There's a pounding in my head
Too sick to be alive, too astir to be dead
Everything is hazy, shifting into distant lands
A nervous shaking in my hands
Am I hot or cold?
I feel so vulnerable and young, yet so sickly and old
There's a ringing in my ears
And I can't stop my tears
As fuzzy thoughts, bated breath
Feel like impending death
My brain is melting, I'm losing my wits
The spinning never quits
Everything is muddled, whispered despair
I'm done, finished, this is too much to bear
Maybe I should just...drift away...
Maybe I should let my head gently sway....
The shaking stops
The darkness drops
I don't fight it, I don't try to flee
The liquid waves of malaise carry me
To somewhere deep within the abyss of my brain
And everything disappears, the confusion and pain
But it's transient, it doesn't last
Consciousness comes back with a blast
The waves wash me back ashore,
But I still feel wobbly to the core
My ebbing spirit  did revive,
Though I'm too weak to feel alive

My pen is so hungry
Starving, aching
For something, anything
Substance, truth, paper
It wants to nibble existence
My ink longs to gnaw away
At the heart of life
My scribbles thirst
For perfection

One day
When my hair is graying, face is creasing
My husband will be at work
His apathy slowly increasing
And making him a rude ****.
My kids will be at school being fed empty knowledge
Preparing for college
And the TV set will be blaring
I won't be caring
About the static noise filling the beige room,
The news guy speaking of terror and gloom
A blue glare will reflect on the brown stained couch
On which I will be sitting, with a woebegone and wistful slouch
And my brain will drift, slowly searching memory files
Going back for years and endless miles
**rest of poem redirected

Days like this
When deception follows sorrow
And grief follows anger
When the face becomes hideous
Beastlike with savage redness
And rough and dry
When the gold necklace
Becomes glued to the chest
With so many tears
And the salt remains on the neck and cheeks-
The speckled aftermath of rage
Days like this
When the cage is closing in
Tighter, tighter, the bars gnawing my skin
When everything is parched, brittle
The throat, the eyes, the thoughts
The night consumes itself
No remembrance of sleep, no memory of peace
Waking up to the same life
Same acerbity of disgust
Waking up to the mirror
Reflecting everything

There is no relief

I've whispered so many words
Across oceans or cliffs or crowded classrooms
But the questions were never answered
And the echos never returned

I've wandered through so many avenues and dead streets
And tried to see things in the faces or the bricks
But nothing appeared

Yes, I rambled through the city
The old mill, the church, the plaza
I prowled the boulevards and roads
I searched the crowds, the houses, the stores
Thinking that something
Could be hiding there
I thought wrong
I found nothing, I found nobody

I've climbed so many trees and mountains
Only to reach the top and realize
The top was no better than the bottom

I've written so many poems
But they are always inadequate,
Never what I'm looking for
Never quite reaching whatever it is I'm looking for

I am always trying to catch something
Looking for something
Trying to follow some invisible tangent
I can feel it
It has to be there
I know it is
It's out there, out of reach
Unfound,
Waiting, boiling
Right under the surface

I will never give up

You tell me that I am young
That life has merely licked me, not stung
That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived
Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease
Slow tears, muted pleas
Pain that nothing could appease
I have known the smell of hospitals for summers
The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,
Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues
Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.
We have spoken with little green charts
And broken hearts
From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head
And I left without understanding,
What they had said
Because I eventually had to let it go
(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights
In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river
So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver
Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights
Without anyone ever finding out
About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked
I have burned my throat
With coarse lemon gin
Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened
Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened
Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder
I have often awoken affright at night,
Longing, praying, for the morning light
I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear
More than anyone will everyone will ever know
By men, by life, by myself
Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy
All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain
Traveled the French countryside by train
I've woken up to New York window views
And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.
I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear
With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation
Causing my cheeks to turn carnation
A spoon, emptying my insides out
Like a gourd

I have loved
I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart
And the way it can tear you apart
I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves
Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves
From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief
The meaning of "never"
Whimpering in the school bathroom
And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,
Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo
Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso
I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces
Holding tight to my grandmother's hand
And I have wept shamelessly for joy
Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed
I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it
To get me to be normal, to submit
I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,
Like stuffing a goose,
To make my brain run a little less loose
And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles
Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle
Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar
And gazes that meant everything
That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string
Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels
Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel
Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered
To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides
Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm
But in silence
In the time that covers pain and secrets
In the slow impossibility of trust
In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust
In that dull, dismal ache
In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,
The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire
Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire
Of Flaubert, Hemingway
and good old Bradbury, Ray
Émile Zola,  Primo Levi
Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski
I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia
The way a beach knows the tides
Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,
Of silent hysteria and salty terror.
I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away
The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray
My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken
As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens




I have witnessed horror
In the form of a blue body bag
Being rolled out with a squeaking drag
By two yellow-vested men
With apologetic eyes
That seemed to say "Oh god
We're so sorry you had to see that
Please, please
Go home
And try to forget"

But you are right
I am still just a child
Naive, innocent, and pure
I have known nothing dark or obscure
I have not yet lived.

Why people feel the need or desire to
Listen to the radio
Or surround themselves with machines that whir and beep
Or white noise to fall asleep
Or go to concerts
Is beyond me
I don't understand why
People want noise all the time
They're committing a terrible crime!
They mutilate silence
Tarnish delicate laconism
And mangle quiet
Machines everywhere!
Machines and devices, noise and distraction from the essence of life
Tooting, blaring, screeching, whistling, crashing
Honking, booming cracking, grinding, and trilling!
We happily bask in this cacophony

So much noise that we tend to forget that
How truly precious real silence is-
A gold nugget in a long, tumultuous river.
Yet we don't want any of it, not even a sliver
Silence is that which comes nearest to expressing the ineffable
It's so pure and so true, so delectable
Silence is a true friend who never betrays
Whatever has happened to saying it all with a simple gaze?
Words are by no means proof of wisdom
Silence isn't ignorance or dullness of mind
Silence is refined
Silence is
A pause between birdsongs
The mournful song of lonely hearts
The sigh of a tree
The shift of the clouds
The obscure and perishing rhythm of forgotten thoughts
The throb of the summer sun
The timid streaming of tears down a child's cheek
The fall of a snowflake
The pulse of the veins on a frail white wrist
And a kiss between whispered promises

Babble is empty
And words, like wire
May seem solid
Yet they can be twisted to resemble anything-
Weak promises, false prayers, delusive prophecies
And can easily be broken, if one distorts them enough.

Silence is more eloquent than phrases
It is not nothing
It has a form, dimension, substance
A texture and quality of its own
So many people associate it with mystery, privacy and isolation
When really it reveals it all
Silence can be jealous; rough and small
It can be peaceful; blue and hazy
It can be tumultuous; confused and crazy
Silence can be loving; soft and surrounding
Or it can be spiteful; violent and pounding
Silence can chaste; reserved and shy
Or it can sensual, with a voluptuous sigh
Silence can be puzzled; blurry and nauseous
It can be disgusted; halting and cautious
Silence can be grieving; a falling apart
It can be horribly heavy; the weighing of unspoken secrets on a fragile heart
Silence can be anything
Agitated, insecure, submissive or authoritative
Giddy or gloomy, vicious or respectful
Silence contains it all
Every word, every language,
All the knowledge, all the memories, all the emotions
If you've ever watched a sunrise, or been in love, or spent a night home alone, or sat in grieving silence as someone held your hand
Then you know this

The silly young, the brash and impatient ones, always break the silence
With gossip and music and profanity and small talk
They always giggle, interrupt, argue and squawk
Constant conversations, words, motions, defense, offense, back and forth
Yet those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking
Because to love and be quiet is enough
To hold hands and not say a word is enough
Silence is the gift of the world that we've pushed aside
A precious gift wrapped in white that we've rudely denied
Silence is the highest form of thought
And it is by slowly developing this mute contemplation in us that we will,
Step by step,
With reflections, speculations, and musing
Be able to reach what is true about ourselves.
When we are quiet and timid
We sit silently and watch the world around us
We see things, we read things, we hear things that others don't, we keep quiet about them, and we understand.

I don't understand why people fear the hush
Perhaps people are afraid to surrender to the clear ****** of it
Maybe all these fools think that to keep quiet is to erase yourself
Maybe they associate silence with loss of life
Perhaps some of them know that listening to the silence can be painful
That it can reveal the pain of the world
So they cower and shy away from it

Yet look at what I've done
I'm just like the rest of them, aren't I?
I wrote and wrote, yet what do all these words mean?
How pretentious of me to think I could be one to put silence into words

"There are no diseases crueler
than the ones we self-inflict"
but I still find myself
thirsting for the bottle
and you still find the beast in your heart
begging to be smothered in smoke

They sneak out to smoke their cigs
between classes
just another insolence, another act of audacity
another fleck of rebellion
a way to express their contempt
a way to say ********
to the government and the educational system
and to the clockwork holding them back
from a death they secretly long for
Because i think at least a few of them know
that it’s still a suicide
even if it’s in slow motion
And every cigarette
is a calming coffin nail

Legally, they are too young
to drink or purchase
their ambrosia and tabacco treasures
Yes they are young, minors
but they’re already afraid of growing too old to die young
soon they'll get withered and wrinkling
and they won't be able to leave a beautiful corpse

Pulling off clear, crinkling cellophane, shiny silver foil
with nimble fingers and
sliding a single cigarette
out of the pack
and slipping it into their lips
It fits so effortlessly, so easy
they've been repeating the same motion for years now
sparking the lighter,
The small flame erupts
promising relief.
The sweet taste of nicotine trickling
down into the back of their throats.
They smile.

Behind stone gargoyle smiles
thunder eyes and rock fists
they hide their heavy hearts
with shrouds of smoke
like small-featured bride faces
behind heavy veils
Holding their precious gaspers
between 2 fingers,
elegantly, the way they saw
james bond and models in glossy magazines do it
There are no children here,
just the lost and the lonely,
the ones who wear such solid masks
They’re all looking for some form of redemption,
but they'll settle for attention
Faith, on the other hand,
is a language they don't speak

Their love for each other
is not sweet and childish
it's a collision of souls,
a necessary train wreck
a desperate tempest
to survive the deadly drone of school
it can't be done alone
regroup, collect, stick together,
collide

Their arguments and apologies
have the tragic tone of ancient rome
empires rising and falling

I hear them bicker
and argue and talk
with echoes of prayers in their voices
please see me, please hear me
please validate my existence

Debating
American Spirit, Malboro, Camel
the intricacies of the taste
they taught themselves to love

To me every joke sounds like a hymn
every nervous pair of hands
the brittle after-math
of broken promises
chaotic thoughts tumbling like dust in the wind

I know they are different
but they are human and young
and perhaps they are like me
Maybe they too
have fears
maybe they too awaken in the dead of night
sweating and confused

I can see them now, drifting in and out of focus
dragging their reluctant shadows
into school and out
Frail bodies running on caffeine and nicotine
pain, boredom, indifference and panic

You can tell they long for solace
in the way they hold their coffee
tenderly, fingers wrapped round
the comforting shape and smell
and kissing their cancer sticks
with faint hopes of necromancy
and rebirth with every puff

***
they take turns objectifying each other,
feigning tenderness when really
they are just new bodies
interlaced for an hour or two
There is no emotion here
they're just kids who've always loved playing
the ***** Doctor game

Mothers
use their name as a cautionary
tale and
they're the kids
our parents warned us about.

I know they've given up on perfection
so they want to be some kind of dazzling cataclysm
a bright, flaming disaster, a lovely wreck
they offer me a drag
but all I can think
is that rebellion isn’t a language
I know how to speak
All I can do is write this poem
which is both a eulogy
and an obituary



                                                     ­           I love them.
I love them because I know each of them is a work in progress,
because I know each is shattered in a sense
because they're just souls searching for a voice.
I love them because I'm starting to see
beyond the archetype-- a true expansiveness.
And I love them because the smell of cigarette smoke
reminds me of afternoons in France,
sitting on the curb of my dying grandfather's home
and watching the passer-by stroll through
the pavements.

I love them because everyone needs a place,
and they know that.

Their parties are an emergency exit.

They're a lighthouse for the lost.

In the barge full of dust
A heron's quivering song
In our hearts full of trust
A need for something wrong

The gin burns
As youth returns
No one wants to go back to their ship
So keep going, sip after sip

In the darkness of such earths and the beauty of such skies
Excitement is tangible in every pair of eyes
But dreading, we fear midnight
When we'll have to say goodnight
So keep passing the gin
This is where we begin

They cut down the old oak tree,
The only place I ever truly felt free,
On top of hawk hill
Its branches were tender arms
Its noble leaves full of mysterious charms
That oak tree and I- we were made of the same stuff
I was flesh soft and thin, he was wood thick and rough
But our essence, our core- it was the same
We were both something that no one could tame
I laid in his arms no matter the weather
And sap and blood throbbed together

It seems like places to hide
Just aren't around anymore
Though there used to be so many
I can't seem to find any
But lord knows I've tried

They clean my room
Mop, dust rag and rough broom
And take down the pictures, the memories tacked on the walls
And hide my old dolls
Because I'm too old to enjoy dolls

It seems like places of solace,
Secret and flawless
Really can't be found
Be they above or underground

I'm big to fit in my old tunnel
My secret, arcane land
Where I used to be able to stand

It seems like finding places of retreat
Has become an impossible feat
Places to love, places to pray
Where are they?

My spot in the basement
Magical despite the smelly mold fumes
Has been filled with old strollers and ripped costumes

It seems like places special and hushed
Have been annihilated and crushed,
Have all but disappeared
Isn't that weird?

But perhaps they have become so rare, so incredibly rare
Because we lack the art of simply receiving
We lack the art of simply perceiving
What is so freely given to us
We search instead of discover
Investigate but don't notice
We sift, unearth, and probe
But we lack practice in the delicate art
Of simply stumbling upon

Please don't write
If it doesn't come bursting out of you
Please don't write
If it doesn't ooze out of your every pore, whether you be willing or not
Please don't write
If the feelings you speak of
Aren't truly your own
Or if you had to use a rhyme dictionary, or a thesaurus
Please don't write
If it doesn't seem like the words are molten lava
And are burning you
And writing is the only way to keep from getting scorched
Please don't write
If you're doing it for others
I beg of you
Please don't write
If the words don't barge through your fingers
And detonate in your brain.
If the sentence fragments don't erupt and fly out
And gush forth
And you don't feel that you need to put it all down before they pop and shatter your insides
Then please
Don't write

I wish I could convert those who
think poetry is silly, or annoying.
I wish I could take them by the hand and lead them
through the words
preach, exhort and say look, listen
watch the pictures the words paint
and hear the music, the endless melodies
please
I wish I could baptize
those who scorn the beauty
and turn the non-believers into the devout







                                                                      Maybe I'll be a teacher

First came the false presumptions of luxury
The gaudy glamour
Bright dresses and dark suits
Awkward glances and ****** food
Eventually though
The evening settled down
And then, after the smoking and drinking
Came 1 o'clock, the worn-out end of a hazy day

Suddenly,
It was a smother of time,
a stifling landscape of clocks
a decaying of darkness
The night gave way to trembling cold delirium
And slow and slow down
A slide from reality
Everything fell

I remember barely a glimmer- a hand, an arm, red sheets somewhere
Eyes that whispered "what's wrong with her? what's her deal?"
Or worse yet, faces that didn't care
To see me, my wrists
Appalling in all their shivering shaken chill dust
In moments like this,
I am nothing but a fearful machine
Broken in its deepest workings,
All function altered.

Clamors and tremors of panic
Withered illusions gathered at my feet like kittens
I tossed the blanket from the makeshift bed
Lay upon my back and waited
Watched, frightened, the night revealing
The hundred ignoble, vile images
Of which my thoughts seems consisted of

They flickered at bit- against the burgundy hammock
And empty Baccardi bottles
2 o'clock shook the memory
A crowd of twisted things,
Torn and stained and coiling about my wrists
I move by the sway of these thoughts that are curled around me
-The notion of some infinitely suffering thing

Oh I only need a lighthouse
To guide my soon-to-be shipwreck home
I only need a compass, a crucifix, a presence
But never
never to be found
the way

A little boy pulls
A little girl's hair
Because an oyster turns to pearl
The sand which annoys it

Poems are stupid,
So corny
So pompous
So pretentious! feigning to express what we all know is inexpressible
Personally, I hate my poems
They're absurd, gaudy and shallow, and I know it
Yet something keeps me coming back
Sometimes against my will
An invisible force pushes me, violently or softly, it depends
And I can't keep from writing these little pieces of folly

Insomnia, always
The bewitched course of unending nights
Bitter nights swallowed in haste
I only want the comfort
Of the nest of arms to carry me
Through the tides of terror
That rise and ebb in the dark
I only want to be held
So I can endure the dreams of oblivion

Goodbye New York City
Goodbye carefree easy days.
The airplane chews the gray sky
The kids whisper, taptap on little computers
Or ipods and touch screens.
Nothing here is Love
Nothing here is glorious,
long and true
But there is peace
And there is no cursing, threatening or grievances
(they have been forgotten)
I am comfortable,
There is music
So all is well
Until we land on cold hard earth

Every grain of sand
Is perfection in my hand
Every wave in constant motion
In that endless noble ocean
Knee-deep in frothy foam
I am here, I am home
The sea will never grow old
The sea will never wither and mold
I belong to this shore,
My every limb, my every pore
I whisper to the nautic air
And it carries my every prayer
In this beauty so majestic and vast
I am no longer me, that lonely outcast.
A salty smell,
A flawless shell,
It all puts me a misty trance
So I stretch out my arms and begin to dance
Pass me the gin
Lift up your chin
Forget the family, forget the adderall
No matter what I will never be small

Smoking cigarettes
Is like slipping a noose from a small, new-born tree around your neck
And then diligently watering it every day.

The problem with being invisible
Is that none of you ever see me
You see Friend, Person, Sister, Classmate, Girl
Never Me.
The problem with being invisible
Is that you do not hear me
You hear words, sentences, chatter
Not the inbetween, not what I'm saying
The problem with being invisible
Is that you do not think of me
You do not lie awake
And wonder where
Or who I am.
I come only occasionally,
Casually,
In the slums of your minds

**unedited and full version redirected

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

I remember the night
On the dock, bathed by holy water
He placed me amongst angels
Touched my cheek
Resurrected me
Kissed me and whispered
*Consider yourself baptized by the dark
I've been sanctified by you

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

The way I speak
In the car in the morning, or under trees
Is swathed in darkness
My words build walls and facades
And cunning passages, contrived corridors
Deceit, whispered ambitions
I'm dispensing my secrets
But dispensing too soon, or too late
Into weak hands
Or disbelief or indifference
Or until their refusal to look me in the eyes propagates a fear
That no amount of courage on my part could ever dissipate
I'm covered in locks
Inside and out
But no one has the keys
And I am not beautiful enough
For anyone to bother trying

There to language and I are leave they out can no a don't
of do diseases beautiful speak

Their focus
dragging is crueler corpse

Pulling love their write
than off for reluctant this the clear each shadows
into poem
which ones crinkling other
is school is we cellophane not and both self-inflict shiny sweet out
Frail a
but silver and bodies eulogy
and I foil
with childish
it's running an still nimble a on obituary

find fingers collision caffeine ­ myself
thirsting and
sliding of and I for a souls nicotine
pain love the single
a boredom them bottle
and cigarette
out necessary indifference
you of train and ­ still the wreck
a panic

You I find pack
and desperate can love the slipping tempest
to tell them beast it survive they because in into the long
I your their deadly for know heart
begging lips
It drone solace
in each to fits of the of be so school
it way them smothered effortlessly can't they is in so be hold a smoke

They easy
they've done their work sneak been alone
regroup coffee
tenderly in out repeating collect fingers progress to the stick wrapped
smoke same together round
the ­ their motion
collide

Their comforting because cigs
between for arguments shape I classes
just years and and know another now
sparking apologies
have smell
and each insolence the kissing is another lighter tragic
their shattered act
The tone cancer in of small of sticks
with a audacity
another flame ancient faint sense
fleck erupts
promising rome
empires hopes ­ of relief rising of because rebellion
The and necromancy
and they're way sweet falling

I rebirth just to taste hear with souls express of them every
searching their nicotine bicker
and puff
***
they for contempt
a trickling argue take a way
down and turns voice to into talk
with objectifying
say the echoes each ­ **** back of other I you
to of prayers
feigning love the their in tenderness them
government throats their when because and
They voices
please really
they I'm the smile see are starting educational

Behind me just to system
and stone please new see
to gargoyle hear bodies
interlaced ­ the smiles
thunder me
please for beyond clockwork eyes validate
an the holding and my hour archetype-- them rock existence

Debating
American or a back
from fists
they Spirit two
There true a hide Malboro is
expansiveness death their Camel
the no
they heavy intricacies emotion ­ secretly hearts
with of here
they're long shrouds the just I for
Because of taste
they kids love i smoke
like taught who've them think
small-featured themselves always because at bride to loved the least faces
behind love

To playing smell a heavy me
the of few veils
Holding every ***** cigarette of their joke Doctor smoke
them precious sounds game

Mothers
use ­ know
that gaspers
between like their reminds it’s 2 a name me still fingers hymn
every as of a
elegantly nervous a afternoons suicide the pair cautionary
tale in
even way of and
they're France if they hands
the the
it’s saw
james brittle kids
our ­ in bond after-math
of parents sitting slow and broken warned on motion
And models promises
chaotic us the every in thoughts about curb cigarette
is glossy tumbling

I of a magazines like know my calming do
dust they've dying coffin it
There in given grandfather's nail
I on ­ are children know perfection
so and too here they they watching young
to

just are want the drink the different
but to passer-by or lost they be stroll purchase
their and are some through
ambrosia the human kind ­ and lonely and of the tabacco
the young
and dazzling pavements treasures
Yes ones perhaps cataclysm

I they who they bright love are wear are flaming them young such like disaster because minors
but solid me
Maybe a everyone they’re masks
They’re they lovely needs already all too
have wreck
they a afraid looking fears
maybe offer place of for they me
and growing some too a they too form awaken drag
but know old of in all that to redemption the I

Their die
but dead can parties young
soon they'll of think
is are they'll settle night
sweating that an get for and rebellion
emergency withered attention
Faith confused

I isn’t exit

They're and on can a a wrinkling
and the see language
I lighthouse they other them know for won't hand now how the be
is drifting to lost
able a in speak
All

The leeching color from my eyes
My parched mouth puckered
My joints are stiff, stubborn and brittle
Creaking like exhausted floorboards
Wringing my fists, white ands shriveled
Twisting my hands, skinned and raw
I'm ill with desperate thriving
Too weak to carry on, don't have the choice
Veins laden with liqueur, thinning hopes and regret
Pulsing pulsing pulsing
Bones fluttering with birds of bad omen
Scalp rid of hair to make place for the thorny crown of vanquishment
Blood diluted with bitter disappointment,
Sloshing, smearing through my mucked-up system
Aching from the deadly drone of existence
From small victories, large defeats
I'm the mortar, they're the pestle
Clobbering into my hollowed life.

The hammer of that thing
Routine so dull and tedious
Pounding and pounding and pounding
When you can't even scream or weep
Thud thud thud
My temples scream with dank submission
My brain is reeling, hurling from the vertigo of it all.

Morning, noon & night
The dead avenues, the empty buzzing
Beats hammers in my brain
Throb throb throb
I'm quivering with numbness.

I'm mature now, I'm ripe
So ripened and rotten
Adult things, adult preoccupations pulsing around me
It seems like person really only has two choices
Get in on the aimless hustle or be forsaken
I've taken it all up
Rent, coffee, wine, cigarettes and newspaper
Forgotten pills
Unpaid bills
Thump thump thump
Anguish, pain, woe and misery
Turbulence and stress, the banging hammer.

I'm a drunkard, a wanderer
With a beaten, battered suitcase
Days like these, weeks like these, when all the weapons are pointed at me
I'm a ***, an outcast
A pigeon in the pummeling rain
Dribble dribble splash
The ache is a relentless thing.

My job, my rent, my house
My walls limp with memories stuck with rotting glue
Wallpaper torn, curling at the edges
The cold hard floor radiates and screams
The couch, cold & hollow
Incrusted with bits of filthy grime
The dead radiator hisses like an angry snake
The shades down, no sunlight
No life seeping through the venetian blinds
And my clothing sits in the chairs
Like the dead emptied out
The blankets are thin, frayed and tattered
As hope is
The moths, on the other hand, are alive and well
They weave webs of moribund rot
Interlacing me into their strands of decay.

Surrounded by the coldhearted, they snarl
And their laughs abash, dishearten the pure
Bruising me relentlessly
They are so tired, mutilated
either by love or no love
All their bleak and sunken eyes
All their weak and drunken souls
All their meek and shrunken hearts
Vultures with neckties
Weasels in frocks
Collared beasts, that's all they are.

The mournful poet with the shrapnel wound
Was so wrong
I guess he wanted to be lyrical, but his words led astray
Time is not water
It does not flow easy, smooth and transparent
It drags you into dark alleys and batters the hell out of you
Punches you in the ribs, rips your skin,
Jerks you by your hair, stabs you, disfigures you
Leaves you crippled and broken, gasping for air.

Sweating in a rocker
Lanky skeleton hands clasped, praying- for what?
I'm not living, or dying
I'm simply crawling backward
Or no, I'm not crawling, I'm being dragged,
Through nights of lonely perfidy, breathing the beaten dusty air
The dark wind wailing, ebbing through the frail curtains
Laying in bed, too wretched to move
When memories, of heaven and hell,
Droop like broken shades
Across the window of my mind
And ****, I can feel my soul slowly dropping down through the mattress
My stomach is heaving, my teeth clenched and gritted
But not with fear, no, it's too late for dread
And it *****, because we realize we were all so caught up in a life in which we can find no meaning...we end up wrong and graceless and sick
We're born shriveled and alone, we die shriveled and alone
No matter what.

The lush life
is nothing but a vain and vapid vortex,
a flimsy, futile fairytale
a cocoon of careless confidence that I eventually found not to be the key of the golden cave but instead an empty carcass we carry without courage.
I'm stuck in this spinning spiral that ***** us in without a sound, this swaying so strong it makes us sweat
So to avoid the sting of sensitivity we seek the salvation of soothing sedatives...to escape the lasting lies of the lush life.

I miss you
and memory of you, it’s not as clear
as it used to be
I try to trace your voice in ink,
knowing it's impossible,
I'm still trying to see your phantom blue eyes,
but to no avail
I try to hear you but all I hear is static
coming across the ocean

Your last words to me were jumbled
uttered through a jaw left paralyzed by your stroke
and after your death
I was left to sift through the ruins of what you told me (I'll never know)
Trying in vain to decipher the hieroglyphics
of the way your hand squeezed mine
for the last time

I didn't deem myself strong enough to attend the funeral
I knew I was too shaky
to deal with estranged relatives and a cortege of black
and a symphony of muffled familial sadness
The pews full of faces chiseled from marble,
listening as a stranger gave your eulogy
I was too weak to handle witnessing
the birth of a stately widow
in the midst of an ugly cemetery
          (I always imagine how bitterly it would cost her,
       to prostrate herself in submission at your grave
     kneeling like the defeated queen
    of a fallen empire)
I did not want to see the way that what one fears,
the end
can come so abruptly
and I was selfish
I chose not to say goodbye
because I could not stand the thought of
seeing you in a quiet boneyard
amongst cold, silent stones

But maybe I should've gone
because now I know that
when you mourn
you mourn
alone

There was hardly time to be sorry
with homework and house-keeping responsibilities
now that my mother was gone
I had to do my crying
while cooking dinner or doing math exercices
Any sorrow had to be wedged
between stress and duty
all permission to grieve
was impeded, absorbed by the impassive process

It truly is terrible, the knowledge that
it could all end, it is all capable
of devastation
Every plant can wither
everything can ******* or fade
All, all
can be lost
every memory can fade through time
or will to remember

My family never mourned together,
the family in America I mean
and I believe that this is how
in each of us began
a deep isolation, though we never spoke of this,
of the absence of touch

The worst of death,
the lose of a beloved
is the separation.
I am alive. You are not.
It is terrible to survive
as unmerited consciousness

The memories I have of you
are far too few
and I will forever be left wishing
I had done more, said more, taken more pictures
The remembrance is insatiate

Sometimes I like to read the books you left behind,
and remember your passion for Latin,
the way the citations
unfurled as you gave them new meanings.
But on other days,
I keep them far and untouched
-they seem too much like tombstones
that have surrendered their worth
to your absence

Your death is yet another
ghost posed on my lips and in my thoughts:
Never
In this world, this circular reality
things can happen conclusively, decisively,
and the mind cannot reverse them:
*Never

The other kids are not alone
They are stable and they sit
Encased in Friday afternoon's sweet infinity
Sitting, smoking, talking, bonding
Making connections, weaving friendship
Understanding each other, simply being together
They are creating something
That I am not a part of

I am here alone
Typing
Making connections to shadows
And understanding the language of wind.

I wish humans didn't depend on others
I wish I didn't need them
I wish I didn't yearn for what they have
But I do.

Death is the sturdy turtle
Slow, relentless
Victorious

Life is the flighty hare
Quick, lazy
Defeated

This is the way
Hope falters
Ebbing like a dying flame

This is the way
Innocence is lost
With whispers
And secrets

This is the way
A girl loses her mind
In silence

This is the way
Pain exists
In the shadows
Of the soul

This is the way
A life can end
An accumulation of sorrow
And the cage closing in

Today while wandering through the prairies
I came across some fairies
An able-bodied man
With a run-down caravan
A dark-haired beauty
With golden hoops and eyes like the sea
At every shake of the tambourine she gave a little twirl
And they whispered, "Little girl
Let us teach you what we know
How to survive the most violent blow
How to ******
How to let loose
How to be as noble as a windmill
And humble as a hill
All this knowledge with you we'll share
This occasion is quite rare"
Well I couldn't tell if this was a dream
Or some sort of sneaky scheme...
But I consented, and the learning began

They instructed me faith, hope,
How to cope
With bullies and liars
They taught me desire,
True love and its fires
They preached me serenity
To relish being a child
Young, free and wild

I ignored their advice.
***** fairies.
They've got dirt beneath their nails
And grass in their grimy hair.

I’m trying to grip the hands of the nearest shadows
I’m trying to see the lines of the cage that imprisons me
The dim landscapes that surround me
I’m trying to hear the thing in my chest
Burning day and night
I’m trying to smell the smoke
That envelopes me
But it's all out of reach
Undefinable, unplaceable
What are my roots, what are my boundaries
My goals, my aims, my dreams
I cannot quite grasp
Who I am and what I'm in

The Devil pulls my puppet strings
And makes me sway
Looming hell approaches and sings
Reeling me into the decay

A fiendish demon shrieks melancholy
Another one screams fear
I am young, and I cry folly
The creatures taunt and jeer

The brazen fire whispers
Songs scary and bleak
My skin burns and blisters
My hands are trembling weak

Please, close the carcass gates
Please, chase away the beasts
See all their flesh-laden plates
See their ****** morbid feasts

I see this place so dark and eerie
I hear the demons moan
Please hold me, I am weary
And can't brave this alone

My eyes burn with the glare
Of too many long nights’ vigils
Watching the winged insomnia fluttering about
From one thought
To the other
Every stream of consciousness
Every chain of thought
Loosened and undone
By Night’s hungry hands

My entire life
No matter where I go, who I'm with, what I'm doing, how drunk I am
I have always felt on the outside - out of the picture
From childhood's hour
I have not been like others are
I've always been
Out of the conversation, at a distance
As though I am alone in existence
Everywhere I go, there is an impenetrable barrier
At home I'm a foreigner in my own land
I've always felt like a different breed
Slowing down when others pick up speed
As if I was the only one picking up the sounds or words that others don't hear
Deaf to the words that they do hear
I do not hear what others hear, I do not see what others see
Doing, saying, thinking things that others don't
When I try to explain what my world is like,
I baffle and stutter and can't find the words
And they look at me
From the other side of the barricade
With condescending, puzzled smiles
I've never really been a part of a group, a piece of a whole
Even in my own house, with my own friends, I've always been an intruder
Everything I say, everything I do seems offbeat
I feel like everyone is dancing some sort of elaborate choreography
And I haven't learned the steps
Or they're all playing a game
And no one taught me the rules, or let me roll the dice
I've always felt out of it,
As if I was alone on the opposite side of an enormous, invisible window
Pressing my hands against the glass, tracing worlds in the fog
A stranger looking in
I've always felt it
Struggling to break the sturdy facade
In crowded parties, sleepovers,
Lunch breaks, with my family, with best friends

**other half of poem redirected

It's 3 o'clock
And so begins
My perilous descent into the underworld
I'm slipping into
The abyss and
Nothing
Can stop me
And nothing
Is trying to stop me

The witching hour stallions
Race through me, charging like a battalion
And trampling my heart
Tearing my every heed apart

The fury of a fiendish demon possesses me
My soul takes its flight from my body
My thoughts are shaky, my dreams are gaudy
I am convulsed and feverish with frigid melancholy
I know myself no longer.

Something malevolent is hanging above the bed
My heart is hollowed lead
A cargo ship for unwelcome stowaway thoughts
My brain is black and reeling
And tangled with a thousand knots
As my hands ***** the obscurity and reach for the ceiling

Day is so far away, I can't feel sunrise advance
I'm trapped in this horrid trance
My soul is reeling, wretched and lost
Forced to think the most unspeakable things
The panic and despair that each new night brings

I've had so many nightmares, but who's counting?
It's back again, I'm drowning
In a turbulent, sinister sea of terror
Fear is the message, I am the bearer
Like great black birds, the demons haunt my room
I'm choking on all these acrid, bitter fumes

My lids flutter like feathers of a pheasant
I can feel the pain so sharp and omnipresent
Like slaps given by a hand of black steel
**** it, Satan works with incredible zeal
Stinging, burning like a devilish eel I long to repulse
I can feel my wrists throb and my stomach pulse
With the beating of this hideous heart
I can feel my spirit depart
My nerves thrill like throbbing violins
Laden with angst, jealousy and sins

Deep into that darkness I am peering
Wondering things no mortal ever dared to wonder before
I wish I was disappearing
I am breathing an atmosphere of sorrow
And I know the remnants won't subside tomorrow

There is a murderous monster deep within me
That nothing can soothe
There is a hungry well
That nothing can fill

I open my battered notebook
I break my pen
And crumple the pages of inadequate words

I choke and listen to this light-forsaken chamber
And see a tocsin of silence, like a wicked stranger
Loneliness strikes me like a blow
Oh night agony, panic attacks, endless woe!
This pain so deep and unbearable,
These visions so raw and terrible

In these linen sheets I feel
Apprehension, slick, electric like an eel
The mortal coldness of the soul
As life takes its morbid toll
It takes in not only the body
But weaves between heart and soul a fabric so shoddy,
The somber cloth of misery

I don't want to grow old
To feel my memories fade and get cold
To feel my thoughts overridden with mold
To carry life on, which like a heavy chain
Drags behind with many links of pain
I want to end it all here, now
I can't and I won't
But I wonder how I'll survive from dusk to dawn

Day has opened its golden lids
To the light that night forbids
I've had my sip from the death cup
I wake up
With remnants of hell's dark lands
Sunken eyes and twisted hands
The witching hours are swept away like ashes
But it'll all come back in flashes
Tomorrow night, and every night
Horrors will always come back to haunt me
Between the shadow and the sheets
The endless phantasms, these endless defeats
There is no relief.

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