she soaked up their hateful words
like droplets of rain falling
into open wide
eyes.

her thin spine straightened,
extended notch by notch.
stems grew in-between
spaces once expansive
with loneliness. leaves
sprouted,  facing up
like palms reaching
out towards
the sun.

the seeds of bitterness
sprouted into vines
that curled around
her legs and burst
flowers from
her skin.

resentment grew into
fox gloves and freesias,
forget-me-nots and
the occasional flax.
venus fly trap for
a mouth to catch
the judgments
where

they will be digested
slowly, but surely,
as she keeps
growing
and
growing.

At ***** ****'s and Sloppy Joe's
We drank our liquor straight,
Some went upstairs with Margery,
And some, alas, with Kate;
And two by two like cat and mouse
The homeless played at keeping house.

There Wealthy Meg, the Sailor's Friend,
And Marion, cow-eyed,
Opened their arms to me but I
Refused to step inside;
I was not looking for a cage
In which to mope my old age.

The nightingales are sobbing in
The orchards of our mothers,
And hearts that we broke long ago
Have long been breaking others;
Tears are round, the sea is deep:
Roll them overboard and sleep.

he told me that we were
as crossed in the stars as suicide love;
and to be honest, it's starting to feel that way.
that day, Hope, I couldn't avoid her-
clutching only to find her bleeding out
on the bathroom floor.

this is how it always starts.

and here i am again,
feeling inadequate about my poetry.
my words are lined like trees: unforgiving,
wooden.

what if you could see me now?

now, with a purpose. i know i make
you nervous.
i remember when you told me you feared God
and i used to think you were so **** poetic
looking at me, so **** pathetic looking at me.

he told me he was addicted.

the way people can be addicted
to sadness is like how the body tries to maintain
homeostasis. but for me,
the potential of change ignites in haste, yet-

i am sick of recycled air; i am sick of the taste.

i could say i was sick of you but
we both know that'll never be true.

PROLOGUE
and
each time we sleep, confess
a little desire for death.
there's just twenty names that live in your head
bukowski, ginsberg, &c.;
where each of us on this street would give away
our very lives to make
number nineteen on that list.


I
i received a letter from the alpine
in which she explained that
due to our lack of allergies, our physical beauty
and our pines
our story would likely never end
"because we've got no morals, ideals, there is
really no end game we've got
nothing we'd die for, or couldn't live without."


II
i lie awake reading what was never wrote thinking that
we'll wind up together like vines without posts


EPILOGUE
or lines, in poems.

Dark rooms and locked doors.
Broken men and heartless ******.
Roam these halls in search of love
without their drawers.

We met at the end of the hall
In a room that was all white.
She wore lace that was off white
from a store I had seen her in last night.
Her beautiful smile was all white.
Mine was kinda off white
from the chain smoking stressful nights.

We sat on a bed with sheets that were all white
And stared at lines on white china
that rest on her lap
that was off white.
Fornication is not the intention
in which I forgot to mention.
As the night grew colder
and we relieved all our tension.

All night
All night
all i see is all white.
All I see is all white.
Nothing can be all white.
Everything is off white and
someday our minds will know
what is right.

We conversed
About our anxieties and the evils of our minds
What we seek in life
and what we do
with our time.
How we've each found love
and how it lost its shine.
How without that shine
We have lost our minds.

Without our minds
we've become emotionless zombies
to society and lost in time.
This is why both of us are here.
We've forgotten love
And given into fear.
In an attempt to somehow
get our minds clear.

All that is pure
Is what that is all white
And If I am sure
I have been here all night.
Our lives have been compromised
by what society deems right
So we drown out our pain
Until everything is all white.

All night
All night
all I see is all white.

My mind is lost at sea
I haven't seen him in a while
But I know somewhere out there
He is struggling on
Searching for me in this world of tragedy
And I hope He finds me soon

I drank two glasses of a cheap wine and it left a sour taste on my mouth. It was bitter like your tongue and the mindless remarks that escaped from your daydreams. I felt like it was quite appropriate.
Yesterday I read on the news it rained for three days in California. Isn’t it thoughtful of you that you took your rainy mood to fill the blue with clouds and the sun with thunder? Then I mentally cursed myself for hoping that you had taken your gray umbrella with you simply because it would match the gray from your tired eyes.
I drank two glasses of wine and, well, the alcohol didn’t work. The fridge was empty and so was the your side of the bed. I sat on the couch with a half bottle of wine as my company and it rained inside my apartment too. It didn’t leave marks, it didn’t water my plants or wet the books. It just rained and rained.
(I was with you in California.)
Until my eyes dried.
The bottle got warm.
My legs fell asleep and I tripped and fell on my way to the kitchen; I bruised my right knee. I bit my tongue and didn’t make a sound.
The rain didn’t leave any marks, the wine did. A blood red stain in my living room mat to match the dark red sleepless nights you left with your apology filled goodbye written on a wrinkled napkin. These sleepless nights you left me with to match with the city that never sleeps.
Oh, so very thoughtful of you.
(You should’ve left me with the whiskey I kept under the kitchen cabinet, your The Smiths album and some painkillers for my metaphorically shattered bones.)
(I never really liked red wine.)

Every night (without her) he watches the sun set on his ceiling. Warm tendrils of light seep over the white paint like a high tide rushing onto the beach.
(He) keeps forgetting to replace the curtains she took with her.
The bed feels soft but (is) too warm; over-used.
His body leaves a crescent-shaped depression
(constantly) reaching out to the cold side of the bed
where she used to sleep.

life stretches on slowly
the previous rattle of scenery sliding past his eyes
has been reduced to a static hum
– like the sound after a rainstorm –
(falling) asleep is easier now.

i wouldn't mind if
for the rest of my life
i never saw anything
other than
ocean.

Smokestacks billow to the clouds and their shadows cast
The littered concrete is an eternal ream
It travels a world we believe small but actually ever so vast
A clean living world seems a distant dream
We inherit a world of pure beauty, such so it leaves us aghast
A small blue fish, swimming up stream
Meeting each current, a determined spirit, but the river it can't outlast
Global warfare on the television screen
How did we not learn from our mistakes in the not too distant past
The patriarchy is truly a vicious regime
Are we not the generation of change, why are we not amass
With a little work, I believe we can redeem
And begin to build a peaceful utopian society at long last
We then lay back,
and float downstream