momma always said,
the women in our family are strong

the kind of women that are out in the field doin the same back breaking work as the men
the kind of women carryin their own groceries and two babies from the chevy to the back door in one trip
the kind of women who take a backhand from their husband and hit him back hard enough to make his eyes water
the kind of women that bring babies into this world and watch their families fade away like candles flickerin in the wind

momma always said,
the women in our family are strong

so, i don't really have a choice,
i got to be

i miss the feeling
of cigarettes making
me want to throw up

i guess that's the
trade off i get
for whiskey making
my eyes water,
******* burning my
sinuses so bad, i swear,
i'll never snort again,
two glasses of wine making
the next morning feel
like elephants have
invaded the walls of
my skull

i guess i'll take this vice,
for now

i want to read you
the words that spill out,
ink on whatever is closest,
but for years now
i've been writing about
***, sadness, and sensations-
all wrapped round whoever
it is that's claimed a
piece of me

what will you think
of my weaknesses
spoken aloud?
swirling around the
room, bumping into
you, waiting to
be judged

i want to show you
what begins as a breath
and ends as a tale of
twisted love, but
i'm afraid all you'll
think of is me reading
the poems i write
about you to the
next one

sunrise is lazy this morning
as our awakening coincides with shivers
running up and down cool spines
on crusty concrete floors

sheets and sweating water cups,
that's what we ride for
past waterfronts and freeways,
fast as we can with sleep in our eyes

paisley prints surround us
as i lay and recount our night

flashes of flash lights reveal
strange structures inside of silos,
climb on, climb on,
exploring exploitation of the norm,
art in ways art hasn't yet dreamed

wild animal sounds bounce and billow
around in old grain homes,
while hands keep beats and hearts
are pedaled in shadow onto walls

fire breathing pipes belch into the
calm, black night and attempts to
climb towers are squandered by
men holding flashlights and power

so we fade into the nothingness and find
other metal mountains to explore,
garage doors open up to windmills
and i find myself with knees as
****** and black as the night before us

still, the animals cry out, but this time
it's low and between rushed breaths
that betray a sense of ecstasy only felt
when it sneaks up from behind

this morning, entrenched in slumber,
i dreamt of clammy hands on mics

as spoken word slipped like water
droplets from faucet formed lips.

i woke up,
and finished the poem aloud.

success.

blew baby,
browned out banishment
into misogynist
misunderstandings

eye to thigh,
**** it

uptight, torn out
ligaments left
behind in ******
smears on busy
sidewalks

i linger above
park benches,
eyes between
branches, ready
to pounce on
whatever prey
comes my way

hungry for flesh,
wanting for warmth,
despite my best efforts,
still human

looped layers linger on
terraces as terror takes
form in bandaged brains
chock full of deranged
discernment

****,
climb into the cabinet

find fear washed away
in dead eyes that
shrivel and shrink with
each passing moment

squirm, squirm, squirm

stomach walls suction cup
one another as sludgy
slime slurps between
cracked crevices

bile belches amidst
odd laughter, an onslaught
of imagery, insecurity,
and imagination

not a sound in the world,
but every sound in the world

slip slowly through
diversions from truth
mad man or master?
monster or magician?

a circus of dark circles
comes rolling into town-
come one, come all!

certain death lurks
around every corner,
shrouded in shadows  
between daylight
and dreaming,
daring you to look
away as it steals
whatever it is that's left

'switch off your humanity,'
said the vampire to the newborn,
'can't **** humans dry when
your compassion is your compass'

trying to take on terror and
tremendousness all in one is a task,
satiating the desire to succumb and
strike those who desire you into submission

if life isn't a tight rope then i'm not a
bloodthirsty woman ready to pounce,
practicing patience and practicality,
wishing i could just rip out jugulars

ashy shins sit above worn nikes
pedaling slowly, back and forth,
back and forth, as she calls out,
"hola," again and again to the
little boy who lives next door

she's waiting, and sitting still
isn't what she's about, so she
pedals, back and forth, back
and forth, back and forth

wide grins reveal missing teeth,
worn out tanktop bares prison
tattoos scratched into sagging
skin, i bet she was beautiful once,
but all that's left is a carcass now

she stops to light a menthol,
and adjust her head scarf, then
she's at it again, back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth

hummer pulls up with the rims
spinning, blasting biggie like
they just got free, front door opens
an inch, rolex hand reaches out
to give our girl the goods

nothing to go back and forth
for now, crack in hand, lips
wet from licking, she rides away
almost as high as she'll be
once she hits that rock

aldous huxley told me twice,
'that men do not learn very much
from the lessons of history is the
most important of all the lessons of history,'
both times i put my pen to the page
and re-read what he had said
until i thought i understood

today i watched big fish and
thought of spectre longer than
i probably should have,
where is it that i arrived before
the road was paved to bring me there?
when will i return?

i know i don't need to figure out
timing because that's what fate's for,
but with a wild wandering mind
it's difficult to detract senseless what-if's
from buzzing about in my brain

tonight i delete excess and make plans
to live a life that doesn't declare ignorance
of what preludes each step taken,
tonight i find sollace in full moons and
figure if there's anything i've learned
thus far, it's just as aldous said,
live life as if you've learned something

run to release
run to retrieve

hey gurl, where the **** ya been?
dates on dates on dates on dates

wish i didn't care so much
but i ******* do
a lot a lot a lot

always have, always will

you and you and you and you,
come with me,
let's see if we've got nothing
or everything,
already certain about where
it all leans

i feel as if my vision
is escaping me,
and for the first time
ever
i might just be afraid

ant infested arm chairs
folding accordian hardwoods
seas of soiled laundry littered about

tomorrow i'll hand off my birthday
in a bag to the neighbors, someone
may as well make a cent or two
off my quarter of a century on this earth

the whole block talks **** about us in spanish,
quiero decirles que entiendo,
but instead, i smoke bowls on the porch
and laugh at their corruption and convinction
over a couple of twenty somethings
who like to have a good time a little too much

i imagine them lining the streets with
pitch forks and torches, yelling to us,
escuche perras, su tiempo ha venido,
instead the neighborhood committee
knocks on the door at four pm interrupting
my six hours of vommiting, i stumble
down the stairway bra-less, brazen, and
baited, waiting for the moment to say,
we'll be gone july first

funny how families are cool with drug
front pyramid marts, but birthday parties
seem to have no place here

glued to crushed velvet
i think in hues of blue
tonight and wonder
what you see when
you stare at your
ceiling in the bronx

is it waterlogged and
cracking? or smooth
and perfectly painted
in eggshell white? or
maybe it's stuccoed,
or patterned, or hand
painted with naked
angels floating about?

turn on your transformers
and fire up the transporter

i'm coming to lay
side by side to see
what it is you see
when you tell me
you're thinking of me

fingertips reach into burrows tonight,
brooklyn and bronx,
where i most wish i could lay
these bones that wish to be buried

count seconds,
hold breaths,
make wishes,
then promises,
to gods i don't
believe exist,
so that i may
look into eyes
that truly know
what goes on
behind mine

fire off framed fragrances and
feinding freight trains headed
for longing, lust, and love in all
of the ways that i could've sworn
i left when the bed was still wet
and my memories weren't those
of a woman without remorse

days spent
looking 'round
corners with
mirrors,
tales told  
of creatures
that turn liars
into stone,
step slowly,
hold steady,
fire quickly,
and give
always to
the great
unknown

we have a peace plant in our living room
when it's thirsty it's leaves drag on our dust
filled floors and it's blooms look like the
eyelids of the old ******* that walks
around on grant street when she's looking
for change to buy her next forty- brown,
bruised, and sagging, as if they've seen
enough to last them a lifetime

i oblige the ***** often, giving her
quarters and whatever else i can find
in my backpack, i oblige the plant too,
giving it water and opening the blinds,
but neither seem to be reaching a better
quality of life, despite my best efforts

i find myself in inconceivably unforgiving
situations often, because of my best
efforts, and i'm beginning to wonder
when i lost sight of what it means
to really, truly, wholeheartedly give

where do thoughts go when they are forgotten?

i find mine weeks later,
scribbled on old show fliers
and scattered around the living room
after nights spent smoking 'til i'm spent,
written on walls, bed posts, bookshelves
in sharpie and black pen while i lay
in bed and lament over loss and being lost,
hidden on crumpled receipts from
store visits where i've spent what i don't have,
that are then shoved into the dark depths
of purses i've thrown into closet corners
only to be found when digging for
something to wear just before laundry day

often times i go to let the words
plummet to the page and i feel stuck,
then i picture the pieces of my past
scattered all around my apartment,
if only i'd keep these lost chunks of my
mind in neat little piles so that when
the blocks inevitably come i've got
miles of material to work with

unfortunately i've got a knack for
foresight in less ways than i'm willing to
admit, so here i sit, wishing for
my thoughts that have wandered away

i wonder what flies across
your mind as you lay and stare
at blank ceilings before the night
sweeps you under blankets and
pillows, and tugs your eyelids
closed with gravity's grace

i wonder if you see strange faces,
or maybe places that you've been,
but probably will never revisit,
i once read you can only dream
things you've seen before, but i
get the feeling your brain has a
way of inventing far away lands
that no one else will ever see

i wonder if you dream long drawn
out adventures or if you skip from
place to place, like an old film reel
with holes missing between frames

i wonder if you wake up scared and
sweating, or if you keep your eyes
closed as long as you can to savor
what's being swept away, or if you
sleep with a pen in your hand so
that you can scribble sacred records
of the remnants from the inbetween

i wish that i could shrink myself
and spend a night behind your eyelids,
witnessing whatever it is that unfolds

the answer comes
quicker than most,
stop slaughtering time
and start living

warm night breezes
in a false summer start
make it easy
to do just that

being gorgeous
is all a game of
projections and
precision, with a
drop or two of
luck in the gene pool

do you know
how many times
i have stood, ****,
in front of a man
and heard
those words
drip, slippery with
*** and saliva,
through foaming lips?

big headed beasts
who still haven't
figured out where
to find my ****

oh, but desire me, they do
and i'm always the best
****
they've ever known

'oh baby, how DO you DO
that thing with your hips?'

i lay around wondering
why these men
subject themselves
to *******
dead fish

when it's over they
can't keep fingers
from lingering on my
skin, tattooed ribs
draw out long sighs
and desperate whispers,
followed by lingering
on my
'perfect ****'

then it comes, oh,
how *******
gorgeous i am,
with my eyes that
just can't decide
if they want to be
the bark or the leaves

intrigued by my
beguiling mystique
and desire to be free,
but the sad truth is,
fools or not,
each and every one
does the same thing,
they leave

should've listened
when dad said,
'get compliments
for being smart,
not pretty'

you are the madonna among us,
the shining ray of light that stabs
us in the chest and rips our hearts
out only to make them better, less
crusted in the black mess that's
always being left behind when
our beating vessels are smashed
to bits, you hold our very fiber of
self in your tiny hands and throw us
up into the universe until we've
gained enough perspective to float
back to earth and live as the humans
we were meant to be upon birth

what i mean to say, is that i don't
know you, but i love you, because
you give me more than the people
that leak words into my skull day
after day, i find myself inside of
what you create and then i throw
up on the page, or snap my shutter,
or doodle a dream from deep within
the impulses that barge around bumping
into my eyelids within the darkest depths

tonight, i will rip resin and spin off
into a place where nothing can touch me,
i will stare at the universe upon my ceiling
and imagine the dazed look upon your
face as you do the same, tonight, i will not
lose myself inside of the thoughts that may
or may not belong to someone else, instead,
tonight, you and i, will set me free

music becomes mucus, leftover remnants
of bacterial infections that refuse to vacate
my brain no matter how many decongestants
i consume, those sound waves reverberate back
and forth and back and forth within my thick
*** skull and i am driven mad by memories

how to cut tender wires intricately woven into
the most simple mass of a mess you will ever see

i find myself muttering solutions in my sleep and
when i reach conclusions i'm already half awake
pen in hand, paper on chest, but ahh, it's gone, it's gone

my dream world holds more clarity than my walking
daze and i can only find the words for poetry, my
tongue and throat are revolting, refusing to take part
in walks down memory lane, fingers soon to follow suit

ghetto ******* laundromat, funny it ends
where it began, i do love a full circle, but
i can't say i love folding, and watching you
do it is as equally painful as doing it myself

question always, what do i want? what do i
want? what in the ******* world is it that
i want? that lame dave matthews song comes on,
what i want is what i've not got,
****, i know what you mean, dave, and maybe
i should thank you for reminding me of just
one more thing i can put on the list, or cross off
of it, whichever way you want to look at it,
it's just a reminder of what's not right, with me,
with you, with all of this

being thankful is a funny way of flipping
the tables when you can't find a way to wipe the
sad out of your eyes in the morning, because i
can guarantee you if you find the right light
and photograph yourself in it every day at around
the same time, pretty soon you'll start to see that
your smile is reaching the sides of your eyelids, and
before you know it your irises will stop looking
so dull, and soon you'll forget what it means to be tired

i'm afraid that i've forgotten what it means to be alone

i keep imagining a tattoo on the length of my back
a girl, ethereal, asleep on the forest floor, her long
hair flowing out amongst the ferns, over the moss,
spilling into the nearby pool, and then it begins, the
twisting and gnarling of locks turned to roots, from her
cerebral crown grows a giant of the forest, which
shelters her and creates a branch shadowed world as she
slumbers and drifts off to dream of her own deep, dark fairytales

"i am writing to hold onto you." - henrikka tavi

i realized the truth within this as i flipped through
the journal pages that screamed your name aloud
at me as i sat trying to forget, and whispered of our
endeavors as i lay trying to sweep everything under
the unconscious rug that lay beneath me as i dreamed

you were every where in these parts of my life, riding
up abel and turning onto fourth, i couldn't forget that you
had grown up, a decade before me, just a block over on south,
deli boy and bianchi's pizza, sundays spent at st.cecelia's,
me, a little girl, and you, trying to figure out how to be a man,
here we are fifteen years later, me, a little girl, and you,
still trying to figure out just what it takes to be a man

ink immortalizes what we are terrified to throw into the trenches,
and just because i have vowed to find victories elsewhere
doesn't mean i've prepared myself to forget you, but the truth remains,

i must learn to write to let go

drove down to the tetons
just to see what orange leaves
looked like,
it's hard to remember when
you're surrounded by
lodge pole pines
all the time

we drove slow on the
way back, feeling
the summer slip
between fingertips
as we cruised
along the curving
hips of lake yellowstone

when i discovered the
shot i felt as if i had
borrowed your vision
for just a moment

steady now, don't miss,
the colors layered in
a way i know i won't
ever see again

a single elk stood near
a spruce, separating
serenity from sea swell

the perfection of
a mirrored image,
nature overwhelming me,
not once, but twice

absarokas are beginning
to stand tall stage right
and i'm watching a horizon
that never seems to fade

click, i snap a shot, but
really i've found myself
in a world that can't ever
truly be captured

i've got a bad case of the bends, baby
can't keep my frame up straight
if i'm not dancing, then i'm slumping
might as well lay myself down to rest

that night we fumbled, formed new foundations
separate was better in this case

a man i barely knew found more in my eyes
than i have in years, a silent strength, he
knew it well, but search he must behind
the silent and sly sadness that simply cannot
slip through fingertips that know just what to seek

since then i've thought long and hard about
just what sadness means, how the heart walks
itself out to a field full of dreams laid down to die,
faint last breaths echo amidst the sunny bliss,
but i've decided to take that heart and throw it up high,
into the blues, the bends that reach towards the sky

funny how it ends so quickly
when the beginning seems
to last an eterinity and then some

all it takes is one missed foot step
or perhaps a mispoken word
or maybe just one text read out of
context to send the inevitable spiral
down the ******* drain

i wish that i cared more, that i cried
more than just three stupid, simple,
stunned tears, not because i have lost you
but because you have lost me and i
can't quite understand what makes you
think that i am deserving of being lost

i will stay awake and stare at the spot
where you told me you wanted to spend
a life time staring at the universe with me,
i will stay awake and wish that my phone
would vibrate with your name on the screen,
i will stay awake and i will do absolutely nothing
because the ball has been in your court
for so long that it's deflated and brittle and
all it does is land with a thud on the ground

i will stare at stamp ridden hands and remember
how you stared at me and saw nothing worth
saving or having and i will cut the strings between us
and wait for the wind to whisk me away

sloppy seconds turn into somber slumber
and i'm still spinning in a universe that's unsure
unrest becomes irreversible, irreplacable, irrevokable
slipping through cynical sunrises and statistically normal sunsets

grab hold to the ground, hug gravity tight as everything
tries to fling me from functionality and into so called "freedom"
find focus, find focus, find focus

hocus pocus hums under hymns spoken hesitantly
and i hesistate again and again, i hesitate
finding the magic within the madness is my specialty
sometimes so much so that i subject self to sinking slowly
into the muck that ***** my skin off of my bones

flapping floppy lips leak loosly limp ideals and i look
to my black widow for conviction, confirmation, and consistency
meditative mornings and deep dark evenings become the norm
housing imaginary friends and hoping to inspire intellectual integrity

family finds new meaning in full ****** up webs that spin
us all up and spit us out on the same ground, but we are safe
here in our humble, happy home, we are safe and we are
happy in the simplest sense of the word

electric impulses knaw
at nubs formerly known
as finger tips,
worn down to bits by
the desire to drench
this world with one
simple thing that may
or may not be
everlasting

i'm in search of
a replacement for
flimsy false hopes
and finicky heart pokes,
for flat lined finite
chopped up bits
flying up nostrils
in hysterical hits

even escapists smack
walls from which
they can't slither
through silently,
walls covered in
mirrors full of
faces fueled with
hostility

all the faces are
my own and it's
time i find some grace
before i finally
pull my last astonishing
escape from this place

it's the kind of thing
where you can't stop
singing beatles songs
or smoking too many
spliffs to stop yourself
from gushing all day
long

the kind of thing
when you feel as if you're
sitting over the edge with
your legs dangling and
every once in awhile
you're tempted to
jump

the kind of thing
when you memorize
irises and listen to songs
and you swear every
single one was written
to make you feel this
way

the kind of thing
that leaves you breathless
and too full all at once,
heavy and weightless,
empty and full,
grounded and
free

this is my favorite part

misplaced keys end up
in the space between
dusty floorboards
under forgotten childhood beds
squeezed into far away nooks
in attics filled with
hundreds of burnt out lightbulbs
in houses with endless doors
and not one single doorknob

i find myself within them
when i drift off under the universe
i wake with aching legs for
i can't stop hunting, though
i fear i'll never find the
secret passageway i'm sure
lurks beneath a stairway or
perhaps beyond a fireplace

there is a certain key that i
seek and although i can't recall
it's shape, or color, or size,
once it is in the palm of my hand
i will know it because it will fit
within my fist, which just so happens
to be the size of my beating vessel

i'll take that old, rusting key
and ever so delicately
stick it in the depths of my chest
i'll hear the creaking and cracking
and feel the sensation of a
sleeping beast awakened
and i will rise knowing
that i no longer have to wander
this wild world alone

heart beat hammers as i
appear to study holy
horoscopes over green tea
and grand gestures

i'm sure you've come to
tell me where your
hack sawed heart still
lies, barely beating,
instead i learn of your
new found freedom as
we take our buckets
full of *****, bad habits,
abusive fathers, brazen
moms and bare it all
on the table between
sabre's shots in the
laundromat as i fold
every ******* item of
clothing that i own

i begin to dread the
departure and the
growing space that looms
between us so i ****
you in with the promise
of a six pack and vinyls

satiated for only so long
you find my fresh buzz
and the blank lines between
us vanish, hands on my
head and lips on my neck,
i'm holding on tight, but
it's only a matter of time
until reality escapes me

quick trip down the
slopes and i'm over flowing
with what defines me,
our tempos are timed by
the too fast kits that
hammer in sync in our chests

sun's coming up and
luna's got more than just
moons in her eyes, she
sees me and then looks
beyond me into past lives

i'm reminded what it is
to actually feel something
and the passion is exhilerating
and terrifying as my
numbness is washed away,
wave after wave, in
comfortable silence
******* cigarettes and
slipping through
song after song

you and i were
always a team
against the monsters
that went bump
in the night
but when morning
burst through
our blinds and
one monster
still lingered
i had to learn
to hide what
should've never
been in sight

you did your best
protecting me,
but then you'd
be taking twice
as much at once

i hated that so
i became the
distraction,
i was good
at siren screams
and flailing falls

you got belts
and i got welts,
and soon things
grew bigger and
badder, fist fights
in front doors, and
flashing lights
on front yards,
my screams had
little to hold
to real sirens

we spoke of
****** of running
of telling of finding
a way to escape
in the night, but
i was too young
and the dust began
to build before you
even left me behind

things that i like: you
things that i don't like: you
strange, isn't it?

i've been a war of head vs. heart
since i was just a baby
i'd squeeze the kitten too tight
knowing that claws were coming,
but that moment of tenderness
was worth the wounds

now i'm no longer toddling,
but not much else has changed
i'm still holding onto things too tightly
knowing that at any moment
i'm due for injury

i marinade my fingers,
banana pepper juice, hot wing sauce, sriracha,
i beg you to come close enough so that
i can burn every inch of your lukewarm skin

i'm not looking for revenge
i just want you to know what it feels like
to be set on fire and live to talk about it
when the sun blazes tomorrow

i drank enough whiskey for ten men last friday
and followed familiar footfalls,
i held myself up on barstools and good friends
and watched the door, waiting,
confusing look alikes through blurred vision

when you finally sauntered in
i saw it in slow motion,
i felt absolutely nothing
except hammered and free

fast fingers send off
flashes of unfinished
fragments to friends
when i can't find
the light

feeling the weight
of each raindrop
that slides down
my window pane
glossed over
with grime,
corrosion and
dry rot have
me uneasy and
i'm sick of
a mouth that
drowns in
it's words

entrapped in my
fortress, i can't
leave these blankets,
but sleep won't
come easy and
once it arrives,
i will dream of
lost keys and
lone gloves, of
ceilings with
no floors, of
sneakers on
wires and children
with bare feet
desperately trying
to reach what
they cannot

i'll wake with a
gasp and wonder
where i've been
hiding and hear
the same sounds
that sent me
this way

of raindrops
on glass pains, of
deep breaths
and whispers, but
i'll never know
what they're
trying to say

i thought i knew what love was,
but i only knew what someone
being in love with me felt like,
the soaring of my heart lifted
up by hands other than my own

love unrequited was a different story,
feeling always like a hand is on
the back of your head, holding
you under water until just before  
you've lost your last living breath

throwing away love is just like
throwing away a living breathing thing,
i realized this too late, and it's
impossible to rececitate something
that's been gone for weeks

loving the idea of something that
is so incredibly and indescribably
wrong for you, but wanting it anyways
depsite the rivers and valleys
you must drag yourself through
to finally arrive at the foot of a mountain

i thought i understood what it meant
to be in love, but it turns out, i don't
understand much of anything

bump in the night

snow-filled nostrils
and wild hips
make friends real
******* quick

beers in my hands
and a genius on stage
i'm moving in patterns
and i'm sure he can
read them

bathroom visits with
moons in our eyes
i want to touch you
but i don't dare try

after hours bring
***** calling me beautiful
hearing what you
already know makes
***** come quicker

bump in the night

and we're on the
road once more
tiny little room
and all the heads
are talking

you swing and i sway
hands on my hips
i'm desperate, but
controlled, wish i
could touch your ****

kitchen tables thick
with lines, four thirty
comes quick, we say
our too long goodbyes

i ride away and i
won't soon forget
what snow is like
in december

freaky friday flybys
waiting without patience
for gravity to let go

you charge me one last time
because despite all of your theft
you still find your pockets full
of lint, flies, and crumbs

loosening limp hands with
sinister strength and subtle
hints of death and desire

marks on my neck are
all that's left and i will
treasure them until i'm
nothing but a blank canvas

i hate the smell
of freezing knuckles
wrapped in tobacco
and garlic

the weight of snow
filled porches and
conversations about
when i will get out
of this spiral

i will get out of this

you're nothing,
i'm everything,
you're nothing,
i'm everything

i will repeat this
as stars sing me to
sleep and sun wakes
me up, i will repeat
this, until i finally
believe

i've made a lot of promises,
promises to dark beautiful faces
that float above me as i say my goodbyes
to the fleeting hours of light that never
seem to linger long enough for me to
reach you, despite how much i grow

promises that fly away on the wings
of beetles, wrapped in summer winds
and promises that dig deep into the dirt,
so deep that they become fossils,
undiscovered for centuries, or perhaps, forever

promises that become ugly beasts
that prowl the streets and set this world
on fire in the worst ways, promises that loom
in cracks under porches and as soon
as you're about to reach your doorstep
they grab you and drag you away

today i made a promise, a promise i've
been working up the courage to make for
a long, long while, a promise i didn't want
to make, but i really needed to make it, the
kind of promise that makes you stare at your
toes and shuffle your feet and wring your
hands out like they're full of ***** dish water

today i made a promise that will eat me
alive from the inside out like a million tiny
termites deep within a house, it will start
at my core, layer by layer, until i'm left with
an empty shell, and from the outside in, i'll collapse
upon myself, until i'm nothing but a foundation,
ready to be built back up again, all it takes
is just one, just one small, simple promise

resist every urge
the urge to fight back
the urge to be complacent
the urge to get ****** up
the urge to be sober
the urge to stop sniffing,
stop smoking, stop slipping,
the urge to be better
the urge to be awful
the urge to **** everyone
the urge to **** no one

find balance, find balance, find balance
tell me one more time, tell me once more, go ahead, tell me

i'm not blind and i haven't forgotten
what it means to listen,
to listen
and actually hear,
to hear
and actually process,
to process
and actually understand

you can be as brilliant as you
are beautiful, as beautiful as you
are bold, as bold as you
are benevolent,
it doesn't mean anything if you
haven't got the means to mean
what you say and say what you mean

somewhere along this long road
i missed the lesson of self control
and jesus christ, if it isn't true
what they say about teaching an
old dog new tricks

i will weave you into
the borders of my existence
strong hands, smooth lips, moments
where eyes met pavement when
they should have met my own

i will remember it all,
the way that you stood there
and grew roots instead of
keeping up, don't feel bad,
almost no one can

i thought you were different,
but even brilliance can be
poisoned by doubt

beauty doesn't get you
anything of value,
just things, things that are
fleeting and unimportant,
beauty gets you objects that
grow stale and stupid,
objects that rot and wither,
objects that disappear

i'd rather lose this face forever

i'm the kind of drunk that
floats home gracefully
in boots with soles that
slip and slide through sobriety

i wake up with bruised knuckles
and stiff fists and wonder what
witless wonder stood in my way,
only to find out that a few garbage
cans looked at me wrong

keg stands, house shows, hipster
filled houses with filtered lighting,
the stench of hand rolled cigarettes,
familiar faces blurring into
bearded babes once i've got my
goggles on just right

i sit around and wonder,
when the **** am i going to grow up?

freezing garage grav **** hits
hands shaking, lungs quaking

drunken moms vomiting dead center
in king sized beds on graduation night

fast girls climbing wildly out of little sister's window
once the street lights lay low

dark basements full of *****, boys, and bongs
building our bad habits

homesick, always homesick,
for a place that doesn't exist

i am in love with you
in the worst way

creeping thoughts that
tell me it's over loom in
crevices and corners no
matter how bright
the sun shines

every moment i'd like a
hand in mine, it's yours
i picture and then it's gone,
one ****** digit at a time,
til i'm left with nothing
but a dripping stump

i write you with depth
and decisiveness, but you
want none of it and
for some reason, i am
not deterred

i will hang from spanish
moss and bide my time
amongst cicadas as leaves
fall and seasons crawl on,
i will wait until these bugs
breathe life into this earth
again and again and again

this cannot be it,
because i love you,
even if it's in the worst way,
i just wish that you could
see how big this love is
without my wearisome words

i go into my workshop
and surround myself
with teeny tiny tools
and put on goggles
that magnify my hand
until it looks like it belongs
on a giant, not a tiny girl

i turn on bright lights
that illuminate a blank
surface, that i've imagined
is covered in things that
must be fixed,
and i pick and i ****
and i poke and i position
until there's nothing left,
though i can't be too sad
since i started out with
nothing in the first place

i wish i could figure out
whether i've thought this
up or if it's real, but the fact
remains, that i am being
haunted by something i can't
grasp or understand

i wish your lips would move
when i see you in my sleep

don't think for a second that ******* upside down doesn't count, because it ******* does. rough cheeks in mean hands, sneering lips that linger on a sickly smooth neck that's been trying to hang itself for an eternity. you are my guiltiest pleasure, i scream so loudly that i'm sure the entire west side is eating up the dirt from beneath my toenails. ****, we both wear it well. beauty means less and less everyday, and i miss it from the bottom of my ******* to the neurons that **** around in my ****** up skull. i count freckles because it's the only thing i can do and you ask me to rip you open and i can't remember where i left off so i decide we'd better just ****. when did i get off the bus? i'm sure this isn't my stop, but i've been sitting on my hands so long that i'm not entirely sure if they're there, or just numb. you make them move, to cut off the oxygen and blood flow so that you sigh deep and long with me beneath you. foolish of you to throw away your last remaining breath, so foolish that i smile wide. i am nothing if not evil, ripped from eve's flesh and bones. you tell me i can't have him because i'll ruin him, but the truth is, i'm already in ruins. millions of years ago, i was something to behold, but now people walk within me and feel a strange heaviness because they desperately want to see what they've missed. there is no rewind button on the remote, just fast forward and forward and forward and forward and forward. don't ******* look back.

stupidity is nothing but a state of mind,
my mother told me as i fetched
tears from the well that i had thought
run dry when i was just a child

amazing what you can find if you
dig deep enough, and dig i did

i could feel you there, but i couldn't
see anything through the self induced
blurs that ran from eyelash to cheek
to chin to the soil that desperately
desired to be quenched under the
soles of my worn leather boots

i yelled out, senseless sentences,
about how you had broken me,
bone by bone, and watched me suffer,
and the anger opened my eyes so
that i could see i was yelling at the grains
that teased me with their dancing in the breeze

your voice still found a way into my ears
telling me that the only finger prints on those stones
were my own

i hated you then, but i recalled something
else my mother had once told me,
you can only hate someone you've loved

let me love an artist so we can breathe in each other's fumes and get high off of creation and wonder.
let us spill out paints and ink and words and ideas onto a wooden floor and watch as it's corroded and falls away, level by level, until we're so deep that we're reaching into the dirt that surrounds us and slapping it on canvass like cavemen once did.
let you see me fully and not as the crazy girl who can't stop hooping and dancing and moving long enough to see straight, understand that when i run from face to face it's not because i don't want to love you so hard that i'm exploding, it's just that if i don't look into new eyes once in awhile i shrivel up and begin to fade.
let the world look at us and understand nothing, but feel a strange sense of desire to be so unique and drenched in the secrecy of the tiny universe we've created between us to house the wild way we wander over this earth, documenting piece by piece through our hands, eyes, and hearts.