy walls made out of sheets are now concrete and when we were kids, we would make a sky light.
We could only see the ceiling past us but the main reason for it was for fresh air to come in.
I'm breathing in stale recycled nicotine, laced with caffeine aromas topped off with incense and cheap wine.

It's a hangover waiting to happen...but even hangovers are starting to become nice because it makes me not want to leave my bed the whole day.

That's the life goal as of right now.  I realize it's not a very good one and obviously won't work long term, but I need time for my body to heal...Or maybe I won't need something long term.

The hits from semi trucks and me playing barber shop with scissors takes its toll like a 5 lane super highway.

I hope the oven explodes.  Car crash.  Piano falls.  Cartoon.  Whatever.

String me along like an old worn guitar.
Wrap me
around your finger
and tie me in a knot.
I hope it turns
*******
black and blue.

Rip my tattoo
off my skin.
My eyes used to be
so
blue.
I used to
like me.
I used to
find something to get me through the day.

I want to apologize to the trees,
even though I'm sure they feel the same way about me...
I think you're
so much
more beautiful
when
you are dead.

"listen to me!" his mother said
"If I see one more tear, you'll never see her again!"

the five year old boy's cheeks
still flushed
his eyes swelling like
a pop-knot
they are ****** red
his chest will surely
explode from the tension
any moment now

he clenches the tube of
ointment in his front pocket
of the new pair of jeans
his grandma bought him
on the way back from
North Carolina

the young boy wipes his eyes,
rubs the bald spots on his head,
noticing his last eyelash has fallen on
the last tear running down his
face

his grandma holds him tight, she says:
"I love you. I'll be back soon."

he can feel his mother's
needle-worn arms pulling him away.
he can smell her morphine sweat.
he can taste her oxycontin breath.

despite watching his grandmother
close the door of her 1990
green Beretta and drive
off Walnut Street and
down Oakford Ave--
the little boy
never cried
again.

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.