there's the freedom
and then there's the silence
i could probably reach out
and break the silence
but it's taboo to tell the truth
except when it came to you

if i tell her i'm on drugs
it'll be oh poor child
announcing it on every tv station
every corner of the world will know
her daughter is better than me
(even though she sleeps with a different
woman every night)
but i'm the one on drugs

and then you tell
your friend and she listens
and she listens
and she listens
until the words float around her head
and stop meaning
and she goes numb
hasn't slept in days
and the words have
lost their meaning
you've repeated the same story
so many times
she'll hear it again
but you lost the impact
and
she won't say
you poor child
it's not what you want to hear
it's what you need to hear
maybe not

the rest of them
the rest of them are gone
and there's that one in the red shirt
but she's talking about knees and bees
and i don't think she wants to talk about me
but i want to talk about me
i want to tell someone how i feel
how the freedom lasted a week
then the silence
then the silence

now the silence

and you used to listen
to my stories of blood and roses
and somewhere in between
the lick of insanity which took away
your pain
and the lick of insanity
that brought it back
you found me
a mouthful of insanity
in a world of the sane
and i took away your pain
to give it back
harder
faster
you made me scream
harder
faster
you made me scream
it hurt
you hurt
you really hurt
but you were the pain
that reminded me
why i lived because
the freedom
then the silence
the silence doesn't feel
it doesn't hurt
i haven't cried in a week
you know?
i haven't cried in a week
and it's probably the drugs
but i haven't cried in a week

oh wait
no, i did cry
they were doing this workshop
and they talked about being forced into giving head
and i cried
i cried
infront of the crowd i cried because
i remembered
and i remember
and it wasn't all bad
it was kinda fun
but you know
the greatest things hurt the most
and i didn't like it very much

maybe it's the drugs.

It's two in the morning,
it's always two in the morning
when nothing seems right
and your smile haunts
and lingers in my periphery.

It's two in the morning
and one candle flickers
in the corner of this
dark and hallowed room.
Etta James plays on repeat
and any stranger looking in
might attribute this scene
to something like love.
Maybe it's halfway there,
as he says my name
in between breaths that take
most of my air, and heartbeats
that drum staccato.
Maybe, just for a moment,
as I shut my eyes
and scream into the darkness,
filling the spaces beneath my nails
with the flesh on his chest,
and my whole body is aglow
with inescapable pleasure-
maybe I love him in that
brief reprieve.

It's two in the morning
and I'm rolling onto my side
over sticky white sheets.
He looks at me
as the singular flame
dances and casts shadows
that paint the arch of my hips
against the stucco,
and he tells me
that he loves me,
and I can't figure it out.
Maybe it's because the light
is so forgiving,
softening this look
of bone deep sorrow
and sickening nostalgia
into something like affection.

Or maybe you were always right
when you called me a sociopath
or a shameless narcissist.
Maybe I like playing with fire-
getting as close to love as possible
before disappearing, before
committing one more satisfying
act of self sabotage.

It's two in the morning,
and he's looking at me
like he means it
but I can't stomach it.
I've been asking for it
and now the words
just sit there, shining
in the candle light
and they're sickening
and nothing feels right
because he's made the same
mistake as all the others-
he isn't you.

i can still see you there,
some delirious and shining thing
a beautiful ******* with your
lips puckered, your
cupids bow winking in and out of view
sweet for me, i
feel your mouth in my hair
some kind of ghost kiss
whispering something to me,
breath soft on my brow
i can't read as well as you,
darling
i can't read a thousand things and
still have room for more, my
belly distended with the words, my
heart bleeding for it
my golden swan, did i steal you?
did i break into the giant's home and whisk you away,
little bird? i
feel the sugar on your skin
steam rising from the crooks of your limbs
smiling, a gaping gorgeous maw
head pushed back, knees scraping against
the frozen wall
so pretty i might have dreamed you, maybe
is there any version of this where
i don't end up bleeding? (probably not;
but it'll be a lovely fall down)

you keep looking at me like i’m god-*******-incarnate, babydoll
******* at the rind of an orange i bought you ages ago like it’ll still give you sweetness if you just ask it nicely
here’s the part where we die, me first, telling you something sweet so you won’t feel too bad. here’s where my hand meets yours, curling around your little knuckles like i can’t die right without it.
here’s where our hearts hurt, where they ache so bad it feels like they’re burning.
it’s okay. i don’t mind. i don’t mind, baby, so long as it’s you i’m lying cold next to.
my grave might be empty, and that’s okay too,
we might die out in the bitter ******* cold, heads upturned so we see the sky.
you always loved those constellations, could list them from memory by the time you were six. only right you die seeing them one last time,
is that morbid? i don’t think so, sweetheart. you’re just dramatic, always were, always looking for a fight from me.
i used to love you the way kids do, the way you should, the way you deserved.
i used to love you something special. it’s okay, honey. it’s okay.
i don’t mind, anymore.

I am jealous of the sun
because it gets to touch you for fun.

I am jealous of the heat
because your knees, it makes weak.

I am jealous of the breeze
because your body, it gets to tease.

I am jealous of the summer,
because you love her
and I want to be your only lover.

I found religion at the bottom of a cereal box
and ended up saving it in my pocket for awhile, spending my sundays
beside spiritual cannibals speaking of the Supergalactic
and eating on the good word while waiting for the Hand of god
or so-called Miracles; only recently have I discovered
the sacrosanctity of the seed, the egg, the space between matryoshka dolls,
the amoeba before it splits or the amoeba afterwards, baby teeth
and graduates, letters stuffed in pen tips in hands of poets
kneeling with the armless, contrapposto women waiting
inside blocks of marble and boiling pots of Hellenic brass worshiping
in the house of the hesitant spring crawling from the earth’s core
on stolen time;

I say a heretic’s “Amen” to the parting of lips,
the movement of breath, all werewolves on the half-moon and
the moon before the harvest, bless the ant hills full of false gods
that band together in the symphony of the subatomic and glory be
to the Truth! the only truth, that just as all things die in the end, so too
are all things born at the beginning, a fact lost on all those preaching
sacred scriptures in the dead language
of the Impossibly Huge.

I was made to be milk glass—
  Lately, I've been more of
a scattering of light,
  a technicolor oil spill,
effervescent kerosene,
  a phosphene
in a running eye,
  fluorescent aerosol
going cumulonimbus
  in a green sky;
a variegated skin rash
  caused by shining neon bile
all festering and iridescent;
  a tattered road map
on the wall of a food court,
  bearing incandescent roads
twisting like snakes
  eating their own tails;
a human being in the form of a
  kaleidoscopic feedback loop
passed back and forth
  between the mouth and the ear
and the mouth and the ear forevermore,
  burning the tongue, the finger tips
and teetering on the edge
  of glittering, glorious incendium—
After the smoke has cleared,
  I can go back
to sleeping on the shelf.

another cup of coffee down the hatch
                  can't find a reason to stay awake;

another cup of coffee down the hatch-
                                             **forced survival.

everythings alright
but i don't want to open my eyes

my parents talked about that dark disease
which only inflicted the ungrateful
they called it depression

the sun still rises
and the moon still swings across the sky
in its many shapes
but night or day; i am wide awake

i was concerned in a pleasurable way
when my pen refused to be silent
page upon page of sweet sweet misery
but now my hand is frozen
and the page lies blank
agony to silence
agony to still

they talked about what the bug was
how it ate through you and i listened so intently because even then i knew something was wrong

inside
something was wrong

i spoke to the crow today and he told me a silly story
about how the ruffles in his feathers keep getting heavier
and how one day he fell in the pond and watched himself sink
but did not cry out for help
he did nor cry out for help
some poor soul took pity on him and pulled him out
he did not cry out for help
he did not cry out for help

maybe time is relative but the clock ticks to let you know you're alive in a world that ***** out of you the spark that makes you tick that makes you tick
tick
tick
the clock ticks
tick
tick

maybe i'm too poor
too fortunate
too loved but inside me
this
this
this
i forgot what it's called
let's call it the friend
this friend
my friend-
what was i talking about again?

the smile still frowns
and the gold is still a crown
i will wake up
again

nothing is wrong
but i cannot open my eyes

nothing is wrong
i did not open my eyes