One foot after another
chin down, eyes
burning like gleams of
sun through the trees
on a hazy winter morning...

When my eyes are
closed, surrounded
in black and still
I could be anywhere
I could be anything
I could be nothing at all

and I will fly away from here
somewhere the air dissolves
beneath the sunlight
and the gutters drip with rain

I am the only one responsible
for the rotting of my brain

your empty strings were prisoners
your waxen wings were true
and down below the ocean
was a nauseous shade of blue

I carved your face in stone
upon the mountainside
so every weary traveller
would know what he’d left behind

Abe Lincoln went to Gettysburg
to bury those who fell
and the highest king dove burning
from the highest citadel

She said “I feel so down and out”
I said “you do not have to
close your eyes” and watched her smile
twist and leave as in some miracle
and as you drove
I watched the streetlights hit your face
and fade again I could not understand
how anyone would want to hurt you
and now all I see
are leaves turning brown around me colors
brilliant as the sun
will return when the winter ends
but for now
I just sit alone and let the light in,
blinding me a glorious white surrounds me
what else could I ever need

Your music was so
sweet and thick
I could taste it
swallow it *** it
up into a ball and
hide it dark and safe inside my chest
and peel away at it until
it was just a memory, sweet
and thick and warm behind my
ribcage, dark and
safe beside my heart

Is it too late to dream?
The first gleams of sunlight are creeping through the glass
and the birds sing of morning
but i stay wrapped in my sheets
and in my dreams
of you and me on a dock in summer
but the water is red
and it stains your toenails

and then-
just when I’ve finally recovered from you
just when I’ve finally let you go
you sweep me up again

maybe this time I won’t turn to dust
maybe I’ll crumble until I’m a particle so tiny
I just float away

my skin is burning crawling
it knows more than i ever will
my skin has taken quite the beating
but at least I can see
the bruises
even though
i may never know where they came from

sometimes I
don’t brush my teeth
because I’m too depressed to move

but sometimes

I don’t brush my teeth
because I want to taste
you over and

over and

running through the pouring rain
while lightning pierces the sky (like

ribbons in the hair of a child
smiling and beaming with youth
I wish she could stay young forever)

I dream as the seams of my dress
      cling to my skin

I feel the sun just

kissing just touching

just drinking out

my in     -sides

until I am nothing

but ivory

bones and sunlight

sometimes I want to drive my car into a lamp post

just to feel the impact

or to feel anything at all

it's too cold for this time of year

I stand alone,
entranced by the sun
confined by my own resistance

Infinite love and hate concomitant
adhere to my bones,
trickle from my pores.

Wrapped in scraps of newspaper,
a bouquet of yellow roses burned bright against dispair
and the train
rattle
rattle
rattle-d

so far beneath the earth
that the sun was
once again,

merely a star

I used to be soft
with supple skin
and laughing eyes

but look what I’ve become
a statue of indifference
cracked and brittle
with a concrete mouth

Answer with Spring
O, succulent Earth
who’s leaves I’ve yet to write
the flowers thirst
and the people pray
for the sweetness of your light

the harshness of
the Winter fades
when dew replaces frost
and yet the blooming
of the trees
is not without a cost

for when the heat
of summer ends
the dying months will bring
the loneliness
and longing for
yet another Spring.

Scents of voluptuous spring
creeping through thick february air
in whiffs of natal blossoms
and dew which lingers on the grass
like beads of sweat
are harbingers of the change
which will end the weary winter

So near is the season
of life, of renewal, that
bones shake in anticipation
skin quivers with restlessness
gates part, sunshine
sneaking through the openings
and the scents of
voluptuous spring
creep through

I wrote something
beautiful
in my sleep last night
    woke up grasping
clawing for words which
had just been so fresh
   so easy
       but gone.

I'll breath in life
through your damp mouth
and watch your fingertips dance
across my skin
like tiny tornadoes
twisting my aura between
your ink-stains
our breaths will become one breath
and our bodies one body
no words to express our orbit,
our silence will say it all.

The only girl who's
ever seen me
is locked away in
a tower
miles above the ground
high up in the clouds

She's closer to the sun
than she is to me

there are flames the lick
the ancient bricks
and all around- a moat
filled with piranhas
and sharks
and poison

I built a ladder to the sky
but lightning struck me down
I built a helicopter I could fly
but the blades wouldn't spin around

I thought I'd try
to sneak inside
but was chased out by a troll
he warned me,
"if you try again,
your life will be the toll."

Sometimes, when the night is silent,
I can hear her soft, sweet cries
and I howl up to the merciless stars
and spell my grim goodbyes

for I am gone
I've disappeared
from so long not being seen
I've been invisible
just enough time
my life may have been a dream...

The urge to run will breath life
into your limp figure
and shock your spirit into flight;
there's something whimsical
about the West, a spark
which was birthed within our
ancestors and simmers in us still.

Your amber eyes light up
at the Californian fantasy,
your skin crawls with
anticipation and restlessness,
your lips tremble with excitement
at the everlasting roads

So dream on, dear child,
because you're not going anywhere.
You're trapped here and you know it.

Listen closely,
and you can just barely hear,
stifled by the heavy doors, your
mother crying down the hall.
Listen closely and you'll know,
or else feign your unawareness
and maintain your little facade.
Assure yourself that there's nothing
you can do - and maybe even
believe it,
But you did listen, you did hear
her sorrow pouring out, so
pretend all you want, but it will
never not have happened.

Your mother is crying in the bathroom.

Your mother is crying
in the bathroom,
and you're no
better
than the rest of them.

the words catch on my tongue
like they're bound with saran wrap
I can feel them
clawing for escape
I bite and bite and bite on the speckled pink flesh
but I cannot free these pathetic
slaves in my museum of emptiness
chained to my esophogus
by long, thin, elastic threads
my teeth are too dull
to rip through
despite my constant gnawing

like that rat I once saw
in a memory so faint
I may have imagined it

I'm tangled up
in the ribbons of your hair
and your eyes, like sequins
on the silken canvas of your features
      You don't belong to me.
We only meet
in crowded rooms, or perhaps,
in dreams
      I'm in deep on the surface
      I'm treading in your gravity
Maybe this entanglement
isn't such a bad thing after all

Your words are infused
with the sweetness
    of your youthful laughter
and the melancholy
    of your haunted soul
Mine are a mere echo
   and infection of sorts
But words are words
   are words are words
Anyone can be a poet.

Maybe I once loved you
I don't know, nor do I care
For the part of my heart which loves
Is now as empty as my stare

The weight of my world surrounds me
Which only I can bear
Melancholy drips
From my vacant lips

is anybody there?

Today is a tricky substance.  In its
delicate intricacy
we sense the echoes of yesterday
and the prospects of tomorrow,
but all is lost on the ticking clock
as it gently
weighs the day away

Insomniated by this urge to write,
I am enslaved by the pen I find in my hand
    perfectly filling the crevices
       of my fingers

Colors become shadows
the sun struggles
to illuminate beauty
      and all is dreary
from the perspective of a carcass

My bed is a cave, shielding me
from the sun which burns holes
in my heart.  There I shall wait
for the soft illumination of the
moon, and stifle my urges to howl
into mere whimpers,
        because such is my existence

The wondrous ground on which I
trekked only left my feet ripped
and shredded; the fantastic sights
which I beheld left my eyes
stale and tender

I have this bad habit of lookin at the ground under my feet
When my daddy always told me, he always said sweetie, look in front of you, look at where you wanna go
And I dream I dream I dream
of an open road…

From down the hall
       I feel you sigh
         your head between your knees
behind the locked door
my legs are wrapped around his neck
and my innocence forsaken
     all I can picture are
        your sculpted collarbones
          and my fingertips
              l     o     n     g     i     n     g  
you need a cigarette, you grumble

and I need a hot shower
(to cleanse me of his filth)

gleams of sunshine
sprinkle divinity upon my eyelashes
cement under my body-
                            a solid launchpad

clear divisions of shadow and light

brisk air fills my lungs and
   makes me free
(freedom is all you strive for
when you’re a slave to expectations)

(I’m so incredibly alone
I might as well not exist at all)
my transmitters are malfunctioning or they’re
       fine, and its the source
which is broken
what is happiness?
A sensation unfamiliar to my blandly textured existence
if only I could be once again
      needed
My Terminal Countenance
scares away not only predators,
but friends of the same form
where lies the line which separates the two?
If it is even real
it escapes my clouded vision
(obstructed by the gleams it so desires,
                               it averts the illustrious sun)

The soft ***** of your
                               shoulders
reminds me of a time when everything was bright
innocent
your allure exists in my desire for salvation
to lose myself in you
would be to find myself once more
         among these steamy mirrors
         and speckled windshields
Let me become your Bad Habit

a relapse of happiness
or just another
                           high?
my eyelids warm
                           heavy
the sun dries them
      like raisins
I had forgotten the texture of autumn leaves
a weary
                 memory
                                   of colors

If I knew every word
or every language
then maybe, maybe
I could describe the unique brilliance
        of the sun
If I knew every word
or every language
then maybe, maybe
I could let somebody truly understand
       the enigma of my mind
If I knew every word
of every language
I could still never illustrate your beauty

Ashes, Ashes
what is this life?
Engulfed in a fire
of anguish and strife

we claw through this labyrinth
one brick at a time
How long till I realize
that none of its mine?

Ashes, Ashes
what have I found?
The mortal remains
of a woman who drowned

in her own hidden river
of pain and desire
Its not ours to smother;
we’ll burn in this fire

The severity of
        shadows on the wall
claws at my conscience
        trying to dismantle me
               bury me
                     I long to
be overwhelmed by my senses
but my own personal prison
                    (what you call mind)
        bars me from pleasantness
              and scratches at my
skin
             until only shame and sorrow
                                remain

The inexhaustible
vastness of the
ocean is humbled                  
by the excruciating immensity
of your              
ethereal eyes.
If only I were that
cigarette,
balancing ever so softly
between your              
gentle lips
or the lace which quietly
embraces your          
velvet skin
or even the chair on which you perch
like a bird        
light and agile
as you wait for the wind
to carry you away
But wish- I shall not, for
the dirt beneath your    
precious feet
       is the greatest thing I have ever been

Rain drizzles down the
          window, and its steam
               coats the inner sanctum
               of my skull
          with a moderate frost
I grasp for the memories which
have been buried in the rime
               of the earth’s poles
by my
              fleeting
                              lucidity
            My quest leaves me shivering,
            like the tectonic plates
            as they bid each other
            an eternal farewell

Far away, a glimmer of light just barely breaks through the vast darkness which surrounds my flying hunk of metal.  I imagine that I am falling through the blackness below, or maybe soaring through the one above.  If this eight hundred thousand pound machine can do it, why shouldn't I?  
The perfect, twinkling stars above are mimicked by the harsh yellow street lamps below, as if man admired the stars so greatly that, with youthful clumsiness, he attempted to recreate them, his hands clammy and unskilled compared to the divine and perfect ones of nature.

I passed by Death with a gracious smile
And held my breath for a little while
In my rearview mirror that night
I could see him watching me go

In the young, quiet hours of the morning
With soft, grey light adorning
I drifted on the smoothed terrain
That Life would have me know

I know not what will come at dusk
The winter haze, the sweet summer musk
But neither will lighten the bearing of both
Which weighs my eyelids low

There was something primal about his beauty,
something overwhelmingly human
about his charm.
His white-ringed eyes
could trigger within me and animalistic emotion
I didn't even know I had.
His existence baffled me,
yet simultaneously comforted me
in a way I couldn't quite understand.
All I knew was that I wanted him
I wanted him to understand me,
to touch me
to love me
I wanted his strong hands to trickle over my skin like water
or to hold me like stone.

I wish I could capture
every moment of you
every shiver of your voice
every stroke of your fingers
every word of your lips
I wish I could memorize
the warmth of your chest
against my cheek
and the way you fiddled
with my dress sleeve
while you spoke

My body can remain so still, alive only in breath, yet my soul swims, drowns, in a sea of troubles.

I am the stars, my beauty recognized only postmortem.
I am the earth, rejected and scarred by those to whom I have given so much.
I am the ocean’s waves, pushed and pushed until I break.

I am the wind, I will never be still.

"I see you," says the mirror.

"I'll show you," says the window.

"I'll take you, says the door.

You wouldn't lie to me, would you?