Rouge, threaded dragons intertwined with oriental cherries
stain a mockery of silk spread across an unsteady table.
The lady, dwarfed by the redwood counter,
has skin stretched taught across the bones of her temples
only to softly be drooped and draped around her jowls.
She caught both my eyes in the little dips of her palms
but wrinkles worked onto her face are focused on receipts
and she is obviously oblivious that her hands, veined with sickly blue,
had struck me so hard that my head is thudding numbly.
Her nails are narrow and naturally long,
set into the spotted skin of her delicate fingers,
pulling at a memory bathed in red by the Chinese lanterns
hanging over me, the couple near the kitchen and tiny Mrs Huang.
Her hands gesture to me after calling my order twice  
and I walk towards them to take the sterile, plastic packet
so that I can finally exit to the alley and spit into the gutter
a touch of an image much too familiar
to only belong to Mrs Huang.

I hear the woman underneath me.
She’s sore, tired.
Worn out from some
other man, I’m sure.
She croons in my ear.
Make love to me, she whispers,
take it easy, nice and slow.
Not too much, not too much.

And the man at the bar next to mine,
talking to the bartender,
cautiously ordering a drink.
Can’t have too much, he says,
can’t get too drunk, he says.
Not too much, not too much.

It seems everyone is taking
it slow these days. Too much
caution for this shotgun
existence. Too much fear. You can
smell it on them like cigarette stench
from a guilty smoker.
Everyone is rolling up their windows,
staying indoors, under the covers.
No one lives much anymore.
Not too much, not too much.

I down my drink at the bar and
break the man’s nose.
He doesn’t fight back when
he gets up. I spit and walk out.
Home to the woman and
she’s crooning in my ear.
Not too much, not too much.
I am violent and rough and she hates me,
I can see it. Still, when it’s over she leans
towards me and asks if I love her.
She says it with hurt eyes.
“Well, do you!?” she cries.

Not too much, not too much.

Today I saw a tiny bubble
Dodging damp bullets between
***** sidewalks and blackened drains--
The rain of colors swirled in a world
Inverted, and my renege sister stared;
Caged, as she was, by such fragile walls of air.

This applies to every single one of you. No matter how little you may believe you are worth, I swear to you, you are worth more, way more than you could ever imagine, in your wildest dreams. You are worth the same as those you value most, that girl with the body you aspire yours to be like, those people that you envy for being so naturally beautiful, your closest friends, your family. You are worth every piece of happiness, hope and health. I promise. You are not a diagnosis or a statistic, defined by criteria, percentiles and numerical figures, no. You are so much more. You are more than the inches around your waist, the abs on your stomach, the lbs that creep up and down on the scales, the self defeating thoughts, the highlighting of your insecurities, the constant regrets.
You are the air you breathe, the laughter that slips between your lips, the fight that you said you had ran out of months ago. The love you share and feel, the smiles that sweep across your face, those moments where happiness feels so close that you can almost taste it. You are daylight, the sun, nightlife, clubs and music and drunken confessions. You are a shining star, the scent of your favourite perfume, your most treasured memories crammed into ink and squashed between frames.

Never doubt that you are more.

2013 ©

The night you kissed me,
i drank from the stars,
as forest fires erupted,
in my cold and futile veins.
And the moon,
it fizzled on my tongue,
Because finally in life,
id found where i belong.

Off                   comes my slip, socks, sanity and an echo
Goes                 up my spine.  
The                   men
Film                  my sinking heart  
And                  dive into the  
Filth                  plastered against my mind without a thought  
Of                      what moments define me.
That                  girl who used to wear a  
Shirt                  embroidered with flowers and had a mother  
Making             her a meal with love is now working the  
Room               with what's left of her.
For                    -ward motion depicts nothing
More                 than bones and memories never cherished.

I approach,
And carve a "Hello"
Out of my marble voice.
Before an exchange is made past introduction,
I stand there,
Paralyzed.

Plunging inward,
Hands crawling through the dark,
Gliding between muscle and nerve,
***** and blood,
Wrapped between and under
A bouquet of bone,
Traveling the tunnels behind my chest,
Spiraling humbly in and out of every rib
In the shape of the Special Beam.

Nesting,
Coddled in a diaphragm home,
My voice rocking back and forth
With a death grip on its shins,
Knees under chin,
Mumbling grievances of social disorder.

Courage dilutes in exhales,
Each breath shorter than the last,
Only enough brave in veins to utter
"Nevermind",
As I turn and walk away.

Gaping valleys,
Asylum-colored.

Spaced enough to
Let daytime prevail
And to let horrors imagine themselves
In the black lung membrane
Of 3 a.m.

A slab of wood
Entwined with copper and nickel.
That's all you are.
I feel your humanity at times.
It could just be the heat from my hands
Still fuming off your glossy surface
Like boiler room pipes.
Pipe down your pipe dreams sonny,
You're no Kurt Cobain.