no pretty language please
i would like to combust

how does one recover from failure?
how does one not let it consume them?

wikihow then.

This is to say
I have not eaten
Williams' plums
in the icebox

Nor have I seen
the stiff curl
of the wildcarrot leaf

Wordsworth's waters
on a starry night

Forgive me
for I do lack
what it means
to truly
write

There's a pleasure in reading well-crafted sentences so I try my hardest but they fall apart

white
mellow clouds
& the lonely mists
of what once was

to yellow
bumblebee leaves
& butterscotch smiles
marigold flowers to lie on

the green
moss blanketed trees
& the strangulation
of snaking vines up brick walls

with blue
cornflower skies
& a buttermilk picnic
to bid summer adieu

finally black
the fluttering crest of the raven
& diminishing of long days
into what once was

reaching for the stars
my fingertips grazed the milky way
grasping formless spheres
subtle, undeniable, divine;
luminous flames & shifting
patterns shriveling, expanding,
bursting into brilliant supernovas
surrounding & consuming
me; I’m awash in half-baked light,
wisps of nebula purple, fragmentations
of fantastical celestial cosmos
colliding, collapsing, stumbling;
i'm lost in their luster, their unwitting
instability drenched in calculated recklessness
but the stars seem to elude me
for i come back empty handed

Sunlight streaming through tinted windows falls on sticky fingers and butterfly lashes. Melodies sung through an orange peel smile stir her to dance, the unraveled hem of her nightgown brushing against the kitchen floor. She knows that bruises tend to fade and that cuts tend to heal so she cakes her knees with dirt as she tries to grasp the top leaf of an oak tree. Sun warmed footprints follow her into the house, and when the earth smells like it’ll never stop raining, she crawls under the covers clutching a flashlight and a cardboard covered book.

She was helplessly human. I miss her.

it lacks the beauty or energy
of the ads on the subway

6:53 am

a kid in striped adidas sweatpants
sulking
a woman reading

all climbing steps to just another train
exit after exit

the signs say take a journey
but every twist and turn is memorized

Strand by strand
Tying up the last loose ends

Headlines
An avid public, clamoring
For more
A beautiful wife allegedly
Unfaithful & now
Dead

Emotions & prejudices virtually nonexistent
Motionless, twelve talesman
No women
A dry somewhat pedantic gesture
“Is the prosecution agreeable?”
No loophole for escape
“It was never in dispute”

Smile
A twist of compassion.
Humble & beseeching

Give me.
Never.

my torment is one of clouds and flowers
freckles upon sun-kissed oranges
like roses through honey
& vivid eyes like the abstraction of Renaissance pieces

oh butterfly how you make my heart melt
chocolate brownie wonders with giggles on top
your effervescence brighter than a summer's day
entrapping my purity within your oppressive interior

our silences are filled with images of my creation
a cornucopia of passion for even the loneliest of wordsmiths

I leap into our pool of nostalgia for old time's sake
only to find your words transform into serpents.

whirlwinds of emotion now whispered into the ears of another
burning adorations into scarred remains

She came back today
new hair swishing, talking, laughing
non-verbally different.

trendy, mismatched clothes
shapeless pants
a cheap embroidered windbreaker.
even with heels, she seems below me,
no longer restrained, outspoken, quiet, or fun.

I’m grasping for normality,
clinging onto her old expressions
that rolling of the eyes
flicking of the tongue
replaced by swishing
maneuvering, stoutly and gracefully
all at once.  

once we were little planets
now transformed into a shooting star
and me, firmly grounded in familiar earth.

The wind rippled through her hair as she stood across the pier. Through slightly parted lips, she reached forward as if to grasp me from thin air. But only murky water swirled around us, taking her words from my ears.

I miss you.

Her.
reeking of cheap perfume and daddy issues
polyester black cloth elegant, purposeful in its placing
“everything is free if you run fast enough”

something was going to **** her anyway
why not let it be something of her own design?

taking a drag of her pernicious cigarette
forcing careful and cultivated opinions
if only to silence the sadist inside

she had already walked in loneliness
full of satin bows and amusement
so it might as have happened now
because everyone always loves you better when you’re dead

I hover over fractured water
the porcelain compels me to lean closer

"I am not lovable"

fog whirls around your mutilated carcass
I have been in this state for too long
brittle nails & worn hair, drawn-out smile

I open your grave to find Pandora's box
your words choke me
turning my teeth a deeper shade of red

scarabs escape
bore into my face
& infiltrate my deepest memories
I surrender

maybe I'll skip lunch too

smoke whirling out of our mouths
we listened to each other
sharing the same breath,
hearts beating together,

using places up
dangling from that balcony over the water,
sharing a confined space for an eternity.

On this burgundy carpet, I lay
layers of loops surrounding me.
Dust wanders in patterns
settling into my crevices.
Suddenly, blush!
The cream color of a soft underbelly of flesh
kisses my molded form,
sinking me further into the plush
of the old burgundy carpet.

alone in the crowd
she sits sipping her water
it is stale
and the bread she nibbles on is too
she coughs
her chest heaving
the red tomato stays
lodged inside her throat
what a mediocre ending
for such a mediocre woman

In the graveyard of dreams
fog whirls around your mutilated carcass
I have been in this state for too long
brittle nails & worn hair, my drawn-out smile

I open your grave to find Pandora's box
your words choke me
turning my teeth a deeper shade of red

scarabs escape
they bore into my face
infiltrate my deepest memories
I surrender

some people drink
to remember

others drink
to forget

I drink
water

the act of poetry is a private one
but unyielding i still whisper your name
devoured by foaming ripples & wishes --

i miss you

Music wafts in static silence as I trace my name in shaky capital letters, wiping away fog clinging to the car window. Night’s darkness envelops us and guitar strums become galactic gore dripping from unnamed heavens, sweeter than honeycomb. Melodies swell and constellations burst like fireworks as owls hoots disturb sleeping children. I’m awash in half-baked light, patterns shriveling, expanding, floating into wisps of purple, fragmentations of fantastical celestial cosmos cool against my fingertips.

I sit next to shadows
on the bus
tomorrow
and as the Q lulls Us to sleep
I ask Them
“what time is it?”
Their voice runs vertically
“shard by shard We are released
from the tyranny
of so-called time.”

I got out and walked
to the next stop
I think I’ll choose the escalator
over the stairs next time

Brown hair, faded freckles,
draped by a paint-splattered jean jacket.
Intentional? I think so–
a misty reflection trembling
in the momentum of it all.

An imitation of perfection,
naked eyes, frozen smile.
Who are you?
A face distorted
by droplets of murky water & gray sky.

Clouded light plays on your cheeks,
painting smudges of ivory and blush.
I reach out to brush them away–
only to be greeted by the pane.

roller coaster butterflies
a dash of objectively bad music
a hit or two
followed by highs & lows
sneaking out in the stale air
fire escape madness
mom jeans & smiles
both tinged pink with ice cream
with laughs floating in the summer breeze

that. that is what i live for.

dormant leaves unfold
as spring bursts them into life
                 "lead me to a grove
                   in celestial light"

every now and then I consider murdering someone
just for the fun of it
a thought invading my brain and then it's off
to the graveyard of hopes & dreams
or wherever that **** goes

I once considered murdering the voice in my head
it belongs to the man who lives across the street from me
I'm one side of a magnet and he's a *****
if you get what I'm saying.

once I bashed his ******* head in that was nice
snot and blood and bile and
who knows what else dripping from
his smashed eye sockets
I had good dreams that night

if I had the chance
how would I go about it?
a slash to the throat maybe
frame his ******* toddler in her tricycle
a club to the brain is quicker
but so last week
maybe cyanide in his soup
his lips turning blue and convulsing before me
or ******* on his throat
squeezing and squeezing
and ******* squeezing some more

but you mustn't think I'm mad, per se
I'm working on dismissing my thoughts
and I've only ever truly killed one person:

Me

a ******* story does no good
"illustrate the pangs of loss"
why don't you illustrate my pangs of knowing you

stories only serve to accentuate
my failures I resent it
I resent you

my father, he was good
but not
exceptionally great

poetry was his forte
and even the poems
were not that interesting.

instead of being a genius-freak
he was a freak-freak

& with a beer in his hand, he would deny that
he drank because he was afraid of life
and said he was
disgusted with people like you

he was a walking catastrophe
rather like me actually

as I grow older I'm turning into him
I wish to vanish
he will never

there is nothing more that I can do
but wait I can wait

if hell is this chair what is heaven
I wish to be free but i
have no idea what freedom is
a shadow of an idea that our
fathers fought for mistakenly

sitting down is much easier than standing
though it does not allow movement

I wish to burn the books of my panic
see me reach for the stars but come back
empty handed

my hands are stained
with the blood of my consciousness
but so are yours
and so, so much more than mine

walking cautiously next to the path
grass tickles the underside of my feet
i flinch
unable to stop the never ending
stream of time
i am frightened by
the possibilities that are
never ending
i notice that the sun is but
a dream
in this dark world

i like to scribble unknown faces on my leg with pen and regret them as they're drying. they'll fade, i know, leaving blots of black ink in the tiny crevices of my skin, but the immediate wave of embarrassment in the possibility of showing such a human action to another makes my face tingle.

i wonder sometimes where the ink goes, the eyes, the lips, the cheeks. i'm sure it goes down with the water into the pipes and then into pools of murky water, the kind i imagine swallowing me whole, though i like to imagine it all floats up and becomes shards of the sky, watching over me. i hope the pen doodles, the unknown faces that i now know so well would wish good things for me.

i’m too tired to fight subway doors
muscling, pushing,
shoving my way through

maybe if i learned to hold my breath
duck out of the way
ignore the clock ticking
in the back of my head
faster, faster, faster

but the urgency of meaningless work
pushes me forward
and my arms start to groan
under the weight of door-like
indentations

Trembling fingertips against cool, misty glass cause accumulations of fog to run. The drips contort themselves, blossoming into half baked thoughts and wasted space. Draw something that counts. A poor imitation of your name, the letters faded away by the third syllable. Or a clean slate, by which I can now see the dawn slice through the cloud formations over the harbor.

tireless ocean eyes
read syllables bouncing into oblivion

in a dreamy state
i seem to store words away
one after another
shelving the crisp cool breeze of candor
next to the cacophony of collusion
love’s shameless rebellion
& the ideologically lovely
multiplicity of you

my sense of self is blurred
lost in the plumpness of passion
charm’s blushing softness
& the three blackberry scoops of Galway's
“squeeze, squinch open, & splurge”

though needful seems to fail me,
leaves me awash in melancholy waves
the struggle of demoralized
tussles with dismayed