there are burn holes in my skin where you touched me
i wish i could rid your smell
from my clothes
but it clings on like
cigarette smoke to my hands
i want to drink 6 cups of bleach
and brush my teeth with powdered lye
but even that wont scrub you
from the walls of my heart
i dont even love you anymore
but yet here you are
still haunting me
everywhere i go
you follow
and everywhere i hide
you find me
leave me alone
leave me alone
leave me
alone

when I was born, I had
nine lives left, I was bereft
of scars, delicate as fireflies
in a jam jar
(the kind I’d punch holes in the lid for,
the kind I’d bring indoors
and set on my bedroom floor as a fairy nightlight, until I got bored
and one by one they died silent as the pollination of fornicating spores.)

anyways.

9 lives left, age: 2 months
but then one day daddy looked the other way and splash!
the baby’s in the *** and the ***’s still hot
(there are witches in the air but we don’t care)
looks like soup tonight! yum yum
third degree misery etched on her body,
one life done.

And nothing to show for all of her fun
but a twisted left arm and a ***** of a sun (burn)

One life down, eight to go, you know
because she’s a fox, which (if you peek over the ledge of your punitive box)
is like a cat. And that, as we know, means
nine lives, and that’s that.

well, eight now.
if you want, I’ll tell you how she (i) is (now) down several more.
worry not little one, fate always evens out
the score.

The second was me and a boy (THE Boy, if you know what I mean)
it would seem he and I had climbed two stories high
hand over foot over hand over foot over
the parking lot right up next to the sky
and then oh-
wait.

I’m falling.

(breathe in, breathe out)

(the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout
down came reality and washed the spider out)

and there are
butterflies on the tip of my tongue and there is
a word stuck in my stomach.

he held my eyes just like I couldn’t hold
the pipe as I fell, right towards the earth between heaven and hell
now there are hot knives in my ankles and I think (I can’t tell)
I’m alive.

(stop drop and roll)

yes I fell from the roof through the sky. No I’m fine.
just one more life gone, I saw it flash before my eyes in a short space of time
that was roughly
the shape of a stop sign, or maybe a wind chime, or maybe
it was the shape of the sunshine.

Whichever way, that’s two down, seven to go;
the next one I lost when I rolled off the road.

We were going seventy and
the love of my life was sitting next to me and
his skin was beautiful in its caramel coffee complexity and
he wasn’t
paying
attention.

There is air in my lungs when I should be history
but the SUV only bruised my knees as it rolled, glass shattering
pit-pattering over the pinwheel of perfect destruction
around us.

I felt myself decide that it was okay
if this was the end.

At least I’d go with my best friend, there’s some
good stuff. That, I conceded, would be enough,
I could die young
if who I was in that moment
could be the freeze-frame of my song,
the thing that’s left
after I’m gone.

Three lives gone, only five left-
the next one is casually snipped like a price tag
after a theft when I fell
(again)
from the banyan tree and flipped my pancake
(click-clack) like a jacob’s ladder
I should have broken my back.

As I fell I yelled in my head
there’s nothing to fear but fear itself
(till you’re dead.)

four down, five to go Indigo.

Here we go.

(to be continued.)

concave,
convex;
you stretch and shrink

from the blood and chocolate
on your tongue.
a mouse, peripherally,
jumps sobbing out of your
breadbox.

you drive your fist through the mirror and when
i walk in you
are at the dining table,
playing chess with the pieces of your shattered
soul
the blood still running
from your knuckles.

Dizzy and uncontrolled, I open my eyes to see the smoke crowding the air.
For, my body has just become a safe haven for your hands.
Temptation has won tonight.
Moonlight is dancing upon our bare bodies and I am immersed in pure satisfaction.
Our lips have synced with the circadian rhythm we possess and the fire has started to erupt.
As the flames get more and more intense, so does the love we pretend to have for each other.
It continues to grow until we convince ourselves it’s real.
The bedsheets serve as our common ground for our broken hearts to rest on.
As we are climbing and pretending; pretending and climbing,
The fire is getting hotter, the love is getting cloudier, and our bodies are getting heavier against on another’s.
Faint whispers of phrases we dare not say otherwise fill the room.
Finally, the fire is extinguished and we are left to lay with nothing but reality.
Clutching each other for protection from yet another fire, we doze off hoping to wake up in love with each other.

It's a nightmare of a journey
Through the Rose Hills.
White roses cover death
Along side the 50mph ride.
We'll speed down the boulevard
Turning right, swerving left.
Drink some beer on Broadway,
Smoke some cigarettes at CVS.
Then I'll fill your heart with rose petals
And regret.
You grin and whisper gently
I'll meet you in Whittier at Sunset.

Lets muddle through Greenleaf
Under a cerulean sky.
I got lost in the time held in your eyes.
I stumble back to only trip into your disguise.
Only to drown in your lips and lies.
Dragging our souls to Hellman's and back,
I'll find you on Hadley letting the sun in,
Wilted in Whittier at sunset.

It would seem the world has quietly fit the puzzle pieces into place over night ,
Like wet washing , crispy and dry from the radiators humming warmth , a satisfactory feeling , a job well done.
There is much beauty to be found on this journey home , moments where the heart is plummeting at a million miles a second , descending from the upper troposphere hurtling down , through clouds whipped up by a storm of ages – waiting for the conclusion – perpetual motion catches me
Elegant design,
Crooked lines make curves,      
Spitting at the throat, holding those words,  
  vision of confusion eats up at the temple of love , bodies are walking shrines.

******* karma on sticky fingers.

479

She dealt her pretty words like Blades—
How glittering they shone—
And every One unbared a Nerve
Or wantoned with a Bone—

She never deemed—she hurt—
That—is not Steel’s Affair—
A ****** grimace in the Flesh—
How ill the Creatures bear—

To Ache is human—not polite—
The Film upon the eye
Mortality’s old Custom—
Just locking up—to Die.

you who swayed on stoop-steps and picked bits of teeth
from your knuckles, your fantasies, your crouched in blood
giggles; monologues.
you who wrapped knives around tree hides and in carvings
found your way back to days of love
& dead wet leaves.
you who rattled in hate of sweaty girls but
smeared out on the boulevard for girls anyways
& made those girls sweat.
you who ****** in the snow and wrote out all the names
of your far-fallen friends and sisters in just one stream.
pacific coast highway.
you who soaked back in the trans-fat pools of employment
to grip at tips and taste at *****
in this fine phase we call fermentation.
you who came hurdling down from hills and hallways
with navajo sidekicks,
your battle-axes sweetened with sugar powder flecks; for flavor
while dying.
you who peeled skin from your fingertips in protest
of the war on whales, warping you irrevocably
down the path
of a whisky avocado diet.