Somedays I don't feel like writing
and it worries me because
'Writers write everday --
real ones, at least.'
I fear being ordinary,
which is tasteless because
maybe being ordinary
is what I need.

The appeal of snapbacks
and hipster haircuts
is starting to make more sense.
Blending into a crowd
might suit me better;
to be invisible but
to no longer be insecure.

Rap lyrics make more sense,
even though I can't relate;
these words are my sedation,
these clothes aren't armor
but marketable camouflage.
My words have been said before,
but that might be okay because
I'd hate to torment myself
wondering about my relevance.

So, to move on, I write,
and I write, and I write
to pander and to conform.
Substituting thought for
appealing diction and
strong imagery, afraid
to show myself because
maybe you're too much
like me, which, surely,
would eat me alive.

Neon lightning reaches around the room,
pink, leaf, and aqua -- 1. 2. 3.
But she kneels in the corner,
aware of herself, however myopic.

And the rain roars, vaguely,
asking to be found through gunmetal vents.

The floor; a cloth, having the
lint of light bear-trapped among the
blood black tiles, escaping to
faux-fur rugs of an alien beast.

Still in the inks of foster wolf disparity,
her eyeliner paints her pearl cheek,
asking whatever, whenever -- 1.2.3.

Above all that is radiant and bright,
she floats above the New York night.
Neon signs and grey faces
look up, pointing, exclaming,
'Look how amazing
the human race is'.

Phantom girl floating, sifting
past and through all that's drifting:
empty eyes and the cracks on
every sunken, cigarette *******
ivory American cheek-bone,
belonging to a person, who
feels like any person: here
but sweetly alone.

All that is radiant,
all that is bright,
think what is beautiful
is flying past and
out of sight.

Tie your powder blue checkered sheets,
and dangle them out of your
splintered window frame.

Wire bodies scrambling down,
you and your sister, tan and loud,
bringing ultra-light cigs and
burner flip-phones,
promising *** without
the feeling of being alone.

This is for the chips on your polish,
much like you: red and drawn
by a shaky Saturday night,
where I'm your friend,
unsure and twenty-two,
driving through muddy water
like a submarine submerged in time.

The stereo shouts out Minor Threat,
neon and done, are we, the naked,
parked outside the park
where you wrecked your bike,
we threw mixtapes off the bridge,
where we had fun.

I can still hear our theme song
beyond the headlights
beyond the moans.

Sunset orange spilling onto
the grass-splattered grotto;
where silicon body lay, wading,
and the ******* float up,
hovering bone-white ****,
emerald eyes towards the
galactic-gutter ceiling.

I.

Their knuckles drag the dust,
kissing broken boulder.
She wraps ***** arms around,
as she rests on his shoulder.

Birds swing and spin like
fleshy, fluid tops.
If you study them
with your tired eyes,
their dancing never stops.

II.

The cactus juice helps them
see each-other, and they
sing of spontaneous Gods
that torment the desert floor
they swim upon, waiting for
her, whom wades amongst stone.

Movies and shows, albums and
singles splinter their psyches;
what could you remind
that sneaks from behind,
and nibbles their Nikes.

III.

I remember the ways
she lied, his face cracked,
but I forgive her. I forgive
the other men she loved
instead of me, I forgive
her for accepting me,
I forgive myself for
believing that the
greater I hurt,
the deeper I loved.

Little girl scratched at the sand,
looking at him, her hair as dry
as the plants scampering by.
I have always loved you,
she croaked, I have always
been more than a child
in the dreams I share
with you. I feel as coarse
as this wasteland, existing
only to us, her, and a thread
hanging suspended from time.

IV.

Their bodies plopped onto
the moist, coffee soil.
They drank the ground,
their blood pushing faster,
racing the rushing tide.
And in the distance, a shine
before the eternity, a hope
beyond the shore.

A skeletal fist wrapped his wrist,
at the end, she asked him to forget.
But he dove and swam towards
the rock cave tomb, breaking
through the electric waves.

Little girl fell, knees swallowed
by the baptismal sand,
she wept and asked him
to come back, please
come back.


V.

His face brushed the stone wall,
he kissed and called until
wine-red smeared his face,
until he tasted copper
swarm his mouth.

A brief moment, he felt himself,
he felt the world photographed.
Rays spit out between the cracks,
rocks explode, vomitting over.

Shard of slate speared his stomach,
and he remembered October:
Santa Fe, where they fought,
she shoved, he begged,
battered lips brushing past,
leaving photo albums and a
note, in blue ballpoint,
stating that it would
never last.

VI.

Dying moments consisted
of anxious pulls at the shard,
cutting his hands open,
adrift towards her lifeless
pearl, pure exposed rib body,
begging, kissing, shoving,
proclamations of forgiveness.

Bleeding out, he shook her,
asking to be loved as the wall
closed, capturing their bodies,
preserving the desperation
of his broken nature.

You'll learn to love too much
when smiles turn to distant glances;
as distant as the galaxies
she'd used to point to and say
'that means you and me':
speckled and splattered
across your milky way of
coordinated highs and byes.

You'll learn to love too much
when the words you seep
are dulled to a different sleep;
one that used to put your
fleshed-whole-soul to bed,
but now keeps you up
regretting what was never said.

And when you hallucinate,
to escape the bronze lonerism,
you may will yourself to
a golden-childlike-aura,
believing you are brand new
and are never blue, because
the love you splurged
can never hurt you or
never be enough.

She has a shaved head
that reminds me of a
crooked-smile-ex;
that choked on cigarettes
and words too contrived,
painted in a negligence
for humanity and a
belief in uninformed
nothingness.

Her body curves like
backroads I've been lost in.
Skin as pale as an eggshell,
I'd imagine she'd shatter
under the olive robe
she calls a dress
and bounce under the
kickstep of organic flats.

Eventually she will become
too much of an idea, she will
evolve into a misogynistic
poem, and if I were
to imagine her naked,
guilt would flood our fleshly-
alcohol-stained-continents,
angry between every slur,
loving between the shadows
of phantoms I once knew.