Growing cold behind
My mouth are words I can say
But do not for you

Afar; roses are sweet
Moist, pink, pleasant, their insides
Decay, no one sees

Organs twist and

Struggle uncomfortably

As guilt passes through you

She does not realize
But she is crashing and near
Burning all away

Hey, listen.
You hurt me
Really, really bad.
But it’s okay.
It happens.
**** happens.
We don’t always
See the consequences
Of our actions
It’s okay.
And
If you ever decide
To speak to me again
I’ll be right here
Okay?

He is trapped within
A gruesome ugly shell
That hides his inner
Beauty; makes life hell

She is concealing
Inside a sleek skin
It’s too small and hides
Brains; she is worn thin

Look at you
With your
Masculine charm
Strong jaw
Lined with stubble

Look at me
With my
Feminine sides
Soft smile
With one dimple

You love me
I love
A woman
But you
Do so fearlessly

Stop!

She screamed;
Curling blood coated
Fingers into tightened fists

How is it that you can smile?
I’ve given you a thousand reasons to cry

But

She replied
Lips gnawed raw
As they shaped words

If I can just forget you and see the rest of the world
I have a million reasons to smile

When she breathes in
Her ******* rise slow
As do my eyes
To catch a sight
When I breathe sin

Hey, did you hear yet?
About that sweet girl that died?
Cruelty killed her

I like to throw parties
Atypical of most sixteen year olds
With nice homes or
Any semblance of social lives

I like to throw parties
Without that horrid throbbing bass
Free of that hormonal chaos
That reeks on the furniture for weeks

I like to throw parties
The way that God likes to write our fates
Pulling strings to drag the misfits and the dorks
Together in one place

I like to throw parties
Where happiness is what is expected
Laughter is what is anticipated
Cause everyone there is meant to be

Scalp is shielded and shoulders are blocked
By a hideous river of ****** locks

Murky eyes are shot and marred with
Darkly colored crescents and dots

Lips are chapped and gnawed
In the midst of releasing fumes from skin that’s raw

Is she cool enough for you now?

We sit in a café
Ceramic mugs of
Seasonally appropriate beverages
Wrapped in our grips

Surrounded by folks who also have
Ceramic mugs of
Seasonally appropriate beverages
Wrapped in their grips

But we are not here
To chat on about the weather
Our significant others
Or careers; no

We certainly are not
You glance at me
In a nearly
Conversational manner

“So you had your heartbroken”
You say, a combination of an
Unsurprised sneer and a nostalgic frown
Upon your face

“So I had my heartbroken”
I repeat, my lips cracked and my mouth
Blistering slowly from the heat
Of my seasonally appropriate beverage

“Are you, like the good little kid you are,
Doing the things
That they tell good little kids
To do in order to recover from such an ordeal?”

“I am, like the good little kid I am,
Doing the things
That they tell good little kids
To do in order to recover from such an ordeal”

“I haven’t even given into that
Deep, gut wrenching temptation
To do something terribly
Terribly destructive”

I state this in a mockingly proud way
Before pinching my chapped lip between my teeth
And gnawing on it until a swell of blood
Dripped into my seasonally appropriate beverage

“But what I have found”
I say, slowly, licking my coppery lips
“Is that despite all these
‘Coping Mechanisms’”

Your expression is inquisitive
Brow raised, eyes lit up
Like storm clouds with lightning
Stirring somewhere behind them

“I suppose you’re wondering why…”
I state slowly, before sighing an a
Somewhat irritated manner
"I’ve thought this thought too many times before..."

“Because no matter what
My mind refuses to even ponder
The thought that I am meant
For anyone but her”

You fool
Yes I know
That it’s unfair
How lovely it feels
To have another
Human being
Another woman if we’re specific
Another sin
To be pressed against your body
Yes I know that’s what it feels like, you fool
How could I not?

You fool
Yes I know
How sickly wonderful it feels
To capture their lovely lips
They’re kissing soft and gentle lies
That seem so
Perfect
That they must be illegal
Like some sort of unknown treachery
I know that’s what it feels like, you fool
How could I not?

You fool
Yes I know
That it’s unfair
How distortedly gorgeous
All those other women are
Like a **** unlawful drug
Hallucinogenic and hypersensitive
Able to light your senses on fire
With just a taste
I know that’s what it feels like, you fool
How could I not?

You fool
Yes I know
That it’s unfair
I know that’s what it feels like, you fool
How could I not?
I too have
Indulged in that pleasure
And now I lead an
Ever tasteless life because
That pleasure will always be a
Sin

I need you
I need you like oxygen
Or food or water or sleep
Though I’ve made it through stinted periods without you
I always come crawling back in withdrawal
I could call you an addiction, but you aren’t; you’re a blessing
Like I needed the razor I kept in my hoodie pocket
You cut through life’s ******* the same way that blade did
But without bubbling blood up through my skin
The crawl space I used to cry in could never comfort me like you
You pry open my eyes to harsh, enlightening reality
That space was a blanket of blissful ignorance over necessary truth
I could call you an addiction, but you aren’t; you’re a blessing
I always come crawling back in withdrawal
After stinted periods without you
I’ve made it without food or water or sleep
I’ve made it without oxygen
But I need you

This is a tricky game
Infatuation floods the chest
Instantly; but it isn’t water
Far too vast for that
It’s warm, syrupy and thick
Wreaking havoc and
Producing symptoms
Glazed eyes
Flushed cheeks
Formed through
Indulgent nights
Grinning
Giggling softly
Instead of sleeping
It all feels so good
Within your chest
You would never want to
Rid yourself of it
But infatuation is disorderly
Overwhelming and easily spread
A molasses mess of fantasy
Of everything you think you feel
Once those feelings
Curdle inside your chest
Into a hardened truth
You will not be able
To breathe

My thumbs begin
To brush her skin

In loving care
Soft attention

Then she starts to
Burn up and cry

Insanity

I’d like to name
My child
Peter
Parker

Then raise him
On Spiderman
Producing an
Intended coincidence

But it’d be
Alright
If he liked
Batman; too

takes
your hands
rough and ******
in one fatal swoop
melts the iron around them
as she has done many times before

Maybe I’m just weird
But it seems rather
Strange to me

That it is only I
The gay atheist
Will say the pledge

All the others around me
Cocooned in warm ignorance
Refuse to address rights only they have

The foreign feel

This cool plastic

Pressed to rough

Skinny artist’s fingers

A gentle pressure

Spills inked expressions

Cursive scrawl confessions

I submit myself

To this oddity

Relearning how to

Embrace myself again

I love you so much
I would crack open your skull
Pluck out your brain
Read your thoughts

But apparently that’s not socially
Acceptable
So I suppose I’ll settle
For holding your hand instead

I wish I was like a key chain
A thin metallic tie to keep
The plastic shell of my mind
A series of silver links
That would jingle whispers
Of my entirety and body
Without really revealing
Anything about me

How will I know
When I am in love?

When she knows I don't have
Any of the answers

Yet it doesn’t change
The way she looks at me

Knowledge
Has called to my curiosity
Beckoned my interest
Summoned my attention
I have learned too much
Far too soon

Knowledge
Has found its clutch on my mind
Has wriggled into my conscious
Has weighed down my thoughts with guilt
I have learned too much
Far too soon

Knowledge
Has infested my thoughts
Has rotted my mind
Has eaten my innocence alive
I have learned too much
Far too soon

Dear fairy tale movie industry,
Please fulfill my childhood dreams
And make a gay princess
Sincerely, we don’t all want a prince charming

Pop
“God!” She snap at me
Pop
Hair flying like mad as she whipped around
Pop
“Why do you always pop your knuckles?”
Pop
Her green eyes would be blazing as she’d rant
Pop
“You know it drives me nuts yet every day”
Pop
Her mouth would twist with frustration
Pop
“Without fail you pop them! Why?”
Pop
I don’t think she was ever expecting my response
Pop
“Because, love,”
Pop
“If didn’t you’d never even look at me”
Pop
“And I wouldn’t get to see that pretty face”
(Pop)

A part of me
Is going to be lost
To a white gold band ring

A part that flings
To occupy an entire king bed
All by her lonesome

A part that consumes
Cold bacon at noon
On Saturdays

A part that constructs
Towers of unwashed laundry
Taller than skyscrapers in Dubai

A part that represents
My disgusting
But honest personality

A part of me
Is going to be lost
To a white gold band ring

And that’s alright with me

I do my
Best thinking
When I am cold
And I do not mean cold
Such as
Mild shivers and
Light body quakes
I mean
**** straight
Runny nose
Over the top
Wooly sweaters
And hot chocolate
To soothe
My frozen bones


I suppose the
Intensity
The feel of my
Frigid skeleton
Pressed against my
Clammy Skin
Wakes me up


So I sit there
****
(Because God knows those sweaters were hideous…)
With a glass
Of frosted judgement
And ponder over thoughts
That were previously resolved
Only to reconsider


Why in God’s name
Did I say that to her?
Do his stares really mean
What they imply?
Did I leave the stove on?
Till my mind
Liquefies
To mere mush
And the chills
Overtake my curiosity
Are replaced by
A mug of hot beverage
Of my usual lukewarm distaste

A blonde woman sitting on a brick ledge
Is throwing her hands, calloused and raw

The hands of an aging artist

Into seamlessly meshed gestures
Grand but sometimes ridiculous motions

To narrate a story for an amused spectator

She lives for the smiles of her listeners
But lives off the change they drop in her cup

With a bright smile that’s secretly melancholy

Due to the choice she made; to live a free, happy life
Without the burdens of disappointed onlookers

Completely alone

I watched the sneer
Curl up like a crinkling leaf

Into the shiny red
Of those shapely lips

They were like roses
Soft, damp and thick

Or cranberry stains
Sweet and lingering

(I could never tell which)
All I knew was

They were always
My favorite

They tell us to forget
Our past flames
And our broken romances

But I do not want to forget
Because I can still remember
So, so, so many things

I can remember
That time you said
That I just made you “so, so so happy”

That you loved the way
I lit up into a goofy smile
When you did certain things

That the thought of us
Together into even adulthood
Was a lovely thought

They tell us to forget
Our past flames
And our broken romances

But why, why why
Why would I ******* want to forget
Those things, how you made me feel

Even if you don’t
Feel them or say them
Anymore

The thought of those times
Makes me so so so
**** happy

And yet the thought of those times
Makes me so so so
**** sad

Oh
Maybe that’s why
Well then

Just call me
Ms. Self Destructive
Then

It’s as if I miss you
enough to put a hole

In the mid of my chest

I could do it myself
With a knife or a gun

But this aching I feel

Apparently it’s a
Natural reaction

Some ****** thing called love…

Lips

Peculiar

Yours?

Vanilla

Sharp

Blades

Am I dying?

(I mean it Ma,
Click back now
I’d rather not scar you
Or cost us even more money
On therapy)**

The first time I had ***
I felt horribly guilty afterwards
I can only guess as to why

Maybe it was because I was the ‘boy’
Of the circumstance
The one thrusting and holding her up

The one that didn’t get to ***
The first go around
The one to wash their fingers clean in the aftermath

While the ‘girl’ wiped up her nether regions
Put her pants back on
And remained in an ‘aftersex’ glow

Maybe it was because I was the ‘boy’
Of the circumstance
That I was the one that ‘took’ something

But whatever the reason
Is irrelevant because within days
This guilt faded

As did any taste of regret
Vaguely reminiscent of the
Taste of her ***

And replacing said guilt
Was love; strong and (now) poignant
Beyond my years

And she is gone; literally so,

Thus replacing said love
Was pain; strong and poignant
Beyond my years

Replacing said pain
Was another type
Quite common of my age

A madly bruised hand
To be exact;
Courtesy of my teenage idiocy

Replacing my physical pain and idiocy
Was another girl
One that could never be ‘her’

I cannot kiss this girl
It’s all so different
All so ******* wrong

I can’t stand her braces
And the taste of sour milk
That is always marinating in her mouth

I can’t stand this girl
But it is not her fault
It’s, to mimic a cliché,

It’s me, not her
And I am, genuinely,
Sorry for her


But I am so, extremely, pathetically
More sorry
For myself

Every once in awhile I would see
Her façade weaken to a breaking point
She would shut down and cry in front of me

She’d let me comfort her
Run my fingers through her hair
Touch the planes of her skin in soothing ways

Listening as I whispered consolations
Completely unaware or perhaps just
Too exhausted to even care

That I was relishing her failure and the
Intimate opportunity it gave me
To touch and try to win her over

Till she reset her mask of power
Forcing her to put me back in place as her
Devoted best friend and hapless desirer

Golden boy

On ivory stone
He has the women
Makes them moan

I am cursed to be alone

I struggle to express myself
With words anymore

Instead I’ve taken to the
Slightly masochistic method

Of running like mad
As means of release

My feet pounding on the pavement
My muscles screaming in agony

Up to the painful peaking point
Where everything finally numbs

It feels like every hurtful mental musing
Has been forced out of my body

My mind finally quiets if only for a short while
At which point I lace my sneakers and repeat

My poetic, ever vital *****
The loving heart

Was born with a deformity
It is crippled

For it only ever beats
Muted rhythmic thumps

It pumps blood and oxygen
But not love

And unfortunately my brain cannot
Produce such feelings

Nor steer my life as
Love might do

So I live; ever crippled
By odd deformity

Forget his ******* eye color
The February slush
Is far from memorable
I hate loving mush

Can you not see mine
They're filled with the rush
Of never ending
Strong love which is lush

How do you perceive?
Those soft greens must gush
Blinding blood as you
Love him; make me shush

Her face
Sour
A washed out ugly gray
Similar to that of dishwater
With greenish clumps
That closely resemble
Expired milk clods
For eyes

Her hair
Worn out
An expanse of stringy greased mess
As if she’d dunked it into a fry cook’s sink
With the occasionally highlight
Of a darker, muddy brown
Like Mother Nature gave up on a painting
And left her

Her body
Frail
A structure of porous bones and blood
A once pure white soiled with brownish red speckles
The devoured remains of a media wolf’s snack
Unable to really hold itself up
It shudders and shakes constantly
Sort of like a hypothermic deadbeat

So undeniably ugly
Disgusting feeble and poor
Yet somehow
Against what all the yet of you see
I see something gorgeous
Something that could be loved
What I see in her
I love

Her face is a sour
Washed out ugly gray
Similar to that of dishwater
With greenish clumps
That closely resemble
Floating milk clods in the
Center of her face
For eyes

Her hair is a worn out
Expanse of stringed greasy mess
As if she'd dunked it into a fry cook's sink
And left it to sit
With the occasional underscore
Of a darker, muddy brown
Streaks of feces throughout her head
For highlights

Her body is such a frail
Structure of porous bones and blood
A once pure white is soiled with
Brownish blood red speckles and smears
Like the horrid remains of a wolf’s meal
She can’t even hold herself up and she
Shudders and shakes constantly like some
Sort of like a hypothermic deadbeat

She’s so undeniably ugly and
Disgusting feeble and poor
But how would you feel if I
A relatively sane, accepted member of society
Was able to see something in this horrid girl that I loved?
You’d never accept it and you’d no longer recognize me
For finding love the wasn’t perfectly suited to your ideals
My love has to be pretty

Pretty pink rose bush
Looks so nice from a distance
Up close is rotted

It's not far on this path
That we would go
It’d be a stumble away
If you would just go on and run
I know you won't take the plunge

If I could push you
Just shove you over the edge
I might do it cause
You would catch yourself
I know you won’t take the plunge

This thing we’ve been doing
It’d be gone by now if it’d meant nothing
It would've faded out by now like a dream
Clearly we’ve got something better than that
I know you won’t take the plunge


I've been waiting for months now
You know that no one gets my attention like that
I’ve been hanging around even though I doubt
You’ll ever grow a pair and finally man up
I know you won’t take the plunge

They crawl and creep
Through the streets
On skinny hands and calloused knees

Sometimes they don’t have hands
Or sit on the curb and rattle demands
From the contents of the plastic cups or cans

So we cannot hear their teeth
Under the blustery air that follows beneath
The passing wealthy folks’ feet

We spent a night
Where the moon was looming
And yellow
Above our heads and far from our fingertips

He told me the moon
Was mine to keep
I just had to reach out
And take it

So I did

We spent a night
Where his heart was looming
And red
Beneath my head and far from my fingertips

I told him his heart
Was mine to keep
I just had to reach out
And take it

But I didn’t

Ha!
Laugh at me
Throw trash at me
Strip me down
Expose me; please

Rip away my crusted exterior
To see what’s really inside
It’s putrid I’m sure
It’s foul and nasty
It’s just the disgusting trash
You anticipated it’d be
It couldn’t be anything more
Right?

With your manicured nails
And photo shopped perfection
You could never be wrong
In seeing what I
In my raw essence
Could be
I could never be anything worthy

But tell me please
What you
In all your perfection
Would do
If it turned out that I were
Pretty?

There is a boy
That I was
Absolutely enamored with
Awhile ago

I think part of what
Built up my
Obsession
Was our metaphors

“You’re so strong
Yet gentle;
So fierce but tender;
You’re nearly a lion”

“I can’t even stand how
Gorgeous you are
How you seem to know it all
My lovely, lovely Athena”

But the worst of all
What literally
Kept me up at night
Didn’t become a metaphor until today

We had a mutual love
Not of a typical interest
No; you see we were
Moon fanatics

He loved the moon
I loved the moon
And I have realized that I
Was ‘moony eyed’ over him

I would
Rather be
An empty
Pretty
Shell
Of beautiful lies

Than a
Faulted
Full figure
Of blatantly flawed
Imperfect
Truths

I would be called
Hideous
And fat
For carrying the burden
Of truth
And pride

Fashion your figure
Carve each feature to a new
Disguise; another lie