every year is getting longer
every night is feeling colder and
biting at my bones
and eating at my sinuses

this house
i made it
from bricks and twigs and pieces of animals from the woods
so
then i knew i would
have a place to call home

I'd make myself into a mannequin if I could
I would remove my flesh
I would cut my arms off
I would tear into my thighs
I would rip myself apart

for the sake of entertainment,
not art.

The doctors
told me
I'd have
a year
with no teeth

zero teeth
a hero lies in grief
with everything beneath

As it grew
As it were
As it falls

zero teeth
hero obsolete
forget what lies beneath

if only to make it brief
rinse and repeat
chew but don't swallow

smile, smile, smile

Lead but always follow
Making sure is just the burden of my borrow

i wrote you a love letter
on the back of this napkin
that you gave me for my coffee and eggs
while i lit my first cigarette

i don't ask for much, nor do i ever intend to
all i can say is that maybe, somewhere in me, ive wanted you back
here with me

bleeding in time with you was difficult but we managed
we clotted our wounds with debris from the hurricane because we had no skin left to speak of

i timed all my synapses so evenly that now they are quantized in perfect 4/4 time with my heartbeat
you couldn't ask for much more, or so i hope
i have
nothing left to offer any of
you

the sirens won't stop going off in threes
the bird is still calling as if the night means nothing at all

and I come home to drown in the same water bed every night because I love the way it feels

cataract eyes
lungs full of coal

i swallowed my heart and it was full of worms

in the later evening  when neither parent is home I laugh and I nod and I shake and I don't make a sound as my sanity is deduced to strings between my muscles

So I was
petrified the night you left me
I was scared
I am so ******* scared

Patience is a virtue better taught than practiced

I want to sleep endlessly
Give me a drug to do all three
An abundance of violence

If it were up to me it'd be an all out war

bound to incorrect gods
another unimpressive but expected sunrise
another waltz around the room

the urn was broken and the ashes of every dream I've ever had were broken with it

Mankind has been taught to think for too long
so we should stop

How can you trace my
bones with your
hands

How can you touch me after what I've done

rudiments of a former dwelling
silt from the river
to cover fragments and bone

to color the walls of my being
to deduce me to dust

God is dead

There is no currency for this
You cannot hide, if only from yourself
You are the most difficult to outrun

I am held captive by myself and on my own terms
Please glue my pieces back together
Light the garage on fire and start over

you weren't even a good egg watcher
you couldn't cook, clean, you couldn't even bend over the right way
if you know what i mean

there was a garden snake in the gutter this morning
slithering and writhing through damp crumpled up newspaper and days-old cigarette/rain water
in any allowed capacity my only intent from that point on was to charm all the snakes in my neighborhood

I came back home today and you weren't there so I opened myself and sprayed my catholic wine on the mirror and bathed in bug spray to clean out my insides, filthy with sin

empty hull
emptied corridors
empty nicotine stomach
coughing up animal fat

dig the gold out of my fillings
i can **** you if you give me a dollar first

comfort in quicksand
a labyrinth of off-colors
conclusions with a knife

I put an ad in the paper for someone to carve me to the bone
To whittle my bones into shivs
To gently strangle me with cellophane from the cupboard right where you knew it was

You knew it

fumigate me
remove me
release me
because
it is warranted
follow the rules
tear into my bloated carcass
see what real hunger feels like
see

it is funny until it makes the headlines
it is funny, to you
I bet, or at least I hope or else
why did I write this?

Well, I don't know and
that's the most I can say

flourish from blood
blossom from vessels
gather materials
walk the land until
it crumbles underneath you

I don't understand why
you insist on transmitting misery
through the same dead and collapsed vein

I have been sitting for far too long
waiting patiently for inevitable disappointment
my legs have failed me
and I am sorry

but I cannot stand for this anymore

I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry

Whatever is behind me
is before you

Condemned to heights
suffocating their lights


Biting
and tearing
in hindsight
out of me



What
binds me
to you?

Why do I
always think of it?

It can't ever
escape me


They're here

What
binds me
to you?

Why do I
always think of it?

It can't ever
escape me

panic attack season and
it isn't presumptuous of me to say that i may have been heavily involved

a jaded catalyst
show me this that and the other
i've seen it all before

I brag to my friends about it
All of my friends change their names when I'm not around

I have lost track of what I might have and then I forgot

A lull in traffic
All the buildings I see I'd rather jump off
I almost did it right the first time but the rope came untied

Cement my useless cavity of **** into the ground
I can tolerate this no longer

Brass buttons
To fasten a cape made of everything false
To cloak me in feigned serenity through the night
To sing me to sleep
and turn me into someone like you

I can never stop crying although I want to rebuild my body

I. These phrases may be used interchangeably.

In the case of this patient, we expected nothing less. As a marginally dissociative fellow, this comes as no surprise, it happens all the time. Everyone from the white coats to the volunteers and cabbies are in on it, or should I say, they were in on it. They snickered. They laughed. They blew cigarette smoke into his eyes. They ashed in his trashcan. With a patient like this, when they see the finish line, they go for it.

II. Not a single person cares.

Business is business and routines are routines. The world keeps turning. The coffee keeps brewing and sitting lukewarm in large paper cups. All the flowers are dead and so is he.

III. You will not be remembered.

Well, at least not kindly. You see, patients like him were an obligation; more of a liability than a person. One of those. Pretty run of the mill, but this guy was different. He carved his name into his forehead with a letter opener. He wanted an open casket for some ******* reason I guess.

warm blood and black ice

LACK OF CONSISTENCY WILL NOT PROVIDE THE PROPER OUTLET FOR THE ABUSER

abuse is arduous under certain circumstances
but i don't think you'd know too much about it
because you're always on the unwilling, but receiving end

if stitches won't dissolve then
how will
i ever open my mouth again

if i was made of parts i could call my own, i said, i'd be a lot better
but i have no choice

four walls
companions
the only ones i can claim to know

nameless
faceless
truthfully, they are everywhere

but i am stuck in the middle of nowhere
misery runs cold through my veins

creatures cannot be created to destroy
they can be conditioned to do so

look at your hands
are they ***** yet?

i counted every single footstep from the car to here
i ran them backwards through my mind
and then i forgot about it

reactions and
nervous twitches
i have all of you to thank
but no time to do properly pay you back

don't worry
stay the **** away from me

sometimes I am *****
sometimes I am pure
sometimes I am right

my body is assaulting the person beneath scars
and I am no longer afraid of what I think I might be

guess I'll be missing your birthday party this year

Just as much obscurity as will make me noticeable
It is hard to be proud when every prosthetic is better than you

I am reduced to nothing but what am I reduced to

We need to talk
We need to talk
We need  to be quiet

I hear the chalkboard-nail-scrape
I hear them laughing in unison
Like a personal orchestra of pathetic, pointless humiliation

They pelt me with beer cans
They push me too far and too fast

I wish I could get back at them
with every passing moment the hatred accumulates

But they're already dead
Open caskets set to be closed and lowered
Faces with no features

They left without leaving
They left me
"Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha"

I am a coward
afraid of my disposition

before he died
his breath was sour
it smelled like whiskey

flock to me
adorn me in funerary robes
build me into a messiah
so i can bruise myself in your name

i promise to you
i ******* swear to all i have left that i would finish creating you
but our time has run out

return to earth
try not to be bothered
by the bamboo shoots stemming from your lungs
through your throat and out of your mouth

of this pain, i cannot speak
but i can only imagine it hurts

the devil retrieves it with a smile
he comes from under your bed
and it will never come back to you

everything comes apart
if we are all tied to the same cloth
then its time we realize that the cloth is wearing thin
what you need is some time in bad places

travelers be warned
last flight to the sun
must have forgot my baggage
we have to go back
sorry

there is a man on the side of the parkway with a plan and a gun
I fall off bridges I thought I'd burned

Every night I sleep with a stranger
One whose shadow I dwell in every day
When I wake I cannot see them anymore

we return
to
our own
homes

a trap made for mice
fooled a man

rather than
feelings
we have
perceptions
of vague and thick reality

there is no conclusive evidence to prove you're here
there was nothing here that wasn't here that wasn't here that wasn't here

i feel like i could have thought of a lot of other ways to tell you how i actually felt

i decided to
flip the table
smash the glasses into my forehead
and bathe in bleach

Asking questions carefully but only submitting them as an answer to a question that I already asked to you about gender and how much I think I understand it what am I doing what have I done, all I can say is that I think it all goes away and either way I think I am nearly done

My shadow engulfs me
I am what I am
and it reminds me

Dirt under my fingernails
Grind my teeth to dust
My stomach is surely made of glass

All of my evils
A raw nerve

all the exits to your house
burst into color
on the highway
colors only i could see, or so i thought

sparkling red, and dim, headache-inducing blue
i shot a road flare up to the skies in front of your house
and it exploded into a million stars
but you didn't look out your window

Suicide is the ultimate failure
My bones are crafted out of fear
My tendons are ripped out of anxiety

The moon laughed along with me although it was dim
Flash flood warnings are both of our favorite things
The storm clouds controlled by me and the moon

two steps forward and seventy five back
a dry heave with each meal

i cannot feel my heart anymore
as it balloons in my throat
i cannot feel my stomach anymore
as the knots bend there way out of my skin and explode on the floor
for you
and only for you

you have created all that you wanted to let go
you have created all that you never wanted to be there
you have created me

i bit through my fingers
i ate my fingers down to the knuckles
bone has a rough texture and
my teeth cannot break through to plentiful marrow

i clenched the exposed knuckles and made a fist in an attempt to vaguely hit who i thought
was bound to be there
but no one was there
so i spat blood as i hit myself in the face for an hour

sometimes horses can be used for therapy
and sometimes they cannot be utilized if they break their legs

let me tell you what's wrong with you
in position
over you

let me tell you what's wrong with you
as you drown
in tripwire and honey

let me tell you what's wrong with you
don't put me in this position ever again

why do you police the gender politics of a dead horse

that my ribs may be sheared apart
to create mock wings
to writhe incessantly
in the sky
towards warmth
all i wanted was to find warmth and
the sun decided to burn my wings instead

in my ultraviolet coffin i had a few thoughts but none worth mentioning
most of which i regret
even if i cannot remember them as they were in the first place

a wish to fly
a wish to escape
a wish to not be here
anymore
not anymore