I want to guide my fingertips down your backbone, using vertebrae like stepping-stones across my river of dreams into a beautiful reality of you and me.

I want to do laps in your smile and blow my speakers out to the sound of your laughter.

I want to find every ticklish spot on your body, map them out, and mark every treasure with a kiss.

I want to hold your hand, like we handcuffed ourselves together and then swallowed the keys to each other’s hearts.

I want to take a spray can full of emotion and graffiti a wall, of a police station, during the middle of the day, as if opening up isn’t dangerous enough…

I want to show you that I’m dangerous enough, that my heart could jump the Grand Canyon for you, with no helmet or elbow pads, because every scar is a story and stories are my business.

I want to shake the hand of the artist who controls your paintbrush eyelashes creating beautiful works of art every time you blink.

I want to **** the nicotine from your black and gold lips until I become your new addiction.

I want to become one of your bad habits, like procrastinating to get out of bed with me.

I want to replace your morning coffee and your hot showers. I’ll be the first thing to warm you in the morning and the last thing to hold you at night.

My arms will be like scarves laced with melatonin wrapped gently around your head as you drift away to the sound of the broken rainstorm locked inside my chest…

I want to show you what is inside my chest.

I want to show you my best, but I’m nervous my smile won’t be enough because I haven’t been flossing with my cerebral cortex and I’m afraid I won’t think before I speak.

So I’ve been biting my tongue until ever word that eventually crawls its way out of my mouth stains my shirt crimson.

These walls I’ve built are a prison and I’m growing tired of the view. I’ve been digging escape routes to landmines that blast me back to square one. So take a diamond wrecking-ball and crash into me like a kamikaze under cupid’s orders.

I need you to make the first move because I can’t open my mouth to say “hello” when I’m busy gnawing at the bear traps around my ankles.

But I swear when my legs are free I’ll drive to you like a car fast as death because I’m running from a daisy that I couldn’t pluck and trying my best not to end up like Gatsby.

And although I still have a bee hive full of romantic ideas of recreating the past resting on my shoulders, I want you to be the smoke that kills the buzzing.

I don’t have to be your everything; I just want to be your something.

And I wish I could be like Houdini so I could escape this straight jacket sewn from the fabric of time dyed blue by every ex of mine.

And when I take a punch of courage to the stomach, I hope I walk away with a smile instead of in an early grave.

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

contained within
it glistens and is illuminated
radiates from my teeth to my ocular orbs
not the sun
not the one that makes the ivy creep
or the blossom open and become fragrant
but its mistress
the sphere of the night
pounds light from beneath the chest cavity
but this derivative
compels all those like us
in the dark
to hold hands

this is the moon
my insides are worshiping
one and one without
and the one with in
like our nearest star
the love within me
is only a reflection of the truth
that one that you imbue
hold true
and fast
towards the surface within me
that is reflective

my heart is the second moon
moon two
only as it speaks to me
and me and me to you
and you reflect upon me
and i shine and enshrine
my soul is made true

Love or Jealousy,
Commitment or Freedom,
Happiness or Fun,

All a funny taste?
Bitter Sweet, yet intoxicating.

A brew of witchery.
A blessing of Angles.
Time will always tell.

Jewelry & Perfume,
Things that glitter.
Make-up and Tattoos.
Designed to distract my attention
from the real pretty girl.

Everyone who says words don’t hurt

should spend a night trying to sleep despite the itching rash on the back of their neck

that formed because they hated themselves so much their body had an allergic reaction

like their skin was a suit that didn’t fit right over the bumps and scars and welts and bruises of hundreds of terrible words

singed and beaten and cut into their skin out of the mouth of someone who was supposed to love them unconditionally

don't ever let them tell you monsters aren’t real

monsters are real but they aren’t dragons or demons

they walk around in the skin of your father and spew fiery hatred from their cavernous mouths without ever laying on hand you because oh no

that would be too easy

a bruise will fade in time but the scars on your mind from every awful word he ever pointed at you tears at you worse than a bullet from a gun

it’s shrapnel of the soul, ripping you apart from the inside every time you move or think or breathe or speak

sometimes i wish that he’d hit when i was 13 instead of calling me stupid and fat and ugly

because one fist to face and he’d be out on his *** where he belonged

instead he just made it so poetry is a from of physical therapy

where you cut yourself open and bleed words from your soul

like a desperate snake bike victim draining poison and blood from their veins

and at night you lie in bed and listen to the quiet beating of your fragile swollen heart

still here, still here, still here, still here, still here

you dont know if it's a reminder or a threat anymore

living is too hard but you're too weak to die so you suffer through every day

slowly and without confidence that you can make it through another

and like a person sent to war you think it's over when you get to leave the trenches

but you're wrong

the battle wages on in your head for years

none of your wounds have a chance to scar and heal as they get ripped open over and over again

you spend your life running confused and scared in a haze of blood loss

until finally your legs give out and you can't run anymore

and when someone tries to offer you a hand and pick you up

you're gun shy

it's okay, it's not your fault really

to others the world has been an oyster but to you it's felt like an iron maiden

but your comrade persists and pulls you gently to your feet

and tries to wrap your soul in bandages of pretty words

and bits of wisdom you need but don't want to hear

you try not to let them unravel, you know it would hurt him, he was so careful in not grazing the raw parts of you when he put them on

but sometimes it just happens

so he holds your hand and wraps you up again and lays beside you at night

listening to the quiet beat of your fragile, swollen heart

please stay, please stay, please stay, please stay, please stay