My calmer, my quieter.
I seek it in rage, in lust, in sadness.
I want to gorge on the quick intensity,
the flash,
the flavor-
metallic and sweet,
resting on my tongue.

I love things like creeping ivy,
I swallow it whole.
I once broke my jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt  it would make me soft spoken.

My mother said I was born in high relief.
I have spent my life keeping others from whittling me down.

Lips that look like blood pooling and
eyes like an exit sign.
This gun between my teeth, my face begging:

"Go on... do it."

silk sheets and a sunny day breeze...

As Jim Morrison put it-
“come on baby light my fire”

Well, consider me burnt.

I am the embers of a dying flame
I am light
I am bones in a field
I am a solitary crow
I am smite

Baby, I am fading light

I have this creeping ache on the edges of my bones
like the way crystal forms,
slowly.

Like the way prehistoric bugs that live in caves die every day.

I think I forgot to close my eyes and woke up blind.

I live my days hoping to grow inwards until my bones
start the delicate tearing of my skin and
water fills my lungs.

I have longed for this to happen ever since i was 7 and
I heard drowning was the closest you can get to

euphoria.

Sometimes my hands get really itchy
like my bones are trying to crawl their way out of
the skin that entraps them

I get really nervous when I can’t write
You speak in riddles and you're making me crazy

And last night I told you that if hell was real
According to Dante there are 7 levels
and I think I belong in all of them

And we talked about heaven
and you said that you think heaven could be here on earth

And I laughed and said maybe in bits and pieces
but I think my heaven is all chopped up

And then it was silent for a long time
and I realized that you were subtly saying
that it felt like it was heaven with me

Maybe I just shouldn’t speak but I want you to realize is
I am all dark and sin
I am rust on your shine

Rope.
You hung me from your neck and laughed at the choke.
At the blue.
At the fumble of breath.
Ownership.

And a month later, me telling you about the the others.
And the others.

And you- swinging. Blind. Crying.

And me. Laughing.
Teeth glinting in the dim light from the top of the basement stairs.
And the police, in all of their sirens and lights and urgency.
Saving the day saving the night saving lives.

And you- lying on the ground.
Help me, you say.
The police rush to you.

And the door- knives steady and deep in the wood.
My hands are stronger than they look.
My accuracy unmatched.

And me- handcuffed over the red spattering on my shirt,
being forced into the backseat.
"Who's blood is this?" They ask.
I am quiet. Cold. Stone.
I am laughing.
The darkness swallows me.

I am 18.
I have arterial spray on my cheek.

The officer asks for a reason.
A why. Why why why.
That's what they all want to know.
But I grind my teeth.
This car ride is boring me.

The handcuffs are loose, I slip my arm out of one.
I smile in the quiet of the backseat.
Life is too easy for me.

A November memory.

Prepare for the ache, memorize the thin miles of blue green vein under your skin so you can chart the ebb and flow of potential bruises.
Victim. Masked girl, see how she flies. Falls. Dies.
Watch her make love letters in blue curls, blue dress, forget me nots, loves me yes.
Watch her play house, but never a mother. Watch her play brother, uncle.
Sundown. Sky grows darker with the grime of the underground. Cheap powder, high relief.
Glitter stills in the air, hanging on to dust motes. High jack.
Sometimes her knife slips. At noon, all doom. Darkened laughter. Because injustice. Because woman. Because even molten lava cools. Because razor blades. Because her seams are tailored, but not well. Hiding a secret, but never well. Because no door bell, no peep hole. Blind faith. Fate?
She played the death games with dangerous men and she didn't win. But oh, she didn't lose. Never lost. Just bit off more than she could chew. So she swallowed hard and waited for the hurt. The bleeding. Pain, she knows that old sting. Not quite a familiar friend but something nostalgic.
Watches the red blossom purple like her skin is spring.
The day has lost its luster. Lighting birthday candles, hoping one of these expired wishes will catch flame and spark. It's happened once before. The time she saw hell wallpapered in shades of peeling yellow.
Likes to play detective, fancies herself a good liar. Poker face of gloom.
No reason for polite, for stare, for hands shaking over hidden knowledge.
She is awaiting the burn. Summons strength. Face twisted into a smile pulled by string. Puppet, watch me dance. Show time. Red velvet knees and stained glass shadowed pages. Because ink dries faster than salt confessions.
Because uncle brother and mother are no longer child's play. Rosary choke-chains. Mary was never her savior, tell us, Pope: where was god? I know demon, I know devil. I know pomegranate and mother. I no longer play daughter, I graduated to something more. Silver screen harlot. She's got big, big dreams for a bedroom starlet.
Submerged in the toxicity of blue daytime. Remember when you wanted to make it big? Before your skin became scar and bandage, before you sacrificed body in hopes of keeping your soul?
Poor ******. Poor half-girl. Poor daydreamer, star wisher.
Burned alive, the headlines said. No one read the story, thought char and bone were enough. Didn't read the follow up, didn't read about the missing teeth after the third day. Can't be bothered with the Phoenix, didn't want to realize there is a creature empty enough to poke holes in her brain to let the sun in.
Some wanted fire. She bathed in kerosene. Carried matches behind her eyes.
Not slaughter, sacrifice.
They call her myth.
They call her live wire.
They call her contagious.
They check for symptoms.
They say her demise was a vaccine.

Radioactive sunlight cascading over tendons pulling under scar tissue. Carved out, flesh eaten by buzzards. If she was a real girl, she may have cried. Vultures, all of them.
Hacking at marrow of the innocent. Lilies bloom in her eyes.
Harps in the distance, church bells interrupt to strike eleven times. Glittering like a magic something in the nervous heat.
The illegal existence.
She has bird bones in her box of Him. His prints deeply embedded, even now. He smiles in her memory, flashing teeth. Going extinct.
No longer an easy replication,
but she keeps her shrine.
In her kitchen, petals start to fall in soft disgrace. Time stops.
It has been said, late at night, you can still catch glimpse of her gleam.
May even catch the kaleidoscope in her eyes. They do not understand this. With briar and rose, she turns herself into prose.

I self identify as the blood that drips down your thigh.

I want to fall into your bed and
rest my haunted bones until they
crack under the weight of your lies.

I caught you in a lie that you tell everyone.
You said I was the first person to ever figure it out.

That meant more to me than it should have.

In truth,I will never know you.

But you will never know me.
That's why you call me mystery.

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

I have come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there
Burning as before.

While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start —
Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.