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.

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.

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 wonder
if the lobster chested
  orange women
regret the youth they spent in the sun

My momma always warns me
to wear sunscreen so I won't look
like one of them and sometimes
   I do but sometimes
I have trouble
finding fear in the lobster chested
   orange version of me
              because the sun
              makes me happy
and if being orange skinned and
lobster chested means
I was happy once
would I really be ugly at all?

and when I see the
bruises on your throat
    soft and
          orange, it
makes me jealous
because your version of love is so easy
to come by but I
just can't swallow it.

I've heard some girls boast
about swallowing because I guess
it's supposed to make boys like you
   well
I can swallow too
I can swallow
   my fear and
I can swallow
   my insecurities and
I can hide them deep within me
    where
I don't have to show anybody
    and
I don't have to tell anybody

because the summer rays of sun
run circles round my eyes
and all I'll ever need is
to know that I survived

every time I wake up without you
is another tiny heartbreak
  but how many tiny heartbreaks
   does it take to add up to one more
noticeable? how many lonely mornings can I...

unpacking my stuff/moving in
I'm leaving 3 drawers and part of the closet empty
so you have room for your stuff and I wonder
if I'll fill them after you leave
or if the space between my clothes
will be a reminder of your ghost


being busy is good.  being busy
means less time to think about ...

I'm going to learn how to ride a bike.
I'm going to learn how to ride a bike.
I'm going to learn how to ride a bike.

I really like the way you look sitting in this bed
with the sunlight creeping through the window shades
and giving you tiger stripes
but you like couches better

"I can't wait-"
but you will.
You don't have a choice.

A friend the other
day
told me a story
  of a cousin-neighbor-friend
some kid
who saw a kid get bullied on the
      TV
and he told his
grandmother the story
  as if the memory was his own
           and she
                      freaked
out and called the school
   raving/yelling until
she found out that the story
wasn't her grandson's at all
          just a fabrication
in a blank space
his mind thought a
   memory
            should be and
a friend the other
day
told me that last week she cut
lines into her
   self
because she needed to feel anything
         and I didn't
                       freak
out because I understand
that we need to feel
pain
and we need to remember
pain                          
   and you can try to ****
   the feeling out the feeling
       that too much is easy and
you   are    weak
    because of it
or
you can
             fabricate
pain
   in a way that let's you
tell yourself you deserve all of the
love you crave so severely

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

The last time you trusted
me with yourself,
I knew it would never happen again
so I

ran away with a mouthful of you
and burrowed into the ground
and added you to my nest
  of people I never wanted to forget
  the taste of

cheeks puffed out
and scurrying feet
  I was gone before you had time to notice
  that I had
  taken a piece of you with me

They hardly ever notice

   because I only steal mouthfuls of
   things I know they won't miss
like distrust- which I'll bet you didn't know
      tastes like cinnamon
or fear- which tastes like milk
      that's just a little bit too old
      but when you add a squirt of chocolate syrup
      you can hardly taste the sour-ness
or anger- which has that charcoal taste
      of anything that's been cooking for too long
      
and it all makes me wonder
  if I had stuck around
         long enough
to steal a mouthful of your love

what would it have tasted like?

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

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

my body is still warm in the
places where you pressed
  against me as you
****** out from my bones
any ounce of apathy
I might have had left
  and my guts flutter
violently like a moth trapped in a glass box
  and I can't wait
to never have to see you again
because I could love someone who is
seven times better than you
        but right now
    my waist can't stop remembering
    the places your fingers sometimes liked to rest

I suspended my disbelief for you
but you forgot me somewhere
   like a flea
   behind the cigarettes and ******
   behind the pretty girls who tease
   behind the marrow in your knees
but some mornings, you wake up panicked
swollen with the sweat of something you might have once dreamed

there are so many
things
I don't know how
  to do yet
but I know how
  to truly love the sunlight
and I know how
  to build a fire
and I know how
  to care about people
just enough for them
to never really hurt me
              so maybe
being scared to talk to strangers on the phone
isn't so important after all


they say
that hair follicle drug tests are more accurate
than anything you can **** into a cup
   because your hair
   follicles
   store the history of
   everything you've ever done
so I want to rip out
a lock of your hair
but a small one, so it only hurts
a little bit
and I want
to put the hair in a metal jar
and bury it in the ground
   just in case one day
   they come up with a
   way to see everything you've ever felt
   by looking at your hair follicles
so I can dig it back up
                   and prove
that you felt
       something
for me.

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

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'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.

I hate myself
for wanting to be pretty
but even more, I hate the world I live in for
   making me feel like I need to be
pretty
in order to amount to anything
   but it's been etched into my brain
      like the alphabet or "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?"

I guess I ran
out of words
when I stopped believing
   that I needed you to love me back

sometimes I still think of you but only
in the moment between tracks on a CD
or at stoplights
or in the the spaces of light between my fingers
  when I shield my eyes from the sun

but there are a lot of things I
sometimes think about
so maybe
   you're not so special after all
just a speck of static
I clung to
  when I had nothing else to hold
  or when there was no one else
to fill the space around me

You'd think I would have learned by now
   not to take the things
   you say too seriously
because to you,
a promise is little more than
a few flimsy syllables and spit

and if words were a currency,
your's would cause inflation
of the highest degree
         but I live
in a place where words are precious
and dripping with sincerity

and that's why its sometimes
so hard to come up with
the right way of saying
  the things that I mean
and that's why I sometimes
say nothing at all
because words that fill space
  just feel so unclean

so you'd think I would
have learned by now but

    they say that gambling
    is an addiction
[and you know I've always loved good fiction]

Outside my window the morning sky is pink
like your blushing skin
flushing down your guilt
somewhere underneath your bravery
it will eat you from within

and I can't stop thinking about
your fingers locked inside my mouth
to lock my voice away
I'm still not sure
if I wanted you to stay
because I wanted you,
or because I liked the way you
filled the space around me

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

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

but thinking about how
happy you make me makes me
so sad, and full of self-pity
  for ever having lived without you

sometimes my fingers find spots
on your skin that they like to
gently scratch and I wonder,
if I gently, sweetly stroked one spot
for an infinite amount of time,
would I eventually wear into a
vital ***** and bleed you out?
   because a gentle wave, over
   time, turns mountains
   into fractions

and I guess I'd probably lose my finger first
but still, I wonder.

I do know one thing though, I know
that one day we will miss this twin bed
  and we complain
but I have found that it is
my favorite way to sleep
and the only way to keep
at bay the flood of aloneness
that presses against my chest every day

     I should try to give myself some credit.

I am trying to give myself some credit,
but then there's you.

I have these dreams that haunt me when I wake
and I'm not sure
if I believe in god but
I don't think I'm strong enough
to believe in nothing
  and survive it

I guess I should be
grateful that the pollen
doesn't make my throat itch
   like it does Naomi's
and it doesn't make my eyes itch
   like it does Naomi's
        but it does make me itch
to get out of this godforsaken place
            once-and-for-all

In my dreams I walk through
fields with needles where the grass
should be but when I wake the
crickets, birds, gossipy girls
whisper when I pass
and its so hard to stop listening
  (the streets swell yellow with the ***** of spring)

my first-ever valentine
walks on pebbles soaked in limes
****** out rinds and empty shot glasses
street lights sparkle as our taxi passes knoxville’s twisting highways of black
your voice, wailing, raking, sent shivers down my back
a million voices are singing your songs,
but one less than a million are singing them wrong
a million aching empty eyes glaring,
five hundred thousand pairs are staring off into space, all stuck in the past
I’m sitting here wondering how the **** my glass got empty again,
so toss me a lime, and pass me the bottle before I notice the time

I was homesick until I remembered
how toxic this place was.

I am a decaying organism,
and I am dying in your arms.
      every time you touch me
     another couple skin cells fall,
     and every time we kiss,
      I lose a bit of DNA

    so **** any way of living that isn't dying.

I was homesick until I realized
I had found a better one,
and now
I'm only sick for you.

It's been 19 hours
  and I think I've finally ****** away
  the ***** I drank while giving you shots of water
  so you wouldn't get sick
I thought maybe you were too drunk to notice
but I guess you weren't because you smiled
at me with a sincerity I can't come close to describing

It's been 19 hours
  but the wrenching pain in my stomach
still hasn't gone away.

       and in the airport today
I bought a bottle of water and some pepto bismol
and as I handed her my debit card,
   the cashier asked me
             if I was heading home
                   and I just
*******
choked
  and I'm talking about the really ******* ugly kind of crying here
   and the poor thing didn't know what she had done wrong but
she told me about her grandfather
         who used to say that crying
         is just your body's way
         of getting rid of the toxins
         and making itself stronger

Its been 17 hours since I last saw you
and I don't know how long it will be
before I see you again
but I really,
            really hope that it isn't too long.

1.  I've known for a while now,
    but putting words to feelings
    is one thing, whereas saying
    those words is quite another.

2. You said it one of the first
    times I made you come.  You
    didn't mean it, and I laughed.

3. I looked at you while
    we watched *****
    Wonka in your dad's favorite
    chair, and I knew.

4. I tried to tell you after Thanksgiving,
    but it just made me want to cry.  I
    turned away; I don't think you saw.

5. When I said goodbye to
    my mom on the phone and
    said it habitually, I thought
    I saw you smiling.

6. You left a poem in one of my
    notebooks, and wrote it in morse
    code for me to figure out.  A little
    piece of my heart flew away; I haven't
    seen it since.

7. Your drunk best friend casually
    said you did, assuming you'd
    already told me.  You gave him
    a look, and I laughed.

8. I spit it out in the middle
    of the night, after weeks of choking
    on it, and you squeezed my hand
    and mumbled.  The next morning, you
    brought it up and I said "well, just
    so you know!" and we laughed.

9. It's 4am and I can't get it out of my head.

10. "I love you,
       I love you,
       I love you,
       but I'm so ******* scared."

you have kind of a cool brain
and today
I told you I was sorry

but it didn't make me feel much better
      at all
because I didn't really get to say
what I needed to like
how ******* brave I think you are
and how I hope you'll never
let anyone walk all over you
    the way I did because you
deserve
so much better

I guess maybe
there are some things I'm going to miss
but never enough to make me stay

I've always been jealous of leaves

because they have the luxury of dying
with the promise of being reborn
in a few months' time
even brighter and more
beautiful than before

    sometimes I want to die
but death is such a big commitment and
I've never been a fan
of permanence

I miss you
but
not in the a-piece-of-me-is-missing-when-you're-gone
kind of way
I miss you in the
I'm-okay-with-being-alone-but-I-like-it-better-when-you're-ar­ound
kind of way and I think that
that is a pretty healthy way to feel

It took me a very long time
to realize that I was whole

    and I'm not so scared of winter anymore

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

I've always hated PDA

but when I see you I can't help but to
reach out and scratch
your beard because its a
really basic human pleasure,

  to touch something and know
that it is yours-

especially when that something
is a someone
and that someone
thinks and feels and tells stupid jokes
and laughs at his own stupid jokes
and is better than me at the
    crossword puzzles we can only finish
  on mondays and tuesdays

I measure the passing of time
in crossword puzzles and the number of nights
until I can fall asleep with at least
65% of my body touching yours because
    I miss you
       any other time

and
all of the sudden
I'm really scared of you dying

I thought that by
   spreading out my obsession
I could make it easier to bear but
it only made me more
                   certain
that nothing could ever
live up to the way  you make my chest
bubble with electricity
                            and unease

and wrapped
  in the sour scents of someone
  else's childhood
it becomes easy to forget
where I came from

     but at least I
can be sure
I'll never forget
where I'm trying to be

you told me the
  other day
that the heel of the foot
is the least sensitive part
of the body
because your brain tends to remember
trivial things like that

well I feel
   from the bottom
      of my feet
that someday soon
                         I might be free

Oh, queen of ice
your sacrifice
was the skirt your mother threw out of her window
because she didn't want to think about
   the boys
   with their cigarettes
their hormones and sweaty fingers
pawing at your bare thighs

and the idea
of us being together
is like a bad joke
all the buildup
   and none of the satisfaction

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

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)

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 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.

your face is leaking shadows, baby
you ain't got nothing to lose today
so tie up your white shoelaces
and get on your way

deep inside yourself you'll find
something glistening to remind
you that you've got to get a move on
and never look behind

I said your name aloud too many times
  it started to sound
  alien
and feel like old chewed up bubblegum
stuck to the bottom of a shoe
   spread thick
   between the cleats
disgusting
and irredeemable

how many times
can I tell myself something
   before it becomes
a[lie]n thick
and sticky like gum
     and so disgusting
-ly untrue

I liked the way it felt
inside you,
curled like a cat
  
it was hot so
I was sweating
   which may sound gross but
  it was hot so
you were sweating too
and my sweat
    mingled
with your sweat
and became us-sweat
and we both knew that it was hot
and sweaty and gross
   but
inside each other we were comfortable
so the
    us-sweat was okay

until the morning came and with it
fear and silence and the us-sweat
became
        me-sweat on you
and  you-sweat on me
and I just wanted to jump
into the ocean
  because the
ocean,

when you think about it,
is really just a giant ditch
filled with salt water which
  is pretty much the same
  as sweat except
  people don't think it's gross
so in the ocean no one
cares whose sweat is whose

and maybe if it
had been just a
little bit cooler

  I could have stayed
forever inside you,
        my breath
trapped within the mercy of your body

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

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...

sometimes I think that if I
pry open your ribcage
and look inside,
I'll find silver and flower petals and things
that glitter and dance in the rain

but I always (usually) remember
that you are human and you are
filled with blood
and guts
and bones
and bacteria
and all the gritty bits that
  fill me too and we are the same

except
that we're so not the same at all
because when you look up on a cloudy night,
you can see all the stars you know to be hidden
while I can see only darkness

  the worst part
  about happiness
is knowing what comes next.

   he walked
in on me crying and he told me
that he didn't want to leave me like this
    "but you will," I said,
          and I was right.

and I'm always amazed by how much I can feel you
and know that you are flooded,
   just like me,
with those stupid words we're both too scared to say.

don't ask me what I'm doing
because I have no idea
  but its like
  
I could sit with you forever and
never have to say anything
   because just knowing
   that there are words
buzzing around your head at a million miles per second
   and there is blood
pumping through your veins, soft and sweet as sugar
   and there are all
the things you are glowing
       beneath the weight of all
           the things you want to be and
just knowing that you exist

is enough to make the world stop-

so don't ask me because
I don't know what I'm doing
   all I know
is that I really, really like
being around you

and I think that's kind of wonderful

I feel the sun just

kissing just touching

just drinking out

my in     -sides

until I am nothing

but ivory

bones and sunlight

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

Recently, I've started to wash
my sheets less often
   and maybe its because the nights
   have gotten cooler
   and less sweaty
but also,
I think I'm getting attached
to the way my bed smells like you

I have the blues again and you asked
if you could **** them out
through my mouth
but I like you too much to let you taste them

and I'm ******* tired of being tired all the time
but I've never been
more motivated to keep breathing
   than with you sleeping beside me,
   just close enough that your fingers
   brush my stomach
     when it expands with air
        and your breath
in mine, weaving simple harmonies

and I don't need you,
because I would never let myself
depend on a garden I can't water alone
but the flowers you planted
in my eyelids
are so ******* beautiful
and I'd really like to see the world the way you do.

I can't quite describe the scent
but
it makes this little
  concrete room
feel almost like a place
  I could call home

March comes in like a lion
and will leave like a lamb
coughing up teeth on the bathroom floor
you didn't give a ****
    I wish to be stern, resolute
    how a panther stalks its prey
    in a jungle weaving winding vines
    until the judgment day
but somewhere
you could see yourself
gums bleeding bright and red
so you spat in the sink
climbed under the sheets
and wished that you were dead

(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)

we'll cover all the laundry lines
with hopeless dreams and dandelions
and dance barefoot
until our feet are dry

your sister looks so pretty when she's sad
and I think she knows it