Clementines on a Sunday morning

I've had a taste of love
I fell down
Way too many times
This feeling's so surreal
Must be crime... Crime?

Subtle, subliminal
You come around like a criminal
And leave me yearning
For your
Clementines on a Sunday morning.

Cigarettes because I can't stand the way coffee reminds me of you and I need to fill the empty space in my mornings.
Coffee because you told me you'd **** me yourself if I let cigarettes do the same.
Coffee only sometimes.
Clementines because they cover up the taste on my teeth and smoke on my fingers.
Clementines because the smell reminds me of Christmas morning, except I don't peel them anymore because you replaced the smell of Christmas morning with rows of tiny lights that lit up like your smile.
You wrapped yourself around my throat for every time you made me feel like I was enough.
You wrapped around me many times I couldn't breathe under the pressure of you loving me so I broke every bulb individually using my own insecurities until you couldn't hold on any longer.
Coffee only on Christmas.
Everyone else's lips because you don't smile for me anymore.
Everyone else because I didn't even bother to replace the bulbs because I was scared of cutting my own hands.
Everyone else's hands around my throat because it reminds me of tiny rows of Christmas lights before they were broken.

the gaudy grey of morning leaks,
the hot star following close behind.
like clementines in a market bag:
our weight pools inward.
sweat wicks into stained linens-
sticky skin, pressed back to back.
   good morning.

Dysfunctional behind closed doors
Shapeshifted the lovesick *****
She'll touch you timid, trembling hands
Scared that you arent coming back
Digs through drawers and under the sink
Searching for her missing link
A cigarette will do for now
At least it isn't puppy chow
Shameless in her actions past
Comfortable in coming last
Theres more than at the surface level
And everybody's personal hell
Clove hitch knot around her waist
She followed at a steady pace
Wrapped around your pinky finger
She mimicked all you seemed to give her
What her eyes can do to you
Back of my throat still tastes like glue
What a sullen memory
Of what that **** can do to me
She bites her nails and fingertips
Terrified that she might slip
A clumsy dance that she once knew
Of falling into penance due
Twirl your hair and crack a smile
This one's gonna take awhile
Different or the same old same old
They've paid for it in pounds of fools gold
Chasing after fading dreams
Tripping up on memories
Will she make it on her own
A concept simple, yet unknown
A reunion of the sweetest kind
Desperate to escape the time
Spirits burn an empty soul
But never can they make one whole
Echoing within her chest
"You have always been the best"
She sips and stares across the room
Shadowed by her phantom groom
Cut off from hearts nourishment
All on her own cursed to lament
The choices that she didn't make
And chances that she didn't take
A sigh inside an empty mind
A drop of water off the tide
She's buried next to clementines
Roots entangle, synchronize
What a pretty little mess
Of despondancy and tenderness
And she's still waiting underground
For a love once frolicked, love once found

I peel,
Lazily.
My little feet dangle
Off the second step,
I have ***** soles,
So I do not go inside.
It’s better that way,
I can’t hear the yelling,
Only the mosquitos,
But they cry –
Like my father.  
I only taste salt
Upon placing a wedge in my mouth,
And my father,
He finds me
Soon after.  

I peel,
Carelessly.  
I’m staring –
Again –
But I can’t seem to
Help myself
From watching them,
All of them,
From my lonely table (I alone
Keep it company).  
I whisper a slur
At my shaking fingers,
I clench
Until my body is a fist,
The juice runs past my palms
Onto the linoleum.
I think that must be
The color of the Sun’s tears –
I am the only one to laugh
At such a joke.  

I peel,
Methodically.  
The flat line
Where my lips used to be
Curves downward
As my bitten nails begin
To fill with acrid skin –
I immerse myself
With such an infantile task,
Ignoring their buzzing
As it swarms around me
Like white noise
Trying to out scream
A sonic boom.
The fruit is rotten,
I throw its flaccid body away
Without even tasting it.
There will be flies.  
For 24 hours
A fly must feel like God.

I peel,
Slowly.
I don’t even
Bother looking,
I’m too busy
Laughing (the kind
Where you’re quiet and shaky).  
I throw my rind
At another heaving chest.
In tandem we take twin slices
And place citron smiles
In between our teeth,
Tiny grindstones that pull and press
The sunset flesh
Down our echoing throats.    
It is the sweetest
I’ve ever tasted.

I arose to the scent of ashes.
A quick peak out the window and I see the sun.
It's closer to the earth than the moon now.
The giant orb in which it forms watches;
haunting me.
Telling me to come closer.
I shut the blinds and it retaliates.
Bursting from the soft yellow
to charred oranges and blacks,
the beads of sweat between its pores
yelling at me.
The shock in my face that I am playing roulette,
that I am playing with fate, never fades.
And in those few seconds between then and now
I realize that I am in the middle of death.
My life cycle is just another inevitable sorrow,
surrounded by two barriers leading to pain.
So I step back,
From the window sill.
I crawl back into my dreams.
Where the time seems to disperse
at all of my requests.

You smell like burnt clementines
and flow like strawberry wine

Pick at my icy veins with your icepick heart
your hands filled with light, and my veins spilling dark

Lay with me in a white lace bed
close your eyes and rest your head

Let me smell your burnt clementine skin
and wash my hands in your strawberry wine again

Dusk,
An orchard in the sky,
Of clementines,
grapes,
plums,
peaches,
fruit abounding,

Families,
mothers,
fathers,
little brothers,
babies,
All stir
In the direction of
Laying down,
Sleep,
Rest,

Every family,
picks fruit from the orchard,
One by one,
until there’s
Nothing
but a blueberry
canvas,
with stars filling in

All heads
Hit pillows
Blankets
Fold over shoulders
Eyes close to
loved ones,
stuffed creatures,
and favorite toys

They all
give in
to the steady
Cadence
of nights
in Suburbia