I slurp down
a salty golden liquid
full of lacerated noodles and flakes
which glisten in their own yellowed oil spill.

I tip the bowl to my mouth
and it fills my stomach from the bottom.

She's made it just for me,
just in time for my despair
although she didn't know that
when she made it.

I'm sick!
I tell her.
I was.

Fever, achy joints,
pits of nausea, and silicone pain,
the works.

I'm getting better.
there is just a dull ache left
but I am still sick
in the head.

A head where plays
a tug of war between
anguish with a goofy hat
and comedy with a noose.

My body gets dragged along with
my chemical eruptions
both biological
and habit-forming,
and my body grows tired.

The soup goes down quick;
the main course after leftovers from lunch.
And all of it fizzles in my belly.

A cigarette might help all of it a little.
Except for the despair.
The soup is for my despair.

"Death and Love,"
he said. Something caught
between his lips killed me
as he spoke.
His eyes were ashy,
clouded by a puff of smoke.
I could see them though,
dead centers,
exposed
in love suspended.

And then he said,
"They mean the same thing."
"I know,
I think I'm
Starting to learn."

A chord trembles in his voice,
and I can imagine him
screaming,
hear him even,
when I see the words.
He's exposed and hidden,
choking on all the things
he can't write fast enough.

But they go to the page
and radiate from
his throat,
as his eyes go wild-
finally.

He's on the verge of death
and curses love.
The cigarette is
burnt down,
but there are
other things to do.
and he runs off,
leaving end smoke
on my clothes.

That's what he told me
years ago,
when the hills first
started to sprout
in my head,
beneath the sandcastles,
and under built fairy huts,
when I knew the world was round,
but thought it felt like
a marble in my palm.

He told me,
while I wrote a poem about
a plant,
and then one about dirt,
because I thought
all the growing things were beautiful.

He told me,
after my multiplication
worksheet came back,
bearing 100%
and I couldn't have been
any more proud.

He told me,
after he showed me how to tie shoes
without bunny ears.

And I believed him.

The hills grew into mountains
I promised to move.
But the fairies left the hut when
I left that house.
And the world was round,
but it looked awful flat.
The marble grew heavy, and
got too **** big to hold.

My poems changed,
I'd **** the plant, and the dirt
was only *****.
I thought sad was starting to
Look beautiful.
Math got hard, and I
always wanted new shoes.

Nothing grandpa said
made sense anymore
and his dementia-soaked brain
went too crazy for my company.

Still the mountains in my head grew,
but it was starting to be too late;
they were growing around me,
and I couldn't move myself,
let alone the mountains.

Ink pierced skin,
Illuminating
Image in
Thick black lines.
Skin bled
Shyly,
Adding red pigment
To all the haphazard
Mistakes,
Gun shook,
Skipping,
Jumping,
******* up,
As he downed the liquor,
And smiled,
Admiring his work
Through proud
Drunk eyes.

Exquisite was the
Smoke on his lips.

Exquisite was his body,
Drawn in
Careful lines,
Forming sturdy,
Slender build.

Exquisite were the
Nicotine pipes,
That held the chemical,
As it raced around
Inside him,
Lifting that weight
That brought out
The frown lines.

Exquisite was the
Cigarette,
Lit and burnt,
Disappearing down
The throat.

Exquisite was how it
Looked,
Clean coming out of
Crisp pack,
And then burning *****.

A continual paradox
Because one
Blurs into five
While we talk.

I'll write to starve
She said.

I'll eat words,
Develop a bulemic
Mentality,
Purging the words
To the page in
Nauseating bursts.

I'll force it
When I have to.
I'll write when
The hunger pangs
Themselves,
Start to eat me.

I'll sum up calories through
Raucous poetry.
I'll grow weak
As my pen grows strong.

I'll write even when
My hand shakes
Because there's not
Enough sustenance.

I'll deny my body,
And cultivate my mind
With measured abundance.
I'll shrivel up and
Waste away.
But the words will stay
On the paper.

You'll see and say,
How can a skeleton write?

I'll grip the pen
With bony fingers
And I'll show you.
I'll feed you too.

He gave her a flower
And it multiplied
In her mind.
Lone petals millionizing
In exaggerated,
Mind-inflated
Love.

He gave her a cigarette.
It caused
The chain reaction
They call addiction.
It multiplied in her lungs-
She couldn't stay satisfied.
And she never quit.

He gave her a kiss.
Or maybe she stole it.
Those multiplied too.
Passion learning
Her lips aching and raw
When it was time to speak.

He gave her an end
When he left
And the second
She took down
Too many,
They multiplied
Death in her stomach.

Until the seconds ticked
And expanded onward
Because those seconds gone
Were infinitely gone,
Multiplied too much.

We are complex creatures
And we've created a
Complex society
In which our humanity
Is both provoked
And utterly stifled.

He sips at a coffee
He won't waste.
Is the milk rotten?
Doesn't matter. He's
Had that before.
Nice now, to have food
In the kitchen.

He chuckles in a developed
Version of how he used to.
Pitch rising at the end.
He's happier now
That hungry haze
Has lifted.
That dark *** fiend
Who used to tease me-
He's gone.
Or maybe stifled
By the angel.

But God,
His hugs still crush me.
Those hugs are the same.
The eyes are the same.
The story is the same.

Wretched love murmurs
Sweetly as bitter bodies draw close,
Sporadic beating of hearts,
Hardly in sync,
But the ribs touch,
His more than hers,
And her ******* flatten
As his proximity
Weighs on her chest.

Wretched love breaks,
As one returns home,
Going back to smoke
While she goes away
To the corner she's
Made in her room
And she writes wretched things
While he thinks them,
Until she tires
And abandons the literary task
She feels obligated to pursue
Under title of "ideal career"
And now he's smoked enough
To to stifle the anxiety,
Numb the thoughts;

The love isn't wretched
But only shared
Between wretched individuals

I've found a poet
Who sings
A boy
Who feels
And let's his voice
Shake in songs
About airplanes crashing
Who tells me
He loves me
Very very very very much
And-
Happy Birthday darlin'

He has dark hair
And walks on a bridge
To watch a
Bowl of oranges
Float away.

The Calendar Hung Itself-
He says.
He'll visit the band in the morning.

God he strums smiling-
In pain
Brimming with paint-
What a waste-
A stepping stone on a path.

He's showing me the song.
I have the dregs of blanket
Collected around my legs.
He used coffee-shaking lighter
To light cigarette
And as he smokes it,
The exhales cover
The sun,
But it's still staring
Into my eyes-
Burning a sun impression
Against my eyelids
In electric green.
And the smoke stings
My sleepless eyes,
So I close them
And breathe like
A fish out of water
Until I'm breathing the chords
And finally recognize something.

You'll go quite well together-
Liars with cigarettes.
Your minds lie to themselves
When the green haze
Moves across the pathways,
Telling you it's all alright.
Giving you the confidence,
Sense of security,
You need,
To maintain such a bloated lie.
I hope when this is all over
And I'm gone,
You'll hurt each other.

My pencils are breaking-
Pens have spilled too much ink
But at least I'm still writing.
The flannel I have,
Smuggling collarbones
From chilly apartment-
I've worn that all week.
There's a cigarette burn
In one sleeve,
The buttons have come unhinged
During midnight runs to the corner
For cheap chocolate
And cigarettes.
Ramen boils
To salt my appetite.
But at least I'm still writing.
I leap from place to place,
Eyeing hoods passing by,
And I imagine guns tucked away.
The sink leaks,
There's not enough sun.
I'm high on debt
And college school books
Rot in the corner.
I guess my degree
Has gone putrid too.
My life's gone dingy and dark,
Suffocated by polluted winter.
Dark circles
Tell stories
Dreams can't remember.
But ******* at least I'm still writing.

I swear,
There's nothing in
Your eyes,
No color,
Save red.
No pupils
To dilate in interest
Or at lack of light
When I whisper
At 2 AM.
Those eyelashes
Have burnt down
To a crisp
At the lids.
Forever glazed,
I can't see your love
In them
Anymore.

The younger kid
Looks at the older girl
And wonders
Why she doesn't drive yet

Why she's still riding the
School bus,

He wonders
Why her ears are plugged
So deep,
Throbbing with sounds
He can almost hear.

He wonders
Why she looks so sullen.
So somber.

At his younger age,
There's not as much
To be sad about yet.
But he doesn't know.
And she's not about to tell him.

They're separated by years
And he can't quite understand her
But she understands
Him,
wondering.
Because she used to do it too.

Is he the reason
I like poetry?
Did I adopt his taste for it
When he read me
Short, unfinished,
Alcohol-influenced
Pieces,
Reading them out in
That voice I loved,
Probably would still love
If I heard it again.
He paused slightly after
Reading the one he wrote
About me.

I didn't try my hand
At writing poems for a while,
But now they keep me safe
Like first love.

I've walked into a tunnel.
Following coats,
Dragging behind in
Abandon
The light is slitted
The shape above is
Too Close to my head.
The sharp,
Undecided angles bother me
And a nervous twitch begins.

I imagine it like a funnel,
Sorting population
To pass through in
Close quarters,
Contact guaranteed.

I sneeze
And cough.
My fever smolders
Making my skin chill,
And the thought of disease
Enters, and crowds with me,
Suffocating me to one side-
But not too close-
Don't touch anything.
Fear grows.
I am already sick
But I could get sicker.

Conspiracy drips over my thoughts,
My fever leaving the
normal functioning funnel
In my mind
To be burned away-
materializing in the city-
Around me.
My thoughts bunch
In clusters
And pass all at once,
Leaving waves of nausea
And claustrophobia
As I continue through the tunnel,
Paranoia worsening my symptoms
By the step.

Their eyes wandered,
Crowding the scene
But I averted
My own
To lend privacy
To the disaster.

Tears ran down her face
And cries were heard
And she muffled them
But the man said curtly,
Keep him crying,
It means he's alive.

What had happened
In an instant
Drew out,
As they stared
And I turned away
Thinking I was helping,
My eyes hardly probing
Like theirs.

But in the end,
I'm not the one
Who uttered reassurances
Or found the doctor.
They did.

You could say he's the sun-
Half a world away
But rays reign the distance
And his words
Encourage.
He answers my writing need
The way I need it to be answered
And has questions of his own
Is it even possible?
It might be.
I think of it
As both foolish
And beautifully simplistic
To have someone
Fall in love
With words.
And they are my words.
I am a girl who writes
In the dark,
Pen instilling
Illumination
In the stagnant depths
Of my mind.
And he is still the sun.

What if sound was robbed,
Held at gunpoint
And smuggled away
From me
Into a duffel of contraband.

What if songs became nothing?
What would I
Do? As the bus
Bounces up and down,
When the sun hasn't
Yet stolen it's kiss.
The window yields
Bland scene
And I would recognize
The silence
In the detestful
Way I do
When I forget the wires.

What if his voice
Was gone?
Could I remember it?
Could I fill in sound as his
Lips moved,
God
All I'd ever see
Would be lips.
And I don't like mouths as it is.
But maybe
They'd be my new wires
And my eyes would follow
Their parted
Movements, enamored.

What if instructions were silenced
And I was left to guess at
What to do?
Emergency situation
Stealing my life away
Because I couldn't hear
Anything about
The oxygen supply
Above my head.

I'd perish in silence.

Would I speak?
Or only write?
Would I feel heard
If I could barely fathom listening?

Forgotten Popsicle stick
Dominates in ashtray.
He broke it in half once
But it's been there a while.

He remembered.
Spending summer night.
Outside-
While his dad
Smoked in chains;
Wisps dusting
Humid air.

They just talked.
Cigarettes devoured,
Popsicles slurped
And bitten,
Even as sensitive
Teeth screamed,
Each left
Distinct tastes on the lips.

The ashtray began to crowd,
Butts piled high.
But he'd found a perch
For Popsicle stick
Stained blue.

But then his dad moved out.
And Popsicles
Soon turned to cigarettes,
That lone stick
Being one of the last.
Eventually he dumped the tray,
To get rid of his dad and
Make room for his own addiction.

I wanted my life to be a poem.
That's what all of this is.
I date you
Because you fit into poetry
The way dark things do.
And you make me happy
But the truth is
I'd love you if you were only
A sad poem.

Cigarettes capture
My attention
Because they're poetic.
Poets smoke.
A cigarette fits in poems
Like writers pen in palm.

I listen to music
For the lyrics
Which speak to me
In the way I like
To speak.
For the drums
That now only mean you.
For the guitar
In the closet
I take out
On occasion.
For the rhythm
That makes my pen dance
When it would rather sleep.

I have the poem in my head
And I guess I'm writing it.
But you're writing it too.
So is she.
And him.
Mostly me.
But the cigarettes
Write too.
Disappearing through
Your lips--
Ash appearing on the page.

The scene advanced,
The song started,
And lapsed
Into my psyche
Chords hitting nerves
I'd thought were wasted
And lost
Because I'd left them
Wandering through a maze
Of things
That had messed with them too much
But the song
Was subtle enough
To teach them to feel again
In the way they're supposed to.

Things grew dry
Desert ensued
And I wanted an oasis,
Pleasure of sitting
By a pool
In the arid air.
It was comfortable enough
To keep on,
Legs in rhythm
But
The exhausting heat
And friction
Between
Became too much and
You stopped to rest.
And soon blood lept
From my body
And muscles felt sore.
I collapsed in the sand.
And you hugged me anyway.

Maybe my writing
Will improve
When strewn over
Blue lined graph paper,
Tiny boxes,
Coaxing out order,
Perhaps even
Clarifying boundaries
Between crazed truth,
And detrimental lies.

The grid putting
Poem in context,
Poem like graph,
Displaying
Levels of THC
Depression
Number of Kisses
Tears Cried
Outliers of secrets uttered.
Box and whisker plot
Displaying anxiety,
Skewed data toward extremes.

No.
Linear writing would
Reveal the chaos inside.
I can't fit the poems
To the squares.
A graph can't really cry
The way a person can.
There's a losing feeling
Etched in pen
On a harshly graded
Parcel of mathematical quizzing
That a poem has no place to
Instill in me.

And no one would
Be able to read my work
The way they tell you to show it.
My poems have no color coding.
Definition between data
Becomes hazy as
Layers of black are added
In empty,
All encompassing anger.
And I smoke while I write tonight,
Haze growing,
Lines wobbled,
And I may have put a poem
On a piece of graph paper
But it's nothing like the math homework
That stays in my backpack.

I ate your thoughts
So you wouldn't have to think them.
Consumed them,
Through gaping ear
While you spoke,
The cavernous listening space grew full.
And still I listened
To those tormenting illusions
As they came spilling from your mind.

I ate your kisses,
So they'd have somewhere to go.
Ate them,
Tasted them,
Swallowed them
And wanted more.
You had kisses to give
And so did I,
But mostly I took yours,
Silencing your mouth
To let my ears recover
From devouring.

I ate your heart,
As it beat,
You broke off pieces
And I chewed
Delicately so as
Not to break you.
You served them to me-
Impaled on the fork
But I rescued them,
By taking them
Down the throat.

I gorged on your movements-
Feasting my eyes,
When you walked and sat
And did normal tasks.
And you especially filled me up
When you came closer.

I ate all of you up,
Because there was so much
To scarf down,
In the night when you couldn't sleep.
Because you couldn't stomach yourself.
And I am left,
In love
With an upset stomach.

Flowers glowed-
Juxtaposed behind
Glowing end of cigarette.
They glowed with vibrance,
The cigarette looked dead.
The holder looked
Somewhere in between.
Bland slated eyes
Livened with churning nicotine,
Heart speeding
In context of
Present company.
He held the cigarette
Delicately,
A union
With lips
Leaving chills
To smolder up from her feet and
Out from spine.
The air was cold
But she looked at the smoke
Knowing the heat
In his body was close
Enough
To fable heat in her own body
And test morals.
She was watching his lips too much
And broke her gaze away,
Directing eyes
To watch the flowers.
They angered in red,
Disappointed they hadn't
Held her eyes completely.
But she massaged their petals,
Scrutiny turning up satisfied
As it danced along the lines.
His smoke hazed the lines and she couldn't help but look back
At his eyes,
His mouth,
And listened still
As he murmured words
That hardly glowed at all.

The morning was somber,
Lonely,
Methodically, she pretended
And prepared.
Carefully applying war paint
For a war she'd rather
Not fight.
Sleepy eyes lined,
Red screaming dots covered;
Muffled.
Hair arranged quickly
In a semi-pleasing placement.
Lips livened with
A bright sheen,
Music pouring into ears,
And then she's off.

The halls whine
With impatience,
And ring with the silence
Of inadequacy

Glass bottle empty,
Thirst hardly slowed.
Something spins,
Focus can't focus.
But so thirsty.
Legs go limp
When you try for more water,
Spilling half
Until your lips,
Dry and cracked
Find the opening,
And flood the desert.
You're still coughing here and there.
And your mind goes wild.
Thinking of all the things
You usually think
Except with more intensity.
Because suddenly,
Everything has a
Morose backstory.
And some of it scares you.
Now you can feel
Each ****** thought
Take power physically.
And that is terrifying
And sensational.
You try to calm your frazzled
Head by holding it,
And focusing on
The water-
A normal task of drinking
That hardly feels normal.
But that's all you can do.

She resonates intimidation,
Playfully,
Air of confidence
Strewn within
Loose, effortless hair.
A smile warm
And attractive
Despite imperfect teeth.
Wings; black and inked
Make her eyes fly.

She's alive with voice,
Drawn images
Making their ways on to skin.
Alive with enthusiasm
For all things smoked.
And it's impossible
Not to light her cigarettes-
Which you give to her-
Without some sensation
Of love.
As you watch,
Her lips clasp the filter:
Pulling in fire to light
Her buzz.

You want to be a part
Of the same songs she sings.
You want her in your life
As a constant.
Almost like I know I used to be,
Except your craving for her
Doesn't diminish
After large doses of time.

I'm a novelty,
Sizzling out.

She's a drug,
An addiction
Just beginning.
And we both know
How you are
About those.

There comes a moment
When you're too restless
For your skin,
For the day,
For the things you have,
And lack.
Too restless to handle the people around you.
When you feel ****** up
But don't really know why
When you're anxious
Regarding one person's feelings
About you
When your insecurities start to drown you
Little by little
Until your breath is gone,
Caught by ocean.
And you find yourself
Unwilling to go in
To a house
Where people lurk,
Waiting to see a smiling face
That you aren't sure you can muster.
And you can't go in
Because tears catch in your eyes
And you gag
When you think of certain things
And your throat is raw from
Holding back
A cry too long.
So you sit
And let yourself cry-
Just a little
In the driveway. In the cold.
Alone.
Which is how you want it
But also how you hate it.

The dismal scene
Of church
And parking lot
Played before her hazy eyes.
God absent from the pews,
The moon,
And wherever the **** else
People believed He could be.

She sat on the parking stop,
Knees close.
The night air lapped at her arms,
Raising hell beneath her skin,
And Satan
In her yearning bones.
Her heart beat
At varying abnormal paces.
Her stomach stirred
In craving.
She scratched at her ribs;
A little too hard,
Bruising ****** skin.

God was gone.

And for a moment all she had was a sympathetic truck,
Parked next to her.
But then
She knew she didn't even have that.

Images of her childhood
Sunday mornings, accompanying grandma to church
Appeared as targets
For mind's gun.
She brought from behind her,
The gasoline.
And ran
Without hesitation,
Skipping gleefully as she poured.

Then lit a small pool.
And watched as the church
Erupted into burning
Chaos and
Forgiving embers.
Then she left to satiate
Bitter craving.

I'm starting to feel like
They don't matter.
Parents here and there
Strewn about uselessly.
Because all I really had
Was my mom.
And she's beginning to slip away too.

My words
Seeking support
Are trapped in
Smoked out throat
While she utters
Her own life,
Controlling
Conversation
And the car,
With wheel between her hands.
While she talks and talks about
A life I'm seldom
Interested in.
And yet I lend the support
Anyway,
Because she has dreams now
That need completion.
And there is barely
Any room for mine.

She chose him.

She chose him to be
A pertinent aspect
Of her forever
Full sum of forever.
He who had shown her
New songs to glitter her
Sweeping thoughts,
Green flowers to dust
Such thoughts.
So when she chose him,
really,
She chose herself
She who had become
Thought broom,
Greens,
Stony welcomer
Of new.

He'd changed her
In a manner
In which she liked,
The outcome
Worthy of self pride.
She chose
Songs
She chose
Leaves
She chose herself
Which
He'd made her become.
And why not stay with him-
The man who had
Coaxed out
Someone deeper, older within herself,
Someone who
She herself had been searching for.
This lazy thought
And that
Made her choose.
Him.
Because he was the leaves and
Nothing more.

133.
I've dated you for 133 days now. And you smoke a pack a day.
133 days of bliss, confusion
Blind love
Incredible love
Sure love.
I've kissed parted ashtray
Where those cigarettes have disappeared into.
An ashtray I visit
With my own wandering lips,
Time after time.
But I'm not sure
I'll ever keep up with the cigarettes.
Because you have smoked
2,660
Of them by now
And I know I haven't come even
Close to that
Number of kisses.

2,660,
A number that sinks
In my stomach,
The immensity giving it weight.
Because how many more days; packs, cigarettes
Do I have left with you
If you smoke so often?

The builders got it wrong...
They made the deep window sill
On the other side of the window..
Perhaps it was supposed to be
Of architectural significance
And not for sitting at all
But I sit,
My back to one side,
My toes pointing shyly at the other... Knees up.
I fit so cozily and
Suddenly I am in a box
Opening to the world,

I'm on a ledge, essentially.
I like the excitement;
The possibility,
That at any moment I could simply lean too far, shifting my weight
As I read
And I'd crash down,
And hit the ground,
Diminishing into this ****** world.
And it would look suicidal,
And that could be true.

Eyes averted
Guilt ridden eyebrows
Dominate expression.

I loved her so much
But now she's ****** everything up
There is remorse in her eyes,
Regret whirs through her body,

But there is also a portion
Steadfast in what she did,
Because something has taken her away
From me and the world,
Swept her off her feet
Leaving a fullness in
Those highs,
My lows could never fathom.

I stare at her once more
Seeing something different
In eyes I used to love
And still love.
There's a hunger for
That adventure
I can never compete with,
The addiction reliable
In the way it holds her close.

And I turn away,
Hoping she'll try
To stop me from leaving.
Hoping I still mean
Something to her
But other matters toy with her mind distractedly.
Her next fix
Suffocates the ounce of love
She has left
For me
And I'm gone.

I want a glass of bubbles
To warm my icy throat
And thaw my tongue,
Which always seems to be too frozen
To say anything right.
And I want to chase the fire down
With your kisses.
I want my heart to slow down,
Just a little,
Enough to keep in time with my
Lazy thoughts of you.

I want to hear your voice
Like a velvet dress,
Clinging to my body
In whispers of never letting go.
And I want to feel cold again
While you go out for a smoke.

And I just want to watch you
As you tug on those **** sticks,
Looking like a kind of mystery
I could ponder over for years.

I want to watch the smoke come off your lips,
I think I’m learning to like the smell
Of your smoky clothes.
And suddenly I’m as addicted to you,
As you are to them.
And I’m jealous
Because I want to be your addiction
And suddenly I’m like a cigarette
And that’s weird.

Expectations swagger
And clutter.
Small talk
Loiters dangerously near big talk
As gazes dance between
Lazy freckles.

Questions are asked
That require too complicated
Of answers.
Answers too uncertain
And even once certain,
Limbs putrify and freeze
In the daunting path
That has been figured,
Fathomed, barely
And never traveled.

Habits, self inhibitions,
Self-destructive agendas,
Pull at the walker
As his own mind swivels,
Exhausted,
Tipping into madness.

He’s found the path
But finds self-provoked
Difficulty in walking it.