There is no light in your eyes
and my arms are crossed tight against my
mid-section,
holding me together as I still slowly
crumble.

I am becoming my own epidemic -
spreading quickly
and I can't stop
myself.

You read it to me, once,
in a tarot deck.
The fool, inverted,
the hanged man surrendering, and
death –
even then, there was no light in your eyes.

But, I can feel the shaking, while swallowing
medication from a silver spoon
split through the middle,
breaking me in half
even with arms crossed over my middle
to keep me
from shaking apart.

cuticles strewn into dismemberment
pulling myself away: picking, peeling
learning to breathe dusty air

i’m never there, you’re never here
tangled pathways in the color of scar

can you hear broken breath,
can you see fractured light,
can you taste salted tears
all before they slip by, unnoticed?

morning has never been a friend
always revealing dreams as nothing more than
silver screen annotations to the life we lead
vs the life we need -
i need to give up wanting
so i rid myself of this lump that rests in my chest
when i try to speak when things are amiss
and tangled becomes knotted.

fingers dismembered gardens -
poppy leaf, red raw
a wallet of unrecalled, trifold and unstable
wanting, wanting, wanting
to fidget into the arms of understand
me

lost declaration
(she died in ‘09
          her hands tied by the gods
          who surrendered her
(                           )

can you estimate your worth in
# of WMDs
like seaweed
                    nooses
                              ,
can you see me
                     she died in ‘09)
brakes ——————-
               tires marked the
               squealing
                  (
i wrote
         i love you
             on the mirror
so you could send me your
REVELATIONS
        .
you couldn’t even
do that
you couldn’t

in ‘09___)
                              (she died

you are a car wreck at 75 miles per hour
that i cannot take my eyes off of
on a saturday morning with lo-fi radio
speaking the sun
as it breathes life into this death setting:
i’ll grow stories wrapped with truth
because it’s hard to only speak truth when
we are both so damaged, tangled
wrapped in the backseat like a baby on it’s first day home

******* the way you
lace fingers in the tea-kettle black ***
coughing up a lung as sacrifice to the ancient gods who told me
on my 18th birthday that
you would taste so good across my lips
no matter how split, how dry, chapped, and hungry
they were -
******* the way you
split aching bodies in two
one half of pain seated on the devil’s tongue
one half of pleasure begging god
please let me get what i want
and i have to tell you
it is not a melody i have gotten used to

because you are still that car wreck i can’t pull my eyes from
even when life is sprouting from my own hands
tugging at my own silvery strings connected to you
and connected to everything
i unknowingly snip those silver strings of fate
and let you hang in the breeze
of the way i have been taught to say
please

we’ve learmed to seperate ourselves from
columbian coffee night skies that breathe heavy,
whispering myth into our ears about a modern Perseus
and his love affairs.
i’m tired of the way air dances over fingertips
through open windows, disappearing like spirits
through blackened doorways.

MP is singing his personal praises in an aging voice
sounding of rock ‘n’ roll gravel and blood -
he is not the soft night breezes telling us of him
and we can’t understand why we’re separating.

i just want to listen to the myth,
old like the willows that leak sap upon their death beds,
but i’m drowning in silence.
we’re remembering grey rooms that hung heavily
over our heads, breaking the songs of MP
against the walls in a shattering display.

we’re shattering in the exact way demonstrated.

insomniac tendencies breaking into the breeze,
stealing myth and covering MP with filth,
with the stories that a modern Medusa split his heart
but never turned him to stone to make him suffer -
to bend but never break.
and we’re listening to the stories of old, written in the new,
wondering how to break the cycle.

Everything shining in this house is dull,
singing lackluster serenades -
I hide you in my phone
snuggled warm in the battery.

Can you speak my riddles?
A language I've created to cover myself
and keep the teeth at bay, keep my fingers warm
when I’m shivering throughout.

I say you're locked in a cell
when I'm the one behind cellophane,
suffocating without a way to cut a hole
just so I can breathe.

I tie my noose
just a little
bit
tighter
every *******
day
just so I can play pretend
like everyone has asked of me because I am:

the girl who is always good
the girl who is notoriously ******* herself
the girl who gives until she has nothing left
the girl who hides behind the glass
until there isn't a breath left.

But, I have found you,
locked in an old shoe box, shimmering,
calling me like a moth to a candle's flame
and I can't resist, I can't resist
because giving so much has left me weak and I am still speaking in circles,
running myself through the gauntlet,
coming up with excuse after excuse after excuse.

I locked you, warm and safe,
between lithium ions and silicon casing
until I can hold you, once again,
between my fingers and
let you spell out everything I am unable to
say.

dead eyed river:

your lips are the end of my line;
i’m wearing fish masks to deflect time into bottles
sealed with wax.
little wishes written in invisible ink
seep into jagged cracks,
whisper empty bottom of the glass.

ring untrue,
superglued lips parting flesh,
and find liberty within your hands
caressing scales.
ring untrue and smile void
through charred airwaves.

i’m coming to you unglued,
fish mask fresh with decay
smelling of *** and the center of being;
i am rotten between my teeth.

you are dead eyed endings,
blanks shot to terrify the living -
you are unforgiving,
smelling of grief -
you are my ending just as i thought
dawn was beginning.

tingle against scalp
little crawling life changer
born into the new

Stolen selkie skins:

hang me out to dry in the morning light,
in the lore of long forgotten illusions of lovers
dying out to sea -
we forget it was all a dream.

I thought she was a painting, at first,
perfectly perched on the shore
with fingers laced around the sun and her
belly protruding sickness, her mouth exuding sores
and my heart creating sea salt waves against my breast.

We were the cat and the king -
slinking around her legs, between,
for a taste of something sweet, something sick
from within her.

She painted me the cat, her pet cheetah,
ever obedient and ready to run and
fetch the skin of lovers,
fetch the skin of hearts
that would never love again.

Primrose babies chewing womb
born in the window, summer room -
the snakes are in the garden &
dig up the mothers,
dirt fingers wringing necks!
                 suffocate,
                 suffocate
                        swallow.

Brittle petals aflame
death calls out a name,
shrieking -
                siren calls over airwaves
                shortened breath &
                  the mothers are in the gardens.

Rocking horse markers
carousel tracks
                 back and forth
wearing out the breath –

Primrose babies
sticking souls to the sun.