And I'll be there when they lay you in the ground
Six feet under - arms crossed - legs closed
Finally laying your back
In that straight position
That I always expected of you
Those tickles and chuckles the soundtrack of the cemetery
When the stars sang on your fetal-curled nights
When your lashes ran away like pollen on a breeze
When the life and the breath of a lover eddied around you
When time stopped
And our freckles and mind and lips all met
In a soul touching kiss
I transcended my flesh
And so did you

But you're in an ivory white bed
You're six feet under
You stopped breathing one day
You just stopped
And I hope your face is marred with wrinkles
And I hope your body is caressed with scars
And I hope your bad days really left a hickey,
a punch, a bruise
Because although I won't be there for it all
Please embark on a beautiful life when you open the door
I'll face the landslide
And I'll face it alone
And so will you
But just try and live a beautiful life
Okay?

Exceptionally so, I am completely myself cumulatively by everything in my past; a shadow of all that once was, folding and stretching before all that is to be. Yet in the same way, I am tied together with you. All the threads that have sewn us into a whole are now bound together. My completeness is not founded by nor complimented by you, but so heavily compared to yours, that I do not wish to live without you if I cannot stand it.

you stand so close to me,
but you can keep doing it babe -
it's sort of reckless to for me to like it,
but it makes me think that there's beauty in a racing heart.

All the loose laces of my childhood
Are being strewn into one
Big,
Fat,
Lethargic
Bundle
And I am
Knot sure
How to feel

He was all tattoos,
And cigarette breath - knocked down,
Drowned beneath his charm.

And suddenly, I felt the stares heavy on me.
Eyes snapping and pinching into my bare skin,
Gazes bearing marble-weight,
Boring into my little black dress like eternity.

*** in the air, dreams in my exhales
Flashes of a naked me as my drinks fall on their tab -
As I love my angel wings away
One feather at a time.

"I am depressed."
Through gritted teeth,
Through split speech
Through spilling and grinding
Through searching and finding

Instead of treating it like moldy laundry
Instead of rotting under the company of misery
I am telling myself
*hey, you know what, maybe I am worth a little dignity

And when the evening retires, curtains drawn
You hear nothing but the shattering din of failure
Echoing in your ears.
Behind your eyelids, you see nothing
But the teetering memories of horror
As they sink themselves into a framed existence within your mind.
And in your chest, your heart is contracting far too fast
In dancing spasms, it is heaving, leaning on the
Blanch white counters for support
Asking why the world is spinning and will we be okay?
Somewhere beneath the tireless groans of your flesh
You look at the moon hanging in the night once more
And though the blood is tumbling through your veins
At a speed that yearns for cleansing from the cringes of today's mistakes
You take a deep breath - breathe -
You let the warmth of repose reach your bones -
You are doing your best, you tell yourself,
*You will be okay.

I remember when I was a blank canvas, when I was
Stuck in dusk - something gray and in between.
I think the world only knows innocence
Like shooters only know a shooting target
Because it wasn't long until colors were flung,
Spilling into the sky -
Red's passion, yellow's trepidation, blue's deep-seated sorrow,
And green is the dreamer that wants to know them all, isn't he?

I will never meet those days of gray,
I will never know charcoal hearts drinking in phantom
Images of rainbows from afar.
I will never again be a dull, cloudy sky
Lost floating on my idle waves
In awe of a distant idea of iridescence flaunting in the sky.
I will never again know the weightlessness
Of being untouched by this twisted
Artist of a world we live in.

Hips, curves and all,
Spilling and slipping with
Tip-top, filled up
Love,
Baby

When have I been so ruled by want,
When have I been so waned by desire?

And it's all over.
All of it.
Thudding our way down the rabbit hole,
We finally found the bottom.
It finally came to a flaming end.

The many years of perfect storms, first emotions
And raw desire
Have finally reached their drought,
Silenced with the recent memory of an apathetic stare.

"Is this doing anything for you," he said.
And I, with a "No," stopped all motion,
Stuck in position that may have once
Driven him wild.
But there was nothing, now
And everything we once had seemed to sigh in that moment,
Gray and tired.

I was no longer his goddess.
He was no longer my muse.
We had exhausted every corner of each other -
And now we had finally discovered the parts of ourselves
Who no longer could give a ****,
Even in our once tireless animalistic urges.

And although it ended sourly,
It ended with a, "good."

What have I for you?
Flesh and bone, curves for clutching,
Or maybe there's more.

one hour ago and

My hours with you are spent tiptoeing on a fence, white picket, strange and thin, and I don’t think I’ve ever known the footing needed to keep that kind of balance
With the lightning showering down beside me, arms length away and angry,
And the wind whistling around me with the sort of aloof fingers that do not linger playfully in my hair like they used to.

two hours now and

My hours with you leave me wandering home with scratch marks on every inch of  my skin but my body welcomes it, I think truthfully these limbs are a little giddy
And somewhere above the insincerity of it all the stars are peaking through asking me to believe in a sort of sadness that is now foreign to me
But God I don’t want to, God that felt so good.

I broke the spell,

Skin raw with burn marks,
I look towards the sky -
The clouds are still gorging themselves
With a deluge of dancing fire,
But I no longer wince with pain
Yearning for you.

I'm free.

The day is enveloped in the sun's golden lines,
But beneath that blue the stars still shine.

You were sitting there,
Golden like a goddess,
With your eyes wagging lazily
Between the clutter and clatter of
Four jagged edges that made up
One sticky bartop.

The piano bounced in heavy thumps and steps
Like six inch heels
On a graceless girl
Who is dragged through the streets
Only by the sweet bait
Of a lover's giggle
To a hotel room that feels
A lot like home.

Your hands and face and eyes
Are pink as they pick through the pile,
Slotting in and out of Coach and Lucky
For a little black dress.
The thinning hallway smells like burnt cigarettes
And used condoms.

Arms folded like laundry,
Hair falling like linen,
I can smell the Coco and pushed out ahs
Fogging up my sight, dizzying and sultry,
As you dive beneath what feels like a thousand white sheets.
Sticky, wire-lashes sink
Under mountain-high, colored-cotton threads.

Your eyes are the glow of a casino.
You look right at me,
And I've won the lottery.

Something of a me is stuck on the secondhand, swinging
She is letting the stars sing to her
About memories scattered beneath the night sky.

Cortisol and oxytocin

The conversation rolls on like fields outside a car window

Sometimes, it's jagged like mountains, cutting between debates and interruptions

Other times, it shines like city lights, filled with sweet "mmhmm"s.

I'll talk your ear off if you let me.

The stars are marching out the window,
They are still uttering about
The mischief from the evening before.

Somewhere on the horizon,
Night is fermenting into morning,
And it is calling me for a drink.

Hi, you've reached my voicemail-
Dry spells, waiting,
Tucked in bed and shaking,
Dreaming of the day we are eachothers shadow again,
Bickering and snickering over bragging rights,
Over little car fights,
Outnumbered by the years that have passed
Since things were alright,
Invariably in tears because that's right,
There is no end to the lonely night!
The stars are blinking out faster
Than I can make up my mind
And is it worth it, old friend?
Was our last goodbye really the end?
Are the feelings mutual,
Or is it all in my head?
Does this muffled silence
Really mean that it's dead? -
I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

:DIAL TONE

And as you look at yourself naked in the mirror
For the first time in months
Mulling over valleys of curves
Where other girls might find emptiness
Or the blush of acne
Where modest peach may be found
You begin to wonder - who spun the planets in their dance
And if this earth really wanted it -

Or if gravity's whimsy is really some mad beast
To which celestial beings are found
With zip-locked lips, tight, wide-eyed, forcing a smile
As they are twirled madly about -
As the stars watch their blood stained ballet from their ivory tower
Spewing spells of laughter in things called nebulae -

And as you look in the mirror
And gaze into the eyes of a girl who's seen
Thick and thin wrapping her bones like a trend
You ask yourself if the earth threw a tantrum
When it was handed it's stack of seven,
It's crummy hand,
If today it is still cursed to watch
A stumbling, shuffling race
Breeding life just to slaughter it,
And not thinking about where they plant their eucalyptus trees,
Blazing trails with their talk of taxes and alcohol-stench -

If the earth is left to bellow in the currents of it's winds
Or dream wistfully of the moon in its tides
If the whispers of the breeze
And the uproar of the hurricanes
Was just a way to say
WHATS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?
If it ever cursed it's luck from the draw
To burden beasts of salt and volumes of soil,
If it cried and howled to the stars above
When it wasn't given it's way.

I like the way you look at me
As you watch me leave.

I like how you gaze at the sight.
Just as the sun slowly watches the sky darken
Before the night.

Its 2 am and the streetlights are slowly crawling by. This song is humming from rooftop to wheels. You are passed out in the passenger seat. You lost count of the drinks you had tonight - the numbers lost their claim when you were toilet side, hurling the night back up. But you dont care. I saw the way your eyes spilled with her laughter, your words soupy with her speech.
You called me up because you know I'd come to. Because I always do. (I sometimes wondering if you know I keep my ringtone on during nights when the drunk texts stream through.)
This song is playing. I ask myself what sort of prisoner I have become, and where you dropped the keys between the drinks? I move to stroke your hair like before, but I stop myself - do I wanna know? Repose kisses your cheeks, and the stars dance on as you sleep with ease.

Finitude, the luck of humanity
Where gods sit on clouds
Dreaming to be cleaved from eternity

And the Earth -
always, the smell of the Earth haunted his dreams.
He always woke lost to the scent of pungent pines and vegetation,
or soaking soil with the dust after rain drifting away from him
like a night-companion that knew nothing but
morning-after abandonment.

He couldn’t shake those nights -
they were a disease that plagued him, tauntingly,
letting him function in the day but still
keeping phantom hands across his heart.

It's weird

My head feels clear,

For once

All the free verse

Smooths out the curves

I guess

The pink sky is abridged, forever and free
While my breath is tuned to sing like clouds -
Impossibly loud, but soft like slow music,
Bach, Beethoven, and free.

I break every rule for you.
We walk the thin wire between sunrise and something more,
With ****** feet
Two blots, horizon bound,
Wobbling and free.

You try to kiss me
But my words send a flurry of gusts into
The fading night.
They are crimson, they are gasoline,
They are scattering colors over our skies
As you take my breath from mine
Forever and free.

I see myself in the poppy seeds and the playful trees -
In the dying grass,
In the crisp, singing breeze;
Under the breadth of sky,
Atop the breast of the sea;
In nature’s right hand -
Free.

I could listen to you talk
From midnight to morning rush hour

I would watch the headlights pile up on the 101
And the sun climb up the horizon
To the hum of your voice

Stopped moving, final twitches -
****** dry -
Colorless -
Eyes still open, tongue hanging free -
"Dead as a dog" -
just cold.


No I don't want to linger on the cliche of death
But I still wonder how the life ebbs away, silently
How it unsticks itself
How the limbs, once stiff with life
Resign into the shadows
With that final sigh.

And would it be so hard to sit and boil in the truth -
To let the regret stir in the tea leaves,
To let the colors spill and rise into the eaves?

Could I let my words be candid -
Or will I be swallowed in the sky and rain
Before my petals bow to the floor in defeat?

The four phrases thudding through my mind right now:

1. I knew this would bite me in the ***
2. And now I feel like ****
3. It's hard for me to see you as the person you deserve to be seen as at this moment
4. And I should probably allow this to be a wake up call

Excuse me sir, but how much ***** do you have on your shelf?

I can only imagine that listening to you breathe
Is like watching the Pope discuss theology.
You do everything so well.

I don't want to believe in her valley lights.
I don't want stars in my eyes,
Baby fever
Stuck to sunday sermons and sticky sin.
They say
The indica tinted company
Leaves me burning through heights
And cooing for eternity.
They say
I need a shower
And missed the mark in all places,
Including my voter's ballot.

My life is in boxes
And a valley of people are praying for me.
My life is in boxes
And i just want to breathe.
My life is in boxes
And my parents say they will miss me -

The knots are untying,
my god i'm ready to leave,
My life is in boxes
And i'm actually
Just starting
To finally feel
*free.

her body rusting -
yes, they call me vagabond -
prisoned to wander.

Hammered with wonder -
Enamored by all the stars -
Beauty, not so far.

Starry eyed dreamer,
Why are you in the gutter?
It's time to come home.

don't ask him to save you.
he doesn't really want to.
he finds you emotionally overwhelming,
actually
and your castle of buried sorrows is so beyond him right now
it's not even funny.
he's got enough problems of his own.

besides, you never really believed that you needed to be saved
anyway.

A morning with you and your rumbling stars,
Dancing about the room with smiles running off my face.
There is someone tapping on my brain,
There is something telling me that this wrong,
Reminding me that tomorrow would think twice
Before giving you up to me.
Can't you see the diamonds in my eyes,
Can't you hear my heart blitzing on it's toes
As it makes a break for the Heavens above?
Can't you see that we would be the best of the best,
We'd be precious, like you would say, love -
My God! We'd be great.

There is a scratch in my voice when we part ways, though -
It is the part of me that knows that you
Will never hold my hand
Or long to kiss my morning lips,
Heavy with slumber.
You will never know a day-dreaming me
Screaming giddy as her character dies,
And you will never see me as I crawl across the sheets
To fit into the groove of your arms.
I swallow my next breath before the truth
Rips itself into existence -
I will never let you know.

Study me.
Be the restless scholar
Glasses turned upright, hair in knots,
Dizzy with sleepless nights beside the candlelight,
Coffee stains strewn like Christmas ornaments,
Where you study my pages
With relentless curiosity
Leaving your eager fingers shaky
Spellbound and hungry for the end.

Find me.
Trace your eyes over wayward maps,
Over my skin,
Seek me beneath the epilogues and endless chapters.
Read between the lines to see me
Waving and giggling, (or sobbing and quivering).
Write papers on my patterns, on my stanzas -
Tumble down the rabbit hole of my syllables,
Where ink is branded in the roar of rising-and-falling flesh.

Your words bring me to my knees,

We think out loud for hours:

Whistle on in my ear,

I just wanna kiss you, man.

It's weird.

I feel like you know me so much more than most people do.

I don't share this stuff with anyone -

I'm not

personable,

as if me getting to pick and choose my flaws is justified

but at any rate -

how did you know that?

I feel like you see right through me.

Call it experience, self-protection
Or even just "listening to their gut" -
But people can smell self-hatred
Like a pile of dog ****

Why do I introduce her to my bed,
Two fold and larger than she's ever seen,
Swimming through the sheets to meet diamond eyes and bare shoulders -
Her hands are spring's cold river currents as they meet my skin,
They are icy splashes singing the heat from my flesh.

Why do I put down my drinks in strange wonder
To watch her intoxicated dance,
To watch her hips shudder and sway,
To see the darkness burgeoning beneath her eyes
As she lives in the shadows of her depression.

And why do I watch idly
As she scoops shallowly into the sandy waters of her soul -
The salt and the ocean just keeps filling back up
Every time she tries to live in the antithesis of
Him.

Four years, she told me
Then here she is again,
Six shots and two bourbons, *** and all,
Whiskey running through her veins
Like a race to forget how broken her heart truly is.

She is bent over the toilet hurling up the memories of him,
God, they are splashing wildly
They are reaching for her face
She can barely keep her eyes open,
Her face is bone white.

I ask myself about the night she falls asleep in my car
She is wrestling with her slumbering breath like repose isn't so easy,
Inhale, exhale,
The rise and fall of her chest spinning the night in motion
As it flings itself about painfully outside of my windshield.

Why do I stare at her, putting my coat over her,
She has closed eyes and her lips are ready to kiss.
Why do I let her toss me about, why do I let myself bleed.
Why do I let her etch her sorrows across my flesh, watching the ink as it dribbles down my spine,
Why have I become the paper to a broken melody?

And some days the hours run like
Black and white films.
Flickering shadows,
Blank noise,
The hours tick by
Like clicks on a Kodak roll.
Between it all,
A mind as handsome as
The fool on screen
Taps the light
To bring the scene
To an eggshell cream.

it would be something about how much you don't know yourself until you meet certain people. It's wild. Maybe it's partially reactionary. They say our behavior is largely in part due to our environment. Does that mean that parts of my identity are just knee-**** responses to the people I surround myself with? Or, to dig deep a little deeper -

does that mean that you're changing me?

Keep challenging yourself: a corny, yet necessary reminder. Surround yourself with people who test your limits and make you think more.

I don't want to sit in the car with you for hours
And pick through your brain;
I don't want to comb through my memories
And give you a piece of me

No

I want to **** you around and kiss you
Like I've been waiting my entire
Adulthood
To do this;
I want to hold you, and be next to you
And swim through the sheets
With your starry eyes
Staring up at me

Lights

cross into forbidden territory,
Years stretched into eternity before I knew:
I have never felt this way before

Which means I've hit a bottom.

I just need to tell this to someone:

I can't do it with the fatigue.

I can't. I just can't.

I'm so ******* ******* myself that if I loose my energy, I loose my grip. I'm done after that. I can't do it with the fatigue.

I'm going against the doctor's orders, but I think that's okay. I'm scared, **** it! I'm scared about a lot of things, and most of all I'm scared of depression. I'm so terrified of it. It scares me.

So tomorrow I'm going back to my 40. Back to my 40. Back to my 40.

And it'll be fine.