Eyes can be the worst of enemies
They've had me wading in tears
up to my knees
And now I'm waiting with fears
produced by my greed
and longing for what my eyes have seen

I'm so lucky.
It was so unlikely.
It's so unlike me.
To think I'm lucky.

I was only lonely.
It made me unlucky.
But I was only bones then.
and only knew
fuckmefuckmefuckme.

And now I'm here.
And now I'm lucky.
And I still remember
the mucky foggy past.

And I knock on wood.
Because I know I should.
I knock on wood.
and hopefully nothing
shocks the lucky good.

And now I'm here.
But the only old me
is in my ADHD.

I hope it doesn't get the best of me.
I hope I can conquer.
But I'm still me.
I'm still ADHD.

Knock knock knock.

I find it kind of funny
that you told her how nice I was
(I use past tense; I am no longer decent)
And how different I was from the others
(I am no longer different from the others)
and she told you not to ruin me

I find it kind of funny
when you told me this story
I laughed like it was some kind of a joke

She knew all along
(Such a wise woman)
That I would get destroyed
(I am no longer different from the others)
I'm just like all the other stories of your past
I burn you with cigarettes
(You used to tell her how nice I was)
I'm demolished.

What a funny joke.

I don't know what I'm looking at
a masterpiece of acoustic vision in front of my eyes
but for all I had known
there were trap doors slamming themselves
shut, letting off dust into the crystal air

For all I had known
this freckle on my kneecap is a trickling spider
making its way over the hill
because it's been climbing so long it's footsies
are blistering and it just wants to
freefall into nothing.

For all I had known those voices of
children outside are trapped in my head
They don't exist because nothing is real
and nothing is real because it's safer fake

For all I know now is all I knew then
It's just altered and makes sense now
because I know what opportunities I left
to die dry
because I didn't water them with tears
I made an ocean instead.

The polaroid.

The sidewalks.

Lake Calhoun.

Sleeping in the hot and sticky trunk.

The stars.

Hiding.

Your cave.

Being ashamed.

Saying goodbye.

Seeing the stars.

The paintings.

The polaroids.

The legs draped over the arm rest of the sofa.

Who's feet are these?

The stars of Minneapolis.

The courtyard.

My face.

Your beautiful ****** angel.

The Starlite Motel.

Seeing the stars of Minneapolis.

The cave.

The paint puddles in a Bible.

The most beautiful night you've ever had.

Don't paint anyone else.

Show me the stars of Minneapolis from inside your cave.

I didn't know 'till now.

I just didn't know.

My soul is a vacant lot
filled with weeds,
lacking fragrance and vibrance.

It's not weighty
nor worthy
of your attention
or affection

It's roots grow out of appreciation
for the few weeds you pulled, leaving spaces
for some new seeds to be planted

Maybe someday this will all look more like fertilizer
and less like ****

First the shove
Then the punch
Then the blow from behind the knees
Kick me when I'm down
Stand on my chest
Stick a stake in it
through my heart and into the ground

but if you leave I'll be suffering a slow death at best.
I just hope you don't hear my dying engine sound.

I always get the sense
that it's late.

Later in the day;
          Where did my morning go?
Later in my life;
           I need to get a move on
           I need to accomplish dreams and things
Later in the year;
           Is it a new year already?
           What have I been doing for the last nineteen years?
            Maybe it's been twenty-two.

Later in the moment;
            Are you leaving already?
            When will I see you again?
             Oh, that's a long time
Later in the whatever-this-is-that's-happening-to-me;
            When are you coming back?
             Oh, you're leaving for good?
             Okay.
             Well, let me know if I can change your mind.
             No?
             Okay.

Later in my lack of experience;
          Oh, hey there.
           I'm Peyton
           I want to let you know up front.

I'm a little crazy.
Oh.
Okay.
Goodbye, then.

I don't miss the snow
I don't miss the cold
I miss the many layers
but there are so many other fabrics
to cover me up

The sun says I don't need any

Always pressing flowers
Attempting to beautify the dead

Leeching to a dependent,
I've never been cured by the cold.

I hear the planes flap their wings
and long for them to let me fly
away with them.

"I don't actually own him,
but we're together all the time
so I guess we're friends."

And I'm taking a bath while
I'm still clean,
to burn the follicles off my
creasing forehead.

Everyone is against lying
     but they whisper faded fibs to
          everyone they know, about
          everyone they know, and
          everyone they they used to know, and
          everyone they wish they didn't know
which is why lying is a cooperative act

I'm a liar,
but you should believe me when I promise
that I still won't tell the secrets that you told me in the dark
when you flaunted your character
You were stunning when
you licked my envelope lips and sealed them tight
     but I'll still chatter with my fingertips.
          (You know their babble better than anyone else)
And although you fastened my voice behind the doorway of my mouth
I still lie with my face
     because a smile is in the eyes
and you're lying when you look at my stagnant eyes
     and pepper your story with details
It makes me sick when I look at your words and see
     the duping delight of a monster that kidnapped my razzledazzle dreams
And with the growl of a monster
     you nod your head up and down while
     you repeat the word "no" with an O of the same mouth
          that with the curl and pull of an Elvis lip
               and the scrunch of a nose in disgust
turns your kindling anger to contempt as you go around flailing deception

This puts me in an uncomfortable mode
     of knowing that I was so full of hope that I threw it all up
          onto the trembling ground beneath my feet
Motion sickness brings me to my knees
     and unsettles the emotion sickness inside of me

***** LIES

And I watch these nauseating emotions in the puddle at my feet.

Truth be told,
I lied to you all along

Truth be told,
I'm crossing my fingers behind my back

No greater feeling
than breathing in oxygen
and loving the taste
of it's sweetness on your teeth

I spend so much time
convincing people that
the sun exists,
that I didn't have any
time to convince myself
that there's still
daylight at this time
of morning.

This road is forked so I walk straight

Left is only right, but opposite

and right is only wrong, but different

I am talking in circles

I am walking nonsense

I am singing television

and watching harmonies in solitude

I am walking on my hands

I am writing with my toes

I dream in a reality

and live in a fantasy

what is right in front of me

comes at me from behind

a bullet skewers my back

while a knife shoots through my chest

I paint sculptures and statues with crayola

and I build Mona Lisa with bricks and stones

I dig to the depths of Mount Everest

I climb to the top of Death Valley

I dance in stillness to silence

I sleep in motion to beats

I talk to myself

I listen to you.

Deep in the swamp, stuck in the muck
with weeds growing beyond where I reach
My knees are glued to mud, cemented
and water is creeping up to my chest
Anxiety rising with each creeping inch
as bugs swarm around, I feel their pinch
This lake rids of them, but what is underneath
is grimy and flesh-eating and searching for me
I look up but the sky is covered in thistle
so I submerge my head as sea monsters look at me
I go up for air but vines start choking me
as eels and mermaids snap at my ankles
Everywhere I breathe I am trapped in shackles.

All I need is someone to be lonely with,
So come be lonely with me,
We'll live in Alonedom together.

The only person
in a crowded room
of friends.

I drag myself on these legs
when I don't even know where
I'm going to.

I'd rather look out for you
than look at you.

My necklace is a rope,
and my pendant-- my boulder heart.
It snaps the nape of of my tired neck
while my knees quiver stubbornly, locked and trembling,
until they give way with my hollow spine.

A paralyzed portrait on the petrified pavement,
people walk all over me,
careful not to step on the cracks that engrave my porcelain corpse,
oozing out rivers into the soles of their soulless feet.

And now with my fragile frame and my heavy heart I wait
for the world to crash down beside me
and the debris from the wreckage to cover me
from the tepid breeze of the storm staring me down.

I can gather up all of the first place ribbons I have
and knit a pair of socks to keep my feet warm
and although that pair would be scratchy
I would wear holes in them anyway
and my toes would peek out and say hello to winter

But who am I kidding?
I would probably end up cutting one of the ribbons as I knit
and the whole thing would unravel anyway.

So what's the point of winning first place at all?

It's funny to think about all the times you asked me to smoke a cigarette with you and I told you it was too cold, so I waited patiently inside, knowing you'd come back.

Now I'd travel to Antarctica if it meant I could smoke a cigarette with you.

Now I smoke alone and the sound of me flicking the end of my cigarette sounds like the side-door to my brain opening and slamming shut--- the one only you have the key for.

love: to have a strong liking for, take great pleasure in

I love you and I love french toast too,

Maybe I don't love anything at all.

I am a firm believer that love potions would make the world go round

Nobody would be broken by love
and all spoken love would be words forced down someone's throat
and everyone would be allowed a token of love
and once the token was spent it wouldn't be refunded
and when one would like to make an exchange,
        rather than being forced into solitude, they would just drink more of that forbidden poison
and forced words would be acceptable
and no one would have more tokens of love than others
and no one would be broken
and every word that be spoken
        would be product of a token
and everyone would have a flask of love
and everybody would be drunk and happy

Come on light
Dance for me
to the sounds of Clair de Lune
I like the flicker of the ice
But you only stay lit;
Stay still;
Don't go;
Stay dancing
But don't tango
and I'm panicky because
it's as if the world would end
if you turned off
and Debussy closed.

This is the first breath that I've ever cared about.
Please abandon your everlasting doubt.
We've opened up a magic portal through an alien route,
exposing you to my internally dying dehydrating drought.

I'm like a waning foreign phoenix finding fairness in its contaminated ashes.
I still get flashes of post-traumatic emotional rashes,
from an abstract haunting nightmare  that I don't care to wear
on my not-so-bare chest anymore.
Be aware that I don't always do my share,
and that I am made of skin that has been known to ware and tear.
If this is just Truth or Dare, I don't want to play anymore.
Please be fair.
Please beware.

The snow has suddenly stopped straining my spiraling somber sorrows into silent sirens sounding seasonal surreal suicidal scenes of secret sappy solitude tomorrows.

And though the weakening leaves outside are withering,
and my feeble frozen bones are quietly quivering;
my shivering insides are shyly shifting
into brand new hues of brighter blues
that are constantly turning into a lighter and mightier muse,
like the autumn leaves that heroically live beneath my yearning Red Wing shoes.

I'm on a blissful beach of elated snow,
burying my feet in what we both know;
that our doubt has been put to rest below.

I was in the backseat of a 1988 Prelude
listening to Conor's sonnets and etudes,
moving my tongue in uncomfortable loneliness
because your passenger seat was occupied and
I couldn't decide if you were quiet or shy.
I hadn't met you yet.

Hennepin was good to us at 2AM and
gave us space to sip uncommon grounds
in the typically uncommon Uptown.
I saw bright eyes in your words
and unrecognized yellow birds.

I remember things and I don't know why.
I remember the paper mache lady on Nicollet and
I remember that you sang about how it's neat that we all own guns and
I remember wishing that I was born on Independence Day and
I remember walking past empty bookshelves at the end of the day and
I remember remembering when they were stocked and
I remember loving the way we talked
about Huxley.

and it's a year or so later and I'm your passenger
and the streets are still full of images and hidden messages
and faces with whiskers.
"I saved a cat from a tree once,"
and my cackle secured the shackles on my ankles that
I picked out myself off the mannequin.

and it's always just us because Vic is always
with Lucy, Molly, and Mary Jane and
they're having dreams and hearing secret frequencies
(like the ones you pointed out to me)
and doing drugs and discovering Christianity
and decorating themselves with ashes and ashes with Ashley.

and the people I used to know from St. Paul
are working and growing small and
trippin' and slippin' and sippin' gravy,
but we're still sippin' uncommon grounds
and we're all still living in these twin towns.
But none of them are wearing the matching heavy crowns
that you and I picked out ourselves off the mannequins.
They're the same shade of gold as the birds in your words and
they're the same shade of gold as the shackles on our shins
that mold our golden grins
that we had our faces when you said,
"This is the world where dreams come true, right?"

and we're confirmed by a blinding white light that shows through
the windows of the theater in Bryant-Lake Bowl that compliments us
like you compliment me, like I compliment your skinny tie
(the one that makes me want to die.)
But we can't die because this city doesn't have any double-decker buses
or any other us-es.

and I watch you program lazers into my heart
and I think;
What a beautiful old man
What a beautiful growing boy
What a beautiful perfect cylops
with an eye of my color green to shower me in scenic joy.

and as we dance to the records we bought from Minneapolis antique shops,
I look into the eye of my cyclops from a centimeter above the ground
and realize that this is the dream where the world comes true.

Embracing the sound
of my new found
maniacal sobbing laughter

...and then they fell in love.
     they say that as if they were running errands.

I'm a dark horse, shining bright black;
not confident about my silent and unsuccessful deathly attack.
I know I'm out of wack and disturbing.
Come back and engulf yourself in my misery.
Be dizzy for me and be unaware of where you are anymore.
Make me your least favorite chore. Make me your dishes.
Fulfill my wishes that I can't even articulate to you.
Be my hue of indigo blue and continue to do what you so desperately don't want to.

I've never been a front and center dancer,
but my childhood reveries want me to be a star.
But instead I'm stuck sitting in a bar counting my internal scars;
like notches on the bedpost you imagine holding up your mattress on the floor.
I wish I could simply coast like everyone else,
but instead I exist only as a transparent ghost tentatively listening to everyone boast about how humble they are.
No one is a star and I can't even see a path to go far anymore.

So turn down my music and witness me slowly lose it until there's nothing left to lose anymore.
All that will be left is my protected core, naked and vulnerable.
I'm the bull forced to fight and you're my matador.
I wish the door to my heart wasn't permanently unlocked.
I wish you would knock on my mock turtle heart that you can somehow touch while we're miles apart.
I wish I didn't exist only at the start.

It's not that these me and you shoes are too large to fill,
they're just two different sizes
and much too awkward
for anyone else's feet to fit into.

I've never been a surgeon
So I didn't fix what was broken
So now the corpse of what I killed is in front of me,
and I guess it's time for me to begin
my first love autopsy

I wish everybody spoke a language foreign to me,
That way my understanding wouldn't be biased by words
and I would speak only with my body
and listen to the beautiful melody of tongues

I guess, in the end, we all just have to accept that the universe is weird and never on anyone's side; that everybody sees things differently and that things are never going to be how we imagined or how we want them to be. If they are how we want them to be, they're probably better than we ever imagined. When they're not it ***** and is heartbreaking. It is for me anyway, but that's the beauty of it. It probably isn't for somebody else. Jealousy and nostalgia are beautifully ugly creatures. Goodnight.

Free me from the crystals I have curved
that are rushing back to me... ready to roll over me.

Save me from this thicket of trees
that have planted me into the ground like a gravestone.

Rescue me with this key made from my own skeleton,
because this love is gruesome, locking me behind skeleton bars.

I have pleaded.
I have pilfered.
I have pawned.

My love is a man in drag,
disguised and uncertain.

Forgive me for not appreciating.
Forgive me for not learning.
Forgive me for not knowing.

Help me broaden my stride
because I'm lagging behind.

Don't leave me on the outside,
because my soul is eternally internal
and longs for the warmth of your dazzling vivid silver lies.

I'll free my love
I'll save my love
I'll rescue my love
I'll plead with my love
I'll pilfer my love
I'll pawn my love
I'll forgive you, my love
I'll help you, my love
I'll leave you, my love
     if you demand.

You always bring out the mess in me

The mess that has been collecting dust deep down


You rip it out of me and place it in my hands

For me to wipe clean

So I can look at my reflection and witness my flaws

That have been suffocated by pillows

You give my mess oxygen and allow it to breathe

The mess I have worked so hard to ******

But as it rests in my palms

I realize the innocence that could have died

The beautiful mess that makes me ugly

Is what you would rather see

So now when I see my reflection

I'm looking at the beautiful mess you've made of me.

I write metaphors
and speak in analogies
because I like them more
than my realities
Because metaphors don't tell the truth
they just sum it up in a way that makes sense
sometimes they make more sense
than anything I could write in past or present tense

Metaphors aren't as personal
I don't have to give names or dates
I don't have to tell any anecdotes
or write down any footnotes
with definitions of what I mean
I just give symbols and motifs
and hope you understand the motives
I have for doing what I do
and writing what I write
and not letting you into
my personal life

I like metaphors
because they give me an excuse
to lie and get away with it.

I normally wouldn't do this
but I'm different than before
and you told me this
as if I didn't know, but It's true
because I didn't know
that I'm different in ways
I never wanted to be.

I'm obsessive and possesive
but let me tell you
I disagree
But it doesn't matter what I think
because you will always think
that I'm obsessive and possesive
and maybe I am.

Although this makes me sad
because obsessive and possesive
are things I never wanted to be
But let me tell you
it's not the saddest thing about this thing

What makes my heart sink
is not what you think
but what you like best
and what you like best
takes a needle to the balloon in my chest
because what you like best
is the old me.

You like me best when I hate me
So I guess I can give you a call
Whether that is when I hate me
or when I ain't me
I don't know
But I'll let you know.
Either way,
I'll give you a call
when I fall.

Sing softly and sweetly,
     for a single soul may listen
           and whisper your reprise.

My mom tells people how I was as a child.

She tell stories about how I used
to love looking at my reflection;
In mirrors
In windows
In glossy table tops

I find that really funny now.

I've never had a fistful of love,
because my fist is too full of dirt
from digging graves.

And the greatest fist I've ever known
is the one leaving bruises all over my insides.
But that fist has graduated
and been granted tools to be used as weapons.
And my insides which were once diamonds,
are now nothing but sawdust.

And I can feel the knife.
I can always feel the knife.

And stab me just for kicks
because it tickles my fickle chest
and makes me feel like I'm living in a French city
with a quick and fickle tramway system
that can take me anywhere I want to be.

But instead I'm always going to a town
a mere hour away
and sitting in traffic
in a stuffed automobile,
wishing I was where the trains are.

Because the trains that have always sang me lullabies
whisper melodies to me all the time now,
through smoke and haze and swirling lights.

I can feel the knife.
I can always feel the knife.

Call me Miss November
because I'm the first snowfall after the best time of year,
and I cut the world with my icicle sword of a soul.

Can you feel the sword?
I hope you can always feel the sword.

And I will leave and the world will be warm and happy,
and upon my returnal,
I'll give you beautiful sweater weather
and stab you with my icicle sword when you least expect it.

I can feel the knife.
You can feel the sword.
It tickles.

Me and Miss June sing a sister song,
making harmonies with our weaponry.
My icicle sword, her scalding torch.

Just call me Miss Emmy Lou November.
I'll sing a duet with you and depart for almost forever,
and leave with my sister, Miss June.

Wake up.
It's November.
I'm here.
Wake up.
I won't be here for long.

I was born red all over.
Never knowing if I'm meant for love or anger.
But angry leaves fall in November,
getting their revenge.
But nobody listens to anger
when it's falling to the ground so gracefully.

So come to my November house jam
and we'll all be angry and loving
and cold and happy and dreading
the latter end of my company,
and I'll be wishing sister June was with me.

I'm a blackhearted lover.
I'm a blackhearted grave digger.
I'm a blackhearted skinny lover
with skinny arms that'll never be able
to cover anyone from my frigid aura.

They're attracted to me,
heels first
cheek scraping against the gravel.

I'm always
                    half
joking and
                    half
hoping.

These smitten mittens
will forever web
my phalanges

Shove my hands
into an icebox
and I'll need
that temperature
forever

Read me like the book
for English class
you never annotated.

Enjoy the story,
don't analyze me.

riot rhythm
vertical to vertical
we're all going up or down
there's no cross section
it gives me those jitters
where you're lurching fast forward
let's just fast forward
so we can waste time
regretting things
waiting for the dreaming hour
waiting to escape
always hunting for energy
that isn't manufactured anymore
it's when the layers are pulsing in your ears
that you remember the real life
long ago.

muscles spazzing with every
twitch of the clock
there's not enough space in the
world to occupy my heart's
beating motion.

the ambulance is going faster
when you're sinking into the earth
nothing's written in records
and Hancock never lived
nor did I.
buried in the ground is the
only positive pressure I've
ever befriended.

close to the ground
head under a table
deja vu
I wish I lived earlier
so I could feels the same
kind of emotions they did.
I think I do.

tears avalanching
onto the mountainside
below my eyes.

nothing catches my interest
or my eye
quite like a happy tune
with sad lyrics.