You are fading jeans again
Try ripping them to shreds by skinning your knees
Try to squeeze blood out of stone-wash
You just crumple and fall on me love
Tired and trapped in denim
Too many buckles and buttons and zippers
But in freedom you do nothing more than drape over the sofa
Love in compasses you, freshly laundered.

She looked at me in a skeptical way and talked about what it means to be a vessel.

She offered some next steps, some sage advice.

But maybe I'm just the soil in champagne France, I thought, all chalk-full of clay.

Maybe the best most renowned bubbly celebrations come from this scraggly old vine.

What do you know? As I pawed at my stomach and breast.

Things still grow in the desert, they just aren't the things you like.

"So fruits and vegetables then?"

"Less fruit than you would think actually."

I blinked.

If someone's going to walk alone on a dark bridge suspended above the ocean bathed in strange blue light, let it be me.

Let it be me who let's the chill creep into my veins and brush past my cheeks.

If it has to be a sad song, let me sing it.

If we all get painted with watercolors, let it simply be.

I will draw you on my life with the rest of them, but I will always pause at you.

I will forever pause at you for a moment longer than every other statue in the museum of who I once was.

"I'm not sure I believe anything,"
words spilling out my mouth,
staining the carpet.
"And everyone's like Christmas on the outside."
Cold as it may be,
right as you were,
hanging like a lantern from a streetlamp.

For the record, I suppose it should be stated I lost my soul in Vegas.
I would love to go back there and find it among those glittering lights and buffet tables of never-ending artful desserts.
It's funny that all I really remember are those pretty desserts and fried mashed potatoes.
I want those things back.

I'm like a raver with those lights.
I want to consume them.
I want to glow in my pores.
Not the cliched glow that wraps itself around the impregnated many,
but the glow that comes from sitting next to neon for too long.
That it could somehow stain you.
Rub off like fairy dust on skin.
That I could fly away due to its energy or wishful thinking.

Take me back to Vegas,
where they still hand that out for free by the boatload.
I need not gamble.
I need not glad-hand.
I would simply sit idly by the buzzing of pinks and blues and greens and reds.
And me and those cheap 1920's lights will have a moment,
a moment I can share with the cocktail waitress who asks me for the third time if I'm sure I don't need a little refresher drink.

I looked at him through a haze of Pall Malls
He held me briefly and fiercely in dirt encrusted finger tips.
When he spoke to me it was whiskyed and dry.
I'd writhe in sheets covered in sweat,
marred by too many bodies (only one of which was mine).
But we laughed that hearty laugh that comes from knowing eyes.
We danced with the weight of flesh and bone.
We held no pretense,
and my eyes stung with the knowledge that we were genuinely ****** up.

frailty
in beauty, as if that was the way it was supposed to be.
with hollow bones, like sparrows, just a stones throw away
if she was wicker, someone paid a hefty price.
and the bed sheets smelled twice laundered.
thin and devoid of meaning.
such a silly thing,
that moved like wind and breath would sway her
willow tree, that one
bent over in eternal weakness
like a daisy, wilting
but how she lorded over all the thoughts of men like a sovereign

There is a cold wind that sweeps over this place
and I'm staring dead at you.
If you ignore the fog around our feet and the ominous smell of mildewed death,
you can almost see a point to this little adventure of ours.
I'm about ready to make you an offer to get the **** out of here and go somewhere else a little less, depressing.
But you're staring right at me with that look again;
that look that says you're not all there.
The one that says 'I'm sorry you have called the wrong number'.
To be honest, all I want to do is run,
but all I'm going to do is stare dead at you and pretend that this whole little adventure of ours was worthwhile.

Fear me.

I fill all spaces.
I break all walls.
I convalesce in tight corners.
and piece all the pieces.

Such tiny things are goals.

Such a pitiful want is sleep.

Fear me for I fear nothing.

Run fast for I sprint forward toward the world,

And you are in my way.

You pulled a 'My Sister' straight down to the ground
down, down, down
no one's going to miss her
my sister, my sister
no one's going to want her around
the sounds of the well as you wished her to hell
as you shivered and shook all around
you pulled a 'my sister', my sister
you pulled her right down to the ground

My sister my sister my sister,
turns out she wasn't a doll at all,
once push came to shove.
She'd been beat up and blistered like the rest of us,
just clinging to the mast of certainty found in encasing oneself in plastic,
layers and layers of it.
I don't know how she didn't suffocate but she's still breathing in there, somewhere.
She cracks at the edges,
I try to look in, nosy as I am, and get her out of there
but she doesn't want to get out.
She hates me for trying.
But I miss her I miss her I miss her.

She wants the trumpets to play.
She wants them to play all day long until their lungs give out.
She wants to see them marching down the street, keeping the beat of another failing heart.
Don't start. I can't.
I cannot pick your roses,
I cannot breathe in the sulfur of your departed memories.
Don't make me weep at your parade.
She stayed long enough to orchestrate the players.
Stayed long enough to write the tunes.
Stayed long enough to make the costumes.
But not long enough to watch the charade.
Watch it blossom and screech and wail
There it goes down the street named after you.
There it goes with you at the helm,
Waltzing down to that other realm,
where we get to watch you pass.

Vitamin D. Prenatal vitamins. Gauze. Paper-tape. Pregnancy tests. Ghirardelli square wrappers. Anti-septic. Band-aids. Small strips of paper towels. Anti-biotic wound care. Disposable masks.

My nerves are showing up in the cracking of my skin, in my eyebrows, between my eyes, and down my nose.

My hair's growth is stunted by my sporadic picking at the ends.

Now is not a good time. Now is the only time. Now is the worst time. Now is the best time.

Remember when following twinkling lights down sparkling hallways that life is but a dream
and here is the essence and truth of the whole thing ripping at the seams,
spilling out through bell peels and peeking out from bows of holly.
Once a year reality shows a bit of leg.
So enjoy it thoroughly through rounds of eggnog and sugar comas,
through cellophane and paper napkins,
through pointless conversations omitting drug references and financial statuses.
Just put some snow down someones back,
and if it isn't available,
good ol' ice does fine.
Forget that in a few days and a few minutes the world will close up again and deny it's divine nature.
Add a bit more weight to show that it happened,
to prove that it happened for the next few months.

Oh ****, I’ve found myself.
Lurking behind something.
Covered in balloons and discarded afro-picks.
Funny out of all the places to find me I never thought it would be in the remains of an ill fated trip to buying ***** at a CVS
or while contemplating why I haven’t thrown away empty soda cans.
So be it then I suppose, I kind of missed her.
My dog looks at me like she’s pleasantly surprised about the whole ordeal;
knowing **** well I’m putting her back in the box once I’m done here.
Once I’m done cleaning up the party favors.
Still I must say, I missed you chick,
it’s been awhile.
Thanks for sticking around even though I keep you locked away places and then forget where I put you.
That’s gotta take a level of effort I can’t reproduce.
Paradoxically.

Let's live just long enough to fear the compassionate desires of our ancestors.
Trust that no one save for the testimonials of strangers can save you from the 'coming evil'
To this end, we shall salute our own graciousness in response to someone else's hard work;
Make up a story filled with woe and peacemaker rallies depicting those formidable glory days.
Suffer no one but fools.
You know,
Fore you are wise and we shall all know someday what is to others like you obvious;
that everyone is blind but you.
There is a glazing in the eyes of a once mistress,
fallen over a reclining chair grasping at dusty bones.
This is what is left of the great ending,
nothing to clean up after, save for spittle looming over a coffee table.
The nightmare returns to me in a simple waning smile
and a sweet, but bitter to only me phrase:
"let's grow old together"

This life is unsustainable and eventually we all will wither and succumb to it.
It's for the best, to rest, on the pillowed walls of complacency
or wander through the hallowed halls of indifference.
Just once, you may see the cracks in the flooring and wonder what lies just underneath your feet.
And fall we will, like dominoes.
One by one
Like matches lighting matches
to the tune of our own
and surprise of us all.

Give me a ring, to slip off my finger.
It moves to my right hand.
I move to my right hand.
and you raise your right hand at me.

Give me a ring, to slip off my finger.
It moves to my right hand.
I move to my right hand.
and you raise your right hand at me.

I've been nervous all day
and finally-
at the end of the day
I love it.

I guess I'm not as 'above it' as I wanted to be.
I'm sure my mother could see this more clearly-
than me.

But the butterflies in my stomach have now morphed into an odd satisfaction
I guess I just wanted the action-
after all.

It's all for the greater good,
and shouldn't I-
be proud of that.

There is this plant on the patio that overgrows itself every once in awhile and dies.
Beautiful flowers, but far too many.
Over-growing without thinking about the consequences.
Four million or so flowers blooming all at once and one little porcelain *** to hold them all.
It came naturally.

Shhhh,
It's spoken.
Spoken like a dream in handcuffs
Broken like a relief in progress,
and single as an eyelash.
Trusted in darker hallways.
Sinful as the walkways of a stolen word,
Crash to open.
Send it to a brighter world.
Let the dim light linger.
Never let your finger
touch the lips of babes.

In this place things swim around slowly,
every color bleeds into each other.
You can't make out what you're looking at or why you're there,
but more specifically,
how you feel.
You're sitting in front of a pool of absence.
Dipping a toe in and watching it ripple on down to the edges; change course.
I, of course, sit in front of it for hours pensive, worrying.
And all my thoughts change the mixture.
And all my moves trouble the water.
And at times there is the great upset brought upon by rain.
When it rains the silence dissipates.
The surface ends up fighting against itself.
The little droplets spring up and begin spurting out towards whatever incomprehensible answer will suffice at the time.
The commotion is only settled by focus and time.
Then, everything turns to whispers.
Here and there of words drop phrases or concerns.
Ultimately it quiets and it's back to swaying like reeds and still moments like these.

Today will be retroactive; in penance to those times spent wondering.
The will they wont they has finally calmed.
We wont count today,
so I'm noting it now as an important moment left undiscovered and forgotten later.
Today something came into being that was already there.
The gestation cycle forgotten, we only count the time after birth.
Sometimes I like to think of myself as nine months older.
So, with that I say we were in womb before now.
Welcome to the world.
But for our own purposes we can count those months spent in utero.

I feel that old twinge of bitterness creeping up again from the shadows.
I almost don't recognize the pattering footsteps of the old fiend.
never the less, the hair on the back of my neck stands up and my eyes glaze over.
Next thing you know I'm foaming at the mouth speaking gibberish in-between nips at your ankles.
Ah! the familiar pang of imaginary injustices,
piling up and filing in to rows of sentences without pauses.
Oh what a wonderful feeling is that of the raw ball of hate caught in the throat!
Venom drips from the fangs hidden in nonchalant inquisitions.
Tread carefully for I lay in brush of amber straws waiting for the perfect time to lunge.
Needless to say, I did not seek out the dog that teethed upon me. Nevertheless, I've become unforgiving and rabid.

Its getting about that time
that we all switch pictures
define ourselves in some new way
write plays about the years we didn't pay attention to whilst in them.

She glows.
Shifts in the distance like shifters do
mirrors the parts of me I cling to
splices in the new shade of blue

that some commoners cooked up one summer

I want to move like you do
I want to follow a tune that you grew
up out of that dangerous mouth of yours

I want to slip in unnoticed into your background
I want to leave you in the wake of a spellbound
insomnia silvia nightgown.

I'm a remix of secret decisions
that I would love to let you and your friend in.
Take the tour of the wicked and old sins
that I wrote when I worked for the lived-in.

But she's still staring loudly at the floor.
Forgetting what project I wrote for.
Forgetting what score I produced.
Forgetting why I haven't noosed myself quite yet.

She shifts in the distance like shifters do,
mirrors the parts of me I cling to.

Scratching off my skin and digging my eyes out.
The cracks branch off at the corners, swollen and puffy.
A busted lip, some pills, and a drink to help me relax.
Didn't work.
Little levies break now and then to spill small kernels of my locked up consciousness, then retract back in on itself.
Functional.
Motions, actions, procedures.
Pushing through the grime towards the bathtub.
Through the haze typing delicately to oneself.
Giggle.
Glorify yourself.
Lose your voice in explanation of everything except the important parts, the parts they already secretly know.
The stomach churns, sudden twinges pierce all the muscles.
Conversations swim about other things.
The oncoming memories, the irritations of daily life.
Just being here.

I’m obsessed with drowning you out,
of pushing your head under water
of choking the life out of this,
for fun.
For kicks to the ground,
for rocks in the gutter,
for some desperate need I have to ruin you,
to ruin this,
to **** it before it kills me.

Sing softer to me,
Oh fading masterpiece of my own discrepancy.
Let the tremulous vowels resound furtively upon your delicate lips.
Fading swiftly we have only just begun to transcribe the messages underlying this fantastic fever.
So shiver with me in the cold of my own vacancy.
Trust that the smoke that escapes me now is only a product of my own frozen tyranny and that you are the foundation of this great work which I lay down my discrepancies upon;
the alter that I sacrifice my pride at.
These stone monoliths enclose my memories half-constructed,
the other a moiety of truth.

Some books are hard to read and cut you on the way down.
Some books make you wish to burn the inside of your ribcage out.
But those same books teach you some things you didn't know,
and those somethings make you change in ways you didn't think you could.
Some books break you into disparate pieces and put you back together in a new way.
Some books heal you in a way you didn't know you were injured.
But those same books are hard to pick up and easy to put down.
Some books have been calling out to you from other people's bookshelves their whole lives.
Some books have been given to you as an investment.
But those same books will live in silence if you never open them; too afraid of paper cuts to learn.

I'm a terrestrial being.
so down to earth I might just be below it.
Up to my ears in the sands of time;
grounded, forever glued to the microcosm.
Entrenched in terra firma.
Homely maybe, there's tracts of guilt all through it.

Sweet Refraining Mindnumber,
In the instances when neither speak, there is a feeling somewhat narcotic and lackadaisical.
I tend to forget the solidity of words and some often slip between cracks in my teeth.
Try not to ponder these odd things while I comb my fingers through trifle upbringings,
though you might, and I might as well, raise questions in my head of dreams I've had and ones you've witnessed.

Let the beauty and pain of the world spill over the coffee table and onto the floor.
Use the raw materials to construct a reason-
a reason for why my mother tells me
what her grandmother told her:
"Like cream you will rise to the top".
Make something of yourself out of the chaos
and jagged edges of the world.
Let the bits and pieces of reality loose
to align in nothing but piles and small bits.
Then tediously right all wrongs,
in steady and purposeful motions,
until you are but dust and granules yourself.

She was a gamine,
an urchin and a recluse.
Tattered and waifish,
scrounging for some small morsel underneath a city bus.
Tarnished,
a lot like brass that's been exposed to water;
she's splotched.
Even whilst disenfranchised,
she carries some valiance hidden beneath her turncoat.
There is beauty in the loose pages she's giving to the wind.
She is,
and will forever be,
floating in the updraft of a sidewalk vent.

rescinding messages of longing and lust
cast off to the wind like a broken record
skittering, twisting down the street in early morn'
your laying to rest your tired conscience on me
like one of those lovers in a movie theater
brushed off like salt on a shoulder
twirled like a young girls hair mid flirtation giggle
i think we're dancing in the streets now
scuffing shoes against concrete
mind-melding as we soft shoe across the yellow lines
i'm kicking you to the curb
like a rock into a gutter
your blowing through me like a chilled breeze
shuffling past me hurriedly to another time
like a scarf mid swing o're a cold shoulder
i turn 'round swiftly to meet you
dizzily.

Happiness bled all over my bathtub.
Silliness dried at my feet.
But maybe it's just the parts that we're made of.
Maybe that's all that we mean.

And dreaming suddenly preferred me.
And themes suddenly addressed me

Mirrors and make-up, tripped over playing cards.
Drowned in the chivalry,
Heroes and worshiped gods that were made up,
furrowed their brows at me.

And dreaming suddenly preferred me.
And themes suddenly addressed me.

Our lives are set-up in beautiful hypothetical.
Propositions swirl around like conveyor-belt sushi- delights to choose at semi-random.
Light and fluffy brightly colored choices.
Candied aftermaths of promise.
We stare at the world like through a pane of glass that houses every good thing.
Select a sweet impermanence.
Finger a whim.
Cast yourself onto a game of chance.
Play your favorite song on the jukebox of 'nowness'.
Skip all of the imperfections in a sidewalk.
Dandy through your daydreams.
To want is to behold.
To wish is to brush the tips of splendor.
All of it free for now.

There's a swelter, a stickiness to life as of late.
Syrupy.
Its as if I've been coated in a thin layer of substance.
Sweat maybe.
Salty and inescapable.
I wake up drenched in it.
The smell of ripeness.
The clinging of clothing.
The desperate need to disrobe and cleanse
Only to be swallowed up again by this heat,
This permeating throbbing heat that surrounds me.
That sticks to every surface.
That claims to be more me than I am.
I'm shocking myself in ice cold water
Scrubbing it off of me,
But in a few moments past now it will return.
Thick and imposing...
So I wait for nightfall when it gets colder and I can rest again.

I'm gracefully losing my mind.
Watching it spin in real-time.
Letting it crawl down my backside

Shiver me tenderly, Valentine.

I'm tripping up my own deceptions.
I'm writing more on human perceptions.
I'm living down, giving up screen time.
I'm pouring out more of your dream wine.

Well, what of my cynical rhyme?
What of my weekend romance?
What if my color-filled prime - tickled me pink as the springtime?

I'm tripping up my own deceptions.
I'm writing more on human perceptions.
I'm living down, giving up screen time.
I'm pouring out more of your dream wine.

Shiver me tenderly, Valentine.

Cold limbs can't tremble in ecstasy.
They cannot hold the backs or clasp the body of anyone.
I am but lifeless flesh that moves only by the assistance of others;
a heavy marionette with too weak strings-
dragging along the bottom of a well of sin.
(Simple gestures as music plays in through the windows)
I don't know where the winds breathe and simmer in the open spaces between you and me.
If you could be anything,
I would love to play you like a piano.
You would lie in front of me, naked,
with all the princely dignity of a drifter from back east.
If ugly is pretty,
let me breathe into you the sickness that trembles somewhere deeper than my flesh,
seething beyond my decency.
In sickness and in health,
I rather prefer the poison in your veins as a pulse in tandem with mine.
I wish to scratch against you like bows against strings.
maybe not to become some beautiful piece written by some composer of utmost pretentiousness,
but possibly just one note and then another-
back and forth through the evening-
as would the whistling of trees outside.

Yes, I can smell the gunpowder all right.
And sure,  I can hear the 'pom' 'pom' in the distance of the bombs bursting in air and whatnot.
But I'm not seeing the red glare itself.
From every angle, I'm not getting any of the rainbow foofaraws as was advertised.
Instead, it's just me and the dog here.
I'm just dizzy with conflicting ideas of what being 'here' means.
Anyways, I'm too busy, tired and dispossessed of my patriotism to really give a rah-rah anywho.

I guess you can keep the fireworks.

This.
This my difficulty I can never show in public.
My shame.
My family name tarnished on a pause.
A stumble.
A fumble forwards towards the right answer that won't come tumbling out of me.
So I wait.
I wait for a crack in the seams; a break in the watch.
A moment to breathe where I can escape away from the responsibility of knowing.
Knowing what is to others obvious.
The poetry of integers,
the finger-tips of legacy I may never grasp.

How many marbles can you fit into a bowl until you say you can't count them?

I do not want events layered upon events.
Birthdays toppling over birthdays:
a layer cake of responsibilities that aren't 'responsibilities'.
That do not count.
That cannot be measured or described as taxing or numerous.
I am outnumbered by numberless nonsense.
I am outweighed by weightless wafting pleasantries;
and opportunities;
and life-sustaining things;
that bowl me over.

My womb is a desert called Death Valley and you wish to comb it for antique glass bottles.
I care not.
I cannot partake in any more suggestions of what I might do with my 'free time'.

But you're not feeling the tingling sensation in your gut every time you wake up and the lights don't turn on.
The wheels don't work.
The mechanical arms don't move like they are supposed to.
Like the parts of you you're supposed to have on automatic have just given up the ghost and abandoned you.
You're alone and miserable and none of it rings any bells.
None of it gives out any signs.
None of it counts.

I'm crying because the milk spilled and there isn't any milk left anywhere in the world.
We're out.
We're just the land of Honey now.

Time hasn't stood still here,
I have; stopped mid-step.
I'm a statue that gets climbed on by small children,
quicker moving than the eyes of their parents.
I am petrified
like wood in permafrost.
Forever here for thousands of years.
Trapped within this moment.
Always and forever about to commit some great crime,
or to do some beautiful act of kindness.
Always about to make a movement, but forever doing nothing.
I'm reaching towards something that has long escaped me.
Holding my hand out begging for it to return
for it to nestle itself into my hand without the need to lean closer or grasp it.
When will I learn the only thing left to collect while in this frozen state is bird crap?

The pipes are knocking in the walls; groaning and dying.
You roll to the other side of the bed.
I roll out of bed and put a *** on.
The lights outside are strewn in no particular order and just on the door;
as if to say 'we tried'.
We try until the pipes burst.
We try until the coffee runs out.

I let skynet tell me the news brief and sit here.
I could be studying a way out of here.
But I don't go in until after noon.
I make another cup of coffee.
Listen to Teagan and Sara.
Look at ways to **** time...

The pipes haven't burst yet, but they're still knocking in the walls.

Hello there old… friend
It’s nice to see you again

I suppose it’s been.. years

But I can’t help noticing you’re there and I’m here
As timeless as anything ever been put in one of those mason jars.

It’s strange to be a product of an age
Or how nothing’s really changed
You still, you
And I unabashedly I

And I love how there’s no forgiveness needed after all this time
For what would we have to say?
What do we have to say?
Here, now, in this quasi reminiscent place?
Nothing but pleasant ‘hello’s and ‘how was your days’

Still it’s comforting to know that there you are

The proof that they hide in pudding.

She plays black, then blue, then green and red and yellow,

Then translucent and impatient;

Messy and aggravated.

She fumbles,

Then runs full speed -

Touches the wall

and back again towards you.

Spread arm'd and clinched fist'd.

Clinched teeth and mismatched socks.

Haphazard hair and ****** complexion.

You slit eyes and wink and shine on oh great shining thing,

Until the dust of her lay at your feet.

I let my words drip onto a keyboard, since I don't cry anymore.
I am shocked that we never have time to talk, saving breath for breathing.
I cut down trees to reveal the forest.
And at my poorest, I never blamed you for being true to the version of you, you felt most comfortable in.
A second skin, for skin walkers.
I've had more and less,
in less space than one can have with the bitter tastes of phrases caught in the back of the throat.
What we wrote on pine trees scars me,
taking far too long to heal over.
But I grow as growers do. And so do you.

She's bleeding into thoughts painful and obtuse;
reclusive mysteries made apparent by violence
and forceful introspection.
Severing ties and reforming them
licking wounds and digging at them.
For once let the madness cease to be so vivid
that it erases me.

She's bleeding into thoughts painful and obtuse;
reclusive mysteries made apparent by violence
and forceful introspection.
Severing ties and reforming them
licking wounds and digging at them.
For once let the madness cease to be so vivid
that it erases me.