love is eminent.

and if you look at this miniscule existence of yours, you will see that it is stuffed in the cracks of old and memory-ridden sidewalks,
which have had to bare the deepest of weights,
of peoples feet which have been into their lovers homes smiling,
and out of them shredding their skin with their nails.
it is carved into the ancient trees, barren of leaves,
and grown from your old sweethearts seeds,
the one with torn jeans, and an addiction to tea,
and who was too much of a spirit to chain down. you had to let him free.
and of the woman, who owned a small, unheard of bookstore,
with books that smelled like cinnamon, about byzantine subjects,
and she let people take one and leave one and tip as they please.

love is there in the unsure drip of the faucet,
disturbing the silence,
in the morning eyed sun,
when the day has just begun,
and you can feel a sticky tightness on your cheek, where the tears used to run,
and the burn in your mouth, is it from your lover
or your two bottles of ***?

it’s in the old pictures from years ago,
where you cant quite recapture the moment, but the vague feeling is still there.
the film is dark and smoky. just exactly like it is supposed to be,
and all of our faces hold this resonant feeling of whole.

and there’s love in the way you jump off something high, ready to fall, and fall, and fall,
and how you focus on the moment of the fall, and not the crash landing.
the moment of all surrender, underwater, floating, meaningless bliss.

there’s love in your daily cup of coffee, or two, or three,
and there’s a special art in the way you mix your sugar, and pour your crème.
theres love in how you smoke your cigarettes,
and how the smoke creates complex, fleeting shapes,
a new one every drag you take,
twirling, and running, and breathing into space, condensing itself,
in a matter of moments it sinks back again,
and makes your couch smell of ash and sin.

theres love in lots of things.
even still
in the way the hopeless strike the clock,
back to work, over the dock,
into their houses,
cut out of dough,
to presume their tasks, and label themselves,
thoughtless in a row.  
and mindless words,
the dinner table sets,
dry dinner time small talk.
they breed for the numbers,
not the pleasure of ***.

love is there in the cold ridden hearts,
of people who don’t believe in passion or art,
its in the escapees of our generation,
in old trucks, singing oldies, crying of separation,
in the numb of the brain-washed,
without their minds, wandering endlessly to and fro,
but they just have to struggle and dig deeper,
and into their own world of drunken, honest, chain-smoking, dancing love
                                                  They will go.

there is something charming seeing his off-kilter lope, down the sidewalks and through the rain. there’s something about his neck. I could recognize it almost anywhere. Something about his mouth, how he forms his words. It’s like a bird at the edge of flight.
a half smile in the sunshine,
eyes as bright as my empty grandmothers vase,
they tear my skin and look inside me,
assure me that I’m not too insane.
I know when I think too much when I’m around myself too often
I start to lose touch with that idea of
reality
that is so monopolized by the needy self-indulged ants,
sitting by the heart of the womb of their comforts coffins.
these people are flighty. They aren’t risky, they’re just flighty. And I need someone who’s not see through,
he’s quite tangible.
is that why I long to feel him constantly,
his skin pulsing softly against my fingertips
the slightest curvature of his very being, I would like to kiss until I am solidity in myself as well
I almost need him
though I don’t want to admit.
when I can be held like that,
Its like something is keeping me from completely losing my head
I know I am not infinite
I know that I could be swept off
like a candle in the wind
at any moment. No we are not boundless. We are very limited, very flawed.
all we have is the moments we’re living, and we’re stuck with an idea for the future. We’re never happy, the grass is greener on the other side, true enough,
but theres something wrong with not seeing life as it is in the moment,
when you’re trying to write a story about it to look back upon in the future.
what if there is no future to sit and look back upon?
whats the other side?
we only have our past for granted, the present a promise, and the future a lie,
because we are not infinite, no, but
He makes me stupid,
He makes me feel like im forever.

Lovely, lets go drive somewhere.
Lets go on a roadtrip to nowhere.
Forget all our worries, and our past, and our future, and disappear in the beckoning call of the stars, and the waning moon.
To old tapes that our parents liked, and our mother cried to one thousand times before our own tears hit the brown leather interior of this big vast van.
Far too big for both of our egos, yet too small for this beauty… Rumbling along with a feisty engine, and the scent shadows of cigarette smoke, love, and a ladies expensive Sauvé perfume encased in the seats. Memoirs of a distant past.
The Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. Chubby Checker. Motley Crue. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Nirvana. Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam. The Doors. Frank Sinatra. Aretha Franklin. Simon and Garfunkel. Bobbie Gentry. Too many to name.
They filled the night to the top.
And trailed behind us, weaving its way in the corners of traffic, and windows of hot personalities, sweating their worries in the dark heat of the summer night.
We stop at some roadside diner; one o’clock in the morning drab slumped over all the tables. Questioning the road we take, we order coffee from the wrinkly lady named Susie, and leave it on Johns tab. We don’t even know him, but if we emptied out our pockets here and now, all we would find is lint.
We can roll down the windows, and unbuckle our seat belts on some abandoned road, racing to infinity, and only visible for this moment. We can stick out our pretty little heads, and yell into the night, cursing everything that doomed us, and everyone that doubted the freedom, the spirit that we have. It will just all just disappear in the wind.
Slipping past cornfields, alleys, coffee shops, and tiny towns, where every single one of those people have a life and a story that we could never imagine. Either that, or they have nothing at all…
Then we can stop on the side of the road, overlooking the sea, moonlight reflected upon its crashing face, and we can put something mellow on, in that ancient tape player. A tape which the label has long since warn off. But three words remain.
1967. For Marline.
A mix that was passed on from your old boyfriend, from his father’s grave… Who knows what his name was. Who knows where, or who he is now. He could be a man forgotten of all memories but you, and strives upon the image of that pretty face, but you forgot him already.
Now you can’t remember.
But we can LIVE, here and now, and we can look back upon this moment forever, while we drive back to our lives, and know, without saying anything, that we are all that any of us will ever need, and we didn’t need anybody to tell us anything because of that.

my morning dreams,
are scattered and
faint,
like dust in the lazy sunlight,
drifting through the window.

there are pens,
they leave words, on paper,
they dance with the language of art.

there are paintbrushes,
they glide upon canvases
magenta
violet
and sometimes you can make that empty sort of grey-ish blue,
like the one that's reflected upon pale skin when it's just before dawn.

and then there are mouths,
and they paint with warm, slick tongues,
on cold freckled flesh,
and they move up and down spines,
and they adorn throats,
and make marks,
disguised love letters on skin,
like the
purple you see in freezing toes,
and lilacs peeking up from spring snow.

it's back.
I thought it was gone,
                but no it's back.
it took me only a couple of agonizing moments to remember that when you touch yourself like that, it leaves scars that you can't erase.
                 my mother sat there by the kitchen counter, dumbfounded like I had just slapped her across the face,
I wanted to yell and scream
I T S N O T Y OU R F A U LT
but it's not true is it?
that's the only reason is shower with the door locked, and I guide my lovers hands away from my thighs.
that's why I like kissing people in the dark,
so they don't see my past on my skin, rather than hearing it come from my mouth.
so my old friend is back.
                                           i wonder how long she'll stay this time.

sometimes I wonder about how many poems were possibly written about us,
and how we'll never get to read them.

i need a pack of Marbs, stat.

my stepfather told me to stop smoking so much or I'd get a hole in my throat and I wouldn't be able to sing with my pretty little voice anymore.

i said *******.

it got cold. it would.

the clouds it seemed, ate the sun. and goosebumps came along with the absence of the warmth,
and you touched them gently,
like my skin was some fragile thing, that you did not want to break.
like you were blind and the bumps on my skin were Braille letters,
and it spelled out a secret only the tips of your fingers knew how to read.

Sometimes I am so sick of this town.
I am tired of the way the young people twist and pull time to make it seem that they are years older than what their life conveys, and use large words that they only know half the meaning of,
and oh, "darling" "lovely"
we'll maybe I want to be called *******
"Wild" "untouchable" "agressive"
         "Manipulative" "weird"
                "Fire filled crazy eyed brown haired ***** footed mess of a girl"
          I don't want to be "lovely"
I want you to tell me I am insane, and say it to my face.
I am bored of everyone buying so many large books that they will never read, only look at with some false, faraway nostalgia when their friend comes over with their favorite vinyl.
I don't want to be "sunny"
I am not "happy"
Or "a nice girl"
I am a confusing like a labyrinth of contradiction,
And my emotions move inside me like a hurricane.
I have no time for big words anymore, or long poetic musings.
I want you to scream profanities at the top of your voice, filling your lungs with every bad word in the book.
I want you to etch bold letters in illegal places, I want your words to be direct, quick like fire. Tell me exactly how you feel.
I want you to be clear, straightforward, I have no ******* time to be called "lovely" and asked if I want a cup of tea.
I want *****.
and I want it now.
I don't want to be asked if I am awake at two a.m.,
I want to be asked if I am alive.
If I'm being rude, I want somebody to hold my face still and talk to me while looking at my eyes and say
"You're being a real ******* *****, quit it."
Instead of some *****, with hurt rotting inside of them, digging an early grave due to the inner decay of unspoken words.
I'm tired of people feeling obliged to say Bukowsi was an ***, but a good writer, "but oooh Nerudas good"
I'm sure Neruda could have been a **** too.
Stop pretending to like Shakespeare and really strong coffee and stop trying to force yourself to read really long confusing poetry.
Life isn't supposed to be a metaphor,
It's a ******* moment,
So seize it,
You don't have time to be complicated and fake.
Be raw and real. Be vulnerable and strong.

You are young,
                       You are at the prime of your life,
                      So yell off the ******* rooftops,
And scrape your knees a little bit,
And rebel a little bit,
And get a black eye sometimes,
And get angry a little,
And kiss people with soft lips sometimes,
And tell people exactly what you feel when you feel it,
And make mistakes,
And get drunk,
And do weird things sometimes,
               You are ******* young,
            Stop pretending.

we are nothing but skin and bones

filled with fact and fiction.

i'd never thought that I would lose my virginity on a small couch in my friends living room.
but then again.
i'm not one to think about things, just rush into them like a stubborn headed hammer, breaking things along the way.
id never thought that I would run out of the house with purple, naked feet crushing the ice underneath me like small bones, in the middle of a black December silence.
and it was nice seeing a 2 am silhouette at the end of my road, cigarette in hand like always, your breath a steady stream of white, drowning me in an ocean of nicotine.
and I was high and you were drunk,
and I slipped and kissed your wine tinted lips,
and our skin made a forest fire, as we tangled ourselves in the crackle of a wood burning stove,
and the silent tread of snow on the sleeping town.

papa remember when you used to spin stories out of gold thread
the thread that came from your teeth
it wove me a blanket so i could fall soundly asleep
papa remember when late on a summer night
we danced to music that was alive and wafted in the warm breeze like night blooming jasmine
sweet, and crawling up your nose and infecting your head
papa remember when you said you’d call
that was last year
and that same song came back on and I was surprised to find tears sneaking up
on me
burning canals into my cheeks
because you told me goodnight
and never said good morning again
because you left in my god ******
sleep

i crave you
i crave you like a cigarette, to press my lips softly upon you and **** out your insides with one flick of my tongue,
to breathe you in and watch you dance about lazily in the sunlight,
i crave you like whiskey,
the kind that when you sip it, in a large bed with soft blankets, next to a girl that’s like an angel compared to myself
the devil,
it burns your throat and lights you on fire,
blowing up your stomach in one thousand different explosions of flames,
but i’d rather be on fire with you.
i crave you like i crave paper,
the soft, porcelain face, the dark dance of my pen gliding upon its silky body,
words twisting and twirling,
i crave you like midnight writing when the moon is out
and the air is soft and thick,
and the neighborhood is asleep and everything is white noise
but the scratching of pens and crickets singing in the east,
quiet under the rising sun.
i crave your skin on mine
friction and fire,
your lips on mine
smoky, drunk,
i crave you like freedom on a summer night.

i drew mountains on my ribcage.
they grow with each escaping breath.
i enjoy being naked and i will not put clothing on for you.
i want a cigarette.
my head is pounding.
or is that my heart.