constantly craving human interaction
with an appetite that's insatiable and a streak that is wild
i wander and stumble, blinded by mediocrity
alone in a room with humans for miles

someone shake me, rattle my bird cage
because i fear that it's empty, just like my heart
i know this is my doing and i know that i'm lonely,
but for some reason i keep ending back at the start

you know the first time
that you go home after
you've finally cut
the 20-something year old
cord, and you
sit at the dinner table like
always, in the same seat
you've sat in since you
left your high chair, and
dad's made turkey enchiladas,
and you're reaching for
the hot sauce, and then
just as he grabs it to hand
it to you, you notice it first
in the age spots, and then
you follow it to the white
in his beard, and then it's
all written in his deep set eyes,
and his crows feet, and his
cheek bones that seem to
stick out more than ever
and you can't seem to
peel your eyes away
from the man you've known
since birth, even though
you could paint his
face with your eyes closed,
or at least his face the
way you still see it when
you have your
eyes closed

dad, when did you get old?

i know it's not
really my problem,
but it still *******
****** me off

your carelessness,
your selfishness,
your unending
appetite for
something i don't
even want
around me,
that's what
******* ******
me off

reel it the **** in,
man up, grow up,
get it together,
let go of what
holds you back,
then, call me

we agree that it's the weather,
the never ending grey,
the sludge trudging

I wear blinders,
even in my sleep

days go by and heads hang low,
low, lower, and homemade
salsa doesn't bring smiles

I look for hands to hold,
but I make myself alone

time is nothing, and everything,
but somehow it's lost faster
than dollar bills

I want freedom without handcuffs,
without retribution for flying

lists, plans, goals,
they pour out onto paper, yet,
somehow dreams are stifled

I wish for upheaval of self,
a genuine understanding

there are days
where i stand in the
steaming heat of the
shower and feel my pores
purge days of giving,
giving, giving, until
i'm nothing but a bag
of skin and bones

i stand there and repeat
to myself as many times
as it takes, "allow yourself
to be the woman you are"

this is what i call cleansed

how do i put into words
that the weight of want crushes me

that i had you and now i don't,
and there are so many others
that have laid in my arms,
but i remain a clam shell
refusing to open up into
the lotus i'm destined to become

i lay at night and think of
you, lightly brushing my skin,
the deep release we both felt
in the moment we allowed ourselves
to dip back into the same spot
of the universe, that moment
of presence within and without each other

i lay there and i tell myself it means
absolutely nothing, that you are
there and i am here, and that it will
always remain that way even when
you're standing nose to nose with me

i lay there and love you and am sure
to stay silent because i can't bare to
break into the unknown and possibly
sink further into this sadness that i've
worn draped around my shoulders
for more moons than i'd like to admit

i am crushed by a loss i haven't experienced
yet, but i mourn just the same

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

music notes work hard
tiny hammers on my heart
pounding away at the cement case
until i feel something

i'd like to believe i've built a temple here,
but everyone knows it's just a fort of sheets
and i'm still a little girl underneath

i'd like to be cradled in the arms
of my mother, not landlocked
with my legs around yet another lover

because lovers have got nothing
to do with love, just ******* and touching
and giving up more than you've got

i feel like i've been scraped dry
bottom of the barrel and yet i'm on some
kind of natural high

an out of body experience i'll take flight
and watch as i float away
in the middle of night

a twilight escape of the fourth kind

I wish that I had the kind of mind that would allow full release, but the truth of the matter is that steal traps have always been my ideal. I've worked hard to build myself an island, surrounded it with mines, and loaded myself with ammunition for anyone that manages to make it onto dry land. I lay at night and watch as the screen on the ceiling replays my greatest failures and losses. I feel your warmth next to me and can't help wondering what will bring our demise. I float above us and watch myself pull away, inch by inch. I place jealousy, hysteria, impatience, doubt, and desire between us in a neat line on the mattress that the last man I loved bought. Is this it? An endless loop of love lost? Am I so jaded that I'll never heal enough to allow truth and love to permeate every fiber of my being? I want to give myself to you, but I have this odd feeling that the cup is close to empty. I worry that I'm nothing if not greedy, pulling you towards me, all the while knowing that I'm incapable of allowing you all the way in. Maybe you're different, maybe I can be. I want to be, that's got to count for something. Right?

I want you to be there,
standing at the end of the road
that winds through mountains, over rivers, into canyons,
where ever this life takes me,
until it begins to head towards you
on an undeniably smooth and steady path

you'll stand there,
surrounded by sycamores
whose leaves have begun to turn
and as they begin their leap of faith to the ground
they will dance around you
because nothing in this world can deny you,
your magnetism is inescapable
the moment I lay my eyes
on your golden halo and fresh water eyes
I'll never look away

we'll meet there,
our roads becoming one
and I will walk with you forever
I'll never become bored or restless,
I won't wander, because,
what greater love is there
than the love between best friends?

I'll stay there,
with you, in this love, forever,
I will stay
because I could turn my skin inside out
and you wouldn't see a piece of me
that you didn't recognize
and you would still look me in the eyes and tell me,
"you're beautiful, but you already know that."

i dream of bad things
and when i open my eyes
they swirl around in my brain
like a cocktail being stirred
slowly my brian is poisoned
by these strange feelings i've got
and the rest of my day is tainted
by memories that aren't memories at all

i try to believe
that everything's got meaning
but sometimes i wonder
if i believe too much

you stood there in a dream
and then we ran from something
in an old house
that i didn't know
i tried to kiss your cheek
and i couldn't reach

i search for meaning
in everything
i wonder if maybe
there is none

a life without meaning isn't life, right?
at least that's what i've repeated to myself
so many times that i feel
as if those words are etched
on the inside of my skull
so that when i close my eyes for sleep
that's the last thing i see

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

writing poetry daily,
hating you for not
loving me enough
to say it to my face
before i ran 3,000
miles away

i know that the bottle
grips your neck
and swings you onto
sidewalks, but let's
be real, that
excuse isn't one

i am afraid -

i am aware of the constructs that i have created within my cerebrum, but still,
i am afraid

i dwell within possibility and i drown within pessimism, persistent prodding tells me,
you're not ready,
you're not able,
you're just you

within morning comes the mourning of every moment i've misplaced,
the dreams that detonate day after day as i don't dive deeper,
the wistful wanting for wayward worship of words that have lost their weight

i admonish myself with apologies as august replays again and again,
the shell of you sits there and sings songs of sobriety and sojourned slumber,
and i find freedom in the fact that i find myself finite in my finale- finally alone

it's not the truth that brings terror, it's the tired tongue that trembles,
the loss of lunacy and the latching onto looming, languishing logistics,
the halt of the hum that once helped me to heave myself towards hope

you are no one,
you are everyone,
you are whoever you want to be,
the words that imprison me illuminate an interest in introspective idealism

i am afraid,
but still, exposed, enamored, and enraged, nothing stops emancipation, not even -

i am afraid

i've heard of my harshness
my entire life, the way
that my words dig tiny
holes in hurt feelings and
infest psyches with
second guesses until
madness consumes the
unfortunate recipient of
my terrible truths

they are only truths after all,
honesty is the best policy
plays on repeat behind
closed eyelids as i think
before i speak

none of this is senseless,
maybe it's that i suffer
from a seemingly sweet face
as an accompaniment to
my realism, or
perhaps you're just too
******* sensitive

i picture myself taking
sandpaper to my tongue,
spritzing my brain with
lavender extract, and
instead of word *****
i regurgitate daisies

we're dancing in a bar
i'm wasted
you're pretending to be wasted
the band's alright
but let's be honest
i want the drummer
i always did have a thing for percussionists
i don't even know you
but you're acting like i do
i roll with it
hand on my back
i can roll with it
you're a good dancer
i'll give it to you
now things are going fast
i'm spinning round and round and round
you lean in and say
"you can't lead yourself"
god, if i could have stopped right there
and told the whole bar
what you said to me
who the **** are you?
you are no one
no one no one no one
clearly you have no idea
who i am
i lean back in and say
"i don't need anyone to lead me"
smile my prettiest smile
and spin away
spin away spin away spin away
i'm gonna spend the rest of my days
spinnin away

I wish that I had written sooner

though I can still feel the warmth of
your smile, see the crows feet by
your eyes, and hear your deep laughter,
all of your tattoos have begun to blur

I remember seeing you and needing to
know you, or maybe it was that I
already did, the universe pulling
me back towards an old friend

you kept me alive with coffee and
grant slams and the reassurance
that I would never be alone in
questioning everything, and even
though you're gone, I'm not alone

I think of the moon and I see you,
I feel us smiling and swaying as
Kerouac took us back in time, to
a place where art was all that
lived and breathed, our bodies
just vessels for the unveiling

you will always remind me
that there is no such thing as
too late, that endings are beginnings
bursting with beauty and
that happiness comes with
full acceptance of self, and
above all else, love

i spend my sundays waiting for the sun to reach the edge of my sagging roof porch and
in the sprawling moments in which i wait i flip through pages which tell me of my destiny
and i try to figure out why the **** i care about a future that i may never know,
but good god do i care.

these words swim in front of me like creatures in an effervescent pool, glowing green,
because of some strange algae **** that sticks to them and their surroundings,
forever catching my eye and interest, though they will never leave the pool, or in this case,
the pages on which they lie.

i analyze each past moment in contingency with each morsel of advice this book has to offer
and i wonder how many times i've already ****** up on my karmic path,
but somehow i find comfort in the small intricacies that weave within my own existence,
time passed in the way the book spells it out.

i start to wonder if this is any different than witch craft, or religion,
and i find myself faced with another question, what exactly do i believe in?
suddenly i realize that the purpose of this book isn't to give me answers, it's to make me ask questions,
and that's when i slam it shut.

i'm sick of answering questions and wondering who i am, like i'm some ******* hero from an epic,
plus the sun's starting to warm the dark roof that scrapes my bare feet when i pace back and forth,
and the only thing that makes sense right now is going outside and
lighting my last ******* cigarette.

feelings
that i thought
were my own
sloppily spill out
out of the ****
in my face
that you carelessly
made with the dullest of blades

i can't stop them from escaping
and my cheeks
burn crimson
as i watch my
most intimate thoughts, feelings, moments
drift away
down stream
the entire world standing
on either side
drinking in
my misery

you stand there
smiling
and try to strike up
friendly conversation
fully knowing
that i can't possibly speak
because of the
endless flow of emotional *****
that escapes me now

my earth eyes burn
you to the core
but you feel nothing

you never did feel anything
did you?

there is something inside of me that breaks
in front of every broken person out there -
and if you can find me one person that's made it
through life without being broken, well then,
my earth might just crumble where i stand -
but like i said, it's as if i mirror them,
like their emotions crawl inside of my heart,
and start to occupy my mind, and leak their
way to my tear ducts and my mouth and my limbs,
and i lose control of it, i lose it

for that brief moment, a piece of them lives within me

my sister and i are the empaths,
that's what they like to call us anyways, but
i'd like to believe we're human,
that we should all share and feel each
other's pain so that we can sleep
at night knowing we're never truly alone

i wish i had realized sooner that feeling
isn't weakness, that i didn't need to
hide something we all share, instead,
someone whispered that message to me
in slumber and i woke up with the idea
in my head thinking it was mine

as i begin to unravel ego i realize that
my ideas have been circulating for
longer than i can conceive,
and the more i meditate on the notion
the more i realize that i've just got to
keep the current going, keep stirring
that *** and send the ideas on to
someone else who might be able to
find sustenance within them

i've always known i'd be a nurturer,
but i never thought i possessed the
nourishment people needed within
the fibers of my very being, that we
all possess just what we need, what the
world needs, it's already inside of us,
waiting for someone, or something,
to draw it out

i am ******* dying
to be something other
than a ***** hiding from
her own shadow,
twisting herself up in
senseless wants

maybe if i tattoo my skin
or gauge my earlobes
or pierce my nose
or wear band t-shirts no one's heard of
or go to shows and head bang alone,
then, yes,
then, i will be unique,
oh ****,
there's a tumblr for that,
actually, there are a thousand tumblrs for that,
moving on...

how about i try
wearing black and
hiding from the light,
pulling away until
i only come out at night,
speaking to no one
but the notebook i carry
everywhere with me,
ah, ****, that's been done too

here, here, how about this,
i'll enter the mainstream,
get my degree,
even work a job from seven to three,
marry a **** bag
with no sense of life,
have some kids,
and pretend i take joy in being a wife,
and then, when i'm having
his colleagues over for dinner,
i'll lose it and **** them all
with a butcher knife

as i backflip over
our ten thousand dollar
dining room set
they'll oooh and aaah,
and somehow forget,
that i'm ending their mediocrity,
instead they'll think,
what yoga studio did she join?
her legs are so much more
defined than mine

and as they all lay bleeding out
over their
steak tartar,
i will smile and smooth my
perfect blonde hair,
and wait
to join the leagues
of the unforgettable

the comfortable silences linger
and i find nothing unsuitable
about sitting amongst ferns
and breathing in the mountain breeze

i want not for long-winded
words full of nothing but air

we may not always understand
one another, but you have taught
me to value something i had
never even noticed before

how can i ignore eyes opening
and lights being turned on?

i think of myself and i can't
help but thank you,
for now, i am free

this place is masterful
in the art of illusions

one minute the walls
are closing in, and the
next the doors are all
locked and there are
no windows from
which you could
leap to safer ground

i stand in the kitchen
and try to be helpful,
but when washing
sharp knives i have
thoughts that i can't
even write down

there is a man in
the living room, but
he mimics a robot,
spending his days
repeating and repenting,
trying to lure us
into the fold

i feel alone amongst
eight, like everyone
looks through me,
misunderstands my words,
forgets my intentions

fading into corners
and under floorboards,
soon, i will be a ghost

i've been afraid for awhile,
the kind of afraid that's kept
me inside on most weekends,
but disguised itself as my
average mental illnesses and an
obsession for the current body
resting beside me as i sleep

it wasn't until the election that
i got bold, going to the women's
march by myself, and silently
judging the lesbians beside me
as they sat on their privilege and
critiqued trump and posters -
i never thought about their fear,
the potential loss of the wedding
certificate that went along with
the rings on their respective fingers

i had always stood up for injustice
and wondered how far i could
push it with educating my students,
but when my teachers forgot the
true meaning of february, i jumped in,
i educated and asked questions and
urged my white students to realize
that they were the minority in our
afterschool program, and to open
their ears and eyes to their peers

i confronted strangers in public
places, made eye contact and
smiled at everyone i walked by,
listened earnestly to my friends
of color, hugged my lgbtq pals
harder than ever and repeated
again and again that love is love
is love is love is love is love

i took care of myself, better
than i ever had, because i knew
it was important, i did yoga 5
times a week, went hiking, ate
well for the first time in years,
i didn't sleep much, but i felt okay,
because i was doing something

this weekend i sat in my transgender
friend's home and talked about
my fear, i felt like i wanted to crawl
out of my skin as i said it because
her life is in danger, not her livelihood-
her life- and though i may translate
this into some noble act of wanting
to save all of the children who need
love most in the world, the truth is,
i love my job and i love to serve others,
and i'm not sure i have meaning without it

my fear, it feels transparent, and i'm still
trying to find the space to hear the
validations from people who haven't
yet been confronted by the ****'s knocking
at their door, but rest assured, they
will come, and if you're lucky enough to
be a part of the 1% i hope that the
cries of hungry children, the ringing of
bullets ripping into black bodies, the
screams of transgender people being
murdered, the howls of mexican families
being torn apart limb by limb, the
images of wet syrian toddlers washing
up on the shores of greece will haunt you
endlessly as you sit on your filthy money
and do all of the personal trainer yoga
you can to find what will never come - peace

quitting cigarettes
is signing my name in blood
under a contract that says,
"i'm here to live"

today, I was asked,
by a machine,
"what's the best thing
that happened to you this week?"
and, it followed up with,
"don't be afraid to brag."

I spent awhile wondering
how you might
compute and crunch
just what it means
to receive your first hug
from a third grader
who you're harder on
than most
because you know
behind the lack of focus
lies genius left unexposed,

but I'm pretty sure
that's made every
sloppy, sludgy, snowy
trek this month
more than worth
my while

i sit and i listen,
and nothing sounds right.

i want it to be deep.
i want it to be painful.
i want it to emulate what's in my heart.

then i realize
that it can't.

the only way for that to be possible
is for me to create it,
and i can't help feeling sad.

i wish that i could help
people to understand.

but i know that i can't,
oh i know that i can't .

i sometimes think
to myself,
'i'm the loneliest girl in the world.'

i don't pity myself,
for i know,
it's me who's done this.
only i could have done this.

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

soul *******
self loathing
slow moving
seen exploding

bruised souls
hurt and it takes
an eternity to heal
what you can't see

hope holding
hands hanging
hear heaven
help handed

ears listen for
what they want
and the rest is burned
in a metal can

i always say my neighborhood's got flavor
you say i give it too much credit

but what the **** do you know
about the puerto ricans across the street
who's little girls dance on plump legs
to music that vibrates their entire house

sure, you've seen the kingpin
that lives on our corner,
but you don't know that he plays
catch with his drug dealer's kids

and all those refugees
crowding up your corner store,
they're looking for an answer
just like you are,
but the difference is they've got
nothing to fall back on
because they're thousands of miles
from a friendly face and home

so when i tell you my neighborhood's got flavor
you should really say i don't give it credit enough

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

it seems the closer i get to my dreams
the less gravity pulls me towards reality

i wake each morning nose to nose with myself
floating above my still sleeping body

as my eyelids flutter i fall back within my bones
and breathe deeply as i recount the strangeness -

lost in the docks of antwerp desperate for evening attire,
watching robed friends don masks and sing of sadness -

my past follows me into the great beyond
and stares me in the eyes again and again

for some reason i can see and feel you,
but the familiarity is gone and your voice is no longer yours

i wonder if that's the first thing to disappear
from the recesses of our minds - the sound of love

She consumed me from the start
I never stood a chance
Even before we met this world
She found a way to win
Now I am the piece that just can’t fit
In this puzzle made for five
A tumor on each of them
But I do not bog them with my words
I do not have her swiftness
I manage on my own
Watching them all in silence
I see what they cannot
Those who say too much
Cannot hear

Now I have lost who I once was
I have been fixed
But who can say what fixed really is?
My mind is a clock missing its cogs
Time is askew and the hands have gone wrong

Did I see you through the imaginary lenses again that day?
In your too big Nike’s, dragging an old tattered suitcase ready to quit long before you’d even contemplate letting up
Inside a crumpled map and a few shirts that stunk of the dead fish up the creek they’d been cleaned in

I stopped for gas even though I was full, and I almost wanted to believe that you were a mirage of love I’d never feel again
I wore an Aubrey Hepburn dress and had just been called a **** for the third time that week by some **** with a confederate flag sticker on his truck
I wondered if that made me dream you, soft, with your arms open yelling, “MOMMMMMM,” as you moved as quickly as you could towards me in giant shoes without laces

I tried to imagine what the old couple in the field thought when they saw you emerge, wide yawning out of the brush
Or the woman who brought you to the train station and asked what your mother would think about you walking New York as you held back your all encompassing laughter

Some may call it a mental break, but I knew better, I knew you were performing poetry in motion
Maybe even a months worth of writing yielded from that trek,
and as I pictured you growing in a way I couldn’t, I wished that I could take off the glasses that made the world vanish and you illuminate

I wanted so badly to chase you into the brush, to sleep rough, to forget for a moment the **** on the walls I’d have to scrub in the wee morning hours later on

Instead I shouted back, “DAAAAAAAD,” embraced your toned and warm body, and told you it was about time for a joint

how had i gotten here?
with eyes closed, stumbling, drunk
and lost for what felt like a lifetime, but
suddenly my spine sits straight and my
mind is as calm as the clean translucent
water of this magical place that i keep
returning to, i've washed myself of the
tarnish that dulled the stars that had always
been beneath my skin, begging me
to allow their shine to brighten the
dark corners which had once consumed me

and now i'll lay back on these ancient cedars
and sing a song that's different from all of
the rest because it's you strumming the tune
and your hands are gifts from the universe,
slowly changing the way we all see this place,
one slow dive inward at a time, oh sweet man,
i no longer wonder what i did to deserve you, instead
it's "yes, life can be this good, if you allow it,"
as many times as it takes to ring true

why is it
that i have to sit here
and be complacent?
you don't like your life?
it'll get better,
but first you have to wait
for six months.
so what if you're doing
something you hate?
necessary evils
to get to where you want.
but why, oh why?
why are there necessary evils?
why is it that
this green ****
controls the world?
stupid *******
flimsy pieces
of ******* paper
with dead dudes
heads on them
control this world.

i look up to you tonight,
feel my breath rise and fall
with each inch that suspends
me from this earth and leads me
to a greater understanding
that we are all comprised of rising tides
controlled by the beams that
move the deepest reaches
within the very essence of
our truest selves

sprinkles splatter on
tight clad legs in december,
and it should be snow, but
the clouds are thinking
of committing suicide
and haven't got anything
to spill but tears

i'm smoking bowl after
bowl, trying to ease a mind
full of manic mutations
and masterfully marred
optimism

geminis have a strange
way of guessing the words
that will slip out of lips
of ones like themselves,
and tonight i've found a
human who entered this
world just a week
before me

it's almost like a secret club,
but the secrecy is terrifying
in an electric way, and i'm
plugged into an outlet
ready to be fried as i
spill broken heart after
broken heart to a man
that understands me
all too well

he tells me that he
knows not why i ask
for advice, because
the truth is i'm stubborn
and stuck and i know
what i want, i'm just
wasting away with pride,
posture, and predictability
every moment that i don't
go and get it

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

i long for words that would sail us
to middle earth;
a step up from hell for me,
a step down from the heavens for you

she and i discussed at length
the way that yearning pierces
painfully, just as the time before,
never any less, maybe a little more
over hand rolled cigarettes,
wine, and salsa dancing

we looked at a history of our city,
hard working men who breathed
through fire and molten metal,
and spoke for hours about how
art is the saving grace in this mess

i wished that i could find a way
to convince you to see the world
through my eyes,
but i know yours are just as bright
and maybe even more beautiful,
if not more unique

if only my mind could find
the answers
a piece of my world transfered
to yours

i'd like to show you all i have to offer
but realization of sure fire rejection
trumps desire for detection

now don't think that i sit
and wish for you in droves
a tiny shadow woman
who hasn't got any hope
because that isn't it, far from the truth
i'm just hopeless in wanting for things
that could've, should've, would've been

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.

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'

today i dreamt of the lower falls
and as we climbed
the hundreds of stairs
down to the landing to look up
we noticed that there
was a line forming at the top
of the canyon opposite us
and just as we clambered
down the final steps
they began
jumping one by one,
laughing as they went

and it wasn't that
gravity was taking them

for they floated
down like feathers,
light and beautiful
dancing with the wind

they had taken gravity
and thrown it away with
one fluid movement

and their laughter
could be heard ever
so slightly over the
plummeting water
that landed on the sharp rocks below
and it was the most
beautiful chorus i had
ever heard and i wished
aloud that the sound
would never leave me

it didn't occur to us
that they would eventually
land bloodied and mangled
on the rocks below
because they looked
far too in control
and graceful for such a
horrid fate

instead i imagined them
reaching the bottom
and vanishing,
simple as that

for it was obvious
that they had had enough,
even in my dream world,
i knew they weren't
jumping just for the
thrill of it

i find myself at work
wishing i was still under covers
reading poems about other girls
written by ex lovers

my sister she tells me
i've lost my spark
i tell her i wish i could find
my way out of the dark

something invade me
turn me around
flip this life over and
throw me on the ground

make me climb up
so i can see from above
forget these dull heart aches
and leave them in past loves

because sitting in your
own ****
******* man,
that's the pits

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.

the day is long
my body weary
the mind is strong
my heart sees clearly

for this i was born
no more denial
the light has shown
the end of the spiral

i float above me
within and without
i now know free
comes at cost of doubt

the love that i have
explodes never ending
the love that i give
is well worth sending

i cut the rope
and here i stand
i hold now hope
in both of my hands

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

he strums downstairs,
remnants of childhood and
forevermore colliding

i wished for a life just like this,
complex, beautiful, and full of living

imagine a single silk thread extending
from your soul to mine, a line that doesn't
force us too near, but reminds us of the inevitable

the star that decided upon our fate may very
well be extinct, but to it, i am forever grateful