i stopped writing about love and all the people
that begged for rations of my lips and eyes
i've left the pages white and neat and empty
i've kept the plastic wrap around my mind.

i stopped trying to feel something worth describing
with rhythm and with simile and rhyme.
i am collected in this box of bones and sutures
i am impossible to love past dinner time.

i stopped shaking from my heavy, dreamless sleeping,
the timing belt to which my feet are strapped.
i am locked into a ground that can't broken,
guarding mines of love like gold that can't be tapped.

i stopped writing about depth and loss and body
i packed and froze my stock of butterflies
i've kept in cages all the wild phrases
that once wandered like balloons into the skies.

i stopped turning all the pages of the scripture
i pray only after two glasses of wine
i dug until i found the clay of chaos
then stabbed my shovel dully in its spine.

i stopped writing about love and all it's meanings
i am suspended on a rope above my heart
cracking slowly under weight of empty spaces
why fall in love when you can fall apart?

One empty nightstand and a closet half-full,
dim the lights and don't bother
to draw back the covers before you
surrender to the time.
The windows are drab and unclean
because you've lost the ambition to see clearly.
The sink is cluttered with the ghosts
of your last meal together and the rotting smell
filling the kitchen
is your favorite reminder that you didn't really
enjoy her cooking anyway.

sitting at the kitchen table
crying,
and trying to
explain to my mom
why i stayed
while she told me,
with small kaleidoscopes of
warped devastation
pooling in her eyes
and rolling down her cheeks,
that this is scaring her.
because, it sounds like
i’m the type of girl
who stays,
while her husband beats her.
the girl she raised.
sitting at the kitchen table
crying,
and realizing
that when you ran your hands
through my hair as you kissed me,
you were twirling my future around
your fingers.
this is scaring me
because you’ll be the guy
who carved the hole in my chest
that stays
i know i will see your fingerprints
in all the hands that will come after you.

And I Will Run.

I wake up. Quiet. The sheets beside me are cold. The sun shines trough the dewy windows. I look down at my brown knees. The nail polish on my toes is falling off. I close my eyes for a second and open them again. I leave my bed and look myself in the mirror. My eyes are as blue as the ocean, and I’ve got freckles on my nose. My lips are dry, so I wet them with my tongue. I can feel the warmth from the sun on my thighs. It’s silent.
     My mother enters the room.
     “Who?” she asks.
     “I don’t know” I answer. She leaves.
     I look at myself in the mirror again. I look pretty, with my tan skin as a contrast to my blue eyes. An eyelash has fallen off and landed on my cheek, but I don’t remove it. I look away, at the sun. It shines again today. I miss the ocean.

called, "when I am dead"

and what came to mind, while
pecking away

were thatched roof cottages, hedgerows
all along a cliff,

and waves below whipping against
earth's spine

farther out were great swells
and black ships foundering

sea serpents were darting through
the green depths

this spectacle was silent, the screaming
men, the crashing waves

even the charcoal sky, threaded with a
thousand bolts of lightning

birthed no thunder, though I didn't
wonder why

I was supposed to among the dead
where vibrations abound

though none pound against
eardrums

such silence, I was told, was tantamount
to solace

but men were drowning, and fires leapt
across the waters

and no passage led up the cliffs to home
and sanctuary from this terrific tempest

i wished for a
four octave voice
riches fame
abilities to make my
guitar cry and sing
the words to touch
the whole world
money and a beautiful wife

traded it for my happiness
so where the **** did I end up
on the end of a rubber noose
two ativan
in a
locked hotel bathroom
you never know

what you are trading your
soul for when you deal

with the devil

better check those
wishes

very

very

carefully

I have moved to a different drum
With odd and peculiar rhythms
Dancing awkwardly through life
On my two flat clumsy feet
It is not the way I chose
To step on innocent toes
But the wildness of my dance
Has had no easy flow
The blame lies entirely with me
It's a genetic thing, you see
I am no more than this
The son of the gypsy's kiss

                                By Phil Roberts

You are not a

What is it?

You are you-

Biddy you slept
In the crook
Of my legs.

She was gone.

Who are you