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389 · Nov 2022
Carousel
MJ Nov 2022
Carousel
Slow down slow down
I can't keep up my strength
On and off and staying here
I have no time to waste
Yet I'll stay and swing and listen well
Faster but I will fall
Hang on until I can't no more
Spin me through it all
My bones are weak and I'm afraid
I'm gonna hit the ground
Carousel
Oh carousel
Make me lost not found
378 · May 2016
In April
MJ May 2016
I gave up
on hopes of sleep

In April

I threw away my name,
buried it in the alley

In April

I spread my limbs real thin

In April

I kissed bodies far from my own,
******* and thighs and hair,
reached for them all like
the used smiles on my lips

In April

I think I was a robot

In April

My eyes were dry
so I collected people's tears,
caught them in a bowl
and splashed them on my cheeks
when they asked me
why








*This piece is a mimic of Ruth Madievsky's poem, 'One Spring.'
372 · Nov 2020
Now
MJ Nov 2020
Now
we're fading like the bite marks
i left on your skin

and we're as false as the fibs
you quickly caught me in
366 · Apr 2017
04182017
MJ Apr 2017
Joy

is hard to define

So don’t.
357 · Feb 2017
Post-honeymoon Karaoke
MJ Feb 2017
Yes, yes, I can hear what you're saying. You keep talking, even when I burrow under my covers like an animal. Even when I close into myself like a bloodroot plant.

I'm sick of ******* smiling when all I want to do is rip up this carpet and dig a hole through the wood and the brick and the dirt and climb in and hide.

Would you let me be, let me rest where my deepest degrading voices are hushed? Your words would finally be gone and I'd be buried with dirt in my lungs, but it would feel better than being back there.

Five minutes would come and you'd snap from the loneliness and its awful cry. You'd shovel until your knuckles bled. You'd pull me out of my ***** nirvana and sit me up, and your eyes would look soft but I know your lips would not be. You'd do all this just to wake me up and shake me and tell me it was All My Fault. You'd hold my mouth open while you spat down my throat. You'd scream new songs for me to sing.

The skin near my eyes would burn from the salt and I would swallow your sounds. There'd be a kiss or we'd ****, or maybe you'd play with my hair while saying you loved me. But the whole time I'd be wishing my soul had stayed in the ground, covered in dirt, defeated and in the dark.
354 · Sep 2016
Waitress
MJ Sep 2016
I am the deflating doll in the back of the closet. I sit, stuffed under mops and ***** buckets, right next to their secret infidelities.
I belong to the community; my plastic, airy skeleton is marked with many fingerprints; my froze-open mouth knows the shapes to fold to, going along with each individual's perfect kiss.
If I were real I’d leave this life behind. I’d find a mate and we’d sit in sunlight every day. But tonight I’m still a doll, an object made to please, and now another boy is knocking at my door.
336 · Nov 2022
Forgetful Girl
MJ Nov 2022
Remembers best while the worst falls back. Forgetful Girl, where'd you leave your worth this time? Forgetful Girl, repeated patterns, they won't change your mind. Forgetful Girl, is the pain the only one you won't lack? Forgetful Girl, finding faith at the alter of their eyes? Forgetful Girl, burning your knees hoping they won't lie? Forgetful Girl, always running to the past. Forgetful Girl, it's all the same, close your eyes. Deep breaths.
328 · Aug 2017
(RESULTS MAY VARY)
MJ Aug 2017
courage

&  terror

burn

below

her fiery

flesh.
326 · Jul 2015
Interrogating a Woman
MJ Jul 2015
Q: When a man chokes you in a crowded bar as he looks past the brim of his black hat and matches his eyes with yours, are you supposed to feel self-hatred?

Q: When a man wipes your tears away with his button-down shirt, tells you it’s all right, and wraps his arms around you, are you supposed to feel love?

Q: When a man sets a knife down, pushes your face into a brick wall and pulls your pants off, are you supposed to feel shame?


A: I really don't ******* know anymore.
325 · Oct 2015
He was tall and I was young
MJ Oct 2015
so much new and so much you
my brain was engulfed in the hands
the tan skin and eyes
your eyes and your lips
the way the breaks in the walls
led me down to your fingertips
325 · Jun 2015
To Have
MJ Jun 2015
It's the way I have to write when I drink
I can't deny myself the pleasure
Funny thing is
It's not pleasure
it's torture
It's the way I'd shower
and you'd have to get in with me
The way I still have to listen to your voice
humming out of my phone
keeping me sad, keeping me thoughtful
The way you'd kiss me
I'd have to kiss you back
twenty times over
I've held my breath for three months
and either have to keep holding it
not breathing
Or I have to take a big breath
and let go
322 · Apr 2016
Road House
MJ Apr 2016
If I could visit us
on repeat, I would:

In the shower
and you’d tell me I look cute with wet hair

On your leather couch
and you’d bring me breakfast

Spreading out our arms
in the middle of the floor

Tied in your bedsheets
in the corner of the room

That same joke over
and over and over and over
322 · Oct 2015
B is for Bathroom
MJ Oct 2015
I come here to ******* and cry
where it is silent and loud at the same time

the porcelain statues watch and release temporal tears
in a painful response
to my nonsensical quivering of the mouth
and squinting of the eyes

there it is again
that baked salt
on the roof of my mouth, the ends of my fingernails

It almost came last night,
but I stopped it with a breath before it got close
to ruining me again
321 · Jul 2015
Sisters
MJ Jul 2015
This means we don’t wear clothes
This means $13.99 priced ***** until 5a.m.
It means blankets and music and dancing freely
in the most messy littered living room
This means maybe knocking a candle over
or two
and lighting a fire
This means leaping hard
to drown out our sadness
It means kindness and caring and support
and love
321 · Aug 2015
It is Love
MJ Aug 2015
As a girl, her hands traced it in the soft darkness of summer
And that was all it needed: the tips of 4 fingers to say, “I will consume you now,
I will overtake your everything, your you.”
She promised and she didn’t know, and it happily devoured her
She was happy, too

As a woman, her hands snapped it in the hidden places of night
And that was all it needed: the evidence of 1 act to say, “I might disappear now,
But I will continue to consume you.”
She felt her old promise, and it easily burned her
But she had been easy, too

It is a shower for one, a leftover shirt, a journal
It is loneliness, cluelessness, a hoping
It is a nightmare, a few blunt words, a knot
It is reconnection, thankfulness, a knowing

It was a day, a smell, a letter, a clover
It was joy, a warm bed, it was a kiss and a day made
It was a basement, a taste, a song, a child lost
It was pain, it was bareness, it was a declaration and tears

It can be 6 years of life and it can be a home
It can be 2,190 days drugged and it can be a prison
It can be willfulness
It can be contract

Yet it remains a system of organs, of muscles, of bones
It is held together with smoke-roasted skin

It remains a collection of memories, of touch, of letters
It is held together with never-ending care
317 · Nov 2020
6 Missed Calls
MJ Nov 2020
The daggers in your voice
they're the reason I fled.
No following me;
you stayed snug in your bed.
You stabbed me with my own
most shameful secret
when minutes before,
you promised you'd keep it.
I ignored all your calls
the words rang in my head
I don't think
I will ever
Forget what you said.
310 · Sep 2017
Cocaine Loves An Overpass
MJ Sep 2017
the freeway was loud, screaming below their feet, truck drivers at 80 and up, the west coast late night norm. higher decibels made them feel more properly hidden taking bumps from the bag, and she sniffed in and thought of how she wasn't expecting this night, but she was lonely, hopeful, a wreck. he sniffed harder and he tugged down on his hat, realizing just how unprepared he was for the way she looked at him.
305 · Sep 2016
when chris began to write
MJ Sep 2016
I had a friend once say in passing conversation that the best writing is spawned from the love making of heavy drug use and light sleep. Light as in none, none as in absolute zero. I guess I got it then, but I think I’m getting closer to it now.






- 2014
300 · Jan 2018
Me
MJ Jan 2018
Me
I am a ******-obsessed freak. I am a violent-craving ****. I am a drunk-tryna quit, I’m a lying-******’ *****. I’m a taken-cheating mess, I’m a speed-owned shell. I am a crazy-raging ease. I’m a selfish little *****. I’m a drifting-airhead ****. I’m a full-on sack of ****. I am a rotten-pussied tease, I am an all-day-lazy dude. I’m a fowl-mouthed lady, I’m a streaking stripping girl. I’m a pushy-fast-paced date, I’m a no-date kinda gal.
295 · Dec 2015
My Christmas Essay
MJ Dec 2015
This is a place where sleeping is hard. This is a bed, on which, I lay my skull and it opens up, not to soft dreams; instead, to loud, forgotten thoughts. I am thankful for one hour of eyes closing. Two or more, at this point-- four sleepless nights in-- is a ******* blessing. When I open my bedroom window to the sunrise that I raced and beat, the air tastes like cowboys' dreams: all wide and free. It’s baby-blue and almost-purple and a shade of blushing-pink: all the colors that make me feel new and innocent: feelings I wish I felt. I watched my cat sleep by our knees, but she gets up with the sun today, just like me. There is an empty, quiet fireplace, one story and twenty steps below my heels. I want to put a log in and allow my body rest next to its warmth on the floor, but someone has been on the couch since last night. Today is Christmas and I feel lost in thought and wakefulness. Is it okay to say my heart is breaking? Because the stitches are coming out for a third time, and I’m afraid to tell.
294 · Nov 2016
Z
MJ Nov 2016
Z
Admiring the past
Belonging to the bottle
Cowering behind written word
Down my throat you go
Enough to make them gag
Feeling lonely, new, and lost
Growing in reverse
Hoping for rebirth
Inside, I am hollow
Just waiting to be filled
Killing myself slowly, but it feels so warm
Let love find me here
Maybe someone new
None other than him, even now
Only that gapped smile, with me on this couch
Pulling me back
Questioning mistakes
Recovery     can     be slow
Still, I wake up every day
Talk to me, I dare you
Until wasted eyes are shut
Vows I took, I broke, 100 times again
Ways I want to forget
X amount of times I've tried
You will grow, please know you can be more
292 · Apr 2017
zero gravity
MJ Apr 2017
There’s a fan but no air

There’s books but no words

A someone but no consciousness

A comfy bed but no sleep
290 · May 2017
Life
MJ May 2017
Swallow swallow swallow swallow

**** **** ****.

Come *** come ***

**** **** ****.
285 · Jan 2017
Resting Eyes
MJ Jan 2017
I won't ever have those hips or *******
but I'll forever have these scars.

9? 60? 23?
You were there when I quit counting,
all the times I tried to throw away the pills.

I taped my eyes closed as we kissed,
you promised me you'd shut yours too.

Well somehow it worked.

Both of us were blind to the taste and shade of blood
and one day, you loved me

the same day I realized
you were staring the whole time.
284 · Apr 2017
equivocator
MJ Apr 2017
There was a scarf over his open eyes and her stomach seemed emptier than the icky yellow walls of her new apartment. A bottle being kicked outside echoed glassy sharp sounds, hard against cement, and it was probably 11:47 am. Staying awake for 48 hours was harder than she remembered, but not harder than she realized. It was the same for staying faithful, although, that wasn’t really true.
283 · Mar 2017
closing shifts
MJ Mar 2017
when he kissed me it felt like a plea. i could taste the ginger in my throat. when i kissed back it looked like a mountain. A certainly steep one i once hiked in oregon.
279 · Mar 2016
Purposeless Inspiration
MJ Mar 2016
I trace films and films, ***** straight
loose change on the nightstand
Friends smoking on the cold back deck,
some sticks to pass the time
When the music played so loud
at all those torn up parties
You were a new-found curse
We were a good song until we stuck

Still from this far side
I try to breathe,
and let go of that love
Reaching for feeling
I buried deep
way back and greeting death
Well we’ve come this far,
why can’t we rest

We saw butterflies and real evil
and the bareness of bodies
But once you jump off of that daunting cliff,
you just never come back up
I’m sure that there was more
to our overstayed goodbye
It was just too much
We hoped to drown, still swimming up

And from that far end
you try to leave,
to pick up this whole mess
And all those good ways you looked at me,
they’ve rightly been reset
And I’m still trapped here
So you go ahead




*Imitating "Gold Mine Gutted," Bright Eyes
277 · Sep 2016
Love, Cake (2012)
MJ Sep 2016
Licking the pride from your mouth
you say you wish
I’d drive off a cliff

Your beautiful voice
choking up such
hideous words
they dig into my skin like needles
every day

Have a good life
spending all your time
in your mother’s company

When will you realize
you can’t have your cake
and **** it, too?
276 · Apr 2018
OCD
MJ Apr 2018
OCD
If

I rip

My

Flesh back,



Will that

Be

Enough?



No!



And

He'll say

I

Have

No feelings



Because

He

Just mopped

That floor!
272 · Apr 2018
Papershredder
MJ Apr 2018
She has a drive
to share
her body


Right to

shreds


Always
been an over-

sharer, everyone says.


Swollen lips and
scarred skin,


All of that
spurious

stability,


Coaxing
them

right in
271 · Nov 2015
For Domenic
MJ Nov 2015
Two nights ago I sat above the new apartment sign, my naked body dangling on its brick-laid edge. Cramped lights seared the parts of my legs they touched and it reminded me of watching pieces of fish in the oven. A breeze skated across my upper arm and ******, making me cold but awakening warm memories, ones taken from the house in the city that I cannot outrun. The fingers on my right hand prodded a cigarette into the crack of my lips as I tried to remember those four numbers, 37 and 62, and the circumstances under which I had deemed myself happy.

It seemed that we were almost-always-unabashedly *******, or at least I was, but there was that thoroughly **** time-- the night at the lake. Graceless games of Truth or Dare escorted shots of ***** into our mouths and conducted secrets out. Bottles’ tin caps clicked open as we split the clear contents inside, shook the smaller one, held it to the nose, waited for the levels of our laughter to rise like specs in the night sky: Pop, pop, pop! Up and up we went, watching down below, leaving life behind, fading away like the dimmed city stars.

I pulled the cigarette out of my mouth, releasing the white smoke. My mind searched for a time in life when smiling had come so easily, but the answer stayed the same.
269 · Nov 2015
Part Three
MJ Nov 2015
His bed was one of my favorite things; it had no box spring to hold it up, just a mattress on the floor with a giant, lumpy comforter covering our almost-naked bodies. I slept on the left side of the bed where his heater sat on the wall, loudly pumping out warm air. When lying still we could hear the quiet scratching and tapping of little mice scurrying through the walls around us. A part of me hated thinking of waking up to a mouse sitting on my chest, but another part liked the thought that mice lived around his bed, like a little mouse mansion.

How smooth his skin was… the nicest I’ve ever felt, like a baby’s, untouched and unharmed. I liked biting his perfect skin; I liked being able to look at the purple and red marks and the feelings they gave me—the feelings that he was mine; I had damaged him that way. When I ran my hands through his chin-length hair it would feel sticky with remnants of the gel that held it in place the night before.

He’d lie on top of me with his smoothness and his stickiness, and the silver necklace he always wore would hang down, cold on my bare chest. He’d wake me up like that and hand me a cup of tea with lemon, which I hated, and then a plate of breakfast, which I loved. We’d put on a movie, keeping the white blinds closed over the window, even though the Saturday winter sun beamed through, telling us it was time to start the day.
264 · May 2016
Changes
MJ May 2016
I ride the backs of rumbling bikes
and drink ***** in my bed.
Or play the same dumb songs
so I can speak the past.
I change my yellow hair
to red
in moments that sit still.
And I sometimes enjoy acid
in the tall grass
holding blue wolves.
I rip apart the drawing
because it stares too long
and tape it back together
but he never comes.
263 · Sep 2016
Four Days in Chicago
MJ Sep 2016
It pulls me
by the leash
we bought together
some years ago.

Which cuts into
my neck’s thin skin--
            Too tight!
yanking me down alleys,
up cement stairs,
through humid, hot-boy bars.

Even when I see blood
running
down
the cloth,
I refuse to fight back.

That city
trained me
not to disobey.

When I return to bed
on the other side of the world,
there’s lots of sweat
and wonderfully violent dreams
that feel as familiar
as waving goodbye.

Which,
ironically--
           sigh,
my city and I
are incapable of doing.
262 · Dec 2016
A Feeling
MJ Dec 2016
white delight is a hard train seat, a ***** shirt, and used dishes in the sink. it is hot water in a dark tub; the animal in your arms; the empty bottles over there. white delight is pure and quick but also slow. it shows up late and stays, most times, too long. white delight is the taste of bleeding lips; it is the sound of a voice whispering a name. white delight is a family's past and a greeting's future. it is the feeling of hands on skin in bed. it is the twang in the truck; the distance of cities; the beating heart of every lover ever loved.
This piece is an imitation of Mary Ruefle's untitled piece in her book, "My Private Property."
258 · Mar 2016
Spring
MJ Mar 2016
With all the grace
I can carry
from the insides of my heart
I will try
opening my hands
as I feel the distance grow.

For you,
for me.

One finger at a time,
slowly
and still
unsurely,
the tight dark grip
will lift

like the daffodils
in Washington Park
up the hill
in warm Spring.

With all the courage
I can find
from the deepest parts of me
I will try
sitting still
as I watch you float away.

For me,
for you.

Out my open arms.
257 · Mar 2016
KAPOW
MJ Mar 2016
I don't really think

I keep in mind

just how much

you broke my heart
MJ Mar 2016
I liked biting his perfect skin.
I liked being able to look at the purple and red marks and the feelings they induced.
The feeling that he was mine.
That I had damaged him that way.
249 · May 2017
Places VS Faces
MJ May 2017
A black truck parked backwards with its cocky ******* wheels makes me *****.
Makes me scared, takes me there.
Brick,
rough on hands,
the violent shaking,
sounds of a plastic grocery bag ripped away.

Who knew,
years later,
I'd be spending my free time in this place?

Memories I try to forget
but know deeply
I'll always need to hold.

In love with these visions, like, "Thank you wet nurse,
I still cry for you!"

Just when, exactly, and why,
did my eyes begin to see the past? When did life
start spinning down the *******?

I'll tell you when
and exactly
why.

It was hail. And because I wore sweat pants. On April 14th. And because of those cigarettes, stupid god ****** cigarettes. And definitely plastic bags, ones that end up killing unsuspecting innocent sea creatures while they're swimming through the waves.
MJ Dec 2015
I’ve been chasing this for almost one whole year
with little breaks of lust
tucked in between

The corners of those dates
have dogfolded ears
which stick out to me like a quenched oak tree
in a wide, dry desert

The short pieces
that once formed our long lull
feel nothing close to my feet
coming to a stop,
turning around,
feeling kept—purposefully

My calves are knotted
and my eyelids become cracked
from chasing the Black Hole in the sky:
the hole that used to be the Brightest Sun,
My Sun, the one that I once spoke of
so sweetly:

*“It’s different from theirs
on another planet, it never sets.
There is a light with the nights-- always.

The need to search or ask for love is lost, because so much is given.

And even when I move to a new planet,
where the sun sets and rises
as the moon ascends; loneliness climbing onto its back,
its dark qualities, bordering me,
it will not receive me.

because My Sun is still bright in my mind.”
245 · Oct 2017
Brainwaves...
MJ Oct 2017
my mind
is a cage
made from steel
imprisoning
nasty comments
gory images
always renovating
making room
for more.

my mind
is an ocean horizon
so open
so brutal
always being explored
each secret
mapped
and seen.
MJ Mar 2017
I am sweating in drops and he must be sticking to the couch. I bite his chest and his fingers feel like a dance on the back of my neck. Our mouths touch one another-- like soft, like protection; like sharp, like *******. We're still for minutes but my eyes are sprinting through his whole life eighty times over. This is a very big feeling. I think this is what it means to make love.
243 · Oct 2015
The Forest Floor
MJ Oct 2015
Someone once close to me
will whisper something significant

And my eyes will wander

Over hills
and small lakes
Through the houses of the young

But no sights of the known
will be seen

Because I will have forgotten
MJ Mar 2017
My chest is a hollow drum with skin
pulled over the top
trying to pass as alive.
It’s so loud
it makes the bugs
crawl back into the floor.

My nails are excerpts
that recall short spans of calm.
Breaking so often
that the only stuff left to bite
is bone.

My mouth is an independent
inborn system.
Swallowing
and ******* up the clues
to my own life.

My cup is the real Holy Grail
filled high with *****.
And for now
it’s enough.
MJ Mar 2016
The one that has pulled me
out of the sea
has pulled me to see
that others are still capable
of loving me

Not that he is there
or that I am here
just that it can be done

I remember
day by day with him
how to open my mouth
and taste fun

Pleasure, sorrow, truth
the teeth through a real smile

Oh, god
how it's been a while


*For the guy whose bed I ****** in
235 · Oct 2017
Careful Hearts
MJ Oct 2017
i am

indirectly

&

insecurely

in love
234 · Mar 2018
Lovebirds
MJ Mar 2018
it was last night when
the first
favorite memories of you
climbed
into my head.

summer's sweat
above your lip.

subtle stubble
on your chin.

bold shoulders
forever bare
in tattered shirts.

thighs stuck
to ***** bar booths.

and johnny cash
on the juke.

they called us
lovebirds
every night

just because
of the look
in our eyes.
231 · Feb 2018
all that she can read
MJ Feb 2018
the clenching of her worn down jaw
a waterfall of wine.

the hair in both her burning hands
a few more miles gone.

the tears that come, all loose and fast
a guess becomes a fact.

the ending of this sour end
a little she might grow.
231 · Sep 2015
July 18th
MJ Sep 2015
Those happy parts of my life are distant memories
they're so far away
I can't try to meet the girl I was
not even halfway

I used to ask myself which era of my life was the happiest
or most fulfilling
now I only ask myself why this one is so lost

Where have I gone?
I wish I could ask, but I'm the only one who knows how

To help her
find her way back
or hopefully forward
228 · Apr 2017
Untitled
MJ Apr 2017
A violent dance
of destructive passion
it's all within
so hard to hold the bliss in
**** it though,
let's go get wasted
Hopefully I can
show you how soft
my taste is

I laughed so hard
my heart is racing
keep going, going
there is no pacing
She's so close, so close
I need some spacing

It's over now,
it's come and gone
My life still,
it stumbles on
It's Always darkest
Before the dawn
Written by Tyson Smith, published by me.
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