the heart knows what about love ?
that bleeding fiend, knows more about drums
ask my thumbs, ask my lungs

I'm holding a hand or
the back-end of the blade
& waiting, waning
away from away

We aren't made of sunsets
or cartwheel hangovers
I didn't find you standing under an apple tree & you never held me the longest
even when I prayed for it

a leftover beginning, midnight snack;
lie down under a beautiful stranger like you love her, like the air between the sweat & sheet meet my intention of a mouth doing everything at once isn't love but
somehow it's better

I am ashamed of my love for you
when all of the earth is denied
but without you

(& oh, how I live without you)

I am compiled
I'm:
undersupplied

sleeping beside
a mirage of sleeping next to you
this constant reprieve

I'm being denied response
denied life
denied pride
self deprived
watch me, deny grief
I deny I
so many times
like time denies life
then I deny me

oh
p l e a s e

have me
so I can find *s l e e p

You let me
Paint your nails at a bar
And
I fell in love with you
In line for ice cream
Searching faces on a wall
That was our flume
you were my star
I thought our plot
would end up on Mars
We road hard
I road you hard
I cannot seem
To forget your arms
Now I'm scarred
Feathered and worded
I traced your courage
To stick around
When I wasn't flourishing
Until you had enough
How abrupt that was
I ****** us
You're fed up
With my flooding
I filled your cup with disgust
I should have drank it back up
But instead I poured worry
and our book got shut
& I wonder if you underlined
any of the words to that story

the truth's not poetic.
I can't fight for you
when I'm being folded

I just don't feel
strong or
not stronger
just
some memories
wear black &

what's getting over when
i've stopped climbing ?
my feelings aren't
being tucked
they're
getting up

can't pacify the mind through a mouth made for biting
cannot hide lies like it's night, darling the sun's always rising
I guess you could lie here if you'd like, with a throat so inviting
diving through oceans of blight, living off breaths from your prizing
I'd like to rewind time to nights, i'm surrounded by silence
It is in quiet I find, all of my time fighting guidance
it is in hiding that light finds the right to shine brightest
we're given only one life, why's no one rising and shining ?
I'd like to forget it sometimes
ignoring all signs of my plight
i'd like to just feel things sometimes, without having to write it
I'd like to feel you at night
now I need something to type with
I just want to feel you tonight
I am forced only to *write it

in love most with you
in the morning
the smell of alive, heat in your hair
divine in this divine & cannot be forgotten
while this white light blinds lines finding lies in our steps toward each other, wondering
am I moving close or forward
I cannot tell
and this whole time, they were my eyes
and here, and you
a dry spell of quiet
your breathing
aware of everything and something
I see her face in my sleep in her bed
I am the body
she is the thing
sweat and closeness
closeness and sleep
something to have before coffee
closed mouth somehow
consuming all of this

it is a different sort
you my love and me
a girl
and I don't get to keep that
or holidays, oh lord
drowning in pages of worth
coming from, ink-less pens
slicing, *******, slicing white sheets
handing you a different line of wounds
right before the blood dries
before my cells give up
tomorrow, don't take this from me

today was over before yesterday
my shoes are bigger than your feet but if you put them on you might see how I run to you

love as a box
bound to age me faster than any unwatered rose.
from red to brown, and brown to forgotten on this calendar made of you & your making time for it
hanging upside, hanging on
having me count down seconds like an acrobat
catch me
but your arms are full
I say carry more
you say I love you
in their bed
I say sunrises are beautiful and yet fire destroys just as faith does in things that were never mine
I'm borrowing your hands for a week
trying to
stop
torturing myself
but you
the whip
me the body
you the lips
me the body
you the grip
me the blood
the colors you dipped in to rouse
I'm going, dying everyday
and she is coming home

I broke the moment I pulled the trigger
wanting a hole
I broke when my tongue found your tumors and your teeth found my love for you buried under blankets that needed to be changed

I haven't forgotten my name
every time you say it
it is only said, and I wonder if you meant to
swallow me like otherwise

that I might die and come back your favorite
spot on the couch

having to give it up to maybe
having the right to choose.
I am choosing not to

because my name is Elizabeth
I am she
& not her
the vase is her
I am the flowers
picked and replaced
you will refill her

you are the water
you are the lion & the horse

& I'm losing my hope in
forgetting your ribs in the kitchen

I'm crawling through
spaces
smaller than me
& I'm stealing
deep breaths
when it gets
too hard to
breathe
I've fallen too fast
made a fool out of speed
& found
you'd never match
the love
I have for *me

the sign said no right turn
I went the wrong way instead
I said I should have walked left
to get you out of my head
but far I walked right
so far I walked wrong
tapping my feet
to this god awful song
and stomping I stopped
& turning around
it was me who left herself
to peel what was left
right off of the ground

My lady cried
she holds a baby inside
I couldn't believe
in what she was feeling

denied the keep
her heart was screaming at me
oh what a night
and I couldn't be there

changing her mind
my heart it breaks every time
to hear her say
she wants me to be there

that this boy is mine
I've been crowned so many times
and in her eyes
I see our lives
fly by

& when he's born
I will wish I was home
so far away
from all that i'm known for
now

liar you lie there
like a prey-hunting-spider
waiting for flies
or half-blind admirers
in your web made of falsehoods
your heart's hard like fossils
I thought it would feel good
until I laid down horizontal
but it was only partially harmful
because I too get rather hostel
once I gargle what you marvel in
and swallow all your awful

when I fell for you
I handed you my feet
that night in the city
my lips forgave ****** down Haight street
we searched for cigarettes
I slammed to my knees
I still can't believe you were right there with me
I found your mouth
your hands
my hands
your back (I want you back)
& you
you
with all my attention, darling
I watched you ride off with it
I watched your eyes
I watched you leave
you took my bones and breath
I'm a paper bag
I am just dead leaves
useless as wreaths
and I'll sit
i'll stay, a good girl
a good girl
I'm great at waiting
Patient like the dead
a professional faker
& suddenly yours, nonetheless

I want to be that thing for you
when water reflects all the scenery above it
I image cypress
to be dimensionless
that's what I want

I woke up early
& went outside where the ducks were sleeping
I thought about seeing you
I did this all morning
the air was cold & wet
my shoes were off

I didn't have coffee today

a n d
*I really can't wait to see you

Somebody please stop the bleeding
Pouring from my grief
If I could believe in something real
It wouldn't feel like pulling teeth
I want relief or something like it
Or maybe some release
I need a break from all this *******
that burns inside of me
I wish you'd hand over your keys
Sit down and have a drink
I think you think a bit too much
But you aren't sharing it with me
Cause you see life is like a game
In which we hand over our chips
But I see life as something planned
In which I get to kiss your lips
Because I think about your skin
Makes me loosen up my grip
Instead of clenching up my fists
I start hand making you gifts
I'm not at all for giving up
I hope in time you won't forget
I know my mind reserves the lines
And in your head it's softly scripted

I'm in a little bit of a rush here
still I'm
trying much softer /
speaking in grey, untying my
tongue
biting the side with your name on it /
be something other than beautiful
say something other than rain
liar's lullaby, a
fool's morning
feeding off the extra
& I'm to do it over again ¿
twice removed.
in your shoes.
under my spell.
over coffee.
put on the Beach Boys this time
drink *****
stay up 2 hours longer
I'll see you again, I swear
when there is, less grass and
when you call her
do it in the other room
the cold one, way in the back

how dare I
compare you to the birds
the stars
the beach or even trees
& shame on me for blinking
when you are all I see

it's always the same
you everywhere
& me
finding the poetry in shaking
finally finding it silent
then realizing
this
this missing you
this loving you in volumes

it's the noisiest thing

I'm trying my best
Woman
To let go of you now
So the aching might stop
& breaking my bones
Trying to shake you off
Climbing to figure out how
I lost like this
& you don't want it anymore
I've cracked through my chest
& slammed shut all my doors
On the floor
is where I belong now
crawling all my thoughts
If you could see my mind
You'd know you are not forgotten
& I have not let go yet
I don't know where to start
I use to start by kissing you
But not this time
This time I fall apart

I'm speaking in
leaves and with dirt against
trying to sleep
repeating the hot hum of heartache
& stopping to breathe
I have been
inside & under
this horrible robe /
its ropes tied too close &
I'm starting to choke /
breaking-down wine & the whys to find
fumbling's curse
repetitive lure-slurring prose
in my own faulted purse
this is a
tree and then paper
a bird and now blood
& all of the bones you've swept up
love,
stick out of the rug

I'm a slave to this gay
to this gate i've been trapped behind
enslaved to the lady
girls are my sunrise
I'm a lake to the take
To the sweep I pull behind
I'm engulfed by the breaks
that your face
that your shape
controls my mind
I wish I could take
I could say that you would be mine
but you're so far away
i'd take days
to blow your mind
not that days could keep us apart
cause honey
your space
sparks flame on the dark
and my face wants your face
like a bookmarks it's page
I want you to want me everyday
I want to mark you everyday
I want my face to take place of everything you ever hated
and i want you to love me
I want to be your wind
I want to be your quiet
to tighten all your loose ends
to make your bed
to mess it up
I'd make your tea
clean all your cups
and kiss your lips
It'll be over
as soon as you let me
kiss your lips
i'd surly be done after that

tell me how not to want you
(i need you to say it)
teacher; teacher
(woman) I'm writing you down

this woman is not mine
"she's not mine" - I've cried this a billion times

she is mine though
she's my morning; my mind before coffee
my night, bedtime, my dreams
she haunts me
she is light
she's alright with it, because i won't say it
she's okay with it & I'll never say it

stone ribs turned to glass
my heart had wings before this
now it wants to lay down
somewhere beside you where time doesn't move
& we're the only ones moving
I want to move inside of you
slowly
the way music does or good news
i want you to miss my hands
& I want to sip from yours

I want to kiss you everywhere water pushes when you swim, or bathe

& someday
                      someday I'll catch your bottom lip
     between my teeth & keep you there

*now teach me how to keep you

I wish to rest my head on your chest bones
I don't know what you smell like
But you felt like home
& I don't know what to tell you
I wish you hadn't been wronged
If I could say it to your face
I'd kiss your mouth for so long
Sometimes life is like a song
we never really learn the words to
I want to let you inside mine
& recite them one by one to show you
that we're just a bunch of people
thinking way too much
we don't even know each other
let me take you out to lunch
I would be lying if I tried to say
that I don't want to touch you
I'd be a liar for denying
how much it burns to
want
to
learn
you
I hope to earn this trust in time
& I know time is such a virtue
I hope with time to make you mine
& with that time i'll never hurt you

I've claimed and not climbed ladders
to say that I was high
but I can't blame my mind
and the sky
at the same **** time
"why" I've asked you
why;
do you exist in me this way ?
I lie here plummeting my palm
against the ache between my legs
you're far away
so far away
& far is where you'll stay
until the end of this debris
of all this
counting
d
o
w
n
the days

held on to my
patinated heart
for too long
Longer than that thank god
For you
For me with frosting
for you again
friendship or a lisp
hairy chest and a kiss
It’s me again
Monday whatever
Chin-up
Blame me for everything
call me out and
don’t like me
I’m out like lightning
Don’t call me again
without any numbers
don’t like me
Don’t be mean either
Tuesday
Already
scrub the green
days are track stars
To me

woman, you horse
running courses like meals
with steel heels I can feel you
my galloping thrill
eat the grass from my body
run your tongue up my hills

it is the ride that excites me
it is your build that I fear

taking the first path to Nashville
you are no longer near
my fields need your mouth
if you're not here
I'm not either

Maybe it's the
champagne or
maybe it's faith
But it's strange
anyway
That we've never
shared space
kind of
deranged
in a way
that I can't
kiss
your
face
I hope it's okay
that I say it
It's on my mind
everyday
I've had so much champagne
I can't deny what I'm saying
it's insane that your face
blinds my right of purveying
or in saying
sometimes saying
it's a game that we're playing
i'm not playing babygirl
it's [your name] i've been saying
it's your face i've been blaming
on every single curve
catch me cursing the verse
your name leaves on my shirt
i disperse it
well of course it's a curse
a voice
I haven't heard yet
so of course i'm submersed
& of course it is yours
& you
the most gorgeous of all
and me a thrown ball in Autumn
watch me fall
watch me fall
watch me fall
watch me fall

I tried climbing into the mind of blind mime who told me what time it was
he told me that time flies
But to strive as a writer
Even when your writing *****
I told him alright
That I'd sit tight and write about him
He couldn't see me but he said he saw a bright light and knew it belonged to both of us

I think somewhere in this, I'm going to figure out, you know .. how it's done & through all the many ways it takes. lessons become teachers because people forget how to treat truth.
but everything is community in my mind. nothing happens without something else; I never understood the need to fight that. i digest in my head but what would I do without my right hand ? it's me and every other part of my body. I'm never alone. lonely is a lie we tell ourselves. there are always birds. always books. I meet a lot of people when I read & I never explain a thing. this reminds me of my love for dogs. to provide without need. a beautiful, beautiful thing. but words get abused like substance & when something is felt, we get confused, trying to explain it, trying to feed it. instead of just feeling it.

I lie awake in the waves of the wake you left me in
My lungs fill with water until my chest bursts open
My body is a lake again
I know I make mistakes but I can't fake like I can displace your skin
I sink deep with every crash
Let me in
Let me in
Let me in
Let me

lately
I've stayed inside;
being reminded that
even the grass is
loud sometimes
& I'm
desperate for silence

something to stop my
grinding teeth when
I can't scream the answer

while
everyone's dying to feel
better &
I just want to feel less
but
Gravity gets the best of us &
I'm doing everything I can
to
deny the pressure

I'm doomed if I do
god dammed if I don't

cheers to the demons clinking my cup;
still ******* the one's who won't

don't plunge me

grown sick of the ocean

if mouths told the truth,
I would not live in this dungeon

okay, you plunged me, big deal

somehow you expect me to chew on those lips & somehow sit still ?

get real
you get real

cause I'm as real as it gets
I've got patience for days  
**but I am non-vacant for regret

I sit cross legged on a rock
drinking a lot out of a top with an octopus on it
with all these thoughts in a knot
like I swallowed a shot of hot lava
and i'm bothered see
I mean
this bothers me
I don't want to sit blocked
I want the ability to think clearly
I feel the wind on my skin and that helps me begin freely
and as the clouds wash all this doubt
I feel the ground
coming to drown out all of my pleads
I start choking on leaves
until a tree sneezes
from the debris I was cleaning
leaving me and my knees to bleed
i'm on the side of this cliff
& if I slip
i'll probably start to believe in all kinds of things
but i don't want to slip to believe
I want to just breathe it
and being here clearly steers my fear away
like nature was all that I needed

If I were a spy
I'd climb behind your eyes
And try to disguise your mind into mine
I'd use my magnifying glass
To accentuate the grasp
You have on my time
If you caught me I'd lie
& politely say hi
While my mind screams
"You're mine"
& in time I'll remind you
But until then
I'll kindly
Act fine and  
I'll find moves
To use to define rules
I break just to write lines
That describe how you move me

the tongue is just a muscle
that helps our face to taste things
your tongue allows the hustle
that breaks the grace
of tasting
your tongue juggles the struggle
when you eat me like a pastry
my thighs are now your muzzle
and your knuckles **** my brains clean

my gasps they
actively react to you
academically,
accidentally I think
facing the tall-bed-duet
dragging your
thigh towards
my cheek
was beautiful up
side down & it
took me
she,
took me
we're,
falling asleep

I admit to this
incompetence
existing where you hover

when skin insists
the silent fits
truth is, I fit
the incidental other

my lip or bones
shake to remind
these never-ending hours

from black to fooled
I saw in you
the grab of drowning flowers

what love is well
can never tell
the right in what I do

the finding in
this woman’s hand
what won't belong to you

tried to sit with it
ended up on the far end of the bench
clenching my
unclench these
empty fists
hands laced with could
but not full up

crowing;
I'm crowing this
woman's name
this woman I
this and I
not as us

the brain of the dog
can sense the rain
the heart of the horse
that laps at your face

outstretched arms of quiet drenched in sentiment, drenched in sentences, dripping through my mornings. spilling that tar from the lung's lies, spilling salt and honey
honey and spit
dancing heavy
spooning sweat
not being let

could you speak up
say yes
I'm not ready to give you up quite yet

I saw something
I found romance in reflection
before & after coffee
I compared the breeze to you
I felt humiliated
I've been all but
kept up
I've been all but kept by you

What have you seen in it ?

I'll swallow it after it cools down
&
small parts of me will never give up on you

I should have just
Kissed you in front
of everyone
and all at once
I shouldn't have
Jumped over
the lump in my throat
To get passed
All the notes that you wrote
Ink that stained my paper skin
Stand naked & read
over and over again
There is no more begins with
Like a light switch
Your hands turned me on
and every room would shine
I sleep in pitch black now
cause you aren't mine
& I might seem fine
but at night I'm reminded
and light only brightens
the empty space on my chest
where you'll always belong

I want a woman to scour
& beat me with flowers
for hours to tower my
tightened empowerment
delighted by sight
at what hasn't been sighted
i'd be delighted if just for a night
you'd sit right by side
but that hasn't been quite yet decided
for a while sit tight and at night fight the silence
the silence of quiet excitement / be frightened
but don't be afraid of my plight
be delighted
i want to crawl all of your ribs
count your bites
i tried twice to fly right by your mind
to entice it
but tonight I just write to
make bright on my mind
on my mind you shine brightly
in my mind you're like lightening
and kindly I'm blinded
your beauty is blinding
I'd like to rewind
to remind
and remind
and remind
and remind you

expect me to believe that i'm any different
when I know you say the same things
to all of these women
I know you use the same eyes to look right into them
I know you used the same arms to guide them through the room
and
i know i'm not a queen
but I know what I am
and trust me girl
i'm not some flag waving fan
i'm not a woman or a man
I know exactly where i stand
I hear how you speak
& I see your hands where they land
like i'm a map
& you've been everywhere but Maine
but won't Maine be the same as LA or as Spain?
if all you do is take a train and explain with different names
like this love will be different
when you don't feel the same
it's insane and it pains me
to believe what you say
when every time that we speak
you have long stories to explain
i'm not ashamed to take blame
for the confusion and i'll claim it
but don't act like i am yours
when you're wrapped up in my blankets

don't promise her the stars
don't surround her with that kind of dark
& please
don't speak what you can't feed
just love her & mean it
you should love her or leave

I'm taking a ride tonight
My eyes are wide open
And I look at myself
through the eyes of a woman
I stare for a while
A little disheartened
For a moment you flew
And now your wings are all rotten
Your bones are all cold
& You could have been smarter
You always did what you're told
Such a good little daughter

With no hope to hold onto
You pushed that away
Cause it got hard for you to talk through your **** everyday
So forget it
Forget it
and they'll forget you  
I'm alone every night
Just a fool in a room

Desperate for something
Moon, what do I do?
i need guidance, a sign
Or am I already ruined?

Am I thinking too much
Or is it too little ?
Consumed with what's in between
I found you in the middle
so riddle me this
there's a flick in my wrist
it wants to push and press
breathlessness
from under your hips
out of your lips
i want you to grip both my shoulders
turn your weight into shapes
I'll hold, unfold and then smoulder
your tongues a bit young
for my taste when I'm sober
i'm not one to hold back
turn this hole in my face to it's holster
i'm not bold but I'm brave
I'll probably break if I hold her
& the older I get
seems the more I grow colder
it was the cold that unfolded
the roll of my boulder
she's the ice in the road
that stole the control
I lost in October

I sing, you sleep
across my knees
my little queen
you're almost three
the sweetest thing I've ever seen
you don't know what you mean to me
we read, preparing you to dream
you hold my hand
& tell me things
I'm teaching you
but you teach me
I've learned more from you than anything
five more minutes in my lap
you laughed after the fish-kiss smacks
& your smile drifts you off to sleep
leaving this room is the hardest thing

Last night's courage not to call you
last night and every;
peel off pretty, it's six it's 7,
Is something
is tired, rewind her

I can lie down, longer
she's got it, going on.
stitches and weekends
never with you on the weekend
isn't cotton
it's-red
isn't your mouth either

living up handstands
living down longing
is really
something
is lonely
in yellow
I don't want, sometimes
I still want you shouldn't you
ever want me
isn't poetry
isn't easy
on
weekdays
and every
on
blisters on
forget it
my lips on
holiday

that slow blink never helped you (y'know)
and thanks but
my voice sounds the same, still
i can't count on
whatever rule about numbers you used
it is useless

and even
a forest of poets couldn't dig it up
or a ship, full of it
i'd swim under the mad waves
away from them

so, by my bones i speak
every language i need
finding more that
love is like a field
kept by wild things
as open as a child's eyes
with
all of this room to
keep growing

My ability to expect
Is exceptionally disconnected
My head especially rejected
all the bad news I've been left with
Won't the sadness suddenly settle?
With all the battles noosed and beheaded
I'd be headed back to the moon
But even the bats know I'm embedded
I misread whatever was said and now it's our backs stabbed and regretted
Thinking:
if you had my back
it wouldn't have been that bad to begin with
Let's begin with some forgiveness
If you would sit down and actually listen
and when I'm finished you can pretend that in the end everything's different

hour after hour
like rust on top of rust
I've confused lust halves
for must haves
& taught myself to ******
until I learned to trust myself
far more than any soul
it's just, I fell in love with me
and so
I'm good to let you go

I'd like to find these
silver linings
through all the rust
but it just reminds me
( of )
your metal heart
my steel rib cage
how i licked my fingertips
to flip through your pages
how everyday
busts me in s t a g e s
do I stay this way
or rearrange it
i'm a deranged fish
swimming in cages
that i build for myself
& choking on phrases
that mean nothing to you
so why waste time
trying to say them
i'm trying to save this
( idea )
for myself
instead of swimming in circles
for everyone else
it's outrageous