20th birthday
I've forgotten when to breathe
and my mother is my only friend
the last one yet to leave.
I am feverish skin
to March's first chill breeze
tripping over, again and again
afraid to pull my hands from my sleeve.
20 years old now
a full on woman in sheep's clothing
but I don't know how
to live life without loathing
love, and bills, and here and now's.
Myself, pulling on a window that's already closing.

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.

The aching burn in the stretch of my lung
pulsing Panama ***.
However furious you loved me much
youth is still a blinding hand; gilded blush.
Bring you closer, in my head-
“Older than your age” he said, he said.
As true as I see growth so near
man of ***** and beard and broken sky
still nibbles, longingly, my ear.
Every tooth I smile, weak and kind,
begs me not to die another time.
Frees me from a waking mind,
breathing fantasies of cheeks, flush like wine
and to have you between the sweat of thigh
part my lips, grace my hips, part the red sea; dry.
By tomorrow I'll be prim as the birch moon we loved by
don't remind me darling, darling mine.

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.

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.

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 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.

Brother moon,
do we dream the same dreams
in the valley of black sheep?
My lover's eyes are the size of you
and I yearn only to sleep.
Beneath the freckled sky, be easy
forgotten, you and I.

Brother moon,
do you weep for sister sun
the way I weep for you?
Can children still on Earth a' run
when you cast your soul's great blue?
Bother moon
will you take me, come afternoon?
To my house of lonesome joy.
Brother moon,
do you dream my dream?
Or are you just another boy,
basking in my gloom.

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 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.

I remember stories, told through grey smoke
recited slowly, under shadowed eyes
as the old, dry toad croaked,
in a rickety melody by my side.
Forgotten romancers would carve
hearts into the husk of pine.
One was told,
time after time:
Two lovers, a yellow scarf,
we are both the same, headless and blind.

Lose all sense when we meet up
I pray you'll rescue me
chase away my sorrow and bad luck.
Rain always seems to pour most
once I'm building my shelter
my poor face as pale as a ghost
and my urgency, burns like a summer swelter.
I need you like the river needs it's bending
to love you is natural,
a broken bone must go on mending.

So take your weathered hands
lead me to the forest
I cannot see, but I feel its stirring.
The finch and the blackbird, chattering chorus
brain dead trusting, so alluring.

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 ****.

bring in your hands,
pain and broken daisies.
you cry; like nothing in my arms
grieve for flowers and unsung lullabies.
because you see the whole world as alive
never seen the devil and his harm,
while I live my life through maybes
you refuse to understand.

A funny thing,
the colors of my longings.
Much like watching
autumn pass by
through the windows of a car ride.
A furious compilation
of the various imagined dreams
I will never acquire.

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.

There she lay
figure just beyond the rising turquoise spray
spooning sugar right out the jar.
******* her fingers like a babe, woe be to her, far.
Much akin to the salt in the pools by her bay
only so better loved upon the tongue.
So loved better, so tender and young.
There she was - pale feet to sand
in an even fainter dress, lace to be flung.
Sugar, between the creases of my hand,
press her closer
flavor, the monotony of man.
Curls, red, like hills of strawberry blush
lips wide to such wolfish song.
Sweet fingers, mine to touch,
from still night to golden dawn.
And constellations, in her eyes, between her bones,
upon her nose,
sprinkling her thighs.
Anew with confiture was I, filled with her breath
to lose her would be cruelty, to lose her would be death.
Why - do I love her more than what I know to be?
I'm sorry I could only write of heaven,
and not of what she sees.

No matter how many times I've taken this path
I always get lost in my wandering
full grown girl, but I feel like a half
missing you and always pondering.
The gravel is course
sweat gatherers on my brow
like a stuck object meeting an unstoppable force
logical incompatibility, we are now.

Foolish vacation
deforestation
into the lack of everything.
Goodbye summertime
goodbye railroad signs
goodbye life giving green.

You used to follow me to this sanctuary
you'd stroll and I'd stay stationary
alone and stalked by your fantasy
diseased since January.
I feel guilty, for having such sick thoughts
holding you for ransom in my brain
hope I don't get caught.
Yesterday you called me insane,
Wednesday, I was a vision, suppose you forgot.

Your mom still calls me pretty
even though I pretend you don't exist.
I know I've loved you forever
built a house and a bed out of sticks
then burned it all down
like a candle to the wick.
Look at you with such admiration
and I start to feel sick.
Sealed by doom, in 2017
healed by your lips.
Seeking out a brand new lover -
it's you that I miss.
Made out of nerves like second hand china,
always shattered like this.

I hope you'll choose me
repair me, take me to your place
know this rejection is something
I must finally meet face to face.
Calling on your landline, late and weary
it's like screaming into space.
Drove around in a circle
because you always know what's right
with the windows down, I'm blinded
your smile so unbelievably white
and I wish I could stop feeling
like I'm such an ugly sight
maybe then you'd want me
and I'd have less to write.

And I built shrines in my eyes to you
to mourn what I never had but still held onto.
Dove into an ocean of profound blue
only to come out still nothing anew.
I look out at fig trees
ponder like the Greek’s great Socrates
question my disease,
the words I can’t release.
My life spinning all around him
orbitals of light grown dim.
Through space you cannot swim
from the sins you have been condemned.
If I am mad as they say
how do I still walk the driveway?
Worship on the Lord’s day;
get down on my knees and pray?

Faithful I am, still, to the life I have lived
however disguised.
Loving, as I will when all has died.
Everything you’ve seen is advertised,
a movie set in frames
the tape up in flames.
How tired she is of playing your games,
mouths running to blame.
Me? I am just fine.
Owing it all to bottles on bottles of sparkling wine,
to you and your redesigned
view of the dividing line.

If you wake a girl from her dreams
the gentle chug of a mind’s machine
will it break down, by all means?
It’s better to let her softly scream.
Than distract from the will of inspiration,
of art and death's flirtation.
Continue the persisting narration
speak her mind, give it standing ovations!

Your lips whispered a curse
and brushed against mine.
Soft, like sparrows' wings,
inebriating as wine.
I know I am lost now,
wandering so many city streets
wondering if you'd find me here
and take me off bare feet.
I am calloused, I've become raw.
How can you, so far away
remember me at all?
The lamp lights are turning on now
it will soon be dark.
Tell me how
to live without a heart.

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?

My life is a blooming pool of burgundy,
maroon
gasping in the face of doom
dying on the **** of 70's carpet,
tears soaked right through
and you are my exit wound.
Some piece of me that is missing
a hole of despair that needs a fixing
eyes wide open, in terror
stuck glossy and still twitching.

Dearest wax figure of Bundy
when you love, why must you take?
Bring girls home on a Monday
only for them to never awake.
Despite what you say
it is not an act of fate
your manly hands are ******
and within them lays the stake.

Your fingers reach out
making themselves known
in every shadowed alley
I've watched the news and cried
you've drawn another tally.
Only strong within the cover of the night
you cower away from crowded streets
pray it all looks right.
Someday, justice will find you
and she will win the fight.

Fruits of the Earth's broken slate
juice and sweet and tongue
flowing; reddest spate.
Tonight and forever, we are young
tell me I am not the only one
that wants to live, worshiped by the sun.
Summer whispers in my ear
plump lips, scrubbed skin
boy is water, boy is clear.
Everything that can be, has been.
All and every arm, a' laid in
and every glutinous youth atoned of sin.
Suffocating desire
lust, sing the choir.
Fresh and raw
succulent sugar-dried flesh
after Winter's aching thaw.
Taste me, test me, core and all.

I love you so much it hurts
like breaking a berry from her vine.
Flickering ember of basil incense burns
every memory on your shrine.
I ask the figment of a universe
when will you be mine?
Give me something good enough
a dream of us, a sign.

You've been wanted for so long
how can you hide away inside?
I miss your beautiful face
and I miss your stubborn pride.
Want you to replace
my fantasies,
with kisses so intense,
like a rising summer tide.

So many cards have been broken from the deck
the lovers, an empress, death
I was so beautiful, now I am a wreck.
Look at what you've done to me
my long hair, flushed cheeks, and nothing next.
All I needed
was to leave my lipstick on your neck.
Something to terrify you
into heading my way, West.

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.

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.

Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.

Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still over indulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Can't leave you out in the cold
no matter how angry you can be.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.

Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.

Gnarled heart
growing apart
from all I hold dear.
Branches to ribs, oh spears.
I am overgrown
yet never let alone,
twigs and leaves all split my bones.
Outside, looks so trim
but I cannot let him in.
Twisted beyond what is grim.
Forest forever,
wish a man luck on his endeavor
to cleave a gnarled heart down.

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.

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.

Plaid apron on, don't stop to think.
I cooked all Thanksgiving just for them
dishes are now piled in the sink,
staring a bit too long at the carving knife.
With the countertops glistening with spillage
I'm wondering what I want from life
some sort of contentment, I cannot envisage.
My dad hates his job
my mother loathes her body
and I've learned everything I know from them
every loan and distracting hobby.
Imitation is the finest form of flattery,
I compulsively copy.

Candles flickering,
smells like pumpkin and clove
my sisters arguing in the living room
a *** over boiling on the stove,
it's scalding water seeps right into my mind.
I have no place here,
I hear the ticking time.
Turkey was fattened up all year
and now our dogs crunch on the bones
wonder what they are wishing for
are some things better left unknown?
Brown leaves are falling, with a final breath
they say it will be a hard winter
I'm not sure what is left.

I'm making myself sick
always mean without meaning to be
repairing fatality with a stitch.
Made of tooth and claw
and violently scratching an itch.

Do you think deer on the highway
causing major collisions,
still get a heaven
are they afforded such visions?
Of paradise with no interruption
for a creature that brought on such destruction
but never meant to harm a living thing.

I'm floating away
and everything around me feels heavy
please tell me why
I'm always spoken to
before I am ready.
I want to be loved
can't seem to put in the work
bottled up my emotions,
here is my cork.
So many strange words and feelings
here is my quirk.
Give you my soul and my body
here is my hurt.

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.

If Summer were not but a season
and instead a man.
I would beckon him closer,
put myself in his hands.
We would walk slow
silent as happiness
and from me, would grow
a terrible sprig of tenderness.
Feel his radiance right up in my bones,
lay under that sweltering shadow.
Only, come Autumn, to feel so alone.