I grew up five years after breath gave me life.
        I still pray each day that it is 1995
I'd be adequate now
         and whole
I wouldn't have wasted my heart in their         searing cesspools
Incessant uttered pleas, marks that derange the page
Can't harbor the release my contorted heart craves

I wish just now I’d spoken the worst
    I’m so sorry to say that the pain only got worse

i got to hold you yesterday

                               all seconds of the day

and bring a smile to your face
on a difficult monday

i hate the tears in your eyes
but i'm so glad i get to wipe them
  
                                  before they dry

i'm not certain why i thought i might hear from you on my birthday,

you always had a hard time remembering it anyway

I'm weak and scorched and slightly torched
but

                            didn't you do this?

i've finally learned how to tighten my throat

and still let the air go

alone isn't so lonely
when I'm working on me

How to be alone
Is something you claim you don’t know

And I agree

You’ve buried your identity in the ***** of others
People with higher shelves and faces more likely
To recognize in a crowd

And then you polished and shined and rode and dived into endeavors
The others defined
As their lifeline

Including mine

And I stopped and padded and wrought lost savage
And dusted away each
Tribulation nestled in the waves of your skin

To find the you within
That you for so long failed to recognized

And I’m not sure how I thought this time
some frankenstein
Would stay with me
With scissors for hands
Or stitches in your neck
All cosmetic

But internally is where I sewed the thread
Fought to bring your heart to life
The fire in your eyes

So now you tread so easily
Upon the hands that used to feed

You

Day in and day out
Fighting
Defying lying

Compromising

Flashback Coddling and coaxing
Gently supporting each idea of independence

And maybe the mountain I climbed
With you astride
Reached a summit I didn’t want to see

Where you realized you were free

And I carried your dead weight
And led your legs

To stand on your own

Found the fire in your heart
Let it glow

Until it flowed

Into roaring flames

And that’s why text of black on lightened screens within my hands
Holds lists of names—
Demands

That I not forget the ones who stoked my fire
Lit my fuse
And watched me fly

I’ll call them out each and all by name
Because I hope I never gave them pain

The way you have
In bursts and blows
When I tugged you to that summit
On twisted rope
I tore from my body
Combined of my soul

Cared to see you fly

Now you want to be alone

I laid in my efforts and left to your heart
And you took these tools and found light in the dark

Long has since passed of small pathetic tremors
In uncommon bedrooms and soft down white covers

Your ceaseless tears and your face in my neck
Crying of all the things you didn’t have left

and I’d take back nothing to see you fly this high
To see your ascent
And how hard you’ve tried

I knew it was in you
I didn’t do this FOR you
I simply provided the foundation’s
Fortitude

So how to be alone is now what you ask
Maybe that’s how I should’ve let you conquer the task

But I’ll wrap up my pain in ribbons and parchment
Glued with intention and my small sins, repent

now it is freedom you claim to pursue
But if you, from me learned,

Maybe one day you’ll return

I said I wouldn't write about you
                                                            b­ut who am I
           to strip myself of what makes me live
in art I've surfaced my own sins

                                                           ­                      and some of yours.
                                                          ­                                         I suppose

I've taken space you've asked of me
                                                     needing to blockmyface
                                                     ­                    whenyouonceplaced
           my name into your skin

in a quiet champagne trip and
                                                    Gold
indente­d ribs

                                          Take a sip.

If it's "poison" that touches your lips

                                  THEN you could've skipped
                                                         ­              dipped
                                                          ­             flipped   me onto the piles of rubbled                   glass
torn from your walls
placed carelessly cornered or left simply to fall
                                                            ­                                       switched in
flip

some contorted reverse
                                            though my heart refuses to pin you as
                                      Perverse
     when these colors emerged


Two Years of swells i Chose to forget
                                                  each time that i stayed when I knew

i should've left.
When Everybody told me                      Better was Mine
                                       I wouldn't give in to believe that your heart was
                     Unkind.

From the moment I knew I'd clutched your stairway-ed arms
to
                 Ease My Ailing,
sweaty palms in driver-ed cars
Kermit Ruffins and philly beer bars
roller coasters, Christmas lights
                           endless pen-streamed journaled binds
An unopened book
                         pages still blank
                  more than a stitch to ease the pain of your name

   though i mustn't Complain
                                                        ­             ...and I still can't Rejoice

But I'll watch the sunrise through Uncommon windows
              trace folds of your fingers -- sweet struggled wake on your pillow
                            and dance foreign waltz in clipped black-wig nights
           plated sweet nourriture to watch your delight

Watch you dance decorated as I set in Pride
                                hold me to standards --yet bend when I'm Right

Speak to me softly in quiet teared nights
         tell me I'm beautiful when femininity cannot find
                                                            ­                                                 me
Drape me in curtains of love and Security
        Fit so Securely in the curves of my body

Smile in shyness--like absence of tongue
                as your cheeks lift to hide your eyes
                                                            ­                                  in thin rungs

Gold plates of your stomach and skin over hips
           saying my name through pleasurepursed lips
Pounding the pavement in carouseled times
  
not only Read, but Returned all my rhymes

The fortress is daunting
                     I'm brooding and swift
Sometimes the brick slips but the flips never Switch

So if russe folk dances and stealing lost tea
                     causes your coldness, just slightly, to bleed
                                       Remember what I did
                                                             ­                     --to, your troubles, ease
                               Don't say for this new year I didn't
Prioritize your Needs
                                       MARRY THEM, by all of all means
i never pushed you to choose, instead, me

I've learned my doors close,
       i woke to realize
                                             when those i thought open I faced and
                                                                ­  denied

because nothing matches the pulses and start
                  --the warmth in my chest when your palms
                                                                ­                                 press my heart

that's why with your Run i cannot understand
           feelings and highs
                                                           ­            unsustainable lands
I never demand     -       I never imply

                        but im also neverwrong
   and i can't shake  

                                                        ­                                         You and I.

there's a few ways it manifests
just in every way
                                    some small tinge of preference
      erupts into a spiraling sink drain

dragging me into the dirt
                                                        of my own self worth

broken down by my fascinations until
                                       a new picture emerges

a different perspective
                                                           maybe this time better?

                            almost always worse




because I'll never deserve it

I'll watch her foster illness
harbored in my own sick heart
we cannot beat
in mutual heat
because we both are      art.

if jesus died for a passion
why can't i?

There's a fire rocking the core of my body
searching to find some delight
but mocking me gently, intruding by day
and ruining my sanity at night

i've never been crazy
i've never been sane
i've never been caught in between

i'm fighting bounds i've inflicted myself,

the grip is asphyxiating

if you don't think about me,

how'd you do it?

if you'll leave
why'd you bring me black coffee in bed?

I miss New York

             And Think.

And other things
    

           that taste of coffee

my hair isn't as blonde as it used to
but i still use my purple shampoo

it reminds me of you
                    and how you liked the way it turned your hands blue

Do you ever forget
That the sky is
Blue?

Do you ever spend days in foggy sun-streaked rays
Looking up but never at

or out

Only through?

Do you ever forget that the sky is blue?
When every day is clouded with premonition
fear
                          and feelings of feigned
                                                         ­                                solitude?

Amidst robotic promenades
Of errands, chores,
And soulful fraud
I sat on a bench backed concrete wall
And watched the viscous raindrops Fall
And remembered that the Sky was
          
Blue.

Not today or maybe even yesterday
the day before,
I'll never be sure
For fear has pained this green earth in shades of grey
And harmful lures
of Worry

                         Fear

                                           Ineptitude

                                                     ­               Loneliness

                                      ­                                                Harmfulness
     ­                                     Judgement

Pride
           ­                                                                 ­        Resentfulness

                         Self-Righteousness    

                                         ­                          Inadequacy    

                           Doubt          
      
         Despair

                                            Despair.


T­oday I remembered that the sky was

Blue.


I saw its reflection in my core
through Rain streaked Windows on
the hospital floor
When predetermined action broke
To a soft sound of clarity, pity roars

So quietly in the corners of my eyes

And quick flash movements of Demons
on the edges of my vision
Gave way to one epiphany of a lost
nameless Religion
Where I sat encompassed warmly
by the chilled slate concrete walls
Match my footprints to the tile
And gave into some strange call

I spent duration in this space
Though hardly past half five
And returned blurred grey slate edges
In the spare divide

I hold on to that shade of Blue that
faintly caught my eye
In times of strife and noire held
tears
Remembering to fight

On foggy days of rain and haze
The purpose in which art
I'll softly pound on hollow chests,
reminding them to start

The shades of grey that dominate
the lost lack luster living
Are highly favored in my fears
Of failure and Oblivion


Remember me
Remembering
The vision in the glass
Clear yet seared in steaks of Fear,
threatening to crack

Don't set up camp in aimless
stance
away from rationality
don't succumb to worldly moods
that are always
                           painted
                                               black.

Especially on rainy days in lightning thundered
views
Grasp firmly to what sparks your heart
And remember that



The sky is blue.

What’s stopping you?
     howmanytimesareyougoingtoaskme

The reflection in the mirror talks back
a slap
in the face of my own draining placid fervor

      howamisupposedtodictatethroughthemuddled

Point central yet not centrifugal

   look like i always know what i’m doing what’s the next step what’s the higher trek the place the time the track the automation the rotation the pedestal

      constructed of sturdy insecurity

    ihavenofuckingclueihavenofuckingclue

     if energy cannot be lost where are my efforts left vested

     “if Any body, it would be you”

theyallsaytheyallsay so

        entering as my facade fabricated intricated interrogated berrated defiled demolished shredded left

     fordead

i’m working on it i’m working on it

More to come

asmileadrivealonelynight

         atemporaryhigh
            
                                     ­  capitalized.

i won't stop til my medicine
                        is biotin and mindfulness.

"She's lost control"
She said it first
the words you'd buried deep

You had your path steady in hand
before this swift defeat

mourning the loss of people who never existed
you painted a picture


and i believed it.

bite with my words and
                           curl to my tongue
cold and abrasive,
                       so wryly stunned
defenseless defenses
                  with strain in my lungs
antecedently encouraged
          incentives to run.

I'm waiting on a person I do not even know
to tell me things about myself I'm too afraid to show

                       cause if through her, or him, or me there's in this
something more

why are all these washed up bodies

                                        washed up on my shore?

Don't ask me if i see it,
or throw words in blatancy
if you think i haven't noticed how your bones feel
under me

when i look away or play you off
and hard resist
to indulge those thoughts
its cause i'm caught
in my debilitating illness

sans flaws sans scars in all you are
I'm wary of your mind
because in this mentality,
I fear its just like mine.

i've spent far too long
              compromising my sense of self
grating my back against the broken shards of angry takers

i'm giving my best to the wrong set
               cracking my chest over and over
and before the breach heals
                 i hand the chisel
                         to a new set of hands
unrelenting and unforgiving

                                  i should still remain a light
                                  i should still remain in love

it's all i know how to be
                            all i can see
is the very best of people
                            even if they're mean

there's no glory in this test
i'm just rolling stones up unrelenting hills
                        
                                  ­      hoping for the best

what happens when you fall in love with somebody

                                          in a dream?

i feel about you the way i feel when i wake up from a good dream:
it wasn't real, i just wanted it to be