Hi, I'm

little girl, you're a dreamt dancer, a once hopefully ballerina, in a music box that was built at an early age.
bigger life will be reflected back to you, but not for you.

This is my wife,
This is my mother,

young woman, why are you here?
why did you let them do this to you?

I call her Honey.
We call her Mom.

"no, wait, I'm
know me
remember who I am/was," you say.

Honey! Where is...
Mom! Can you...

          , far from the path now.
a maze of thorns and always sickening surprises.

must get the dose right, must make sure the carb count is right, must check that the blood sugar is right for the son who can't do it himself.

life's toss of a coin, suspiciously rigged perhaps? superstition? i don't know, but you're cornered, back to the wall, no railing.

must do all the paper work, must support all of his dreams, must do all of the planning, mustn't have time for yourself, your life.

must continue.

HONey! I need you to...
Mom! Look at...

where have you gone, dreamt dancer?
oh, to the Graveyard.
inside the mind where wild thoughts and hopes and adventure go to pass.

no support, only frayed webbing leading to nowhere, or to venom, sister, brother, "friend".

only you now. and me I guess. unwilling, but an understanding therapist. an angry observer and a tired voice. the daughter to the mother.

Well, what the **** do you want me to do, HONEY!
Mom! Come here!

you're tired, I know. painful sleep and long nights dedicated to other people along with your mind. your body, your bones are load bearing. it's an incalculable weight when caring for others.

Insert Your Name Here:

HONEY! HONEY! HONEY!

I don't know, HONEY! HONEY!

Mom! Mom! Mom!

Hey, Mom!

The lilt of silence
exists within a room
a ceiling high and warm
the sound is rounded
as it lays longingly on the window sill
where the dust settles and the day joins in
it is dull and worn like soft leather
And when crammed into a closet
arms length and abrupt
it falls short of being anything more than
a breath

But when silence is allowed to spread
over gentle bodies
and soak deep into the wood
life feels timeless and free

in the lilt of silence

why do i build my houses out of leaves
each house for each Name

i stand them up, fingers coaxing them, willing them to stay
knowing full well that even the sunlight weighs too heavy

but i stack one on top of the other, a skyscraper of myself
hoping it'll be different this time as it sways, a sickening motion

a drop of rain causes the rooves to collapse as i struggle to keep so many of them up with my palms, using my spine load-bearing

they are stable, my fingers braced against the walls, my feet digging into the mud, my back arched and twisted, and i tell myself it's worth it

the large storm finally grays the skies and my houses are rustling at the pressure and i rearrange it all to cover them, godless prayers

lightning crackles and burns through the clouds to impact the ground
and i can't stop it

my houses begin to flutter apart like frightened birds as i try to grasp at them with damaged hands but i miss

a flash of bright white, the sun devouring the earth, and a splitting snap of wood and facade

a tree motions towards me and my pile of scattered leaves
but the mud is to my knees and my hands are clambering at fistfuls and my eyes are wide as it gets closer

And I find out nothing you said ever meant anything at all.

I could watch the trees
every waking hour
But in the evening
when the smell of lilacs drift around me
When the spring air kisses
one if the many green fingers of an oak
And the light,  filtered and plush, lingers
Begging to stay
Just a few more moments
is my favorite
I am moved
by these Last Moments
because soon the light will be gone
and the dark will fill every curve and every edge
because it will never be the same way
again

The snowflakes
they taught me
that something so
blindingly soft
can set delicate skin alight
Causing scorched red fingertips
I set my hands on fire as I bury them
A white inferno
Because memories
these memories
are screaming at me
A cauldron of tender moments and anguished faces and plans that have yet to be fulfilled, and never will be, and brusing and dying dreams and brilliant words laced with tired tones
And I wish I could burn them, the memories, like photographs
In a blaze, they'd all disappear
nothing but smoke, a warm whisper, of something forgotten
But the snowflakes
they taught me
the pain is only present
when I stick my hands in too deep

Love feels like

Sitting in the passenger's seat
while your favorite song floats out of the speakers
and They're driving with one hand on the wheel and the other
clamped delicately on your leg
and the night has set in
and the lights are fully in bloom
and the heat of the day mingles with your breath
because the windows are down
and you turn the radio up

Dear Moon

I haven't seen your face
in
                                            god knows how long
a while

How have you been
up there
                                                                ­ oceanic endless well of stars
in the sky

I
                                         want to die
could be better, you know?

I've just been feeling
                                                  like lint, unwanted and worthless
down lately

Tell me, Moon
                                   tell me it's all okay
what it's like to be so free

But I know your vow of silence
                                                  wood-sp­lintering quiet
ends in eternity

I run here
when things are bad

Here I am

because You are sticking your fingers
down my throat and plucking out vertebrae
until I can't move
caught in your shadow
until I begin choking

and You hang off me like a wet shirt
two sizes too big and unfeeling
I try to throw You off
but You're clawing at my legs and
pulling me down to the dirt
from the soil that you crawled up from

With You
it's like the city took a breath and held it
and I'm holding mine too
because any sudden move
and I'm thrown to the ground
and my neck snapped back by my hair

You are the monster in my closet
the beast in the hollowed parts of my chest
the voice in my head that plants seeds of doubt
and I'm done with You

But You keep coming back

Your fingers

are inside

         my

                 wet

                          warm

throat

pulling out

                        sighs

of desperation

and cries

that thunder down like rain

What should I say?

                    Tell me about love

Love is sticky
like tack
in your mouth
clinging to the back of your tongue
your teeth
making them rot

                    Tell me you won't fall in love with someone else

I don't want to
feel it
hang from my rib cage like string,
tying me up inside
only to turn to razor wire when
when I'm done

                  Tell me what love is

It's a choking hazard
a worm crawling in your heart
making a home
and when it leaves
there's nothing left
Love is a city
full of lights and exhaust,
blinding and suffocating
It's a summer turned winter
no clothes, bareboned

                    Tell me, do you love me still?
yes.

I catch myself
thinking of our plans
that don't exist
now

and like trees
I'm shaken
in the wind
of what we once had

and I fall
into daydreams
and you're there
but I remind myself
that
you're not
and
we're done
like evaporated water

and it's strange
to think that the future of
you and I
are
no
longer
you and I

but it has to rain sometime

i didn't think i'd write about you like this
ending up here in a space that wasn't meant for you

in the beginning

i didn't think you'd end up in here as a past tense
as a memory
chalked up as a tragedy, a pile of words

as a goodbye

this isn't how i imagined
us

I wish someone had told me
while I sat in frilled white socks
and a pink dress on Easter
that love isn't just
for one and only one

I wish someone had told me
that while I would fall for a few
or many
that guilt was useless
because time is thin
and people are sudden
and you can't help what you see

While I watched judges, pastors, shamans
tie the legality of love together in bows or Gordian knots
no one ever told me about the power of eyes
or how to feel about fluttering caused by another
while I'm supposed to remain landlocked with just one someone

Now I'm sick
because of all the feelings screaming through my fingers, curling them, and I have nowhere to place them, and yelling falls in the quiet because I'm guilty
guilty
guilty
of thinking about others
when, apparently, I'm only supposed to think of you

I wish someone had told me
that love is not an is or isn't
It's a maybe, how are you, do you like ramen, music, don't leave, goodbye
And it most certainly hurts
when you aren't sure what to do about the others
who's eyes are pools and who lure you to the edge and pull you in and then you lose them altogether

Why did no one tell me

I feel the lull of the sun, day by day, and wonder if I have to

When the moon, hanging on a string, shifts the tides

and pulls me in.

Do I have to

When the screams of glittering stars fall around me

and break in my palms, slicing my hands,

and the sun and the moon beg for my face to turn unwavering

Do I have to

I find myself holding my breath for you
when I'm down in the subway
dark and dingy
I'm waiting to see you
in between people
or through the grime and grease windows
on a train going the other way

I swallow up the air
when I'm out in the city
turning around cold corners
and blinking to change the scene
of the faces in front of me
as the thought of bumping into you
turns my palms wet and sweaty

I'm holding my breath for you
but my vision is blurry and
there's a strain going down my neck.
I hope you're holding your breath for me too

I have been picking up more poetry lately
tightly bound in little books
ink blots on long gone trees

I hope that by reading more poetry
more lines and rhymes and colorful analogies
I could become a writer with words worth reading

I have read those books with prose
disguised as poetry, lacking meaning
and depth with such phrases like
You Are Air and I Breathe You In

I cannot stand the uselessness of prose
without thought
but I also cannot stand poetry
without impact

But I will keep collecting poetry
someone's thoughts on delicate pages
in case I happen upon someone else's words
worth reading

I wait for
the golden hour to strike
and flood my room
with gilded lethargic light
but it does not come

I wait for
the stark bright white
of the many-faced moon
to fill
the onyx heavy night
but it does not come

I wait for
the sky to be set alight
by the glittered stars
falling and stationary alike
but it does not come

It's been so long

I wait

Why are you so
familiar to me

You can't know the waves
until you have experienced their roar
that comes out of the bubbled seafoam
or their intensity
that uprushes your legs
and lures you towards the setting horizon

You can't know music
until you have been pulled in
by the thrum of a guitar that echoes
into your heart
or the emotion that overflows through
your fingertips and your eyes
when the chord has struck

You can't know the sun
until you have encountered
its sweltering heat in midsummer
that fills your lungs to the brim
and draws out every piece of energy
through your skin
or the softness of the glow
that is filtered lighted through
the red and orange leaves
on a brisk autumn day

So why are you
so familiar to me

You don't know
just how you've
destroyed it

Just how you've
created spaces
replaced it all with air

Just how you've
let the dust settle
in between the floorboards
and our fingers

Just how you've taken
all the thunder
and left
nothing
but the rain

What do you do
sunflower
when your petals
wilt

When the heat of the
day
comes down in
sheets
and the humidity
withers your
spine

When will you
turn
your face away
from the
sun

There is something
heartbreaking
about watching snow fall
There is something
that twists inside
as the snowflakes glint in the lights,
as millions of them
land heavenly on bitter earth
The softness of the silence,
like every sound is suspended delicately
in time,
should have a deafening scream rip through it all
as if a slow-motion car crash just might
take place at any moment
because
there is something
heartbreaking
about watching snow fall

Inhaling cigarette smoke is like inhaling the sun entirely
It is like solar flares are shooting down your throat into to your heavy chest
But it is worth the pain that it gives when you quickly exhale the curling smoke into the streetlamp lit night as your fingers tremble and you breathe in crystal clear air
It is a sense of comfort
It is like love
Because love can burn your being and consume your flesh and your eyes
But love can calm your soul and revive your sore lungs
from that time you sobbed because of when he...
When she...
When they...
When life...
Love is like cigarette smoke
It can float and wisp around you and bring you peace
but it can suffocate you until you can no longer breathe.

Time is a dandelion sprouting up between jagged cracks in the sidewalk
It is a child ripping that dandelion from the ground
Time is standing at a truck stop between here and nowhere at midnight
It is the empty dark and the smell of gasoline
Time is fingers playing a black grand piano effortlessly
It is the splintering of the piano string
Time is a fluorescent, sterile doctor's office after a collapse
It is the "I'm so sorry"
Time is the green tiled bathroom with the broken shower curtain
It is the positive and it needs to be the negative
But time is not the ticking of the clock
But it is the sound that softly ricochets off the walls as you lie awake

Body is sinking to, through the linoleum floor
Hands are raking through the rough hair
Raking down the face
Raking down
Down
Breath is clawing its way up from the burning lungs
Heart is beating to keep up with the beat of a mind's recession
And tears are heaving themselves to their deaths
And sobs are leaking out of the mouth, trying to escape through the cracks in the walls
And time ticks like a car crash happening in slow motion
And I'm losing my ******* mind, constant screaming and ripping
And I'm falling through
And the bed, and the routine, and me are suffocating
And only the man in the moon will be here to comfort me
but even sometimes he goes away too

I stand on the edge
of the obsidian water
that has pooled together
Touching the tips
of my bare toes
of my bare bones

I am curious
to see what lies
on the other side
of the water
and my reflection
beckons me
but it is different than I

I am strong
I am the swell of the ocean
I am natural
I am a petal refusing to bow to the rain
I am exposed
I am content in my nakedness

But my reflection is inviting
as she waves to me
to come over to the other side

I am falling head first
into the pool
and I feel every hair
being ripped and laid
perfectly in place
and I feel my face
become malleable wax

And as I emerge
from the pool
on the other side
I am gasping
My skin is red and smooth
My hair is shiny and long
My face is smiling and demure

But my ocean is a puddle to be stepped in
But my petals are to be plucked at any given moment
But my nakedness is to be shamed and clothed

And as I look around
a myriad of pools
surround me
with people
who are just as horrified
as I am

because we are not who we are.

They're coming
The onyx hands out of the suffocating dark
They want to wrap their bony, jagged fingers around my mind
They want to pull forth
every floating word, every idle
malevolent
thought
about the impending future
I pull back
I pull away from them
I hide and forget

They're here
The onyx hands lurch out and pluck every stagnated
putrid
thought
about the cracked future
and compound them into the front of my mind
I'm struggling as the thoughts cut into me and
snake around me and
cover my body and
crush my throat and
fill my nose and

They're gone
The onyx hands have receded to the hole they live in
I am bruised blue and purple
I am bleeding
everywhere
My lungs are raw and rubbing together like sandpaper
My broken eyes spill over
My mind sees nothing
I am not breathing
I am not moving

I am

                             Fine

I'm just soaking
in it
Just counting the
minutes
Blood stained water
             in
                 the
                      tub
It's hardly the time now
is it
When you're breaking a
little bit
Shoving purple fists
                into
                       walls
I just can't help
it now
You'll have to show
me how
Not to cut myself into
          internal
                        scars
I'm so sorry
that I
Can't keep my ****
face dry
But the water is above
               my
                   head
You could do so much
better
Instead you chose to keep getting
wetter
This tub has been keeping
                 you
                        in
I can't seem get out of
my skin
And I kept thinking where
have you been
It has started to fill up
              my
                    lungs
But you have decided to
stay afloat
While I begin to sink beneath
the boat
At least I can see you
          breathing
                           still

Sliding down drywall
my body is heaving
my hands are sweating
my vision is leaving
The creaking of aching widows
slam shut around, around, around
until all have fallen down
                                              down
                                                         down
I dig my fingernails in between the floorboards
uprooting them as I concave
and as my throat become desert shores
I inhale rust and sand
as my nails rip away from my hand
My eyes shutter up to the ceiling
where the blood begins to seep
in between the hairline fractures
caused by incoherent weeping
I let go of the floor
and out stretch my macabre hand
as the rubies fall from wooden sky
and into the canyons that my body withstands
I let the red iron slip off my fingertips
and onto the saw dust floor
where it lands softly
unlike I had done before
And my salt water fell to meet it
as it slid off my chin
plummeting towards the crimson
where my nails are pounded into the timber
now soaked with tears and blood so I remember
Every time I look at myself
I see my own personal hell
as my face glitches in contortion
because all I see is distortion.

Humidity in theory
harbors images
of nights lit up
by bioluminescent flying jewels
that you catch in between your fingers
like a cage too large
and they fly away
into the sky.
The evenings are thick
with sweltering droplets
that hang beneath
the orange street lights
that cast a muted glow
onto your salty lips
and hazy eyes.
The day's steam.
And as the water fills your lungs
And as your clammy hands run through sweaty hair,
summer is alive.

Humidity in practice
invents beads running down your back
that pool in your shirt
and matted hair that sticks
to the nape of your tender neck
while you claw at your throat,
suffocated breathing
in between the condensation.
The days are layered with
mirages on the bubbling asphalt
like a sea that only burns you
and the yellow lines are
the only safe haven
when crossing the street
with just your soles.
The summer's plastic bag.
And as the sun blisters your skin
And as your hands only long for arctic rain from a calcium faucet,
summer is alive.

The gray is fading into black
Clouds smudging into night
Like tar snuffing out the light

I walk in balmy weather
as I see my breath turn to wisps

The snow has begun

I feel the heft of a flake
brush, then land definitely on my skin
As I wipe it away
pastel black stains my frame

And I walk along the grid of roads
My path made, there is none
Just the cinder
The snow of bodies
Cremate

The smell of chaos lingers
here
petrified in the outlines
of ghosts on the walls
Silhouette

The air is sludge
draped in wool
stuffing my body
in between
the drifting specks
Burnt

I'm so aware it's silent
like the brief moment after eradication
A pulsing sound that
blacks out
Gasping

Shuttering eyes, I look up
Noticing the giants of the city
Steel bone, firebrick skin, glass eyes
Empty as these transparent mirrors reflect my
frozen, sweaty hands
touch the soot suffocating the street
Wondering whose footsteps are these?

Wish it would stop raining
Stop humming
Stop thrumming
The crystals of the clouds
collide like kaleidoscope colors
as they melt into each other
on the rugged roof of a
dark home
Wish it would stop raining
Stop silence
Stop distance
The house is deafening empty
emitting the hollowing
like carving out a heart
Wish it would stop raining
Stop thinking
Stop blanking
The relay station is skipping
and skidding cycles like
the record player isn't live
Stop raining

Trailer park, white washed homes
Spouting about god and his power
when your god has no power to me
So take it to the Pit
where it might do some good
or swallow you in you entirety, burning

School yard, miniature "angels"
Regurgitating your ignorant tar
from parents of the rural
You love to mimic the words of god, don't you?
But your god apparently has no power to change you
Irony

Public spaces, wireless platforms
You believe he will make a cleansing
of race, of gender, of sexuality, of place
Such a sickening person, aren't you?
Impressive hate, from god

I know the angel of obscurity is long in the future
But I'm already there
I'm already there
You **** me everyday
and everyday I can't wait to die
Your gentle moving fingers skim my sun withered skin
like the pages of an archaic atlas of stars
Tracing me like I lead to the brightest quasar
Folding me up and leaving me on the bed
While I wait for the time you need to search
for your way home again
And I'm already there
I'm already there
Swaying and drooping under your presence
Like a flower drinking in the cascading rain
I dance in the downpour of you
Concrete is this
A thousand myriads of infinities
could not define you
and me
us.

Cradling life in my heart
isn't my breath
isn't my need
I have clutched in my piano fingers
prism colors, shaped, circle square circle circle
Taking one like being doused in rain
I'm swaying
I  s  m  e  a  r  the rest into
my hungry release
I whisper my loss of feeling
Finally fading

I hope you're alone now
and feel the weight of loss beneath your eyes
Why did you have to turn into an executioner
and put our lives on the tip of the knife
Like a spyglass I see into you
and your tar pit glazed gold
You weren't what you should have been

When you painted galaxies on him
you didn't realize the gravity
When you nearly let me convulse from the heat inside
you didn't realize the pressure
I hope you're alone now
to feel the absence of what you could have had

I remember
when
I was little
I
was oblivious to the
monster
that lived in his
shoes
I didn't notice
or
care to remember what you
did
But every emotion went
black
when you merely wiped it all away with a flick of your
hand
like you had back
then
And suddenly everything was thrown into
hysteria
like how that F5 should have hit you, but didn't
And
now you are too far gone to ever realize what you've
done

Slam me into that unforgiving wall
Take handfuls of my hair and pull
while I cry out into the home of dark
Drag your rough fingers up my hips
to my naked ribs while I fight you
Let your lips find their way to my broken ones
Sore from having done this before
Bruised because I asked you to
Pick me up and let me wrap my shaking legs
around your bare waist
Push me onto cloud nine
So beyond lust or love
we collide like light against dark
Constant
Oh, how good it feels to have your presence
touch mine
We're gone but together

They are all around us
The vibrations of a radiation
that allows us to touch one another
like ripples across a pond
Those radio waves
are floating, dancing
across every surface
like delicate dancers
But they fly like shrapnel
Colliding with antennas
that beg for the wave
the rush

And I
wait for these invisible wavelengths
like those little antennas
Wishing I could feel the
emitting particles as they
pass through me
so I can feel your message
before the specks cram themselves
into my phone's receiver
like lost souls fleeing from the dark

But I am grateful for these radio waves
for they allow me a chance
to talk to you
everyday until
we no longer need them

What scares me the most is
the fact that I will never see you again
I'm scared that when we're old that
I will be withered by time like
paper left in the sun
I'm scared that we will be frail
with bones like glass that
will fails us
I'm scared that time will have gone by
too quickly as we look back and try to grasp
all that we had lost
I'm scared of when we shut our eyes
for the last time and then that
is it for us
What scares me the most is
the fact that I will never see you again
I'm scared

"Let's go somewhere."
Where should we go?
"Anywhere. Europe, perhaps?"
That sounds wonderful.
"Though, you don't belong in Europe."
I don't?
"No, you belong among the stars."
The stars?
"Yes, so you can float among the pure light of galaxies. So you can be among the string of the universe's jewels that shine so bright."
I do not belong out there.
"You're too good and too pure for anything this world has to offer. You belong where evil can't touch you. Where you can have serenity. Where you can walk in starlight. Forever."

It's coming.
"It'll be okay."
Everything is going to disappear.
                    I look upwards and mentally start the countdown
                                                       10...9...8...
"Don't look at it. Look at me. You look at me."
Everything is going to end.
                                            I feel it getting closer
                                                        7...6...5...
"We'll be alright, I promise."
I'm still scared.*
                                                  It's almost near
                                                        4...3...2...
"Don't be."
                     We are crying as I leave him to get on my flight
                                                             1
               Like a nuclear bomb, the 8 am left devastation in its wake
                                           and we are torn apart.