condensation makes
me heavy
but I'm lucky
to have known
the rain

sunlight sunburns
and bruised cheeks
can kiss
until
cracks form along
my skin

but I'm lucky to have
felt
light

I'm so
          so
              blessed
to
constantly
feel so

                                      h e a v y
                                                     &
                                                           l i g h t

sometimes
i'm reminded
about the mineral
mounds within
my brain
and

sometimes
those reminders
are me running
off of the road
in hopes
to
die a
little bit
again.

Skin to knife
Skin to knife
Skin to knife
Knife
To
Skin

There is a light trapped in her room
Where old cigarettes stain
the yellow walls
With a putrid
placidity
Not natural
not her own
like the rows on her hips
that wont fade
or the love stuck
to her already puckered lips
she can talk
but wont quit

It's deeper than that
she says
yet the atmospheric
pressure is still
and her mind

chaotic

  calm

      chaotic

             calm



                       crash

Lately when I drink
I drink at bars two miles
Away from my house
Four shots of whiskey and
I usually get sad and I
Walk home
And the other night
I did that
And caught wind
That was missing
Someone

I began to stumble
My way home
I usually try to look mean
And unapproachable
But still I hear
A "hey baby"
******* can't
See I'm crying
And I turn around
On fire and tell him
To *******
He tells me it's thanksgiving as if
That means ****
To me
And I barrel home
Thinking he doesn't
Know that I am
Just starting to notice
All the cracks in
The pavement
And the empty spaces
Where the honey combed
Brick used to lay
And I'm wishing
I hadn't felt so
Strange toward you

still
      bleeding
like the Earth seeps
carbon carriers
losing air
and trying to fill my
lungs deeper
fuller
trying to
take a look at what
love means
just to catch a glimpse
just to feel
the clutches of
a warm-hearted
half ***
idea of forever
to whisper
3 words
3 syllables
to actually mean it

to hold it in my hands
and watch the warmth melt
freeze
repeat

what is it like?
to hold this
fraudulent thought
in your head for so long
what is it like to
find that forever just walks
                                                                             away?

he said he's just a man
with teeth tearing God's back
he's running on putrid plaque
fate can't control
a foriegn face
in any unknown
place

It's far easier
to believe
that you never really loved me at all
than to drown in the fact
that I just couldn't
keep you
or maybe I just
didn't deserve you quite
like I had imagined

The city
Is swelling
Like the belly
Of an opossum
That was
Hit by a car
On memorial
Despite
The constant
Gridlock of
Folks wasting
Away with their
Air conditioned
Tape deck days

The city is swollen
Like my lower
Lip when
You smacked
Me across my face
And I don't know
How
I ended
Up being the one
To blame

The city is swelling
With people
And somehow
I managed
To never stop
Feeling so
*******
alone

It's funny
How whenever I
Tell someone about a
Trauma they
Always let me know
What I
SHOULD have
Done.

we were emaciated; ruined  
much like the twisted silence at the foot of your bed
a hollow battle field where our hearts would lay
and in nooks of tangled legs and distraught blankets
our secrets would hide

then at night fall they would dissapate
into the cage we called a home,
to poison the atmosphere already swollen
with ambigious thoughts and supressed dreams
  
we wait for rain
and we wait for the sun
but never reach into the atmosphere

so like our secrets we lay dormant
in our monotonous routines
and our open eyed sleep

a year ago
or so
you told me that no one was ever going to love me again
you looked at me and I believed you
you loved me
and love is honest.

i didn't know then
that abusers
take the birds
they love
and scramble to clip
their wings
and then ask them to fly

so
i clung to you because
you were all I was ever going to get
but-
that was
a bit more
than a year or so ago

I was your Saturn sun
I was your darkness won
I was a murdered dove
I was your hated love
I was strong but weak
and I never needed that peak
I tore into your attic
I crushed your velvet pops
I was your addiction
Then your time stopped
I held onto your cracked breath
I held onto your pain
I held onto your sacred touch
I dove into your frozen rain
Every kiss was magic
All the lust was the same
I miss your ****** face
I miss your lullabies

So until I see your swollen heart
I'll love your grave stone
Like I did from the start

Am I upset
At your disappointment?
Or just upset
At the way
It makes me feel?

Old words
Like old songs are
Living old worlds
And still it seems
You can’t escape them

i like the way
your face creases
creep out from under
your glasses
around your eyes
when you smile

learning new lips
like lost lovers
often do

Love seems
that it's half way
unconscious
like
burn on my cheeks
whenever I see
my lover
smile
and
halfway a choice
to be respect
the other
and their emotions
even if that
means
accepting the
fact
they may never
really ever love you back.

Lost in hands locked
Tightly coiled around my finger tip
Bent and broken
For something my lips should slip

Round and round
For better or worse feelings lost within
Numb and aching
Surely you won't let this fluorescent light win

Glasses for night
As your mind would fail to grow
Lost in love
And your name I don't even know

grey tiled
waffle house in
Atlanta, Georgia
I'm about
ten coffee stirrers
apart from you and
my face burns
for the third hour awake
and the mundane
act of loving you.

No one wants
Broken goods
finger to lips
Stolen sips from
Those sweet honey hips
No one wants
A melded mind
Mineral mounds
And uncommon sounds
No one wants you
But mostly no one wants
me hung from a tree
Spoiled she
No one wants my broken
Goods
Baggage Claim
Swallowed in flame
No one wants
My mineral mound
Pumping heart sounds
Tossed around
Abandoned
One two three
What could it be?
No one wants
Damaged goods

Looking for
God
Somewhere between
A love letter lost
In a landfill
And hitting
A hundred
Miles an hour
On the highway

I have a hard time titling poems that I feel didn't introduce themselves to me?  I just found them hiding underneath the way someones eyelashes hit their cheek unnoticed... Or in the way a retiree shuffles off the bus to buy flowers and tea.
I have a hard time titling words that felt borrowed from a moment, small & bruising.

My heart
Doesn't belong in
My stomach
Carving out
A hollow place
An attempt
To hold myself
Together

I walked into
The bathroom for
The third time today
Tiles
Cold and knowing
All the secrets I’ve shared
The ones I haven’t
Beneath my feet
Content with reading
Everything but
The lines between you
And between me
The light peering in
For more poems to
Keep
The beer in my hand
For a last word
To read
The book to my
Left untouched
Water on the stove to heat
And I couldn’t
Keep the warmth
To stay feet tangled
Toes pressed
To seed.

You sleep like the echo
I feel in my teeth
When I go to bed drunk
And spinning
But I’m ok with
Spinning, are you ok
With familiarity?
A closeness you can
Taste then put away
On an untouched shelf
An awareness, granular
And brief.
So sometimes
mornings are
Shoulders to lips
And others are
Hoping you’ll wake

And you said
It’s been a dream
While I’ve been awake
Counting stars on your ceiling
Memorizing each snore into
My neck
Full from food and
Peaceful cinema
You say it’s been a dream
And I’ve always been bad
At telling
The two apart

my mouth
is
as green
as spring
but
that's not to
say that I
only speak
in tethered
tongues
and mindless
music

that's not to say
i haven't thought
thousands of
pretty
words
and then wrote
three
empty pages

that's not to say
i've held on to
dependent ideals
like ivy on the fence

it's really not
for you to
assume

Perfection.
A sun my wax wings won't reach.
                How?
Struggle and pain and all gain.
                Now?
Ok.
         Find my body washed up on the beach.

Void
Without any contents; empty.
Falling asleep feeling under my skin
Subsistence
The state or fact or existing.
Or nothing at all

Have I ever told you about
my wax heart
Melting at the sound
of your half
smoked
slightly ******
Soul
I drip
I trickle
all the way down
your scarred chin
Hoping
that you
might-
one of these days-
     let me
win

You're my bones
Taking up your heavy stones
Can't possibly give me muscle loans
But you're still my bones

Finding time too fast
Crash, rebuild, and crash
Build up and trash

You're always in love
But what do you think it's made of?

Photographs like light captured
From the edge of your smile
Wholesome threat
And your snaggle tooth that at sometime
At some point
I’d pray to never forget

For some reason tonight I feel depressed
like there is a dark nebula forming inside of me.
I know that sounds stupid,
but it's how I picture it in my lungs,
asphyxiating me from inside,
melting my solid structure,
then gently pressing me into the earth,
and the whole time my heart is beating,
                                                        ­  beating,
                                                      ­      beating,
                                                  ­            until it just comes to a slow halt.
And I wonder what it's like to die alone?

my fire is back
whirlwind
wanderer
wistful
whisper
wonderful
woman
my fire is back
and my feet
won't fail
me
this time

it's winter
again
and i'm somehow
always surprised
by the leaves
changing
and dropping
like edits
to your smile

my cupids bow
cracked
from weather,
weathering,
&  the softening
at your touch
crumbling
again and again
just like the leaves
do
in
winter

and I don't think my lips will ever heal

Unfamiliar
Like a dog
Brick alley
And chills of winter
Suited up
In feathered armor
Cold and
Longing for
Home

I can see my heart beat in my eyes
And I can hear the little girl’s cries
Even where the little girl lies
I can see my heart beat in my eyes
I can see the blood in the grass
Even though our love is the mass
Partly because I let him pass
And I can see the blood in the grass
I can feel your pain
Never known any gain
Yet never known any strain
Still I can feel your pain
Is the world its true
Still only blue?

Summers only get hotter
Don’t they?
Spitting cherry pits
On the train tracks
That separate chosewood
From Lakewood
Cherry wood
I like the stain left on
My fingers
My lips
Runny bliss
Sampling the simplicity
Of hot
& sticky
& condensed
Forms of self
Nice girls
Get the chance
To be hurt again
And again
Right?
Do bruised fruits taste less sweet?
Not really sure
Just spitting cherry pits
Onto train tracks

Don't tell me how
   let me discover
   let me live with juvenessance
   and purity.
But then when the time comes
   I will have to experience
   I will be stained with the
       imperfections of the human hand...
                                                                      crushed.
Even then you must let me get *****
                                  let me feel pain.
                                  let me sit on the shore of vastness
                                  and let me contemplate what put me here.
Without suffering we have no reason to fight.
We have no drive for peace.
So let me be born
                        and born again
and let me search over
                                 and over again

                        until I become the one you cannot search for.