I catch the moths between my fingers,
and linger as their bodies
and my shameless slaughter
are both washed down by
warm water.

Not yet suffocated by my hands
sometimes they still flutter
but they'll be dead before
the taking of bread and butter.

"My record is three today",
I say to her so she'll pray.

I will find you
when you are broken like beer bottles in parking lots;
collect the pieces
so the neighborhood children
don't marr their bare feet.
We will walk along the highway,
on the grass-cracked sidewalk
until it is no more.
And then I will spread you
like ashes
because I could never bear to
bury you.

I look at you
and your **** American family,
I wish I could wave a flag
and mindless believe
for just a moment.
Today and tomorrow
and all the days before,
I'll wait with the ghosts
of the civil war.
I can tell you your history--
founding fathers to your own
but what does that matter
when my very own dad
left me alone.
Pop culture don't matter,
they say with a huff,
but that's all they talk about these days
enough is enough.
Culture culture culture,
that's all I am good for
it overpowers all that I am
like the world after rain.
Today and all days,
I am torn between passion
and blood.
You can laugh and smile,
but my minor school book awards,
give me reason sometimes.
It's just the way I was raised.
I hate the idea of you
and your perfect American family.

Yet how can I love something so foreign,
so far from myself?

Idle prattle left behind on the linoleum,
we walk in silence.
Sometimes in the humming dinn of the radio,
I mouth words
hoping you'll hear.
But that's all we've become.

Perhaps the best form kind of kindness,
is not the ever present
support of friends
and kind words of parents
or even the sweet words of a lover.
But rather the simple
true thoughtfulness of
an aquaintance.
Allow me to hold open doors
and smile at strangers
and leave flowers on graves
because the best is
unexpected.

I think you cryptic, think you wise.
Perhaps in that is our demise.
A sophomore in the bloom of youth
to you I speak, with words uncouth.
Apologize f'r my deplorable acts:
my unkind gestures, my lack of tact.
Intentions mean well, I want nothing but good
Show me atonement, and I'll do as I should.
Dear acquaintance, not friend nor foe,
I'd like to continue, I hope you don't go.

Remove me from existence, please.
I no longer wish to be.
There is a pleading melody.
That I would like to flee.

And as the buzz of people,
Draw so near and far.
I putter down the county road,
In my little car.

I gaze upon the cattle,
The sparkling city lights.
I ponder upon sleeping pills,
I begin to see blank white.

Perhaps I may have overdosed,
A mistake I should not make.
I cannot hear his mutterings,
And I do not partake.

Like stepping on intangibles,
Or eating blanketed air,
I cannot hear the inaudible,
love what is not there.

And as I creep into a room,
Filled with dust and fear,
A bit of nostalgia,
Falls into my ear.

It dances to my brain, you see.
And then into my heart.
It is a terrible sin,
missing such a part.

Like a robot armless,
Or a flightless dove,
I want simplicity and untruth,
Human and God above.

My heart leaps up
at the smiles of strangers
that glance at me on morning trains.
A simple nod to my existence
and understanding of my pains.
Let me not die should no one smile at me,
but since I'm young, simply smile and offer up my seat.

My heart leaps up
at the smiles of strangers
that glance at me on morning trains.
A simple nod to my existence
and understanding of my pains.
Let me not die should no one smile at me,
but since I'm young, simply smile and offer up my seat.

Tell me your love in sweet sonnets
and confess to me everything, impassioned.
I want to be raving,
feeling every passing moment with quivering ferocity.
What which was so unlimited suddenly become impossibly small.
Words too impercise.
Motion holds me too tight.
Only explosions of myself could make me feel alive.
It is too hard to simply be alive.

I was wondering
"Do I ask too many questions?"
But instead you said:
"why do you ask so many questions"
So I smiled and replied
"I guess I don't understand you"
I should apologize for being curious.
But sometimes I wish I could change myself
for you.

When I speak with you,
I choose each word meticulously
as if I’m writing poetry.
I try to imitate your speech,
sometimes
because I hear that
makes people feel more connected.
When dawn breaks
and I wake
I feel
the wit of the staircase
creeping beside me.

I can't speak with you
because all that come is argument.
But when I try ignoring you,
I'm, still left uncontent.

I make apologies and eulogies
for the past of you and me.
But alack the day, alas
I'm still the one who bleeds.

Quite honestly I should hate you,
it's reason, simple truth.
We're squares and circles
even in our youth.

But the idea of you and who were
interests me so much,
I can't forget who you can be
so to intangibility, I clutch.

Your small silver fish
dangles from your neck
and slips
toward the light
illuminating my face
and shrouding your own.

I shout profanities
loud.

There is no beauty suddenly,
it has drained
down the storm sewers
that
I am so afriad of
falling down myself.

I yell profanities
loud.

Suddenly hysterics.
I have no sunflowers to give you.
They have shriveled
and molded.
And when I sow the seeds,
so you may reap.
You are gone.

I cannot find you in art
or Whitman.

Oh Margo, where are you?

You're no enigma though,
so perfectly crystaline
a lattice of exactitudes
that I can make no assumption
about.

I scream profanties,
silent.

It is only during night,
sweet night
that you can be found in
my magazines.

I want to pull off my skin
and paint with the blood.
Cover everything.

Where have you gone?

Polar bear drowned in the snow,
come to the North
and watch the sky with me
and laugh for a moment
as peace comes
through tea
and
under blankets.

I must apologise for myself, dear friend,
for my self worth is not by means, but through the end.
I can't fully nor slightly dare alter my past,
You're so well adjusted, while I'm just aghast.
Issues and problems, I self destruct on a dime,
All the forevers were nevers, this and all times.
Only you know what's real and what's been unsaid,
But I will know, what's drowning and what's been misread.
I am what the players play, insecure up above
One of the hopefuls, musicians and lechers do love
No talks with my father, or walks with my mother,
I'm broken like the rest of you, we're one another.

We'll walk beside the highway, firey-footed steeds, left in town
You'll never pain me again til voices wake and us we drown

We'll walk beside the highway, firey-footed steeds, left in town
You'll never pain me again til voices wake and us we drown

Subas como una fumada
los mil grullas de papel
nunca te engancharas

Yo ilumino la noche
con linternas
en su nombre
nunca cae.

Me raias.
Nunca vuevlo
Nunco volo.
Solo te
miras en el cielo.

When I see the adolescent men
and women who surround me,
I pray that my children will never
be like me.
Perhaps growth takes pain,
and mistakes
but please never
be like me.
Never be enraptured by drugs or
live only for your happiness
but also never live for only someone elses
or
be like me.
Please don't rebel,
I want to be able to joke and cry
as you grow old.
I always hated the books
of broken childhoods.
Please don't be like me.

Inconsolable truth:
there is no visible reminder to my invisibility.
I lay under the blank sky,
the snow and clouds seamless at the horizon.

I am white, buried in myself
And I think:
“This would not be a bad way to go”.
Falling asleep in red blue and green.

sometimes i may have used you as a
disclaimer:
"someone always likes you"
maybe that's true.
however today
sitting with my sheets and the floor lamp,
the world hates me.
but i also hate the world.

They ruined you, took your iridescence and fled.
Oh beautiful darling why’d you have to bed
even all the kings horses and all the kings men,
could never think to put you back together again.

Oh should the ground start falling from your feet
and I could not stand by you knee to knee,
I’d pick a flower and sit in your clothes,
and hug myself until my arms get cold.

Close my eyes and pretend you’d be here,
wake into  dreams as you so swift appear.
Your arms wrapped round me like a proper gent,
I’d breathe, shivering, into you content

I’d kiss you squarely first soft on the mouth
and pray you’d kiss me back as I go south.

You make my body quiver,
shake with passion caged.
Each breath I take shivers,
as my mind screams no, enraged.

My heart and body disagree,
calling out their qualms
all the while I kneel and plea
my hands pressed palm to palm.

But we’re not Shakespeare’s palmers
kissing hand to hand.
I try to rise, now calmer,
but find I cannot stand.

I duel against my love for you, blow by blow by blow
I cannot win against myself, my love can only grow.

I’ll not think love at this age,
but I’m a hypocrite assuaged.
A liar in my dying right,
spread gasoline and then ignite
the blaze of want and desire,
watch my flames lick the fire.
But then you make a thrilling twist,
dampen the rage, remove my cysts
from my thoughts and my soul,
my former self but a ghoul.
And I can no longer see,
the blighted thoughts of younger me.
Yet at the same time, I still wonder:
Have I been ripped asunder?
My very being become otiose,
my speaking words, too verbose.
Nevertheless, I’m quite at peace,
as if I’ve become one deceased.

Sometimes I sense you in my bones
seeping through my marrow,
flitting through my veins,
each footstep in time with a heartbeat.
I know you well.
I have known you well.

At times there is guilt,
stalling your departure
from my life.
Yet, still, I delight.
You are a detriment,
but like a tapeworm
to anorexic,
you are lovely to me in mind.

Hours flow like kisses,
too few, too fast.

It is too cold this January
to not intertwine.

Permit, if you will,
my hands to mesh with yours.
Please, allow me to rest my head upon your chest
for a brief moment;
scrutinize the heart that pounds
within.
Please, consent my eyes
as they stare yours down,
triangulating on every weakness.

May I kiss you?
On the cheek and then the neck
and perhaps, the mouth?

In stilted moonlight
while the clowns
and comics sing
their soliloquies
to an unseen
audience
and insomnia reigns,
beneath my cellar door
I keep you
in memories
and jars.
I am no
Frankenstein,
creating monsters
from parts.
It is only because
you cannot be
saved
in photobooks
or stories.

My Dad
used to write
notes on post-its:
reminders
affirmations
his love.
I’ve
taken up the habit
in his absence.

you’re drinking yourself to death
every december you do this
i dream of your death in the obituary
discussed in medical detail

truth and dares upon the deathbed
derailed from your plan
denounced as a liar
you’re still delightful in my eyes

you riddle your wrists with dashes
do you desire life today?
daily I debate your decision
dark, dangerous, repressed, depressed

i can’t decide your destiny
you must distinguish
what is real and what is wrong

dearest, you’re dreaming
daring drugged and drunk
please never disappear