My roommate is vacuuming the apartment
I'm thinking about distances
past to present,
empty to overflowing,
shattered to whole
doctor your wounds are bleeding again
and I don't have the proper training
we toil and toil beneath the gaze of an oblivion
too much sweat on the brow to take the time to ask why
my heart is a runaway train
my brain the penny on the tracks
there's no such thing as non-civilian casualties
hungry is as hungry does
it's just the nature of these lives
our carrot on a string
I thought I caught a taste once
only to bite my own finger
It hurts, but the pain is just motivation
to keep on living
and all of those lessons and truths
she whispered in your ear on dreaming nights
are still the reason your heart beats the way it now does
wake the hell up
perfect does not exist
and you are going to be fine
fix the roof
you are going to be fine

the funny thing is,
you think i'm still interested.

i don't fall in love with people who leave me
alone,
frigid, frozen
covered in a 9 o'clock night rain
with a piping cup of peppermint tea in my shaking fingers and
nowhere to walk except home.

you only ever touched me once
and that was centuries ago
when my lungs were new and fresh,
and i didn't come home smelling like ashtrays and stolen lilac
perfume.

i'm not a little girl anymore,
and i dont cry when red lights shine down
and people scream into microphones
with sweat sliding of the sides of their faces
cheeks shiny like stainless steel coffee pots.

i'm not attracted to you,
just like i'm not interested in your friend
that i ******
who tasted like american spirits and greed
because it's not worth looking at boys
who will never, ever satisfy you
or understand even the tips
of your fingernails
and golden brown split ends.

jerry's voice weaves a net
to catch my drunken skin,
sagging and dancing against
his cherry pie voice
warm and sweet in the dark of
the 7:17 dawn,
sun still sleeping behind a tall mountain range.

it makes me ache for open hearted
companions
barefeet wet from dew and black from distance
fearless,
unapologetic as they scream their throats out
raw splattering on the gasping earth from
the heaven high rooftops.

flowers poked through the pores
of ocean flavored skin,
peeling from laying too long
in the morning-faced
sun.

i wonder why people feel
so ancient, when their skin is still so young.
we've built this generation in the
imprisonment of fear,
the shrill avoidance of beauty,
we've forgotten what it feels to be living
free and loving
true,
and that's why you see so many young bones
crumble when their lives have just
begun.

Though nurtured like the sailing moon
In beauty's murderous brood,
She walked awhile and blushed awhile
And on my pathway stood
Until I thought her body bore
A heart of flesh and blood.

But since I laid a hand thereon
And found a heart of stone
I have attempted many things
And not a thing is done,
For every hand is lunatic
That travels on the moon.

She smiled and that transfigured me
And left me but a lout,
Maundering here, and maundering there,
Emptier of thought
Than the heavenly circuit of its stars
When the moon sails out.

If your mind were a book,
I'd memorize every page.