Many think of anger, as hot
fiery
volcanoes erupting
The ground shaking
Thunder
In my fathers voice

When I think of being angry
I think of silence
Of turning the ocean to ice
I think of glass
And reflections
I think of lava
because I think true rage
is kept hidden

It isn't the smoke that escapes nature's destruction
Or the roaring flames that engulf it
It isn't a thousand shattering windows
Or a deafening wind

Its the silent, burning lava
Rage is eternal
Destroying all in its path
Without so much as a
*Whisper

I watch a sunrise behind an old abandoned church in my home-town
I haven't slept for two nights
the crystal clear beauty of the sleep-deprived
the jaw aching beauty of the pink sky
almost hurts my eyes
the irony I see reflected back at me
how such a daring light could hide behind
a cowardly institution
My thoughts are crisp and clear
after two nights of no sleep
and I cant describe
I cannot describe what I see
But its there behind my eyelids
when I close them shut
I am dreaming of tomorrow
But tomorrow never comes.
I am closer to god when I am sleepless
Though I'm not sure I believe in god when I am awake
like all things are during suffering
and the sky is just a canvas
for me to whisper my thoughts to
I paint his hands in the shape of clouds
under this red sky at morning
They hold nothing
and nothing holds them
heavy hands and my heavy eyelids
both closed
open
wide
shut
he holds me in his hands
he holds the promise of tomorrow
I tell him tomorrow is a lie.

There is a never ending breed of bracteria livig in my bones
It
almost chews with the full intent of biting off but not quite, holds back just enough to leave me hanging
my joints, nooses of collateral damage,
they
almost wiggle like worms but burn with less intensity than pain.

There is a never ending wall of inter knotted muscle within my back

I call these things frustration
although alot of the time they feel like fury
make my neck ache like guilts burden.

I have ground my teeth to tiny sizable pellets and
picked at my charred white skin,
until there is no more youth in this body
all you will see is five foot seven of sallow eyes
pale faced
bloated frustration
corpse-like
if corpses smiled.

Untill my teeth are yellowed from coffee and cigarettes and the laugh lines around my mouth taunt me like the scars on my upper arm (if you are scarred just as painfully by laughter as a knife what is the point of it all)
12 inches of stitched back frustration that reads:

you cannot undo
what was done


   stitches I want i want to rip out in the company of polite
normal people and
smile at their disgusted faces

have you ever as a child
been so unhappy by what you put down on paper
you would scrunch the whole thing up after crossing it out in the thickest black marker
throw it in the bin and start over?

This is what living feels like
I am just a  canvas

I can almost remember what it was like to laugh

You had perfectly plastic skin
              So so clear and shiny and pretty


                     And red ruby lips
                      That you painted
           Just like those pictures on your wall
                            Made of sharp crystal pieces

 That shone and caught the light when you spoke

                                                           And your words flowed from that beautiful mouth like waterfalls

                                Like the tears that fell from your eyes
                                Except, they would cut themselves on your ruby painted lips
                                                            ­
  And a thousand jagged pieces
                                        
                                              would land
                                                        stra­ight into my
                                                              ­                     heart

You clench your shaking hands,
And do not move from the place from which you stand.
And say “I'm fine” “I'm fine” with conviction,
Though I don’t recall anyone has asked.

They say if your not careful,
You become what you despise,
Control the shaking, clench the fist,
But don’t you close your eyes.

And you think that you can stop it,
How you tremble to the bone,
But you don’t really have a choice,
This is something we all know.

So just go ahead and say it,
It's on the tip of your tongue,
It wallows on your painted skin,
It pours from your eyes like a flood.

Go ahead just paint it,
Write it all down,
Scream it, sing it,
Or even whisper it out loud.

Tell us this fight means nothing,
You’re just standing your ground,
But the truth is that you’ve lost,
Something that can’t ever be found.

You look for meaning where there is none
in the crook of my collarbone or curve of my spine
or ribs you love to trace with your fingers
as if you could tuck your delicacy between the spaces intertwined by
nerve and muscle
As I breathe
you think your touch is all powerful
a healer
You look for beauty where there is none
in the curve of a smile
that rarely dances across my lips
as  if you could catch a fleeting glance and frame it somewhere behind your eyes
all you see is gold
fool's gold
brutally unaware that every-time you kiss the place below my neck
its as though you cut my throat open listening for the sound of a song I wouldn't sing
looking for words I wouldn't say
and they pour out of me
like the sweat from your pores,
in your need
You forget to be disappointed, when all you hear
is the sound of my gurgling
choking
on all the things that threaten to rush back to the surface
Now your eyes have a tint of orange coloured bitterness to them
The promise of something sweet
that only sounds sour
Your voice holds a note of deception
your touch doesn't dance as delicately across my skin
I no longer make my tongue move to the rhythm of your lies
As if I could taste the words at the back of your throat
Worst of all
I think I like you better this way.

The snow has a way of making everything look so god-**** beautiful
I think because it covers up everything
*****
everything grey
So come lie down here with me baby
We'll let the snow wipe it all away
There's a numb before death
hypothermia
this peace I hear
euphoria and you slip away
what could be better?
Come lay here next to me?
Your'e always saying how your lung's are on fire
So come sit in the cold with me
We're in heaven if you try not to move darling
We can pretend we're laying on clouds
And sure its cold now
But nothing beautiful was ever
free
Not in death nor dignity

So we lay in a field of white
And watched the angels throw down peices their forgiving
wings from the sky
As it touched our faces and melted
But you got up and walked away from me
Left me in a field of minus thirty degrees
In a place between life and death
I will always be waiting for you
Paralysed between sheets of white
To warm my shaking hands
My trembling heart
that
    no
       longer
              beats
                    for
                         you

You always were the drowning type

Don't look back Jack
You know where you have been
I'll clean your wounded arms Jack
Oh but the things you've seen Jack
Oh the things you've seen.

Lay your hands bare Jack
Lay your body here darling
Lay your stomach there Jack
Ill wipe it all clean

Ill watch the blood turn black Jack
A color only cutter's know
But please open up a window Jack
Its getting too cold in here
With only you and me
to warm up the atmosphere
We need to learn how to resemble the sun
Wear it on our skins
  And Ill pass you the whiskey Jack
I promise I will
As soon as you close that door please
and open up a window

I'm shivering
and its a kind of cold
that alcohol can't fix
A kind of lonely
You can't numb, Jack
And I don't want to tell you of the shape of my bruises
And how I think they match the stars
But I could write essays on your eyes Jack
Essays on your arms


If they weren't inked black
Jack
If there is any part of you that is pure
Let me gather the light in your eyes
with this washcloth
and some scissors
We'll find something to agree on
and well wipe the white off the walls
We'll paint it a ferocious red Jack
We'll turn the heat up high man
We'll burn this whole ******* place down

There was something flighty in your nature
How you avoided certain subject's
Its like your veins were on fire
Burning for something more than
this

And, well, umm I get that I really do
But I never felt like running
From something
that wasn't
chasing
you

So before you crap your pant's
Or spread those wings and "fly"
Remember you cant
outrun

you cant outrun the sky


And when you shake your head and say
your just looking for something more
Remember
The journey of a thousand miles
Begins when you have left the door

So don't hover in the doorway child
Or make a lucky run out "back"
There are something's you are afraid of
That don't always
attack

So while you're looking through the peep-hole
and checking for monsters under your bed
Remember some monsters
Only exist inside your head

And its okay to be afraid child
I'm sure we all are everyday
But sometimes you gotta stay and fight kiddo
Sometime's you gotta *stay

Stu-stu-stuttering
Under those beautiful shadows
Near edgar street
Halloween, light lamps
pumpkins
Sh-sh-shaking hands
You looked so
broken
shattered

"You haven't been yourself lately."
"Well maybe I have."
"No no no this isn't you."
"Maybe it is, maybe im just sick of pretending."
-"Have you been eating?
When's the last time you had a goodnight's sleep?"
"Why does it matter..."

I wanted to remember how the light illuminated your cheekbones
But made those shadows under your eyes darker
They seemed to taunt your face
Dancing around producing fearful images
I was surprised you were still awake
What a beautiful mess you looked...
What a beautiful mess you looked like

"Y-you-you think the world is a beautiful place dont you?"
"I think It can be." You looked haunted.
"Yeah, for those who sleep."

We learned about a boy in class
In 1st grade, some god granted him wings
But he flew too close to the sun
and died and drowned a terrible death

I meet this boy a few years later
I tell him about my death-wish
Thats at the bottom of my bucket list
And he tosses them all away

He says his wings have been clipped
and that he still thinks hes drowning
in a sea of vast emptiness
And the only burn signs on him
are his eyes
like dying embers that I cant save


he kissed me with abandon
threw water into my heart
it was dried out and torn
you see
his eyes they burned their way down my throat
igniting a light
as he leaves

And I think about that boy
Icarus I believe his name
He flew too close to the burning flame
Like a moth to a light
and singed his broken wings

but they forgot out the part
where the sun melts his wax heart
and he drowns in the deep dark
blue

And I forgot to tell you about the ending
about the salt water in my lungs
that I lurch back profusely
I realize its just the second skin of a little lost zombie boy
This isn't CPR
this is choking on his dead weight passion
drowning on his blue eyed sorrow

Like he choked on the sea.

Because we both know the sound of gunfire
Except I, didn’t grow up in a war zone
It was a different kind from yours
Our bullets were words
Sounds of breaking glass
And the shards of which made it into my cheerios the next day
Chewed them anyway to spite
The sound that
Breaking makes

You,
you know the sound of falling bodies too readily
  you can mimic them in your footsteps
The smell of rotting corpses
What kind of scars shrapnel really leaves

What the color of blood really looks like
I see that shade of red every time you speak
  The way you keep it hidden in those paintings
In the drawer that I sneak into when you sleep
Know too well what evil looks like

I can find a place for all the words buried in my chest
inside your bullet wounds easily

If I were not a coward

Staring into the dark irises of men in uniforms dirtier than their conscience,
Find it easier to look into a barrel of a gun
Only one of them holds salvation
  
No, you are not afraid of guns
Nor the sound that breaking makes


But I still remove the safety pin
Just in case

"I feel sorry for you."
His voice was never one to mock.
It was always gentle, non-judgemental. (where's the catch?)
It didn't stop me from laughing anyway.
"Why?"

"It must **** to go through life too scared to really give a **** about anything."
(no really where's the catch?)

I admit, I lost my wit, there was nothing I could think of to say.
My tongue rolled around in my mouth looking for lost words
Checking behind every tooth to see if they were hidden there.
I managed to cough once to see if any were lodged in my throat.
But all I could think of was how
beautiful
he looked in the moonlight
the only thing giving light to his eyes, half a cigarette
I wondered then If the burning stump gave his eyes that red tint
or maybe
he was born with it.
******* on his cancer stick.
Maybe that's were he got his words from
I should start smoking too.
Maybe
"The world isn't so black and white, you know?"
He had a way of making the truth sound poetic
Like it did on that hill, by that creek, under that moon
By the burning cigarette
all I could think to say was
"The truth is only pretty in certain light"

They stuff cotton down your mouth
Because it’s the only thing that doesn't choke you
When they try to muffle your sounds out
But you scream with your eyes better than you
Ever did with words

It’s a sharp sound that hurts to look at
And you knew that contradictions were the best arguments
you said  “Arguments are the best way to show someone
How much you love them because
you are giving them your words
And that is the best thing to give.”  disagreement said “Or you could give em’
Some of your M&M;’s.”

They hung mosaics of your destruction on the walls and called it “Art”
So you punched a hole through your bathroom mirror and called it “Creation”
Spent the fourth day naming your shards “Zues” “Cordelia”. Saved the sharpest one
And called it “Helen”, said “Pain only ever hurts when its beautiful.” Disagreement said
“You’re a ****** up sadomasochistic *****”

On the fifth day you dreamt your father held you
Except it wasn't your father it was a ******* who found you
frozen to a street light
On the sixth day you called me and said: “I have a name for creation;
It’s destruction.”
On the seventh day they found you praying to the  images on a TV screen
Holding onto a mathematical calculation in your hand
Calling it the formula to happiness
The numbers spelled out




D   R  U  G  S

They kissed you with that mouth
Wrote books about you
Took pictures and hung them up for beer ads
For humans with high testosterone to ogle
While they ******* the top of a beer bottle
Like it will bring their fathers acceptance
Back into their eyes.
Your nine inched heels gave me whip lash
Your ½ inch eyelashes gave me heartburn
Your spit
Indigestion
Because they kissed you with that mouth.
And you still believe,

You asked for it

You still believed you were not worth getting out of the hood for
The hood
what good is the hood and the hood-rats

You ******* ***** in alleyways

All 10 of them lined up
said I might as well have the money upfront
If I'm gonna **** **** I'm getting paid for it

They bashed your head into concrete so hard.
You forgot how your mothers voice sounded like
Almost forgot how your uncles knuckles tasted like,
I don’t know your story
I don’t know your name
I don’t know you
I just know that your friend
And my friends
Last night
Came to the conclusion
That you were a ****
And you were asking for it
You asked for your head to be bashed into concrete
And hey maybe you did
Maybe you wanted something to hit you hard enough to make you forget
The hate inside
The misogyny you swallow
and wash down the drain
maybe you were there in front of 10 guys because you wanted to know what power felt like
what being wanted felt like
because you thought you were worth the money
but they didn't
because maybe that's what you asked for
because maybe your mother taught you to get high and surrender with glazed eyes
rather then take your higheels off and fight

because your laughter sounds more broken than you do
because your eyes hold remnants of your skull
because you remember the taste of your blood too keenly
because my friends, my female friends who are not evil or sexist

my male friends the protector of women
came to an agreement
you asked for it
put yourself in the position to
smell the inside of your brain
because your blood meant power
because finishing them off
meant swallowing or bleeding
and you did some of both because
maybe you chose survival
because maybe you came in kicking naked and maybe thats how you wanna go out with
another mans hands down your throat
some to aid air some
to constrict

weather you bleed or swallow you are only
emptying out

and I tried to explain that to your friend and my friends but
there is so much anger about what happend to you
and none of it is directed at the ten faceless penises.

Because you were once a chandelier of candles
And now you are a faceless light bulb hung on the moldy hotel building
Because your **** gives you free crack and
My friends have disgust on their faces
And I feel
Pity

Your heaven has failed me
On the days when I felt loading up the dish washer was a
Personal assault on my psyche
Your god has-
Run me over with his fists too many times
And made me believe it was paternal pat’s on the back
All the-
Pain I was feeling,
You carry the gravel in your teeth
To make sure its full of grit,
When you speak,
I say;
“you’re full of ****”

You say im just weak for the things
That have made me unholy.
I am weak for the things that have unbroken me.
These words are shrapnel
You let them sink into our skin there is no more dirt to chew
I will spend my last moments
Holding onto the ******* noose
I’m going down swinging
And if that means I’ll hang
So be it
There are worst ways to die

I know
Because I’ve died before

Nothing special happens. Ya’ll can stop dreaming.

Kindness isn’t supposed to taste so bitter
Being saved
Isn’t supposed to hurt so much
You-
Never knew how much the night sky despised the daylight
Until you moved to a country where it gets longer every year
You never knew how kind
The sun was to your skin-
Ive got tan lines where my noose used to swing
It took me three years to untie myself
And I still have scars

Whether they will be there or not in a few more years
I guess ill stick around and see just
How much ive
lost

Your voice is ragged from all the singing
Screaming empty prayers at the ceiling
Its a raspy thing thats course and thick
But flows like water over me
Like your hands
Who have done too much hitting
Too much running
Too much bouncing off walls
To ever be innocent

Your voice holds a note of constant misery in it
Like the eyes of bereaved parents
Or the voice of people suffering from chronic back pain
Neck pain
Leg pain

Its the sound of a thousand setting suns
All at once
Different colors
You’ve done too much singing boy
Too much running, partying, working playing
Too much living boy
Too much livin’

Your voice has a hint of irritability in it
Something dark in colour
thick like syrup
sour like lemons
Your voice has a taste of bitterness in it
Man-child boy, farmer kid
A sense of stability
Certainty about it
Its a statement to all of the things you have lost

And hey you're still livin'

I stood stoic as they reeled your cold body in
It was only when I saw that your hair was still wet from your last shower
that I broke down
The coroner said he couldn't get your eyes to close
I said neither could I
Not even when we kissed
The ligature marks around your neck looked
like patterns that danced across your grandmothers hall
as we lay there arm in arm
Your laughter echoed off the walls
you told me how you wanted to be so small
and stare at the ceiling all day
that when you were a child you would fall asleep under your bed look at the marks the wood made
how if you stared long enough
some marks were even faces
or partial eyes
you said that you would never give up on me
well where the **** are you now?
Those covers echoed with the reality of our secrets
weighed down by our burdens
so take your knotted rope
for even in death
you look choked
here we are the same old story
me arguing with the dead
but we both know you visit me
in my dreams with open eyes you never get to sleep any-more
or breathe

I was angry at your blue body
for staring at me open eyed
with the same eyes that told me there was
magic
in life
You are a lie.
such a ******* lie.

I wrote you a poem
Titled it gravity
For your lack of it
And how that made me want you more
Called the scars in your eyes stability
Those were the only things that remained
I am looking for sand to set my anchor on
This is how i just keep sinking
But you
You were fluidity in motion you were the
Once a week reminder that
Typhoons hit and people change
When my moods were changing tides
On the days my speech was so rapid and my eyes so clear it made everyone want me
Atleast thats how it appeared to me
But for the days when my arms drag me out to sea and you have a hand over these fists begging me to let go of these ******* bricks as you kick
Afraid ill drown us both
And i would
If it werent for the flight in your smle keeping us up
Afloat
I pray you dont drop me for the wight of us both can be too much for you to carry

I watched the words tumble from your mouth,
Without a doubt they fell,
I watched them form a misty cloud,
Without a doubt you couldn’t tell.

I watched you stumble over yourself,
Recorrect your story,
Edit the missing parts,
Fill in all the dark and gory.

I watched you, oblivious and blind,
In a haze of dark smoke,
I watched you fluidly, lie after lie,
I hope you ******* choke.

I hope you ******* choke.

And if my hate 'aint clear enough
Heres another line or two
You really thought I meant it
When I said I love you too?

You tried to make a model,
So perfectly true,
And tried to paint a masterpiece,
With every single hue.

But the mannequin was fragile,
The picture too dark,
On her face there was no smile,
In her eyes no spark.

I appreciate your artistic hand,
But the colors are all wrong,
Did you forget the world is bright?
And life is but a song?

Or did you wake up one morning,
And everything was grey?
Have you finally figured out,
The words you shouldn't say?

Did you awake one late afternoon,
Realized it was still dark, and fell back to snooze?
But sleep did not come, so you waited for the sun to rise,
Ans when it didn't, you didn't weep, you weren't even surprised.

Is it like a world devoid of color?
Of happiness and taste?
Where food has no flavor?
And you have plenty of time to waste?

Because I think I know the feeling,
Of being trapped in a deep dark hole,
And your not sure what it is your seeing,
Your just sure you don't want anyone t know.

Well my friend, my fellow human,
We all bleed this way,
So take it easy buddy,
Because you wont he helped along the way.

I saw you sitting on our front porch
It was a dull, silent day
The kind you find in Colorado
at spring time, early may
And the kids are at school
And the housewives are too busy cleaning the house
cooking their meals
Washing the lipstick stains off their husbands shirts

And you looked cute like little kids do
with a chubby face and baby hands
I sat next to you
and asked you what you were doing
You said "I'm waiting for the rain."
why?
"Because I like the smell of it."

You reaffirmed my sense in humanity then.
Someone who was only 5 years old
You made me want to go home and destroy every razor I had stashed away
Rip out every sad sob story of a poem I had written
Open up every curtain in that death stained house
That smelled like body odor
and human warmth
But it lacked
life

You made me want to scream and cry
and say "yes yes yes you're smart little guy!"

But I stared in amazement as thunder was heard
And now when I hear it, im reminded of your words
As I held your little hands in mine, the neighbour boy
and we danced in the rain as you squealed with delight
five years old with beautiful brown eyes
I could only hope one day Id have a brother like you
That was before my mom had the baby

And you were just a little boy
so every time it rains
I think of that dance
and how it smelled
and how it tasted when I found out that your stepfather had beaten your brains out

     3 years later
        after we'd moved.
That sweet-bitter taste.

of life laughing in your face

Did you get those scars on your knees from praying?
Or ******* your fathers **** inside the barn?
or did you pray while doing it
that he would choke on his own satisfied face?
did you sit inside his church listening to him preach
hypocrisy to family and friends
while you swallowed back that bitter taste he left in your mouth
the one that tasted like an anger so pure it made your eyes water?
did you wait patiently for him to finish his speeches about
salvation, jesus, god and being sinless
whilst you prayed in that godless church, he would miss a step
fall and break his neck?
Was that thought the only thing that gave light to your eyes?
did you think these things while you brushed the dirt and gravel off your knees
wash the blood in the toilet
Put on your Sunday dress and look at yourself in the mirror
with empty eyes
that knew nothing but hate
and a shame so heavy it made you hate the act of breathing?
because every time you did it reminded you of the weight on your chest that no amount
of air
could
get
rid
of
(like the time he sat on you when you were sleeping)

Do you think that gods disciples and prostitutes have the same knees?
Do you think anyone can tell the difference?

Does the cross around your neck ever threaten
to get so tight it chokes you?
so hot, it burns your skin?

Too much praying gets you to the same place
when you're left with nowhere to dish out your pain
and too many unanswered questions, on your knees
on your ******* knees
about fathers and gravel, dirt **** and spit
*We all get ****** in the end

Your fingertips danced to the echo of your own brokenness
Your pain so pure in the form of shivers
    too heavy
           Intense for a mere tear
and what words I could hear from your mumbled mess
    and skipping heartbeat
   As you looked off into that deep dark sea
    that was just scary and I thought
You had every right to be afraid of just about
everything
because there is so much to be scared of in this horrible
awful
messy
place
children go missing
and molested
and little girls like you
get *****
and all they remember is the strange hum of police sirens and an officer that was
a little too friendly
and now they look at people with empty frozen eyes
that I cant look past or through
Like insects trapped in nets
Or **** stars turnin' tricks
I feel awful to think that paedophiles
and molested children
have the same kind of hands
if you look somewhere in the past
its hard to think they were children too
who maybe liked chocolate milk
and hated the way a neighbour made them feel

You told me these theories with a steady voice
Resembling your own destruction
somehow detached from your own ****
what
was
taken
from
you

Sam told me about how you came home bruised
broken
and he took a wash cloth to your cuts
and that filth that monster left in you
      you told me how Sam cried as you tried
hard not to make a sound
(you ended up comforting him)
you ask questions to an un-answering god
about how this could of happened to you
too many times..

I watched your beautiful mouth tell me
awful
awful
things

Next time you tell me to go away
I'll show you just how good I am at disappearing
You just haven't stuck around long enough for the
vanishing act
You have the audacity to
say my name tastes like filth
But have you ever thought
that the source of your uncleanliness
was born somewhere in your lung's
and made its way up your throat
I can taste that
when I kiss you
No wonder everything turn's to grit
in your mouth
You have the stones
to say
you're an insomniac
But there's a difference between
not wanting to sleep
and not being able to
And your hands wouldn't shake so much
if you didn't drink so much coffee
and you wouldn't look so tired
If you smiled once in a while
and your breath wouldn't taste
or smell
or look
like ****
if you didn't smoke
100 packets a day.
So you have the audacity to tell me
"Well, baby the truth hurts."
In that southern drawl
With eyes so animated
I wonder which movie star you're impersonating now
After four months of Kurt Cobain
I've had enough of your angst and love letters
And I'd love to lay
my hands against your throat
and let you feel the threat
of life
draining away
But I know you would just smile
and rack your brain
for a quote from a movie you have stored somewhere
away

If it makes you sick then dont drink it
Not if it makes you sick
and you seem to only write sad stories
if it makes you sad dont think it
no dont you think

But it feels so very good
When it warms its way down your throat
It almost seems to melt
All the ice inside your soul
And it feels like such a huge release
When that knife hits your skin
You almost cant see passed the tears
Cant see passed the sin

But its okay
Because it feels so very good when you dont feel a thing
And the alcohol is just numbing that sting
And it feels so very good when you dont know what to do
When you put a song on
But forget the tune

Oh, if it makes you bleed dont do it
Please dont you dare
If it makes you scream dont sing it
Dont you ******* care?
Do you really think those scars will heal?
On that faint delicate skin?
Is this how you tell your real?
Yeah, the blood doesnt match the grin

No those scars dont match your alcoholic grin.

I know someone who finds solace in ballet shoes
                A boy who strums his secrets to guitar strings
Someone that spends his waking moments with glazed red eyes
             As if facing this world cold turkey
                       Isn’t even an option.

For boys whose fingertips shake
                Like the burning end of a cigarette
And girls whose smiles resemble
Car crashes waiting to happen
A cacophony of shattered noises
             And those of us who feel guilty for the
                     mere act
                           Inhaling air
                        And exhaling poison
So we spend lifetimes holding our breaths

   Until we burn our lungs out trying
            To warm our hearts
            With something other than the fire
           That burns out in a smoky haze

Until our eyes become rivers,
flowing oceans
That cry out a thousand melted glaciers

Our tongues speak ruined languages
We read everything backwards
Curse in Latin
Make oaths in Russian
So whatever we say sounds beautiful.

So that our hands wont have to learn permanence,
affection
consolation.

Blood is not thicker than water
Just harder to wash out

Me the perpetual messiah
Trying to fix
all broken things
The never-ending, savior complex-

Like that bird we found in our backyard
When I was five;
And I had to learn that
"All living things die-"

I wish mom would've taught me that
"You cant save everyone"
Instead.

You are not a bird
You don't suffer from broken wings
Your wound's are internal
Invisible

Forever perplexing the mind of
thousands of
boggled doctors

Like I was supposed to pick up
What an X-Ray couldn't.

And inject you with some secret serum
That escaped from my lips
I spent so much time
Trying to clasp your wounds shut
So much energy
But you bled out
Right in front of me

You aren't a friggin' bird.

And I cant save you.

I've seen boys turn into men
   hands full of grenades
made of anger, of hurt of
cold
hard
beer
and smiles that could light-
no ignite
This cold heart of mine

I've known boys so steady
so calm
so sure
But they ended up dragging me-
along the cold hard pavement floor
Until I was nothing but a tattered corpse

They let me go
Like children do balloons
When my burdens grew too heavy
For the both of us to bare

I've seen boy's
-no men
With eyes so bright
so happy
so full of
life
I've known kids
so
so hollow
so empty

That even a rhyme couldn't describe
And I tell them to sit
sit down
and write it all out
But the paper grows damp
From the tears of their pens
And their poems unstructured
Their names but a blur

So now I know
I know
You can't tame all wild things
You cannot confine
Pain
To paper
As Pen to paper

The law said her body was made for love
The kind of love that wants to show you
just how much it loves you
by sticking things inside of you

hard
fast

Then slower

The kind of love that wanted to make the bible blush
make you quiver; the
kind of love when you put a female and male hamster together.
The kind of love that wanted to make music out of your ******

Love said "This is what happens
when you use
Needles to ingrain the words love
on peoples skin"

It feels a lot like pain did

Like when the first boy you ever loved
said I love you back
And proved it because he held you after
sticking sticky things inside of you
Like how he said hed wait untill you were ready
then said "You're gonna make me wait forever.."

How that guy on the third date said
"Come back to my apartament
So I can put what I want into you
Until you are empty
Because we might call it love"

Until you met a boy
who untaught what the word love meant
never asked you when you wanted to have ***
whose hands never roamed as greedily
searching for places to settle on your body
who didnt wish to make a home out of you by filling you senseless
and calling it his furniture
art
who traced outlines of constellations on the palms of your hands
and played
"Guess the Nebula"

Whose hardness never prodded you in the back
like a protest
in the early morning
whose breath always came easy
never hard
or fast

It was just holding you with no intention to
*******

He said
"Love isnt what you put inside a person
In hopes of making it stick;and naming it after something beautiful
I can pin my thoughts on you but
you are not my canvas. That wouldnt be fair.
I respect your property."

There was nothing broken when he left.

It seems like we waited forever in that waiting room
I kept trying your cell
Just to see where you had gone
Until you came back 3 hours later
Looking like ****
Shirt wrinkled
Tie rumpled
Face crumpled

Bruised knuckles

Looked like you had been bargaining with the God of war
It was a week from his funeral and I hadn't ever seen you dressed up since
You came to it in slacks and a wife beater stinking of alcohol

With eyes that looked like fire
like fury
like you were blind
like ice

And I willed myself to walk over to your heavy frame
  Shaking against the wall
But then again I knew nothing I could say
Could somehow make your anger go away

I realised you had every right.

So I just kept whispering a thousand apologies
Mumbled "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry"

Until your bleeding knuckles
Punched the knocked out plaster
And the sound of your bruised bones breaking
Against that ******* wall

Too deafening, for me to hear at all.
And the nurses rushed around you

To try to calm your thoughts
But all I could think of was a gorilla
King Kong
Mighty Joe

Some beautiful ferocious animal
that beat on its chest
Out of anger
Out of fear
Out of pain