She's a queen
Regal and gorgeous
She's bright as whisky, serene as earl grey
She's got lips of fire
And a body
That cost 4 kings their kingdom.
She exudes an intoxicating perfume
Her lashes are fans upon her golden cheek
Her hair is a halo of the purest gold
She walks with the fluidity of unfurling silk,
Her voice is blue velvet
And jewels fall from her mouth as she talks

I'm
A bit homely
And lost like an unlabeled envelope
And frightened like a child in the dark
I'm a full sponge, and must sometimes weep a little
My crown is ill-fitting
My eyes are weird elfin lights
My heart is as some distant, famine-struck land
I'm a ruffled little bird
And listening to me speak is like watching an unrehearsed play

We are both soldiers
Waging the same vicious war
And unfortunately
This is a world
In which only the swift and strong prevail

I remember the last time we talked
My voice trembled like a violin string
As always my mouth was numb and locked
And the phrases I couldn't utter seemed to boil and sting
I watched distraught words float by on the breeze
As I desperately tried explaining to you,
With embarrassment and unease
All we could and should be, all I dreamed and knew
Tried weaving a future from a tangled past.
I saw you through curtains of heavy fog
Your eyes bleary and glassed
I stuttered and muttered and wept and I couldn't
And I knew that I wouldn't
Give words to the ineffable mess in my brain.
I looked up, the mist breathed slowly
You walked away like a slow and silent midnight train
The sun was shining through the clouds, golden and holy
As the white haze of things unsaid weighed upon the rolling hills

Been dazed and confused for so long it's not true
There were kids
Sitting in the soft night's semicircle
Encased in a haze of smoke
The darkness enfolding them in a cloak
Of all mysterious things nocturnal
Making it all eternal
A superficial feeling of found truth
A white aura of blazing youth
Conquering the darkness with the fiery tips of lit joints
Puffing chimeras and golden illusions
Things left unsaid yet lead not to confusion
The substance and the glowing friends
Seems to fix everything and make ineffable amends
Lends them some heightened receptivity
With some dazzling sensitivity
To the dizzy promises of life
        *Wanted a woman, never bargained for you
There was blue bottles and red cups
Sloshing full of 21st century ambrosia
Every moment of the night
Is doused in glowing star-light
Different rooms, dark places
Different shadows, similar faces
        Lots of people talk and few of them know
There was music softly ebbing and weaving its way to us
      Soul of a woman was created below
Gleaming sequined pillows
Curtains ebbing in delicate billows
That no amount of reality could ever harden
In the black garden
Amidst the tangy, acrid scent
Boys and girls came and went
Among the soughs and the ***** and the gleaming stars
We are young; ***** replaces wine, blunts replace cigars
      You hurt and abuse tellin' all of your lies
An adagio of whispers travels with a florid vibration
Waves of words, swirls of conversation
High kids trying to touch
What has never been tangible
     Run around sweet baby, Lord how they hypnotize
These kids linger on towering stools and lush couches
Leaning back with careless slouches
Or wander back and forth
Breathing dreams like air
     Sweet little baby, I don't know where you've been
An elusive rhythm throbs in the humid atmosphere
Fragments of lost words hover on drunken lips
A stirring warmth flows
From bodies spilled together
Snuggled under a blanket of stars
      Gonna love you baby, here I come again
Hands take hold of hands
And fingers tightly interlace
Throbbing softly with fluctuating warmth
The room is electric, filled with tiny flowing currents
      Try to love you baby, but you push me away
In this wake of boozed up elations
All sorrows are aborted, all conscience is obliterated
Blitzed kisses are exchanged, transitory enchanted moments
Bemused nudges and tender embraces
Arms around shoulders, heads resting drowsily
All of this immediate and forever
        Don't know where you're goin', only know just where you've been
And the tipsy, blissfully mindless joy of youth
Gives them bleary yet satisfactory hints of the unreality of reality
        Sweet little baby, I want you again
The teens are flickering in and out of consciousness like befuddled fireflies
The sober ones roam the rooms, drifting haphazardly about
Simultaneously enchanted, bewildered, and repelled
By the seemingly inexhaustible variety of drunken fun,
The ****, adventurous mood of the night
        Been dazed and confused for so long, it's not true**
We are all so young
So young and dipped in the dust of folly
And our laughs contain a hint of melancholy
The magic of nights like these,
When the spell of mortality is broken,
Eludes us all,
Yet we cling to them
Like moths to a flame.
Nights like these dig deep in the stuff of the soul
But there is still much to be learned

So we were sitting around with some college dude
And talking about what we wanted to do later
And the pretty little girls wanted to be singers or artists
And the little blond boy wanted to be a movie director up in the golden city
They had star-studded dreams of art and passion
And this one guy says he wants to be in finance
And be a stock broker
And play with money
Because he likes money.
So I looked over and saw him there
Leaning far back in his chair with a purple penguin T-Shirt
And gloriously doodled notebooks
And I thought this kid
This kid
Is not afraid of losing his soul.
Perhaps he lost it years ago
And figures he's got nothing to lose.

I thought this kid
Is going places.
Perhaps not very moral places, perhaps not very clean places
But big places.

If I was a really good poet I would probably say many deep things about this kid so willing to be a Wall Street slave
But I'm also
Just a kid

You
Are untamed
Reckless blood and wit intertwined
A twisted, brazen
 mind.

Your mind
Is so clearly different
It leaps and soars, so acrobatic
And your thoughts appear to me so hazy and enigmatic
Your mind is simply not pragmatic
Yet your perception knows no bounds.
You have thoughts that come close to insanity
That sometimes flow in the form of profanity.
  
Your spirit
Is either very high or very low
Up and down, to and fro
There is no in between for you
Some say you are stupidly crazy
The dull ones say that, the ones too lazy
To see beyond the rugged surface.
The subdued and vapid ones
Will never understand the magnetism
Of your sweet, exquisite devilry.

On your face you often wear
A fierce and restless stare
A wan, discontented expression
As though you're always awaiting
Something bigger,
Something better.

You
Are fluid, swaying fire
And I will never tire
Of watching you burn
I can see you brain boil and churn
As it reels into into areas of
 madness and chaos.

Your psyche
Is an endless field of dark reverie,
Of fear and vagary.

I know your night terrors
Your savage dreams of death
Screams and bated breath
Unutterable visions
The grotesque world of horror thats spins itself out
And dribbles into your drawings
All those creatures, skeletons gnashing and clawing...

You
Are gentle and thoughtful
Yet you are terrified
Of this dark thing that sleeps within you.

Your eyes - they’re stunning
They’re tempestuous,
Wild, like some fierce animal peering out of a rusted cage
Oh, your eyes
They are something beautiful, but annihilating
Like Autumn crocus flowers, innocently poisonous
Lids splaying delicately like its violet leaves.

You are tall and strong
And uncontrollable,
And your smile
Is the biggest paradox I've ever encountered
Childlike
And fatal.

You are not
A creature of the commonplace
You are not a slave of the ordinary
You are not a mindless drudge of the mundane
You are free.
Or bewitched, what's the difference

I've said it before
I've said calm and zen
I've declared and I've swore
And I'll say it again
I am not afraid to die

When I think of death my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this rotten lack of truth.

When I think of death my head is raving
And in a way I'm craving
To be done with all this agony
I've paid my dues
And I've got nothing left to lose
I'm not afraid to die

This seems hopeless and sad to you
You're wondering
"What does she live for, if she does not fear the universal fear?"
I will laugh at the odds, and laugh at everything, and laugh at the austere
And live my life so well that Death
Will falter, flicker, hesitate
And hover in reluctance
Before taking me away