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 the first of March's 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 built 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, 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.

Let the demons have their fun,
snap my fingers one by one.
I'll still pour on daddy's cologne
so I don't feel so cold alone.
Lover, turn my head
you are all I dread
most of all- i fear our bed.
When you go out and tend the land
in your place, be a firm hand
and it takes my back
and breaks it.
When we thought Diana would not submit,
gaze upon the marble cracked.
I'll reason, i'll admit
only think of things that hurt.
Drag me through the dirt,
discover me a filthy women
don't take your ear to listen.
I, savage, rip it from you,
pieces; break me into.

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.

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 see.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Felt so long like Eros sat in prison,
let my blood pale from crimson.
Until you cast your shadow to my sun
made of all sweet smelling things and neurolysin.
Undid my braid
every tangled knot, and auburn strand - one by one.
I could not define safety, until with you I laid
and showed, to my temple, the steel of gun
see now, even fear is manmade
as the legs of fate's circle run.

Do you know what it is to feel complete
and still sing the lonely song of sailors?
As your darling walks with slow feet
what thoughts of me, will you savor?
Would never need to see another sky - by makers
so long as I could look into your eyes so blue,
so sweet.
I wish I could say I love you
but I am so new and weak.
So I sit, and stir, and tear up papers;
wait another rosy day for you to speak.
I wish I could say I love you
and you would repeat the words, caught between cheek.

Today I am feeling lifeless and low
A little bit lonesome, like no one could know
I'm such a lemon, I'm sour, I fear
and when I ask one to listen,
it's only voices I hear.
Lost and losing to the day, drifting on drifting, someone lock me away!
I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm learning I swear.
My head lives so much, I tug out my hair.
Like me, love me, leave me to be.
All I know is, nobody loathes me like me.

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 on call.

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.

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.
Walk, but never follow through.
Silken sheets
and rosy eyes
I am a set piece
in a house of lies.
Sometimes, think I've up and died
at the waking shore.
Yes, he be a morning lullaby,
come to sing once more.

Sometimes, when I look up at the sky I see
more faces smiling back at me.
That make me clean,
wash dark indigo over the scene.
Of the twisted human being,
our body’s simple liberty.
Sunshine never brought me glee
because under the light, much you can see.
Everyone has security,
secrets whispered cautiously.
The stars, they weep with me
for all we cannot teach
For that reason we remain
out of mandkinds reach.

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.

I want to touch you until my hands lose grip and meaning,
and we loose the world we thought to be seeing.
Til' from my palm,
gone,
the creases of fortune,
the mangle of time.
I want to love you,
so true and so hard
even our kisses start to rhyme.
Wordlessly plead,
your worship, your prurience,
your where and when.
the ache of my silent needing
dripping on down your chin.