Who am I to blame for this embargo on words
so suddenly placed in my throat
it chokes me
stifling much needed expression even as my fingers jump
from strings to keys
from pen to soundless paper
life has number and pitch
but no definable English syllables or even enunciations
I am at a loss.
For years the ability to relate chaos and joy
to little notebooks and folders has been an escape
but it is a trap in itself
when there are no words to describe
that which I feel.
Breathless
I am breathless as I pace
aching to turn back the hands of the clock
and regain lost time
lost life wasted when I was a child playing a role
playing a game
breathless is the sensation
that feeds the euphoria of dreaming with eyes wide open
and never needing to wake up to reality
because they have become one and the same
I may be without words
but for better or worse I am chained to these hands
and this heart which can learn
to speak without a sound.

Every day I bare my soul
I must suspend my disbelief,
eradicate the need for affirmation
behind my every breath
so I can sing that
yes, I am alive and well
and worthy of something,
though I know not what.
These words must be trained
to spring from the shadows
unafraid to shout to the puppetmaster
their disavowal of its ownership
because they speak the truth,
the treasonous truth
from which I try to hide
but cannot
because they must be heard.
They will be heard
because for the first time
in these years of existence
I have the courage to declare that
yes, I am alive and well
and worthy of something,
though I know not what,
and still you are here.

wet hair drips tears down her neck
tracing the collarbone
the ribs
down to the

(skin and bone)

gasp and shiver
it rattles in her chest
she falls to her knees

(set fire to the skin and bone)

starve the parasite within
excise the microphone
the cameras
sever wires
cut the noise
blind to beauty
deaf to screaming
mute to pain

today you took me back to the cave
to the dark
to escape
to rest my eyes and spend a moment
in your warm embrace.

you sang to me
i closed my eyes
but i could not stay
we were out of time.

your pale hands took mine
and you kissed me goodbye
and you sent me back
into the blinding light.

Subtlety consumes me this day,
the effect of warm coals slowly burning
a hole through me while I remain
unaware of their beautiful damage because of their
lack of violence
I am still exhaling smoke
in the form of nervous syllables
happy,
for once,
that I have not received a knife’s blow
in the back when I least expected it
but instead a gentle demise
slowly falling,
falling,
falling out of my mind
and for the first time
I give my full surrender,
give my heart
to rest upon the embers.

To my friend:
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I lied to you.
I hope it comforts you to know
I felt your hate and hated myself more.
I deserved it,
your hate and every ounce of pain and
I hope you laughed last summer
when my cruelty came back around.
I hope you laughed last spring
when you dealt the final blow
and I walked right into your death trap
because I deserved it,
every bit of it.
I’m sorry for blaming you for ruining me
when I ruined myself.
Never again will I tell such a terrible lie;
never again will I speak words I do not mean.
I’m sorry,
and I wish you all the happiness in the world.
Please forgive me.

i yearn for the day
i’ll feel you sublimate off of me
like snow in the sunlight,
the day these weighted branches will rise
but your hold’s like ice
and these things take time.

yet still i fear
you’re carving scars into my bark
and i weep,
i weep
for the permanence of the heart.

Where are you tonight
my forgotten family?
Sitting round the table
glassy-eyed
as explosions rock the sky
and shake the dust from your hair?
Receding deep in the mind’s eye
to remind me how time flies
when you’re not around?

ashes to ashes
pocket full of sand
my years left to live
i can count on my hands

I
i’m starting to believe
i was cursed from the moment the thought echoed in my mind
from the first letter of this poem
not cursed to feel it
but cursed to fail in it
maybe i was cursed before that even

II
maybe it’s because you make me inexplicably happy
when i am fated to suffer
you are
of course
too good to be true
but that won’t stop me from enjoying myself right now
so let’s take a moment for us
right here
right now
before it’s all over
and you leave me crashing down from heaven

III
i feel guilty that you want me
(because i know i’ll corrupt you
with my inevitable sorrow
and ice to freeze you out
and paranoid eyes to beg you to stay)
and i feel guilty that i want you
but this is the only story i know how to write
anymore

IV
i’m starting to believe that
maybe i’ve only fallen ill for a moment
and some(day week month year eternity)
i’ll remember i do not know the hands of fate

three times
you interjected into my heart's permanence
and three times
you've done it before.
once another two years have passed
i think i'll be looking for more.

I am alive with the feeling of phantom sensation
anticipation
of the moment foreshadowed, forewarned
it has been foretold
that this is the first day of the rest of my life.

I know it,
and yet I fear;
I feel it,
and yet I still can’t breathe
can’t stand
nails drawing blood from the back of my hand.

It would have taken less strength to forget you,
but I don’t want to.

you shouldn't have tempted me with a puzzle
cause now i've found you out.
what are you afraid of?
what am i afraid of?
i hid behind a new name
because i didn't want to scare you
didn't want you to know how sick i am
how deep the delusions go.
but you're my friend
and friends are honest with each other
so i'll let you see how sick i am
how deep the delusions go
how far i'll fall
in the name of a word i can't speak anymore.
i am ashamed of the things that make me human
and ashamed that i am not human enough.
i know you
(but i can't trust myself when i hear voices)
no, i know you!
(or did i just imagine?)

She lies in the grass of a strange land
hands folded
across her bare chest
a sunflower
locked in death’s rigid embrace.
Her body’s overflowing
with heaps of wildflowers
with roots that burrow deep
into her flesh
in anticipation
of its return to dust.
Her momma called the cops,
her baby’s been gone far too long
won’t come home
won’t answer the phone
but they’ll never find a city girl here
lying dead in the Montana prairie,
not under all those
heaps of wildflowers
to mask the smell.
It’s almost peaceful
on this lukewarm afternoon
just as the photographer’s eyes
cloud with an emotion that is
almost remorse
as he drops the match
and the tips of the grass
above her face
sway and tickle the big blue sky
until it cries ashes.

restless sleep
waking dreams
imagining
pockets full of sand leaking
seeking self-sacrificial death
and haven’t i been here before
drowning in the hourglass?

i don’t remember
i am blind, ready
and bleeding
trading freedom for chains
the transformation is already complete
the cycle repeats...