painter of dreams
living through imagination
a fragment of reality running wild
I release all my sanity for fantasy
don't wake me up

raise your standards
self-hatred is weak

he moved his body, I followed
I touched myself, his hands

such a disgusting beauty
a silent high-impact force of comfort
his anxiety traded for a poison
my poison traded for his nectar

don't let me go

not much left
it's incredible how easily one becomes jaded
how easily we forget love in the absence of presence
the top of the mountain isn't so intimidating when you're being carried
the bottom is the hard part

our purpose is to fall
building friendships, fragile beginnings with shattering ends
trying not to be so intimate

leave me alone

weird crazy stupid
there is no room for elegance
elbow to elbow, hip to hip
I'm a ******* paradox
leave me alone

He grabbed at the fat on her legs with his tongue,
and his teeth.
He was going to devour her,
like the dinner she made earlier.
All he thought about was ***,
his friends all called him, "Caveman".
It turned her on
(especially when he left the lights on).
She was obsessed with the heat,
in her room, in the kitchen.
When he cut off the circulation on her wrist,
it made marks,
(she loved them).

I will sit next to you on the plane
I am your priestess
I will relieve you of your fears
I will drink your thoughts
I had a dream of lemons in my tea
I looked in the cup
and I saw you staring back at me
it's strange, how easily you consume
I want to leave
I want to breathe
maybe someday I will look at your picture
just not now

I wouldn't say I have a particular type of lover,
and I wouldn't say I always take notice in the beauty of a smile,
sometimes I do,
but it's usually from a ***** mouth.

To think, if our bodies weren't so far apart,
separated by time, distance, clothing,
then maybe something would have happened.

It's hard to face something you've avoided your whole life,
disappointing too.

I've spent the last few weeks loving you like a God,
only to learn that you aren't perfect,
and you will never be mine,
and I'm okay with that.

I need to find myself in this mess before I can hold onto anyone that will last.

"I can't imagine more than I can imagine."

I'm going to start telling you exactly how I feel
to avoid all the others (feelings) that follow
when I keep secrets and try to make everyone as happy as
I want myself to be.

"I always think like this."

You're my reason(s).
you're the warm that I bathe in
and the chill that I hide from,
but at least we can talk serious
with our hands, and have fun with
our lips, and our tongues.
I can hear exactly how you feel
in the direction your eyes open to mine.

"You keep forgetting how to breathe."

We can't touch each other without pulling away,
we can't look, either, it's never close enough.

"****** tension?"

Interrupting thoughts:
legs.
yours. mine.
lips. *******.
hands. knees.
orange.
blue ink.
black ink.
everything about you.
that is me.
that I can't:
control.
myself.

"I can't express myself with words in this place."

my projections are reflections
of all within my vessel
pushing outward.

the more you hate
the more you waste
the more you lose control

The excitement of not knowing.
Curiosity has got me on my knees;
you are a bundle of learning.

The descriptions in which I dictate thought
are nothing more or less in which the way
you think, and the only difference between us
is the fact that I say them aloud.

Love is loud, yet knowledge is knocking.
Perhaps
touching is feeling, and
knowing is believing.

I find that I strive for more than
which it is that I accept.

Although,
I accept more than what it is that
I wish to accept.
Wishing to attract what's apart from me,
simply because of a few common interactions,
and the comfort it brings.

I love in many ways, some that are destructive,
(which I acknowledge), and others that help me
to breathe, think, write, and speak.

Although others doubt the power which I can share,
I will continue to carelessly be the person which I am.

Willingly trying to give up on being the person which
others tell me I should be, or rather, neglecting the "who"
in which others think I cannot succeed.

Friends are special and sacred,
I find love in all cracks,
and I accept the dark,
settling,
I am.

Love is in all places,
all faces,
all things.

Give yourself up and be,
manifest.

hello hello hello
--and who, are you?
you make me feel so good
when you walk into the room.

candy bars, crashing into grave yards
stealing cars, driving to the sounds you made
I make new ones.

and you, you you you you
I miss your face when it's right in front of me
and you kiss me and I laugh and it's warm
(too warm to breathe).

I've hit the wall
and now I'm
sliding
         down it
laying on the ground
reaching my arms up
grabbing hold, pulling
sitting on the top
looking over, skrim skim skimmly skimmeddd
scanning the crowds, but you're out of town
so I push some buttons
and sew some buttons
pet kittens
I'm smitten, keep hittin'
                                        ta ta turn to face me
"do you forgive me?" "Yes." RUN AWAY!!!

...time by yourself with bruises you can't explain,
are your ribs breaking? stop, don't stop!

you're ridiculous, hilarious. I can smell your alcohol from three feet
away. I'm too high to tell you. Looking out the window's nice.
                                                 I've just met you this noon and I'm already
eating more plate fulls of food than mouthfulls of words but if I did speak I wouldn't say
anything worth being heard, because I'm tired,
         still trying to remember last night.

this morning is so dark, maybe I'll go for a walk.
nothing's open on holiday's.

We were sweating, and moving together, like animals.
It wasn't enough that we took our mothers pills,
and filled our pockets with sugar.
We needed more,
we needed to kiss and dance,
feel something soft against our bodies.

I wanted you to justify your actions
with something more than a side-ways glance,
but you don't care to explain yourself,
because you seem to do things for no reason.

We were too sensual for casual conversation,
and although we talked all day,
we didn't know what our tones meant,
or how to answer each other's questions.

I wanted to feed you chocolate,
and feel your hands on my sides,
but for some reason you wanted to tell me jokes,
and use your hands for other things.

We were holding on in small ways,
secret ways that made people stare,
and wonder if we were in love,
even though they knew we weren't.

I wanted to consume as many chemicals as I could,
because the ones we shared were worth close to nothing.

standing on the edge of a bridge
meet me before I jump.

I've got to get out of this apartment.
the carpet is too clean, I have to take off my shoes.

company? nope.

I'll drowned out the music
with fingers in my ears
head under water, trying not to float.

grass stains
I need to run away.

contact? nope.

trip me up,
cut me loose,
keep me cute.

mmmm.

all I need to say.

mmmm.

We're romantics,
pretty gossipers.

We try as hard as we can to escape the world with pens,
and we soak page after page,
imagining the ink to be our tears.

We're depressed,
lost travelers.

The words; each hand picked to portray something only we can understand.
Our desperate search for empathy is sickening,
and yet it continues.

We're sweet,
helpless lovers.

We fall in love with every person we see with a symmetrical (enough) face.
Picking up habits that we've read in books,
or saw in an old film.

Why are we poets?

for myself
the Yuba's pulse
is that of the scent of coffee
freshly brewed
lightly roasted
early in the morning
in the middle of winter

comfort in the heartbeat
of the community

soon I will drift off
like wood
strong
not seeking
simply floating in the current
rushing through the waves
becoming one with what surrounds me
always floating
nothing will drowned me

Colorado isn't so far away
that my love won't reach those who stay
I'm afraid that I can no longer steep
I'm fresh hot tea, and biscuits!
Ready to eat!

I'm taking a bite of life
to nourish my soul
this valley of grass
no longer my (w)hole!
no longer another day
wishing to move on
it's time to let go
to see a new dawn!

the horizon so bright!
the road awaits my travels
and I await my fate

another day for another friend
no such hurt that love won't mend
I find myself better when I am with myself
so here I go into the world
to feel a new river
smell a new smell
see a sight unknown without fright
no tightening in my stomach
fluttering at best

wings never at rest
sprouting from my back
fueled by my chest
the beating inside
reverberates externally
although my physical being moves
my love for this place, these people
and the land, my love will stand

eternally.

I guess I left because I needed to be depressed somewhere else,
I wanted the chance to forget everyone I knew so that I could find out what I wanted.
For a while I liked things, then I thought they were okay.
I got really into it for a while,
then when I stopped liking it:
I said it was interesting,
trying to avoid any real answer
(or commitment).

I got really sick of looking in the mirror,
but I couldn't get rid of it,
so I bleached my hair,
which was a waste of $13
because I cut it off the morning after.

I was really embarrassed when your friend came over,
he was cute,
you told me there were clothes in the trash bags he carried.
(apparently they were for me)

I decided to clean the kitchen for a few bucks
so that I could get a wig at the local thrift store.
(I figured he wouldn't want to date me if I was bald).
When I got to the thrift store it was closed
and there was a drunk man passed out by the front door.
I thought about waking him up, but I was too shy.

I ran home
because it was getting late
and I'm afraid of the dark.

The first thing when I got in the door
I went to get a glass of water,
the sink was full with all the dishes I just washed.
(apparently they weren't good enough)

I never realized that hot water could whistle,
or that it could hurt so much.
I washed through the pain.
When I got to the silverware
it reminded me of a conversation
that I had with some close friends.
One of them told me they put one between each finger
like a claw,
I tried to do it
but my impatience got the better of me.

Orgasming in the passenger seat,
while she listens to something she doesn't understand,
sitting across from someone she'll never love,
all the while completely clothed and turned off.

She's one of those girls,
who touches herself when you're on the the phone,
or just watching another episode of a mediocre television show.


Everyone's asleep while she sings the saddest songs
in the most **** of ways.
Except he's not asleep,
when they're ******* for days.

I never knew of love this strong,
it's healthy glow illuminating happiness.
Proving to me that I was pessimistic for too long,
and that pessimist point-of-view sort of liked it when I cried.

my skin is splintered,
it's not the wood inside of me.
maybe's are seeping through
my heart holes.
all form is out to play, I'm on
the 19th hole of destruction.

dish water rattling
i want to take my clothes off
my neck is slightly aching
and all thoughts of love come rushing
through my lungs and constrict the position
that I'm placed.
privileged kids with big egos, big brains
heads full of assumptions because of the clothes you wear
or the friends you've made.
and it just so happens that you're one of them,
the strategy to get out of their judgement's alignment
alludes you and you fall into patterns like clay bricks
stacked one on top of the other in a straight row with
no cement between and you're restlessly waiting for them
to tip over and make your escape.

friendship wasn't so much as a license to love
as it was to be stepped on back then.
when the realization occurred in that brain
you framed impatient, the agreement to share
thoughts expired and you gave in to the dreams
you fought to suppress.

I want to undress.

my love is shy but he's all mine
he gets distracted and forgets the time
but look at me,
my love is bold and I am lost to it
I stare at the clock so long
I might as well marry it
oh, **** me please, I just want to carry it
this heart of mine in my chest
no, **** it, I'll just bury it.

if I wrote the things I wanted to say in anger
then I could just crumple them, just like my bones
do when I've jumbled them, and I can't get a grip
with the tip of my lip on your lip,
or
maybe that's the only way I feel I can in some moments.

here I am, killing myself.
don't worry, I'm doing it slowly,
and only slightly on purpose.

keep telling me you're trying,
I don't want to hear you've given up.

The bruises, the thoughts and the feelings:
I can't explain.

The reasons:
your fingers through my shirt
beneath my skin,
inside my brain
wrapped around my mind.

The thought of not seeing you,
the sights that appeal to you,
all the things that disolve in you.

A bubble bath:
you and a stranger
both your hands
under water:

Something soft:
you're after,
nothing new
just skin.

your hands are golden
and as frail as dry leaves.
your collar bone sends me
into a  breath bend, so I follow
the traces of your fingers on my stomach
and the crooked fragments of your once broken bones.
you've got a nervous segment of thought,
I can feel as you attempt to shake it out,
**** thoughts, you send waves of telepathy and I'm molten.

your illusions are being built on ladders,
as thin as your legs, and my fingers.
you've captured a foot, slammed into the back of each knee
and you don't lose balance.
swallowing poison, tastes good.
happiness overwhelms your senses.
everything seems better when you're killing yourself.
brain screaming: this is it!
might as well do all the things you're afraid of.

commit to a struggle for strategy.
all lined up, dressed in slept-in jeans.
you're more tired than you'd dare to admit
because your weakness is fatal. too much of yourself
locked in that tower you climb so flawlessly.
slime walls and all.
you offer me the chance to climb, not something I'd grasp
until I lost my mind, slip down the side, fall behind, leave you with time
and come back to lay on the cement around your corners.

I bring you a flower, a simple response to my own thought.
a gesture of love, of friendship, forgiveness and fear.
I'd write you something beautiful if you deserved it.
in the holding back of words, I found that if I'm writing about you
then it doesn't mean it's for you.
I can't help who I love, just as I can't help what I fear.
call me a baby, but don't call me yours.
hold me when you want to, I wont miss you until I'm there.

let me become a little less of what sickens me.
let myself break through shadows and soak midnight moon
through my half darkened, thoroughly searching eyes.

You were just standing around
waiting for me to forget my own tricks.
It's not like I was in the best state of mind
to be remembering them anyway.
I was holding my hands and bending my knees.
Swaying from side to side.
Watching a broken television from 1999.
(Wishing something good was on).

I know **** is artifical
but I still like to repeate it when you call.
I'm comfortable enough to *** infront of you,
but I'll never tell you those kinds of secrets.

My face is numb with fat
and whenever I try to talk,
my jaw breaks.
I can smell your gum with my eyes,
and it's delicious.

I'm screaming about religion
and telling you I'm gay.

Nothing is accepted,

and insults are just words without real meaning.
Sincerety isn't in the tone,

it's in the meaning.

I want my ideas to stand out
but I hate reading in italics.

Things are changing
and old feelings are fading.
Dying quietly in the corner
so as not to make a scene.
It happens to everyone

if you know what I mean.



I forgot how to write,
I forgot how to think,
I'm surprised I'm alive,
I forgot how to breathe.

I keep losing my self in the labyrinth of my mind,
it's like I'm addicted to obsession,
and love,
and things I can't have.
The fear makes me feel a sickness,
one similar to home,
(something I've always felt).
It makes me wish I could run faster,
or that I didn't get bored so easily.
Or that I didn't feed off of communication
mixed with physical contact.
I hope we talk soon,
this silence is starting to eat away at me,
at least,
the parts I want to keep.

electric wheel chairs and electric wires in your brain,
blood filled clouds shower on the insane.

unfinished projects pilled in your garage,
the pain in your spine could use a massage.

ribbons glue head to neck,
they connect like a child's
cheek and a mothers' peck.
tiny hands
full of life
and unstructured strokes
soon to be a house
full of unknown smokes.

these lights are painful,
                                                 like cold sores
and it hurts to kiss,
                                                  and it tastes like dirt.

I've read your books and I know your worth,
but now you're discolored, and your heart lost its beat.
and you're freezing, slowly, and becoming a piece of this earth.

I feel so alone, and I miss those beats.

Is it sad
that I can still smell you in the sheets?

She screams in perfect paragraphs,
chewing on pencils
she told me she was mine,
and I didn't believe her much.

The geometry of our bodies
forming equations
telling us
how to look at the stars
how to learn something new
and apply it to what we
don't understand
but won't forget.

I get into those deep places
we're entering digestion
the inside skin station
where everything comes together
to admire each other in the most unconditional of ways.

people talk about people as if they aren't some kind of thing
animals can be things, passions can be things, kisses can be things,
even moments can be things,
If I had to measure the distance between you and me
there would be not one thing in the way,
but me.

You see, I've been trying really hard lately to forget you.
It's like you've got me walked with window skin so everyone can see inside, and my eyes are rockets,
exploding,
screaming,
telling everyone who can't read,
anyone who doesn't have the time,
someone writing in a diary with blue ink,
that even though we go by different names,
you and I are more similar,
than the same anything.

So if you thought I was going to talk about that
deep dark mask I hide behind, then leave
because the too soon has come and gone too far,
you came here expecting something,
and I tell you to go out of mercy from the overflow,
because this is me standing here naked
in a mask of who I really am, which really is no mask at all.

This is no show for sad folks who want to feel anothers broken heart,
this is a spilling of one to another, through the small crowd intimacy
we sometimes long for and are suddenly surrounded, because it's so much easier to say it's about someone else and to never use their name.

If in my eyes were your eyes
and yours mine,
then nothing would change but for the directions in which we look.

I'm not saying you shouldn't dream, just,
this isn't the place.

I know how she wakes you up in the morning,
like she's got somewhere to go that's important
and you're already, a day or two or eight, late.

Your handwriting reminds me of chocolate chip pancakes
and the smell of rain through an open window in February.
You shouldn't press down so ******* your eraser.
It confuses people. Always sounding like sneakers
rubbing against linoleum and it's misleading when
you have feelings you can't explain and you've
been waiting for what feels like three days without
taking a ****, but you're waiting because you don't
want to miss something important, and even though
it hurts the way bee stings, and paper cuts, and
too many donuts after dinner hurt,
you hold it.

It's hard to keep my eyes open.

thinking of you on the nights we didn't sleep,
or the ones where we would sleep wide awake
but we wouldn't talk.
I'd talk. you would listen.
you liked it and I needed it, so it made sense
for us to be in the same room.
I got lost in something you asked me to explain.

"time to dance,"

your reason:

"No one's watching, just let go."

It's a sad life when you spend your childhood licking knives
and you wait in the rain for hours, and you always get hurt,
and your moms dead, so you live with your dad,
but you can't afford band-aids.

I've been keeping myself busy lately so that I don't have to think about anything,
I've been thinking too much,  and that doesn't get me anywhere.
I made some money the other day, I still don't have a job,
but it was good money, and I bought some more books,
and I got a new journal.
I feel like writing in it again, maybe if I get my thoughts down I wont be thinking so much.

I've been avoiding other people lately,
but the loneliness is starting to get to me,
there's this point where it begins to eat away at you like the delete button, it's terrifying.

I was looking at the moon last night,
and it was too bright for me to handle.
I kept thinking that I wanted to sew my eyes shut,
and I wasn't wearing any underwear,
and I was really hungry.

I've been feeling so old lately.

the sounds you made,
matched with the eyes you made
are nothing compared to
her red nails, and  the single you saw.

she thinks of riddles before she falls asleep
and every time she rolls over in the night
she hears the same lyrics that she'd like to hear you sing.

promises of bra straps peeking through shirts
and leaves tacked to the walls you'll bounce off.

he talks of color
and losing himself in upside down words.

Not sure which way he'd fall, even now,
with his hand sleeping between my thighs.

crisp from the core
cut in half and a bore.

I want some more sand!
I'm tired of cement beneath
the slabs of meat I call feet,
the movement doesn't beat
the heat:
it fuels it.
burning
on my way uphill, the stretch
is between my thighs. Sweat!
this weather is no good for fancy clothes,
I've got pit stains up these hills.
I'd say I'm looking on the bright side, but
it's more of a stare, or perhaps it's the light
that's stalking me, because I can't seem to
escape it!
burning!
this soul is melting through this flesh which
can't let go of winters breath, what once was
afraid to freeze to death wants nothing more
than a cloud or four, to shade their skin from
sinking in.
the rays,
the haze,
the heat begins.

Summer is no enemy,  
Winter is no friend,
all I want is Fall again!
The spring is here,
my nose is rose,
the seeping of color shall spread
ahead,
down and all places around,
it'll push and shove as
my body is covered
in the guilt of not taking
the time to properly supply myself
with sun screen.

avoiding: love.
or the pains of being in love
when there's indecision,
when I needed there not to be,
when it was coming from both ends.

my tears were like  
stepping stones
(a path you've avoided:
because it hurts too much
to feel, or it's easier to pretend
like those feelings
don't exist).
the fear and hesitation
of letting someone else
see
the steps you've taken,
and not
wanting to explain
how they led you to where you are
because it's hard to tell the truth
when you've been lying:
to everyone.

Without realizing it
half of the time,
and then the other half
I just lay in bed worrying about it,
or what other people think.

The thoughts led me to the point
where I couldn't leave my house,
or my room, or my bed.
The depression made me sick
and I didn't know how to deal with it
in any other way than letting it consume,
[like always]
because I was so obsessed with feeling
as much as I could, as intensely as possible.
I just didn't realize how self-destructive it was
because of the people I surrounded myself with
and the people that I wanted to, but didn't.

New Years: I decided not to make any resolutions.
Commitment still isn't my strong point, but I'm working on it.

I didn't treat those days like they were important,
and they weren't:
at the time.

I sought irrelevancy,
and silence,
and thought
and lack: of feeling, of thought, of silence.
Everything in my mind soon became contradiction
and it didn't take long for me to turn into the person
I feared most to become,
and even after I destroyed the image of it all,
it still existed in memory.

back to relevancy.

It's not about the timing.
It's all about the timing.

it's the situation:
the lack of feeling?
the lack of wanting.
the lack of empathy?
the lack of interest.
the lack of mystery?
the lack of understanding.

want is no way to love.
*** is no way to love.
drugs are no way to escape
(they just made me crazy)
crazy?
with thoughts of you,
with trying to forget about you
with trying to please everyone
with... everything.

I was afraid, so I tried my hand at avoiding:

conversation.
   (there was too much hurt coming from my end
to yours. I couldn't move on, because I loved you,
but I couldn't love you, because I couldn't love myself,
[or anyone else]. The idea of love grew too big,
    [in my mind] [in my pen] [in my journal] [in my life]
[the air around us] [the color of your eyes] [in memory]
[in the amount of time spent worrying about the possibilities
  of things that could go wrong]).

confrontation.
   (The only way I knew how to say sorry was to hold you,
and holding can mean too many different things and physical
translation has never been my strong point).

truth.
(with lies)
                (with truth)
(with secrets)
      (with whatever seemed to work at the time).


making changes
instead of planning changes.

I've said sorry too many times for the wrong reasons,
and not enough for the right ones.

I'm just glad to be myself again.

I can feel your spine through the storm,
It's like we're screaming at each other with our bodies.
my nose is clogged with *******
and it's spilling out of my ******* into my child's mouth.

The radiation is burning away our love,
and the nitrates are making my scalp bleed
with images of your face.

It's torture.

My veins are bulging,
threatening to explode
and drain my heart
of its only obsession.

Addiction has always been a threat,
but at least it kept us warm,
if only for a little while.

Cat.

Milk.

Where were you at 4 o'clock?

You wouldn't believe
how much effort I put into
shaving my left knee.

It's impossible to breathe
at this height,
but I'd rather not
fall asleep.

My skin is moist
with conversation,
and sticky sweet
from an earlier time.

Strange,
it's barely a memory now.

The looks I got
when my skin started melting,
only if you knew,
or understood.

The words slurred
from everyones noise holes:
calm.

When I noticed one
of the lights were out,
I felt like apologizing,
or leaving; but I didn't.

I never do,
it's just not appealing
enough.

Even if I started screaming,
or threw away my barriers,
it wouldn't change anything.
I'd still be a slave
to dusty ambitions,
a slave to my heart.

Some attempts proved them
to be worthy,
but the faults ruined
so much more.

Truth isn't
as scary as it seems,
the hurt only stings
for a little while.

this soft silence has me feeling
that there isn't enough to go around.
you're rose petals on black tile,
             indulgence at it's finest.
a dimple twitch, a train to which
station?
motivation,
obligation,
                  regurgitation.
I've been left out, cut out, burnt out.
take my feathers
make arrows
slice through my skin
make wine.
kiss my wounds, attack my goodness,
give me bruises, I'm fine!

I'm lifted
you're gifted
got me
on the edge of
both sides
of your line
shove my face
smash my face
trash my cash and mash
mash mash, until there's bleeding.
-I haven't made it there... yet.

trying to decide what to do with my time
waiting for the wash, dreading the dirt that clings
to clean cheeks and it's only been a few weeks
but I'm burning in madness.

to entertain you would be golden
my brain is swollen with stepping
and it makes me want to be alone.

negative exports, I'm an expert at drowning
with one foot placed firmly on the ground,
the other in my mouth.

I'm horribly in love with the sound of your voice,
and I'm sick and twisted from the syllables your throat pours.

I want you to take my picture without any light,
because I'm aching to get rid of your dictionary.

The metal in my mouth is gone but I still feel the same,
I guess the porcelain clashes with the wrinkles on your face.

My interests aren't what they used to be,
because of the way you make me feel,
and if I really loved you,
then nothing I said would be real.

I hold you         closer
                         (in thought). you're a dream (a memory).
alone: you are my bedroom criticism.
I hate: when you're afraid to kiss me
(with pickles on my breath) "I hate you"
you     in the same exhaustion
             as walking up stairs.  
give me confidence
give me pudding
             tell me secrets
             tell me lies
show me hunger
show me face (your face)
               buried under the sheets
               hidden in shadow, laying in snow.
vinegar's ringing. pick up.
                                      "I'm not good at this." (your shadow)
"It's morning, what are you planning to say?"  "Can we do this another time?"
                                      "I'm not good at this."
vinegar's tired.
                                            hang up.

I stared at you for hours                "I don't know what to say."
"you're beautiful when you                don't know what to say."
                                        "make me laugh."
the things you said: "please" "go to sleep"
                                                                ­  I'll tell you more tomorrow.

better to be silent
than say words
that are brittle
and break
under the
weight
of their meaning.

existing without living
waking and breathing
in short spurts of pain
too ***** to be touched
picked and scabbing
bleeding into dinner
kissing into sleep
choking
pushed away
love this is not
lust preserves the rot
my heart's in a knot
if only I was taught

I need to be alone
so that I can feel this.
I have an ache to ache,
Do you get it?
Can you feel the pain that's building through my lack of feeling?
It's waiting to engulf me and it's tainting my judgement of time,
entertainment and beauty.

The independence I long for stretches me thin.
My lust for love has now been shown in the light
and I feel that I've realized I wanted nothing more
than to feel wanted, needed, and cared for.
That maybe love isn't what I was missing.

I know that I don't know
and that I'm learning more every day.
I just hope that these feelings of disgust dissipate
and through that which I overcome helps me to create.

And she wore
black eyes in her pockets
and when she cried
her jeans went red.
my baby speaks with the
tip of her tongue on the
back of her teeth.
and every time I hear her speak
her beauty
makes me weak
and I'm down on my knees.

removing the "I" from the "Self"
is a concept that I, as myself, have difficulties understanding.
perhaps it's the culture that I live in but it seems inescapable
to use "I" as a helper for description.
To call yourself One seems no different to me than
to call yourself I.

Apart from the fact that to say, "One is hungry for flesh." There could be zombies through the miscommunication.
Rather than to say "I am hungry for flesh." You are a cannibal.


I and Ego
have roles each in their own,
but I do not believe it's egotistical to say I
when describing how you feel, no feeling lasts forever,
for feelings change just as the I changes.

To open your mind, ("your": anyone who believes that I and Ego are one)
to the idea that it's not how one describes themselves or their feelings
but perhaps how one acts off of those thoughts or feelings
and chooses to live their lives and how they treat those around them,
as well as themselves.

Ego, to me, is a behavior,
deeply rooted within your shadow,
which is cast by your soul.

Then again, such as people create their own religions,
I tend to create my own definitions for words that already have them.

Thinking that someone loves you is better than nothing,
but what people don't realize is that it was all pokes at jokes
and I bet he smokes,
or knows I do
and doesn't like the smell,
or the way I breathe out,
or how the rings come from my mouth
and are never on my fingers.

And I have paper cuts on those same fingers
that want to be in your hair,
and your body,
(all of it),
and I hope you want them there,
because that's exactly where they'll be
if we ever meet.

The dirt buried in my prints
will leave marks on you like a million hands and feet,
drenched in paint and smeared over your temple.

I bet you don't care what I look like,
or that I have a Van Gough pin,
or that people like to write my name.
I'm glad you like to listen,
and that you're smooth with words,
so I can fall asleep to the sound of your golden text.

I never thought I would like an arial view,
or that I would fall in love with strings of it
all laced together into a perfect fabric,
(or web).

I hope that you're not allergic to sound,
or jelly beans,
because I want to see you cry and smile at the same time.

jelly bones cracked his wrist
and wouldn't go to school in the morning.
Kept his notes in the back of his jeans,
and when he bent over
he couldn't reach.

there was a song about those notes
and he sung even though he was out of key.
partly joking, or just a tease?
she keeps her distance,
explaing how water that feels like sunburns are the best part of her day.

Oh sweet miracle, I'm not gonna lie.
I can swim any day and
Now
I think it's time to fly.  

-Some people think structure is beauty, others find that chaos is beauty just the same. Perhaps each idea that pops into our heads wont be the one we hoped it would be, but then realized expectations leave you dry.
Being here in this moment, focused on the now, it's not as easy as it could be today, but I feel the times are quickly changing.

-On time:
                 it's just so easy to make false assumptions about this notion,
                 this measurement,
                 but perhaps that's all a part of this game we call life.
                                           Let's play a game to see who gets their name
                                                    on the fridge
                                                         and a pat on the back.
"My friends. We see things so differently and yet we seem them exactly the same."

I tried to read your pretty words,
but I was too distracted by happiness.
I wanted to take a picture,
but they don't sell my size film anymore.
And as I listened to the songs you shared with me,
I realized that anyone could like the same ones,
and that I was silly for thinking I was in love.

It made me think about that night with the guy I just met,
how his car was cold and I kept shaking,
and the music was really bad,
but I kissed him anyway.
Then afterwards on the way home,
I kept thinking about how beautiful you are,
and about how I wanted to see you that night.
How I still haven't gotten the chance to see the color of your eyes for myself.

I wrote some letters this week,
I want to write them to you too,
or maybe I'll call you,
I haven't heard your voice enough,
and I've almost memorized what I've heard already.

When I saw you drawing that hand,
I wished it was my hand,
and I wished you would reach out and hold it
as if you've held it a million times before,
but it meant more than anything to you,
and I wished that you would dream about the softness.

I feel like I should be embarrassed,
but I doubt you even check these anyway.

bye.

words:
a poets kiss

water:
to wet your
                     tongue
throat                    
               lips

tell me this:

which set of words
arranged in which way
would send me in the direction
of your heart, hands, head, just ahead?

which tone of voice...

soothes you into sleep
to awaken the greatest dreams?

or shakes you into daybreak
to my face, smiling, you inside?

which tone would I need
to hone enough of a melody that will keep you near?

and which would I need to move you closer
so that you would be right here?

What could I hear
in the deep
dark marks
of your scars?

What could I learn
as we drink
walking
talking
playing
in bars?

What more would spill
from you, if, instead of
ingesting toxins...
we just keep talking //
instead in daylight
through forests
up mountains
down river
up stream
I bet you'd beam!

I say it all as if I know you, but I honestly don't know a thing.

words: a poets kiss

I want to go where I can still see the stars.

Where a flat tire is a simple "I miss you".
I won't be back for a while,
I've been feeling hungry for attention,
like a child.
Dreams about you in the grocery store,
and rooms with our names on them,
but not the same ones.

Is it wrong that I like my secrets?
Or that the girl screaming "*******!"
probably didn't mean it?
Or that I wished I was 4 floors closer to her eyes
and her hands?

Hopefully we never meet.
I wouldn't be able to hold on for more than a heartbeat
or two.
It takes more than a million to fall in love,
And twice as much for them to love you back.

I'm sorry I talk about love so much,
but it seems to be the only thing you're interested in.

I want you to think of me when you've just woken up from a bad dream
and you're staring out the window wondering where you went wrong.
I want you to be able to tell the difference between moonlight and snow,
or that if you rub them together the right way you'll disappear.
We practiced drawing lines (failed attempts at being artists)
but there were too many crooked ones that didn't make any sense,
and we crossed the wrong ones, and got too close to the others,
the picture got so distorted that we appeared crazy.

That keeps happening.

I tried to escape myself to find myself but instead I became more complicated and more sick, than ever.
It made me see how much stronger  brain waves are than ocean waves,
that they can drag you deeper inside yourself than a broken heart,
and they can hurt you more than a broken bone.
If you don't know where you are or who you are, how are you supposed to know what will help you?
How are you supposed to know how to love?
You can't.
I've found that it's harder to live in your shadow than in your soul,
that you can't find yourself in the stars, or in the bathroom, or in some one else's eyes.
People wont love you if you blind them.
Chaos isn't comforting.
I keep turning them away.

This keeps happening.

step up and sink in
my mind is a riddle
swollen with thinkin'
surprised at what you made me feel
I thought it was impossible.

is there something so wrong with me
that one mentioning your closeness
and I'll get up and run to you?
even if I'm sure I'd break more?

you words are strings
and mirrors, I don't want to be so caught
in your tangles. don't tell me what to do.

“I’m trying to change.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m trying to change.”
“Keep saying it.”
“I’m trying to change. I’m trying to change. I’m trying to-”
“NO. YOU’RE. NOT.”

wondering what to do:
he broke my focus like a bone.

I wonder who I am,
who I'm becoming,
and how I used to be.

I thought I was just like him
but some lovers don't know how to stop.

I'm learning:

beginnings:
your name [here]
your pen [in my pocket]

endings:
the word God melts like a spoon
in my hands,
my hands? hotter than the flames of hell.
Suicide:
not mine. I  swear [this time].
this time we're talking about you.
I know you got tired of listening to the other things,
but here's me stripping it all away.
I can only hope you can hear me,
because I'm screaming so loud you could be my mother.

My heart is beating faster than these keys and
you are the power behind the beatings. .