his desire makes me feel like a goddess
i see it in his eyes when he looks at me
he wishes he could touch me
but he doesn't know if i'd let him
i know he is trying to pull me closer
but he's a little scared of me too
that's why he wants me in handcuffs

i was removing my makeup
he was standing in the doorway
watching
he closed the door & turned off the light
we stood together in the dark face to face,
cold with the window open
surrounded by tile & porcelain
he pulled me to the floor
we laid on the rug together
breathing
i said "why do you lie to people?"
sleepy, he said "mostly to get what i want"
"why do you lie to people?" he asked me
"because i want to pretend i'm someone else"

he sniffed her out
she fell for his charm
she fell into his bed
too fast
too fast
passion
or frenzy?

over & over
again & again
he pinned her down
red ribbons,
red dress on the floor

it wasn't sweet
it wasn't sweet
my, what big
teeth you have
what big marks they leave

the sun rose
the moon set
he slept fitfully

bruised, ****** & sore,
she waited

finally he woke &
crunch,
munch
he ate her for lunch

a crunch
a wet thud & then the slap of skin against pavement
broken cartilage
fractured bones
a valley opens
a dam bursts
thick black blood pools on the cement

you're the reason i stepped on the gas
in the first place
symmetry demands you be the reason
i pump the breaks now

let's roll the dice
baby needs a new pair of shoes
be my nina from pasedena  
i'll be your snake eyes

your smoke stings my eyes
but you can't stop burning
& so i can't close my eyes

run
catch it, play with it
don't **** it yet
eat the fat between its organs first
(to keep it alive longer)
nothing is sweeter than adrenaline,
that last ditch attempt for escape

oxytocin serotonin rhythm rhythmatic
a dopamine drip like a metronome tick
endorphins crash like waves

~ rest ~

epinephrine more like norepinephrine
neuropeptides simmer down &
monoamines die like flies

i built a maze of boxes in my head
in which to house the monsters
that dwell under my bed

at night i open up the cages
& let the demons breathe,
i like to play with them sometimes
but never ever set them free

maybe i could **** them
but i've never really tried
even though they're often scary
i think i'd miss them if they died

he is hard
smooth
a polished stone
unbroken
solid
undisturbed
rooted firmly in the mud
& i am the soft moss
around him
wet & sweet
growing on him

charcoal
oxblood
poppy
pomegranate
maroon
cranberry
cherry
creams­icle
orange soda
saffron
lemon
egg yolk
buttermilk
sunflower
olive
forest
lime
mint
ice
blueberry
royal blue
navy
bubblegum
fuschia
salmon
grape
lavender
wine
chocolate
espresso

like a flower blooming
petals uncurling
exposing their silk & velvet insides
vulnerability wet like nectar
waiting for killer bees
who don't want the sweet sap
just the thrill of destruction

i
will
be
scorched,
the flames will lick me loud
then slowly
turn to red embers
then even slower to coal

you are the scream in my throat
you are the reason i grind my teeth in my sleep
you make me feel like i drank hard liquor with a helium chaser
i crave you like no other

you are nothing more than a papercut, he said
you sting for just a second before you are forgotten
i'm looking for a hurricane,
an unforgettable, brutal hurricane of a woman

i am not a hurricane, i said
but all hurricanes do is lift you up by the roots
destroy everything around you
& leave you soaking wet, lonely & upside down

i know, he said
but that's all i want

noun | pen·e·tra·tion |\pe-nə-ˈtrā-shən\
1) the act of going through or into something: the act of penetrating something
2) an ability to understand things clearly and fully*

if you penetrate their body
without entering their mind
you aren't really all the way in

i see beauty in the terrible &
i see perfect harmony in ugliness
shock pain destruction ruin,
the truth: the above is more whole and juicy between the teeth
than years of singing sparrows

& i see the perverted beauty in damage
- wreckage & shrapnel -
broken cracked stained objects
have their own crooked appeal

i lust for bruises, broken hearts, broken bones, addicted tongues
for the red eyes born of insomnia, sorrow, substance abuse
i want the literal & metaphorical dirt under your fingernails  
there's a sick sweetness in awful secrets
but factory fresh is bland & tasteless

she is naked among the wolves
their coarse fur brushing scratching
her fragile weak skin
she is at the center of them, of their
writhing, wriggling mass
they never stop moving, their paws
pounding the soft dirt & leaves
they jump & crawl & dance around her
bright eyes, sharp black claws, big teeth,
& breath like carnivores

technically: i am just skin & bones
muscle, fat, sinews, hair
blood, brains & teeth

physically: i am soft, curved
easily broken, easily overtaken

mentally: i am mostly sharp edges
knives & rusty nails

i wish i was made of broken glass
or razor wire

when you write a poem
it's like you're supposed to come up with
some kind of grandiose statement
on the meaning of life
you're supposed to add rhyme to your reason

but what if you're just saying words just to spit them?
what if there's no meaning behind what you say
are you a shell of a writer if your writing is empty?
are you a fake if your words are fiction?

if your truest rawest realest grit
is nothing but a bunch of ****,
are you really a bad writer
or good one?

breath hot moist
pungent
rotten meat
rot, gristle
blood in his teeth
****, ****
he's after me

rage
rage rage rage rage ragefearragerageragerage  ragerage rage
rage rage rage rage rage rage rage rage rage rage rage rage ragerage
rage rage rage rage ragerageragehaterage ragerage rage ragethirstragerage
rage rage

rage rage rage ragesickragerage
rage

i want to crawl inside your skin
& live next to your heart

i want to be your fantasy &
i want to bleed into your reality
like ink droplets in water
blossoming

i want your scent to
overwhelm my nose
i want to lock away the memory of your
sweat & aftershave,
your sweet smoke & musk

lipstick on your fingertips
i left my mark

a ****** flower blooms under my skin
you left yours too

dark eyes rimmed red
cigarette burns on his sleeve
the smell of the city lingering in his hair
he drops his jacket to the floor
& falls asleep cradling a bottle of whiskey

sometimes i have dreams of
piles of rotten meat, green & shiny,
slimy
disgusting nauseating,
******
white film
chewed holes full of maggots
& flies swarming the whole thing
buzzing like a jet engine in your eardrum

it's already raining hard &
my umbrella already broke &
i'm already soaked to the bone &
my shoes are already ruined so
why do i keep trying so
hard not to trip &

land in a puddle?

i guess resistance is futile

i am so confused and mixed up like
an egg beater beaten egg
my shell is cracked
& my brain oozes run on sentences now like
a punctured yolk &
it's trying to tell me something it doesn't know
so it sends me fragmented images
& strings of words like
beads on a broken necklace falling

you taste rich like german chocolate cake
the scent of you : sweet sweat & secondhand smoke
your breath hot against my neck

i want to cry but i won't

why are the eyes in the mirror
so unfamiliar
i'm supposed to see my soul there

tonight my mind is like
the vacuum of outer space
black black
& devoid of life
but full of infinite possibilities

when i was a kid my summers tasted like
pink lemonade & ice cream

now they taste like mike's lemonade & prime times
(okay and ice cream too some days)

the hot stale air rises the same as it has my whole life
steaming from the Arizona pavement
i stand barefoot on my driveway at night
even though it is still almost hot enough to burn me

when i was a kid i sat outside at night
under a willow tree
& i wrote poems about birds & snakes
about field mice
but then my cat died and we buried him under that tree
so i stopped going out there

in my teens my writing started
to sour with anger and ****** urges
i spent more time alone

now as an adult i forgot how to be around other people
i write about my perception of
"pain", & my insignificant "suffering"
how we are all dying, how even the trees
& the animals i wrote about are dead now

i forgot how to be happy

i can be your lover
or i can be your fighter
i can bring you down or
i can make you lighter

i can be your ******
or i can be your *****
i could give you everything
or i could leave you wanting more

i can be your strength
or i can be your weakness
i can be your Bellona
or i could be your Venus

ANXIETY

why is this the only thing i can think (feel) now?
please make my words come naturally again

"blood
dark
tongue
***
****
bones
eyes
teeth"

my favorite words are swimming in my brain
& refuse to coagulate

they stick like glue to the roof of my mouth
& i can't seem to spit them out
flashes of nonsense recycled:

"BROKEN TEETH
secondhand smoke
i wAnt tO BREAK you
weightless in the dark"

my own fragmented reality
protecting my soft underbelly

anxiety breeds cowardice
or maybe they are just synonyms

either way all I can think (feel) is
*******

i love you
i'm so confused
how do you feel about me?

how can you tell me
that you've "liked" me (air quotes) since we met,
that you would be upset if i had a boyfriend,
that you imagine a future with me

how can you
touch me (almost) everywhere
& bite me
& sleep in your bed with me

but then act like none of that happened
& tell me that you're ******* another random guy
that you met on Grindr

but then two days later you're back
your face between my ******* in a public restaurant
your hands seductive

why do you tease me?
do you want me or not?
do you even know what you want?

i know you have a lot of things on your mind
i know this is confusing for you
but you have to see you're involving me in this too
you have to see this is no longer just about your feelings
because you tangled mine up in yours

but the thing is that i love you no matter what
whether you're gay or bi or anything else
whether you might be bipolar or have borderline personality disorder
whether you are my best friend or my boyfriend or (other)

but i'm scared of loving you
& i think you already know all of the things i just said
so i might never say any of this out loud

plastic plastic
plastic bones
gelatin skin

i need you to be brave because i am scared
i need you to be blunt because i am coy
i need you to be mean because i am too nice
i need you

i forgot how to talk to myself

i hate laying awake in the dark
waiting to feel something

everything i say is garbage.
everything you say is horseshit

would you like to be the *** this time,
or the kettle?

we are all hypocrites here,
mad or not

i've never written anything catchy
but i always write in ink

she's still smitten
boy be trippin'

itchy sticky
sweaty
fear
panic red
then salty tears

i miss you so hard i feel it heavy in my guts
my thoughts of you drip down my thighs like syrup
i need you to come here & lick them off me
stop letting me miss you like this
red hot

ultra violet
ultra violent

rich like butter,
but thick like buttermilk

you can feel his teeth scrape on your bones
your flesh tears & your sinews  s t r e t c h  and snap apart
& your blood runs down his face in rivers ;
it drips on the cement to be washed away by the rain
& soon there is no trace of you left behind

her eyes look small and watery red
now without the thick black eyeliner and false lashes
she seems so naked

jkdhfgu ieoruio tyeuribxvb
jshguiw
afyjksnfs;
sfw k wufuwsj kvhsns
jkasklj hwiofhfj

k gjk dghkjsh rgerug jkfgfjv

bdfgbsjkg
bsjk vnskjf  uiwt ywuir
iwefs df bsdjkfhs rfgsdjk ghsdjfwe i otywr
t y jkghsd jkf wof hweuifh s djkfsd;
fj klsdhge

jksdrhgeryji srjktherj  sdkjgheurt e
lejrhuye
jkeryh  dkrth eriot errwe
n dio
ioeruihdr?

show me your teeth
sweetie
bruise me
is it bad
that i want
to lick your wounds
but i want you to wound me?