there is a girl in your bed,
her jewelry tossed to the nightstand
because you were careless in the dark
ankles peeking out from the sheets,
hair splayed out like a painting, wild and frozen in the moment
of some unknown dream,

and you want it not to matter,
you said that it was simple, that it was just
*******

when you pressed your hand flat against her back and
rammed your teeth together in overeager kisses
and grinned in lazy triumph
when she sighed in your mouth,
you said,
“don’t worry, this doesn’t mean a thing”

you collected phrases to armor
the cavity in your chest
“it’s just ***”
“nothing to talk about”
“i don’t feel anything”

but she stayed the night,
pale light from the window is tracing where you’ve kissed;
her bony shoulders, the freckles that collar her throat,
the purple-red bruise you left just below her right ear
now blossoming so much more beautiful
than the alcohol and the night would ever
let you dream up

there is a girl in your bed
and you ache with how it matters.

I want to tell you a little about my ex-girlfriend.
Her name is Acculturation,
I was first attracted to her because she smiled like hope was her middle name.
the first words I heard outta her mouth were
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"
And I lost my breath for a second.
My heart skipped a beat,
she had this way, to make things sound really pretty,
but when I finally reached out for her hand, so we could share the weight of our struggles together,
I noticed for the first time,
her hands were full.

She told me, to hold on a minute,
she would open the golden door behind her,
as soon as I looked just like everyone inside,
this gathering had a dress code, and I wasn't allowed to partake if i didn't put in an effort to please the hostess.

I told her I liked the way I looked,
and walked past her,
Only to receive the look a snooty customer clerks give you,
when you walk into an expensive store that "knows" you can't afford a single thing in there

I should've known then,
this thing wasn't going to work out...

darkened dreams
lead to clouded thoughts
and misplaced steps
of hazy intention.

twisted down underneath
gilded dreams of demise
don't you let the demons rise
out from the land of maybes.

well this turned out exactly
how you thought it'd never be.
giggle and throw that heavy head back
now forward into another drag
of a cigarette laced with promises
of eternal pleasure, endless bliss -
you know it'll never be this color again.

the first is the sweetest darling -
all that follows is singed with
disappointment, or discontent.
pour another dissonant tone into my cup
and i'll drink it right up
drowning my expectations
in sweet, sensuous sorrow.

but hopes are easy to borrow,
and i'll sign up for two thousand
just to watch them fall again and again
into utter darkness-
i know the game of muffled secrets
too well to spill this toxic dump
so lets keep pushing the buttons, harder
til the pump steams in overdrive,
and my scarred scaly skin
is burned, cleansed, and shed.

Come on, you say to me,
help to **** the soil dry of
deep, muddy clays made by
colonial lullabies and
forgo your selfish thoughts
of suicide in favor of a
dark grey summer salad coupled with
a nuclear fish fry.

Unleash a cosmic sigh, I
bleed to breed  my human seeds and
cultivate forests of ***** while
pulling up deliciously
edible weeds who sing
laughing limericks we
care not to listen to and
languishing warnings we
care not to heed.

Me and you, baby, let's
build a box made of
ticky-tacky in the back of
some skeletal, suburban
cul-de-sac, crafted over a
cesspool vat of human feces,
spicy DDT and industrial-grade
mercury.

Apathy towards the life source
breeds apathy towards corporate force
breeds disgust, killing the serpent and
reclaiming the horse, tossing the
apple, preparing for the worst.

Pile up pounds of gold and
crowns to assign money a meaning
and postmark letters filled with
plastics and post-its with
"PARADISE IN THE REACH OF ALL MEN"
scrawled in felt-tipped pen to
peoples perched on the edge
of the planet, to whom
time gave rhymes from learning to
lay their ears down in the
dirt and succumbing to the
the devil wearing a blood-stained,
starched, white shirt.

Dilute the base of me with
an acidic you, quick, pollute
the river so salmon scurry
downstream and the arduous algae
dries up, screaming.

I wonder if the taker can
become the giver.

heavy hands pressed
into hot skin, slick running
down to escape
a heady, spun mind firing blanks.

find forbidden release -
slide, push, grasp, bite,
moan into open spaces,
to fill empty pauses
of hesitation to ease frustration
through undulations crescendoing,
and breaking into staggered breathing.

covered heartbeats thump, flip-flop, flounder
under oceans tide rolling up to shore,
ensuring the footprints will recede
with the pounding waves, erase
all evidence of pointless bliss
into layers of sand,
churned over & over by ruthless repetition,
over & over into thoughtless submission,
over & over & over & over to climb over
the cliffs of insanity, jump with me,
to infinite depths of jagged teeth
crouching low to cut the heat spilled
by dilated pupils twitching to the driving beat
of some over-worked melody.

painting a precise manifesto
of a knife singularly longing
for supple curves of backs to lunge into,
and carve it's home from bone & sinew,
to nest & fester - rotten refuse.
a bed made of metallic missteps
and unspoken truths
it's only home when your heart is
shredding to fragmented shards
that wish to sink into their own kind.

but beware of the shadows
lurking behind the door marked "escape",
you can run from your monsters,
but you cannot fool fate -
your dark thoughts will inevitably manifest one day.

cold sweat startled wake,
to blinding grey light
cutting through torn curtains,
splaying skeletal silhouettes on the floor.
squinting crusted-shut eyes,
trying to determine the ghostly hour
lost between fragmented fever dreams.
head twisting inside-out to wrap itself
around old virtues, stand true
true blue friend, I'll surely desert you in the end.
hand on my burnt Bible to swear
my oath of destruction,
on a war path to eradicate
everything i resurrected
as an effigy to home, love, and identity.
structural anarchy - from imposed symmetry,
to the empty abyss surrounding me
where a single whimper can bounce
off itself, into crescendoing agony.
gather all the rubbled remains
of the once sanctified temple,
but piling stones straight to the sky
won't build a shelter for the aftershock.