my body, the hand grenade
ugly crawls inside, makes a nest.
an animal chained in a cage,
my insect in a jar.

i spit out my ugly. it wasn't supposed to be this way.

life is a simple arrangement
of numbers and measures.
the bathroom mirror under florescent lights
is my sacred altar.
never mind that nothing else is sacred.

my broken body, the hungry child
i give her food, i take it away. i make her cry.
i bleed for her.

she swallows my ache and comes back for more.

poker face, deadpan
hemoglobin lips, body
gore, angel cake
(tastes just fine coming back up)
sins of the flesh, why
can’t i scour below the skin?

call me baby girl, make me
cry, i’m afraid to say it,
hit me, i want your attention,
harder, excoriated
before you, glimmering
*****, cherry scented and
bleeding.

bile, tabula rasa,
i know better, but
i’ve got a cavity to fill, sweet
heart, rotting
on the tile floor,
i leaned over, retched,
and trespassed
god’s will to be clean
again.

my longing is suffocating,
concrete poured over my living corpse,
heavy and hollow, that faithless cry
falls mute. i do not need.

these grisly limbs ache, vacant as
the mirror, no reflection,
i chased my love to the edge of the ocean
and watched the waves steal it away.
i’ve swallowed my curse. i’ve covered my tracks.
i do not need.

i could not wash her from my skin,
my nest of thorns, my memory
lies trapped beneath her mortal sin
and grasping for her remedy.
i turned her face up to the sun,
buried my light under the ground
******* with reason, and undone
the end hangs heavy with the sound.
gentle serpent, fill up these veins
infect sublime serenity
between the comfort and the shame
i still hold on so cowardly.
for in that liturgy of dirt,
i hold my life, and all it’s worth.

in her garden i am empty,
bloodless,
yet very much alive
in the silent swell,
harm’s embrace.

her cruelty knows no limits,
in her light i am blind,
forsaken,
guarding my waste land
like a filthy, frightened thing.

hyacinth girl,
beloved:
the seasons fall apart
in grievous harmony.

(i am certain death knows salvation.
why do the shadows dispel beneath me,
faced with my earthly pain?
where is my mercy?)

the fear emerges in an instant,
comes as skeletal fingers
digging into flesh;
one thousand needles surging beneath the skin.

the crushing weight of terror,
tunnel vision, nightmare scheme,
heart pumping acid, drowning,
collapse of the senses.

time is a failure, a quiet assault
bleeding the day into night.
fragile soul, a fly trapped in amber,  
the dreadful eternity of a moment.

violent delights, violent ends
i torture my love,
a weak rose locked behind glass

faint of heart, cowardice
i drank in the poison and lived

i cut stars out of my skin,
cast them into the face of heaven,
hindered the darkness

contamination, purification
i kicked over the chair and lived