i can't help but answer
the ethereal voice of the ocean.

Do you know what beauty is?

Some say it's these eyes.
The same eyes that have been rubbed with fists
that don't know their purpose,
fists that only know these tears are foreign,
and it is their job to eradicate them.
These eyes are two-sided mirrors,
only showing what the outer person believes to see,
not what's really there.
These eyes have known smiles, but not sleep;
joy, but not peace.
Are these eyes still beautiful?

Some say it's this smile.
The same smile that has been too many frowns,
curves of confusion and wishful thinking.
These teeth, straight and strong
only because of man's work, not nature's.
Teeth that were once blamed for unattractiveness,
and kept hidden by tight-lipped
excuses of a smile.
Lips that are anxiously bit rather than kissed,
red with embarrassment and the feeling
of never measuring up.
Together, these lips and teeth create a smile,
but alone they are just forcefully arranged teeth,
and lips that worry.
Is this smile still beautiful?

Some say it's these curls.
The curls that are, but don't want to be,
and only are because hormones got a hold of them.
These curls are soft, but disguised of that
by flyaway frizz that wants freedom
but will never get it.
These curls are angry at their boundaries,
and they take that anger out on me.
The truth is, I could never set them as free
as they wish to be.
Are these curls still beautiful?

Some say it's this size.
The petite waist and slender arms,
the curvy legs and prominent chest,
this childish height.
Smallness makes the big feel bigger,
stronger, more capable.
But it also makes the small feel smaller.
This is the same waist that hungers perpetually,
the same arms that shiver when no one else does,
the curves that hesitate instead of bragging,
and the height that's mocked, condescended,
and shamefully despised.
Is this size still beautiful?

The heart of the matter is that beauty
is simply misunderstood.
Beauty is the surface of unfathomable depths.
It is not beauty at all, but merely
an acceptance, or a recovery, or a new birth.
Something that was,
but wasn't until it was discovered.
And if this is the case, why aren't we searching for it?
Why are we waiting for beauty to appear
when we could be finding it?

one, two, three
rain drops down on a black black land
every drop turns a different color as it breaks apart
and music notes come singing out in partly raindrop chorus
it doesn't have to be a different rain a grey a story plain
the window's streaked with colors, the blood of long dead men
and now my heart is sliced with shattered glass stained rainbow hues
the window broke the rain came in and i am now quite dead
electrolytes will fill my blood and up the voltage power
and you come close and kiss my lips and taste the kaleidoscope death
your tear might fall and hit my skin and fizzle out to die
and then you'll leave and my corpse will rot
and electricolored blood remain

only dead boys hold insects like they're something
special
only a dead boy would let a mantis in his heart and
preying was always a better descriptor
because hymns burned in my throat and
i scratched a cross into my palm but i was never lucky enough to scar
but
oh, dead boy
bug lover
enduring a thousand lashes to save the soul of a beetle  -
i'll help you peel off all your scabs to make sure they scar
thick tissue skin memory sometimes you think scars are the closest you'll get
to a wedding ring
you're a suicide king i think a kingdom of hearts was never the safest place for you i
don't think you understand the way your subjects' hearts are strung because
entomology entomos everything you love is cut to bits
and on the fourteenth of february you told me
the only purpose of a flower
was to hold
a spider
inside
and i guess that was why you painted all your walls with roses i
hope your garden  smells as sweet
covered in your misfortunes
only a dead boy would let
a praying mantis so close
to his neck
oh, you freak. disgusting.
i ate the last one that let me this close.
you told me {if i die
leave my body
in the forest
by
an anthill}
maybe you don't realize we were doomed from the start or maybe you're just naïve but
honey you're a dead boy and
corpses don't fall in love.
[you're so genuine it hurts and i think
i could teach you how to be a fake -
nobody likes an honest man
i could teach you how to hate the world but you said

{the only one
i hate here
is me}]

freakish child.
all you see in every rorschach is mantes and
decapitations and
wedding rings you are an aberration,
suicide king entomologist your throne room
was full of termites.
with hallowed cheeks and hollowed churches,
i will assure that you scar
dead boy, if you die
i will put maggots
in your chest

you're a cns depressant i
knew from the moment i met you cause
i remember tasting you before:
the bottle of white
***
i stole from my mother like
fire and bitterness and
damp cloth across my mouth
drank you dry and
felt a little less volatile
fire fighting fire no room for hurt when i can just
lie here
and count every eye as it closes i
am argus:
all-seeing, hundred-eye
and everything i try to protect
is stolen when my eyes
close
{scatter my eyes on feathers
and never let them shut again}
deep draughts of you i
remember
your taste
and the way my skin buzzes and mind numbs
when you burn my throat.
you're a cns depressant and i,
the loneliest child on the west coast you thought
the california scene
was supposed to be
brighter than this
but i've lived here all my life and let me tell you:
every morning is
chill grey skies
and fog
that tastes tonic
without the gin, or
to put it differently:
everything i don't need not
fire just
damp chill
{i'm starting to think that
every california love story
is set in death valley because here
the ocean is cold in the height of summer
and the streets are empty at 5 am when i decide maybe
i should stop
writing
and make sure the world is still there}
and for me,
a child
with an empty bottle
and an empty room,
you were a monster
that i prayed i would find beneath my bed
you are a fugue state i dropped into willingly you
let me forget
that the water is cold
let me forget that this life
is the least compelling plot I’ve ever read
and i’m tempted to skip to the end
golden state fugue state in death valley sunburn girls
shed their skins like snakes and i
lust after empty husks
but i grew gills when i tried to drown in the bay i could
never be as hollow as that i
bite my lip and hope i'll bleed this time
instead of just aching
{no more aches just fire and fog if
i bleed
catch it in an inkwell you know
black ink
is worth more than my blood
send my letters to the red cross and spill red across the pages}
no more aches just fire and fog i
always liked myself more when i was on a stage
hope this story will skip to the end
cause i don’t think I can take another apathetic word i wish
this narrator
had drowned before her gills could form
but i feel a little less alone with my hand around your neck
you’re a cns depressant you  
held my hand as i burned
you made me a chain of four leaf clovers and i swallowed every one i think
you made a bad decision
when you chose to help me survive

ants crawl on
slowly


1.
left eye is hopping fast for days now
and time's but a fair damsel
of delightful illusion
how she taunts and teases you
into sweet oblivion
of wickedly sensual basking

she drugs you with deep charisma
and struts at the doorway of your senses
she clutches onto the tracks in your mind
and claws deep into your ragged psyche
that same old song playing
over and over...
........over


2.
see right through train's chassis
rail sleepers spin vigorously backward
in such frightful haste
to get nowhere
no-one knows the real speed of time
out there.....

but for mere mortals
it's leniently paced in adagio
and parceled in mellowed excruciation
as ants walk serene
alongside the tracks


3.
creep into chaotic patterns
fall into hell
through a secret back door
even satan knows not of
as perched as he is
on his *oh-so lofty pile of ordure
his blind heart
sees not
the strobed tracks
of your visiting soul


4.
take a syncopated shot up the arm
from the foul fang of a kind sinner

while saints bathe in fat glory
elsewhere

when you look again
you lie alone in a corner room
broken
yet untethered

tracks to heaven so obscured
by
your paradoxical attempts at levity
on the twisted playground of life's malady


5.
how badly you tripped
so many **** times
you ....got in the way
of your
own
remise


each time you fell
you looked UP
expecting help
when all the while
the answers lay
at your feet:

[your own mistakes are authentic and real;
you try to fox-tread out
but trying to turn your back on a *****
called destiny - equals catastrophe personified
oh, she WILL beckon you back
with her crooked finger
most kindly
to ensure no overdue lessons wait too long.....]



the ants crawl on
so
slowly



S T, Wed 10 July 2013