Lie to me
I do not care
But I'm not the one to judge
But just a bit
Just here and there
It still won't let you budge
You play me like I'm stupid
You play me like a fool
But you're over here with hollow eyes
Lying in your drool

I just want to see you doing well
You were escaping from your hell
But you can't resist it
Just gotta have a taste
After seeing it destroy your friends
And lay some of them to waste
How could you stand the consequence
How could you bear the taste
Where is your hollow mind
What makes you lose your place
You have so much potential, man
You gotta keep your forward pace

Get back on track
Back on the grind
Get you back to yourself
Please, man, get ahold of your mind!

i.


dear poetry, we met when i was four,
you were count lestat, and it was love
at first sight. you were made of bone
and bane, and razors, i was a mosochist

and you were a black widow, i would
know, i was there, trying to pry
open all of your eight legs, looking
for the amrita.


ii.


dear poetry, if i were to answer all
of the thirteen questions you have ever
asked me, the answers would be,
no, no, yes, march the thirty second,
"how frail a human heart must be -",
diacetylmorphine without the butterfly,
mother, yes, barely, jolene, you don't
love me, contractility, and no.


iii.


dear poetry, you have pretty legs.


iv.


dear poetry, i am an ugly archetype of denuded
adolescence and i think you smell
like teenagers and a leather hacked smothered
in *** and black labels and ck perfume,
and a pound of god.


v.


dear poetry, if sleep is the brother to death,
where does my mother lie,
before ribbons of aubade
seek the flower in the sky?


vi.


dear poetry, today i don't think i love you anymore.


vii.


dear poetry, if you were humanised,
you would be ugly. you would be defleshed,
you would be ugly. you would be marked constantly by
ugly people and you would bleed ugly people.


viii.


dear poetry, today i might ******* my muses,
i might make them wear fishnet leggings,
with ****-me heels, i might give them *****
to suit others that **** them better than i do, and
it is all your fault.


ix.


dear poetry, i promise myself i would not speak
to you anymore, at least not in words, but
we both know poets are nothing but
liars, don't we?


x.


dear poetry, i am not a poet, all the poets are dead.

they died for you.


xi.


dear poetry, i am writting you thirteen letters
a year, they are ugly, like i am, they spell
an ugly word you would never speak of. you
will be anatomised, i will stuff you with
consangunuty, i will re-invent you.


xii.


dear poetry, you are older than me,
i am twenty, but you are only ten,
i am ripe, bruised, plucked from purple lips,
nothing is ageless.


xiii.*


dear poetry*, i am going to break you,
grind you in a mortar, roll you up,
into a blunt, and i am going to smoke
you along with the angels.

my fingertips bruise
along the imagined
arch of your mouth

i am sorry i never said
anythi
ng wort h mu
ch i’
m sor
r
y

you had birds in your mouth and sunlight dripping from your eyelashes.
i promised i wouldn't speak if you wouldn't change faces twice an hour.
we made conversation under a tree and sleep-walked through your kitchen.
i couldn't stare for your poetry disguised as fingers, always moved your hands.

i opened your window and slid to the street, took a walk with the recycling.
my hands looked tired the next morning, and you wouldn't take no.
when the lights fell asleep, we ran for the boats and slipped into the water.
the moon smiled and pulled us apart, i never matched your shoes again.

i need to start falling in love
less often.
stop idolizing every brave girl
who shows me the part of her skin
that rarely sees the sun &
waits patiently for my response………..
…..& i always inflate her ego
like a carnival balloon,
& in the coming weeks
i twist it into different animals.
a lion when i'm lonely,
a mouse to mimic misery,
but one day when i'm twisting up
the closed fists of some
metaphor of a memory
it pops & she's suddenly aware
of the clown.

but love is a dish best served
not at all.
skip the meal
& lose the weight of love
& the world seems so much bigger
& instantly you fit into places
you had never even tried before.
the feet that used to make those
distinct etchings in mud
like a tiny topographical map,
hauling that love around
like a bowling ball in a backpack,
those feet don't even touch the trees anymore
& the clouds envy your freedom
as they whisper pick up lines to the moon.

I hold you in my mouth
you're my last bite of toast
MUSHMUSHMUSHMUSH
your tongue softens me
and I am
MUSHMUSHMUSHMUSHMUSH.

say my name
right as you're leaving
tell me that you love me when I can't see your face
ask me to exist in more than one place
I can do it.

I can love you with my fingers wrapped
around your rib cage,
sweetness
I feel you
in the nine year
burnt fabric of this hammock.

I exist too much for you
don't bother.

back to basics
and your back
up against mine.

your jelly belly
baby beans
are weighing me down
and cutting through all          need to be closer
       I claim myself a true provider of nonsense
lay on the floor
stretch out (knock over a cup of coffee and push my cat into
                             the heating iron, saying sorry because I'm trying harder to be polite)
and wonder who else is alive.

turning
into
the true face                          of surrender
one more week
                          and I'll be home tomorrow.
I've forgotten what it feels like                    to be held
sleeping in tangles of sounds
                                             like chips crunching
like papers being crumbled and thrown
                 like the fear that erputed when I threw your words away.
whatever's torn is torn
me from you
and flavor.                 No, I have not forgotten your favorite things,
or the way you reach for me in sleep.

temptation. desire. temptation. retire.

look forward: I'm barely standing.

breath caught stomach knot last thought of
last words of what's worth of what.
of what?

I know you hate me. hate me.
"hate me!"

it's a religion to breathe in

her words (like honey in my mouth).
"I cry because I love her." and she cries too.
and he shy's away. and he hides his face.

there are storms on every side of you
and wars in each moment
                                        you ignore them:
in trying to find the light, your burns shown through: with worries about
nothing to start with                   and                            nothing to end with.

I can't touch my face because my hands smell like popcorn
and I can't paint my nails because the smell is too strong.
I keep dancing with my arms and my head while I sit in my chair,
and I keep thinking it's okay, but I know it's not.
I want to paint a picture and tape a cats head onto a humans body,
and I want to light it on fire and take a picture of you naked and send it as a postcard to my best friend, (that I sort of have a thing with).
I'm not sure how many times I've called you this past week,
probably none, considering I don't like talking to you, (especially on the phone).
I'm not even sure if I remember your phone number or not, the numbers just keep mixing up in my head and then I end up calling my hair dresser or the pizza place down the street, (you know the one, with the salad bar that we never eat from).
I don't want to have to keep this up any more, I just want to put white out on those things I said and write over it with something funny or beautiful.
I don't want to have to worry about making the bed either, because it's really hard when you do it by yourself.
So please don't make me leave another message,
pick up the phone and tell me you love me already,
wait,
I don't want you to say it unless you mean it,
so just,
call me back.

I want to live my life backwards,
so that the things that I say will come out right.
I've been spending my time sober in a place that doesn't exist,
and in the end I forgot everything because I was blind(ed).

I'm glad he remembered how good of a kisser I was,
because I didn't forget how good he was either.
He asked me why my hands were so cold
and I said the feeling must have seeped from my heart.

The night went on, we acted like cousins.
It was bitter, but I sat and waited for it to taste good.
His hand was clenched with a fist full of my hair.
We were silent. I felt comfort in his grasp.

We walked, our legs untangled and silent,
the sparkles in the street made the breeze control my heart,
and my legs screamed, burning for more,
begging for closeness, yearning for someone else's skin.

I tried to explain how I felt, but things always come out like pearl laced clouds,
and I don't want my pain to be beautiful,
because that somehow makes it okay.
At one point you realize that it's easier if you just stop caring.