(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

When you spread your
lips,
like wings,
your midnight words
whisper on my
skin.

Late night hair
twirls,
like smoke,
in a dark gust
spiraling towards my
hands.

Watercolor eyes
drip,
like ice,
glistening in the moon,
reflecting rainbows on my
shadow.

A cartwheeling deadleaf crosses
the street, to a pack of fat crows
hunched by a meal, one crazy
enough to wobble next to speeding wheels
for a nibble, 'cause a corpse on the ground
is worth three in the belly.

I am bare and torn
a barren land of fortitude.
You’re slick-haired, clean, and driven.
Ambitious and self-righteous
You move your weight in grocery stores, offices,
and football fields. Your cultures, your words,
fake smiles, “how are you?”
illusions of connection.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Not happy, but content?
Henry said it better…
I’m a bearded **** with tattered feet.  
You’re dying. I’m living
like an animal:  woolen, bleeding, filthy.
I am two-armed, two-legged, I **** with my hands.
I’ve eaten from the tree that has no name.
And I’m not one to make up words.
I breathe and sleep, I eat, I drink.
There is no me, only shuffling sounds of feet on leaves;
oxygen, carbon monoxide that will someday cease to emit,
And the ground will eat the energy inside me.

now I'm a shipwreck in a sundress,
an aimless, shameless coquette –
a first kiss, a second guess,
a weak and wobbly pirouette.