Bottle of herbal gin
but I'm already drunk off this,
your easy stride and devious grin.
I don't know where to begin
laying under magnolia and stars
like childhood friends.
Giving you all of my secrets
my break and my bend.
Please don't ever go sober
and leave Dallas again.

As I walk an all too quiet house
glass under my feet,
I look for the whereabouts,
the place my sanity retreats.
A temple modeled after my greatest intentions
and point of all attention.
I hear the clocks
ticking, a warning - looking, a response.
Reminding my woes
of the sky I'll never know.
This home is made of memories
not concrete nor tile or trees.
Built off of everything I want to be,
how I devote my character to thee.
Silence,
my only tyrant.
My pain and misery,
deliver me
from this toxicity.
Come back, knock at the door
anything to make it louder once more.

You would sit out and soak;
still refuse to see the rain.
Live out those dreaded summers
from the lonely view of a rusted windowpane.

I played house
while you played my Daddy's games
guilt and trip ugly words from your mouth
still, by night, to call my name
when the sky turned to narcotic dust.
So I sketch constellations of us,
ones where, about each other, we feel the same.

Sometimes dreams come waking
by the American shore.
Over and over,
escorting wandering souls, more and more.
Over deep ocean, golden rays;
blinding eyes, singing praise.
America the beautiful and America the free.
How free is possibility,
In a nation of changing, pride, urgency?
How much can you bear internally
watching your brothers and sisters wither in desperation.
Oh, beautiful and free and desperate nation.
Nation of red, white, and blue
red blood,
white knuckle,
blue bruised back.
We struggle together, yet unity we lack.
Everyone seems to be rushing up and pushing down
when we are all surely hell-bound
destined far beyond the ground.

We fear failure, we fear love
we fear whoever is watching above.
Because, regardless of who created and thought,
“my artistry will change the world”
was surely not
trying to leave it in ruins.
Simply; we, America, move too fast
we justify the present, suppress the past.
Ignore all the wrongs we've rendered within our own borders,
to our own neighbors.
What can you do wrong, when you have dominion?
And when you are below, what importance is there in your opinion?
There is no morality in a man who has his eyes on the rise,
a man who has never taken labor
in his stride.
America was built on sweat and vigor
though, now, whose finger is on the trigger?
The new America, polished and improved
has the gun cocked in every angle
advertising the glorified dream, the success that you can strangle.
The time that can be abused; yearning for wealth, working to the grave.
Servant to the passing days, when,
wasn't it liberation we once craved?

We're building an empire, disguised as democracy,
where we ****** the spirit of those we promised were equal.
It reeks of hypocrisy.
We're building an empire,
but even once-great Rome fell down in shambles,
and we aim far, far higher.
Higher buildings, higher expectations, higher need to achieve
to beat and beat down on those that only breathe.
We're building up walls to elude the sun, dead,
when you live in darkness, what, honestly, becomes right in your head?
What light shines upon a nation, still unashamed
of prerogative and seldom rights to be obtained
by virtue and strive for those who believed in the American scheme?

Sometimes dreams come crashing
at the American shore
littered its sands
all the years from America forever and America before.

That broken eggshell,
smaller than the thumb that rests in my palm.
In a place where baby's breath grew,
quiet as linen sheets, peaceful as psalms.
Remember when skin scraped as child fell.
I knew that street, those callused feet
all too well.

I felt my soul was sealed up in that rotting tomb,
and now where had it gone?
With the ceramic pieces littered from her ghostly womb.
Hazy summer days I spent wrong.
Never thought, love passed on so soon.

I let it crinkle beneath the leather of my shoe
walk so gently on eggshells when I'm with you.
Have you any idea what you do?
hand me your tender moments, and gentle kisses
so few.

While I trace my fingers along my own body
until I am numb once more,
you are softly smiling
in the shade of an old cypress tree
creeping up her front door.

for more months, i talked to his mirror
because he always looked right back at my own
moon-straught face
he always looked clearer.
from there he seldom strayed from perfect,
he never spoke wise
it seemed he was only reciting my words, disguised.
still, the man that i saw,
through silvery sheen
was so much easier to love and to keep evergreen.

Mouth to plum, bruised blue and black
it's always guilt, the wild eyes lack.
It's always pansies, blooming down my back
If you could ever think to love me - attack.
Feel my fingers, feel my nerves
boy,
relish my blindness, dampen my words.
Eat me alive,
I've forgotten what it is to die.
Forgotten how to bring my ****** lips to wine
and let you shove away the tears - I'm dry.
The beauty of petals, what do they serve,
to only dry and fall dead from a flower,
when the sun is not hers?

I'll be nothing in your backseat
resting your hand on my upper thigh.
So high when I'm feeling your energy
and down with a lower case lie.

It's so gentle that I bleed
strawberries, lip balm, summer breeze
things I always thought I'd lost,
joy was too quick to take its leave.
Be my sugar, to the lemon that I squeeze
be my greatest chase, after all
we are free.

Past the tattoo parlors and broken freight trains
scared we'll run out of town before long.
Rubbing you out of my mind like an ink stain.
I'm not sure I've ever really been strong
can't find where I stand and you remain,
you tell me, what is right and what is wrong.
Wondering, if like mine,
does your face ever grow red
like a rising Aries dawn?
Always unsure why I showed you my tan lines
when you're so alright having nothing on.

Poseidon mourns with the mumbling sea,
froths and foams and falters,
for everything I long to grieve.
Silver tears fall, the fruit of tree.
I grow her from the cut of me,
watch her take up roots and leave.
Wait, while she becomes all I thought I'd be
and steals the silence from my memory -
abandons peace for chase of ecstasy.

I joined the worshiped in their gentle garden
and trampled every orchid, bright and sweet
just to prove I could win such pardon,
live to die another week.
We were all of warm and wild
skin feverish to lonely sun god's touch.
My tongue took blood of grape so mild
I found myself -nothing- in the middle of much.

In winter you can look and look around
but still, as every man has found,
there is no rose.
Girls of calm and February lies
spring and warmth's beginnings.
Always right and sweet and wise -
steal the pleasures of living.
When all has been promised as forever
how am I to refrain?
But then, soon as ruby leaves dissevered,
he left me miseries, left me rain.
For roses bloom on ****** skin
not on libeled skulls
accused of sin.

I never wanted to reply
with truth.
You lose me,
I am loose.
Of ships in bottles
trapped in a forever sail,
bitter air
inhaled.
Perfume and closed curtain
in my solitude,
hope you aren't hurting.

Eyes of ghosts all fill the room
lovers, made of dust and made of gloom.
I remembered them but I forgot,
to forgive and forget, the lot.
As always, the night went on,
my face in the old glass window
stared at me with an iris of killing pawn.

It's ***** in your shirley temple
sweet like syrup
give me life so simple.
Dad once told you
your mom went mental
punishment for being gentle
mindlessly experimental.
It's not true
she just wanted to leave him
because the baby came and
he won't stop cheating.
Life is hard
you took a beating
I will salve
and stop the bleeding.
Cut my shirt
it's sacrificial
cover up
loud wolf whistle.
Pigtails bouncing
childhood giggle
I'm your girl
your hellfire missile.
Chop the tree
and hang the tinsel
this year is better
almost sinful.
Guilty catholic
death feels massive
give me something
to feel passive.
Life is so short
it just passes
we're too happy
on our *****.

Air is full of micro plastics
I don't care
forgot my mask is
hanging in my
high school classes.
Gone true beauty -
false eyelashes.
You're a show car, you're just so classic
let them ride
when you're high on acid.
Swirling visions
swift collision
I saw you there
in a sick prevision.
Sweet slow dancing
in your kitchen
give me your hand
and let me fit in.
I could save you
cinematic
it's meant to be
nothing tragic.
Saw you crying
in the attic
wasted breath
and wasted talent.
Kiss your check
you're not a has been
tastes like salt lick
compulsive action.
I see you in a
main attraction
replay every
interaction.
Obsessive in
a healthy fashion
filled with longing
full of passion.

Regret every
check I cash in
economic low and
nothings lasting.
Mid life crisis
find your vices
look at you with
blown out iris.
Someday we'll find
a way to fight this
belief of justice
violently righteous.
Simple cheek kiss
idiotic kindness
purposeful blindness
in the face of hard times
someone guide us.

Eyes of hazel
she is April,
showering all my days,
she is killer, I am Abel.
Evil; in her ways.
Walking backwards,
the sweet disaster.
And teases like
a winter's blackbird.
Mirrors,
where I see her
how they make,
make things clearer.
Pacing down familiar stairs
chanting old, empty prayers,
looking for ghost of months gone by
here she come, there she lie.

I can feel myself going stale
paralyzing fear of failure
flooding out my blazing trail.
Face growing paler
forgetting to go outside
still and forsaken, lonely sailor
long gone with the tide.
My teachers used to say I am gifted
where is my prize?
Now I aspire for nothing
and it is no surprise.

Cutting down that giant fig tree
if I can't have it all
I will be nothing
wield my axe, wait for the fall
no one is bluffing.

and I want to know
how long can you stare at the sun
until you are blind?
How much do you give away
before you are considered kind?
I fear I am searching for something
I'm not sure I will ever find.

Sweat,
on the sheets of another.
His silhouette
a tasteful composure.
Blood of my lips
savior
to desolate, desperate fingertips.
Savor me,
far gone
the ocean breeze.
Down the avenue
wet foot.
You, I miss you...

The devil stalked my boulevard,
in the days of summer's heat wave and cigar.
The times I forced my heart to beat so hard,
and risked it all, against your guard.
If I love over and over
what is fear but to stay sober?
To draw you closer on closer;
take my weakness and expose her.
You came with a name to keep reciting,
eyes of blue, igniting.
It's saintly to save
but we stay fighting.
Curl my long dress
right between your fists.
Catch my breath,
you breathe risk.
Oh, you did it again
you've done it all over again.
Washed under tides of sin.
What is pure? What is holy?
When there is you, and you only?
Blessedly, I am marred.
I try to forget, so fast, so hard.
Still, all the heavenly hues
become colorless in your muse.
By your mouth, I bruise.
Angel; corrupted, mine to lose.

i wonder how you feel
burgundy sweat upon your chin
when your hear the clink
of paper thin glass
in your ear
how do you hear
against intermost words, so crass?
am i so indistinct
when
daydream is your only meal?

He was a morning lullaby,
and I, a sleepless night.
So, lay in my bed hypnotized
fading and felt right.
Down in the lawn
early dew,
I lean against the steady pecan,
the only stable thing I ever knew.
Silken sheets
and rosy eyes
I am a set piece
in a game of lies.
Sometimes, think I've up and died
at the waking shore.
Yes, he be a morning lullaby,
come to sing once more.

All this time I've been keeping my mind on running waves,
screaming over oceans much bigger
higher and louder than my love.
Pulling out of my cards; Jacks and Knaves.
Happiness is not you
it is not addiction,
maybes and days of soon.
Depth holding me is comfort
so is awaking at noon.
But it's not honest,
it is a life, untrue.
To the girl that I am
and the wind now blows through.
Gone from your shores,
alone on an island of myself.
No desire for more.
I am province, I am proof
that growth is blue.
Love is not to abuse,
and happiness is not you.

An astronaut,
sad and alone.
Came from below;
land of unknown.
To take a chance
and,
ask Venus to dance.
Mankind tends to forget
about what they once loved
especially because they never look up above.
With all her glory and lavender light,
distracted he was
from his infamous flight.
And blissful as ever,
down he fell
bid her farewell.
The universe, it works oddly
a man in love
falls with his whole body.

The way Easter grass felt on bare feet
like sadness in its melancholy dampness,
so sweet.
Reminds me of the tears that refused to leave your eyes.
Spring, in my mind, much taken a backstreet.
The girls that came only with the sun,
gone with the songbirds, with the nothing and none.
Flowers of pale and humble, simple hues.
You, standing still against a backwards sky. Searching for blues on blues on blues.
That tree I’d climb until I could not find need to pluck a pear and fall to the ground
bones all split and worthless, blood gone brown.
By a certain height you start to feel so small,
wondering if to break would matter at all.
As long as May swept between our lips,
to your scream, whispering lies.
I fall in love with an empty man,
Watch him through the years,
the fall and the rise.
Now, in your eyes, stolen land;
even the cornflowers have died.

Trying to go back to the past
but I cannot find you there
cicadas and stagnant heat
dance heavy in the twilight air.
You've dropped out of college
I've grown out my hair
we both beg for some kind of change
life is not always fair.

I wonder if you know
how badly I want to save your soul
take you out in the April rain
let it soak into your bones, make yourself whole.
May springtime wash you clean.
You remember me when I was messy
and I was mean
living out of half finished daytime dreams.
Like a fallen boy who's skinned his knee
I'll care for you and you'll watch for me
carry me when I am weak and at my end
I can be your lover, your tender friend.

They say that time, cannot help but change
like the Earth, opens up to rain
maybe we'll grow old
before we put this away
until then,
at the window I stay.
Heavy at the persistent glass
back posted at half-mast
breathing into a trap
whispering to no one particular
I offer no persuasion
no plea and no temptation
only these fickle messages
written in the condensation.

Pluck one from the skyline, high above my head
seems like all the sunflowers,
back from summer's heated dread.
I thumb those million petals, counting off and down the way
hoping to hear a "loves me not"
when all that yellow falls away.
He smiles on me with pleasantness, subtle blush along his jaw
and still, I cannot forget her name,
her name the crows all call.

I danced for years and years
beneath the Grecian sun.
My feet hurt, yet I felt no fear
when they told me I could be one.
Painted, painted meadows
and life spent too little, too long.
Hair splayed in salty waves
I ever whispered her mother song.
Lemon groves all swept my hands
calling far away.
Climbing up the stairs they hold
to heaven's gate, I pray.
To this day I still dance on
though eyes flash over my shoulder,
awake til the summers dawn.
Never to grow one day older.

Glittering sea glass in the windowsill
I remember the ocean
but I'm lonely still.
I don't want to find happiness
through a tight packed pill
give me a value,
and put it in my untimely will.

I found a way out once
and now it's all I can think about
cold black metal
stuck in an open mouth.
Couldn't punctuate the sentence
now I am without
a plan or a passion
its all gone south.

I'm sharp like a bottle struck on the wall
I remember everything
can't forgive at all.
When will all this damage and tossing
do some good
when will I be handled softly
like pine becomes wood?
Looking for a statue of success
where a mother's first disappointment
once stood.

Still feel cold, even here
frozen by your long forgotten gaze
crave for the purity of a white centered star
with its boundless, awful blaze.
Bottle of sunblock, useless in the drawer
I want to burn all my skin off
I want to forget who I was before,
peel myself back and call myself yours.

No storms in Scottsdale, Arizona
smells like rough dirt and control
no wetness in my brand new persona
only this chaste stoicism, I extol.
At the mercy of a callous sun
stuck in the convenience store,
with the dollar pack gum
and neon aisles
waiting on someone's merciless son
put me out and call me mercantile.

Bright and unforgiving florescence
security camera nailed to the wall
here forever, herded by invisible presence
popped open, and losing my effervescence
always in stock, always on call.
Middle of nowhere
and still not lost at all
in the land of desperation
all there is to do is wait
holed up in some air conditioned haven
believing in the fiction of fate
something deep inside of me
is going rotten,
threatening to break.
I've gone past my best by date
put me out
out of my misery
tired of this mirage and it's bewitchery
let me into the wild
to fall to my own devices
no longer a fool for you
and all your sugar-sweet vices.

I stare into your copper penny eyes
fresh from the sandy shore
and wonder, oh wonder
why don't mine look like that anymore?

Where the Applewood used to grow
and cotton blew lazy in the August breeze.
Back when you still kissed my cheek,
a time I allowed myself to breathe.

White house on the corner of Lover's lane.
Shaded, by the dapple of your lies
whispering of how we'd one day
look through its stained window panes
and plant red dahlias on its sides.

That birch wood is rotting now,
beetle has made it her home.
And I still recite unheard wedding vows
even after you are gone
and I; alone.

You were my Queen of rust
with your china doll hands and terracotta hair
lady of want and broken trust
friend of wild dog, promised to be fair.

A bush fire against a summer's rain
you are every little ache and pain
Open eye as the clock races by
a ghost town
torn down
again and again...

Let yourself dream in the mystery of sundown
but, where has your lover gone now?
Off to a land lush with the green of sycamore
the promise of something that again, has been found.
She has no use for a dessert or
a woman made of many shades of brown
when there was so much more color
before you came around.

I know I can forgive you
as that iris laps in the view,
of a knife up to my throat.
Your eyes, in sweet loathing; afloat.
The red truth on rings,
frantic in my ears
soft as butterfly wings.
Soft as butterfly wings.

Your voice, so near me, an ocean away
crashing and foaming
cursing my life, begging I stay.

Curled, unsure fingers
beneath the dark of my hair,
shadowed and lingers.
The day so forgotten, the moment so there,
forgiven, unfair.
Felt like an animal, fighting to be tame,
and your hand - domestication, clutching my veins.

Thought of the clementines you so cherished much
as juice dripped down your boyish arm,
on and on, until crimson pulp, to touch.

Pulls at twin cords,
cold, practiced fear and warmer words.
Same pulse along the jaw.
Familiar flush of jade stroked wings.
The end, hopeless and raw
and the feeling your name, on brings.

Through all spite and longing,
days of sun forever dawning
I get fluttering creatures
still as a hand so seizures.
Deep in place unknown
between belly and throat.
Under gruffest tone
and nights alone.
They will never wish a wing to know
the hurt of hidden bones.
How it come, ever slow.

Your taste, your say, your meaner things,
soft as butterfly wings.
Soft as butterfly wings.

The angst of pain
is so foolish gone
when blade of gruesome lust and flushing hate,
is in your hands.
So, at my heart, it stays.

Lost the taste for weakened gin and things like him,
lonely frozen months and lying in the warmth of his seat.
Forgiveness was my nutrients,
forgiveness was what kept me here,
forgiveness was my meat.

I had picked that skeleton all but clean and dry,
watched it crack and bleach with days gone by
sat gasping 'neath a summer's sky
and wished that I too, could die
feel the hollow grow of my eye.

Still that silver truck never rolled over the big dust hill
so I had to take up and leave
guide my weary soul to another man that yearned to ****.