I love you, silently
selfishly
with bones searing white-hot
and skin speckled blue
or sometimes,
when sleep’s so far
and my lips half chewed,
I can even remember you-
steaming and steeping
and oh-so-almost-real

I didn't ask much of you.

On the wings
  of summer winds,
I tried to breathe you out of me
         and
seal my lips tight round their own solitude

  but (and I learned this one the
hard way) you
can only hold your breath
              so long
   before the body takes control.

                            No-
I didn't ask much of you at all.
     I only wanted you
     to let me believe-
     even for just a moment-

that you liked me best.

I walk with the weight of the world
cascading from my shoulder blades and leaving
bruises up and down my spine

I walk with the ghost of you
dangling from my knees and kissing
purple into all the places no one sees

  I told you today
the things it has taken me eight months to formulate
       and it's probably just wishful thinking,
       but I am feeling the spaces between my
       vertebrae getting a little less heavy
(or as some would say, a little lighter

)I miss you,
but only in parts.
   I miss the part of you that loved me.
      I don't miss the part of you that spent our last two months together pushing me away.
      I don't miss the part of you that doesn't miss me.
  
I miss the part of you that glows.

I've wanted you ever since I learned how to want.

With a box full
of toys in your closet
and a mouthful
of love on your lips,
  you are just a boy

and there's something about your hometown
that makes me want to fill my lungs with poison,
its all awfully familiar.

Things are different now, but still the same.
     I still get random urges to kiss the top of your head.
     I still **** in my stomach when we have ***.
  but I'm more scared of losing you now

When my dad tried to teach
me how to ride a bike he said,
look at where you want to go,
look ahead,
and I still can't ride a bike, too busy
  staring at the ground.


"a lot of what floats in head comes from you, it always has been because you are me"

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

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.

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

fingers crossed
your skin is seeping with
the things you didn't say
its sort of like sweat
but it won't wash away
   engine sputtering
        eyelashes fluttering
as you roll the skin of my wrist
  between your fingers
and somewhere in my brain
        I know
you don't care what I say
you just want me to look pretty while I say it
  but hush little darling,
its better this way.

I'll call you when I'm needing more
than a house with columns and shiny floors
and a grand piano no one plays

cigarette butts in the yard
buried under bits of tar
halls that twist and bend like in a maze

pretty people neatly fall
into place like bricks in walls
we'll catch fire in a drunken haze

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

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

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.

The weight of your skin
is crushing me rushing me
under your eyelids
and kicking me out to the curb
But when will you learn
that whatever you earn
is nothing compared to what you could have been

Your knuckles crackle like paper bags
The streets are all spackled and sparkle with rain
and I should go home before
the words that you throw at me
singing and swaying start to all sound the same

haunted girls
with whiskey smiles
and miles
of hate behind them

they don’t care
what they’ll come to
for you
will never mind them

haunted girls
with whiskey smiles
you ******
them out and kissed them

but they’ll be
gone before you
even know
you’re gonna miss them

I don't
remember exactly what I was thinking
in the moment when our car
spun into the middle of the
interstate, or if I was thinking anything
at all

When it settled into a pile of snow
on the shoulder, you told me
to pray because we were okay
but I was too busy loving you
and being sorry with every inch of me
that had somehow survived

You told me late that night
that you would be around for as long
as I wanted you to be.

and I hope you were right,
    but I don't want to ever find out.

it knows the taste of human flesh
and it eats me, raw
from the inside out
sitting in my stomach
   and tying me in knots
   and prying me open
   and leaving me to rot, hoping
for some sort of cure
a divorce
between this wretched body and restless mind
         now
my innocence hangs by a flammable thread
and the moon is burning the faintest of reds

It was the monday-est
of mornings and
I left empty
but for five hours of sleep
and a bit of
momentum

and when I watched you
pick up a handful of
white-hot coals from the fire
  and hold them like
  soft wet
     petals
in your hands
I screamed and
begged for you to drop them
because I didn't
  couldn't under
     stand
that you were only trying
     to burn
  the sickness out
from the gravel in your   gut

and I didn't
  couldn't under
     stand
how when you woke
your hands were white and clean
  as if straight from the
  womb
because when I
coaxed
the fire to grow
my finger brushed
a white-hot coal
and (where they kissed) was
raw and red for weeks

but now I do
  can under
     stand
that the gravel in your   gut
made you immune

while the
  soft wet
  petals
in mine made me fragile
as if straight from the
  womb

and something tells me
I won't be building a fire
  with you again
anytime soon

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

I've been wasting fall, preparing for the winter.
and it ***** to miss out on the best season,
but I just know that winter
will be so **** cold.

happiness starts with some weird chemical reactions
in the brain and is carried by electrons
where it ends with some weird tension
of the muscles around the mouth but I
learned in electronics that electrons
will only travel in a complete circuit
   so logically:
if I smile, I should feel happy but
        it doesn't work

and I've spent too long thinking
that I'm too privileged for my
depression to be real.

at least when you leave,
my (previously our) room
won't look too different, because
you never bothered to move in the things
that make a place home.
I'll fill the empty drawers somehow.

I know that I need to be stronger and I try but
          it doesn't work

and trying gets hard when my eyes are so dry
and trying gets hard when the crickets are so loud
and trying gets hard when my body
   is in so much ******* pain all the time

I wish you had gotten me
  an anniversary present.

I wish you would call me
so I could know for sure you didn't
die in a tragic car accident.

   I'd give you everything I've got,
for a little piece of pie.

Something strange happens
when you find yourself in a room
with all the boys you ever
thought you might have loved

each with their own poison
their own pressure points
                          inside you
               one in my knees
              one in my lungs
             one underneath my eyelids
            yet all of them together
nestled some place inside my skull
in some tiny electric current I'd like
to pretend doesn't exist

        But something strange happens
because when you see them all
                  side-by-side
it suddenly becomes so much clearer

        that really,
they never mattered too much after all

   and it was always just me

I loved you once.
but now you are a ghost
clutching in your
               tobacco hands
a violent whisper of the boy I once knew and I
  wish
  that you could see you
  the way I do
but I also wish
  that I could see you
  the way you do
so maybe
together we wouldn't
notice the distance between you
and solid ground

you say
that people change
but I think that maybe it's just
the spaces between people that change
       and I'm left alone
       counting the miles
   between your hands and mine
   [which you once held so severely]

Of all the things I’ve ever heard
(a song sung sweetly by a bird,
the hollow rumbling of a drum,
the trembling strings of every strum)

there’s nothing
like the way you sing
when you think
no one’s listening

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

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

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)

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

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…

your favorite season was winter
[except when it wasn't]
because you liked the way
   the cold
made your body feel alive
[except when you didn't]
and you liked the way
    the trees
could die and be reborn again
because sometimes you wanted to die
but not have to be dead forever
and you liked the
   stillness and the calm and the quiet
[I miss you]
and I'm not quite sure how the
tilt of the world works but
I'd bet whatever's in my
  pocket that its
      spring wherever you are

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.

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

you'll be able to tell if
he touched my tongue
by the pressure with which it presses
  against yours

and you'll be able to tell if
if he held my hand
by the placement of my fingers
  between yours

and you'll be able to tell if
he broke my heart
by the length of time it takes for me
  to break yours

and its funny to think of certain things
like that elevator painting  with colors
flying off the canvas that you
wouldn't touch
because you wanted to believe
that it was real
but I had to touch
because I would rather know the truth

and I couldn't tell at the time
but I can think about it now and know
by the way I remember you feeling
beside me
that you had a kind of
fleeting realness about you
that I wanted so badly to be permanent

and it took me a long time to realize
that I was better off
knowing the truth

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.

There's a ghost in my left mirror
a perfect image
with tan, plastic skin
and hollow, black eyes
showing Itself only for
a moment so fleeting
I begin to doubt myself

Maybe "begin" is too generous a word
And the ghost in my left mirror
knows it
And mocks me

Its been a long time
since I’ve seen you smile
with those teeth that light your face
like cigarettes on a clouded night
and baby-

I don’t even know
what I’m doing here anymore
sickness seeps from bathroom doors
and when I wake up
tangled, gasping for air
I can just about smell the smoke in your hair

and almost savor the cracked lips
you only let me taste
if I’m not sober

you're alive too
and sometimes
that can be easy to forget
but there's one thing I know
I know that when I touched your skin
you got goosebumps
because all living things need to be touched

     and I often wonder
if you ever remember
how very alive I am

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

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

The days have gotten longer
your knees more blistered, scratched, and red
and I cannot remember
even half the things I've said
in these hours which seem to last forever
I might as well be dead

We stayed up all night
yet somehow missed the sunrise
I threw you a ***** shirt
to wipe off your soft, damp eyes

It seems that we could walk forever
and never get away

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

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

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.

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

"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?

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

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