his fingers dance across
my shoulder blades and down
my arm until they reach my
hands, where they trace patterns
on my palm

you're safe with me, i
swear, he says

                             and i believe him

i.
no matter what your teachers
may tell you, your grades are not a
measure of how smart you are, that
has more to do with how you handle your
heart, and i have never seen anyone love
more fiercely or smart than you.  

ii.
i have let boys touch me just because
i was scared to lose them; don't let them
lay a hand on you without you asking
them to, you are worth more than that.

iii.
people will walk away, but you've known
that already.  keep your chin up so that when
they turn back one last time, they know that
you don't need them.
you don't need them.

iv.
i hope you find somebody that holds your
hands, even when you're nervous and
they start to sweat.  if they pull away,
you come find me and i swear,
i won't let go.

no longer am I afraid of my own ignorance
nor am I afraid to lie
every single ******* poem
has to be so **** enigmatic
that I tire of reading
the same whiskey stained, cigarette smelling
blocks of text
I hate poetry
and I hate poets
I hate myself
and I hate you
so sue me
pretentious young people so concerned with life
pretentious young people all looking for a crack at the limelight
me oh me oh me oh my
read my pain drenched musing
feel the depth of my soul
because I have no other hopes
of ******* above my weight class
Me so touched and artistic
Me drunk and high -
a raving mess of hormones and emotions
where do we go from here?
which breakthrough is waiting to be made?
are we doomed to ape the beats and Bukowski
until the day that writing is made obsolete by tweeting?
**** oh **** oh **** oh ****
see? I’m edgy, couldn’t care less about P.C. and good taste
I’m wearing the same black shirt
as everybody else
but mine is different - see?
why be  a poet
when you can be anything else?
who chooses the bullet to the head
over the winning lottery ticket?

there's a reason why our magnetic fields have become so distant
it wasn't because the trigger was pressed too hard against my soft
temple, it was written in the stars that change is the only constant
and hope is only for beginners and i've been dipped too far into
the creasefolds of your fragile complexity of the book you're busy
writing, and i know you want to rip me out of those pages, i am
the aftermath of a broken shield that i didn't know was ripe enough
for others to dig into, but i can never get you completely out of my system,
like a hidden computer virus that i never really meant to obtain, it just
all started almost like a big bang, with a shotgun mouth and these weak
limbs that pulls it's own weight, i didn't mean to push my luck so far

new york glasses boy asks questions
in auschwitz: were there americans in concentration camps?
in krakow: are europeans a race?
in budapest: are you okay? why don’t you want people to sing to you?
at dinner i hide from the orange rubber cake
people try to sing and i try to run
after much mulling over a recycled candle
i wish for a simple easy adulthood and contemplate flinging myself into the danube.

my dollars have kinder eyes than most
money doesn't talk
it listens

Their laughter scratches up against my heart
And drifts far and away
Like spilled milk that the stars cry over
So I open my eyes and smile

The only thing to do against the black
And the milk spreading out on the floor like my laugh

i refuse to die unnoticed; i am a cloudless interruption
attempting to expose the demons inside of you as well
as myself, raining bullets of tears upon you and drowning
my sorrows into your sea. like a predator, you destroy the
vital parts of myself, parts i didn't know was drenched in
your blood because i feel you running in these veins. maybe
i could sew these eyelids together to shut the reality off because
i get weary and exhausted chasing something so out of my reach,
because i am the sun and you are the moon, and time will bring us
together, but i am so tired of being on the wrong side of the battlefield
without you by my side, i wish this nightmare would end for me already

The are fragments in the space
inside my father,

allocations of
belts and birchwood and driftwood, or
coin covered wishing trees,
safe as houses
without enough windows.

In shallow places, he tells me
'swallow your chewing gum
and limp into cemetery
grounds. I will forget you
as if you were alive"

Everything he says has
water under it.
It doesn't sit, or stay, or
take root in any meaningful sense.

I guess that's when this all started.
why I stuff an entire pieces of cake in
my mouth just to stay
silent.

I wonder if it's recessive,
this un-satiated need to fill