your name is the only word i can not say

(forbidden in my veins)

and your hands are roots so

when you place them on my shoulder blades

i moan the 7 wonders over and over



I'm going to hurt you

but right now I'm only going to want you

and let you believe in a higher power

as your lips whisper foreign languages

into my mouth -

i want to see the devil in your eyes



Your skin is a desert with no life

so let me give it some water

if only for a second

let me pull your hair

until the only word you can't say

is my name



i want to *******

but i also want to hold your hand

i want to break your heart

and i want mine to be broken by you

open your car door,
light up a cigarette
i say there’s something special
about cigarettes, but I don’t know what
unbuckle seatbelt
you tell me it’s the way you
are prolonging a suicide
it’s like the world is watching you
jump off a bridge,
but not do anything about it
because the fall is slow
i laugh and don’t say anything

leaving your house at 3 am
you tell me not to die
because the roads are bad
and I can barely drive
I snap at you and say
don’t tell me not to die
tell me you hope
it’s instant

on top of a parking garage
my feet almost froze
and i looked at you
and thought to myself
that you are the type of person
i would write poems about not
being able to write poems about
and i wanted to go home
but decided to stay

you did not kiss me goodbye
but, neither did I
unbuckle seatbelt
you asked if i wanted another cigarette
i shook my head and left
you pulled out of the driveway
i hope it’s instant

She stood among the thin, goose-fleshed schoolgirls
with their full moon eyes
and straw braid hair.
Reciting Chaucer, Emerson, Frost,
as their feet scraped against
cured leather shoes,
toes curling with each word,
beauty lost in the hands of a sinister teacher,
no room for beauty with discipline.

Later she met the Janitor's boy in the broom closet,
She found beauty there, in his sweet, nonsense whispers,
fragments of Neruda bloomed in her mind,
Straw braid undone, leather shoes off.
Solomon's Song was written in his fingertips,
rough from mop handles and water buckets.
Their innocence burned in the dark,
their words unclouded,
Memorized verses on their breath,
they meant every line.
And she knew this was what the poets wrote of.

This book will be filled with the
faces of those who are only
kept alive through my incompetent
words and futile thoughts

Your body is in my mental coma
and I think it’s about time
I pull the plug

/

No words can encompass
the amount of love
flowing from my fingertips

But it is wasted
and filling up the cracks
in the sidewalk

Strangers will trample
my misplaced intentions
and how can I ever be okay
with only seeing you behind
2 inches of museum glass?

A sherbet horizon
made in hunger and angst
that swallows the sun
and her breath
as she whispers soft-lipped words
that will crack the ocean

White November feeds pain
gently resting on my shoulders
melting with snowflakes
that shimmer like pennies
in the bottom of
a wishing well
with your silent heart
That I once wished would beat

beaten and emblazoned
with tears and guts
it is not a pretty place
in my head or outer space
where there is emptiness and fire
and evaporating screams
from quiet cosmonauts

We had recovering drug addicts come in
Talking to us with their sunken
Ashy eyes
And sweaty palms
You could tell they were nervous by the
Way they carried themselves
Cinder blocks and
Broken piano parts
And their pasts
All clinging to them,
For life support
They talked about how easy
It was to let gravity eat you alive
As you are falling into a black pit
You can’t stop the falling
Their wings were bound to
Pseudo lovers who
Gave them bruised arms
And blue fingers.
If you are lucky enough to
Escape the clenched hands of
Addiction,
The rest of your life will
Be a walking tightrope act
Trapeze dancers
One slip and you are falling
Even faster
Harder than before.
And your family, friends,
Everyone you have ever known is
In the audience watching you
Fall into your premature grave
And there is nothing they can do
But tell you to fly
But you cant
Because you just love your
Mistress too much
To ever let her go.
And they warned us about
How hard it might be to say no
To not let the circus come into
Town, but if you do
Only you can pack up the
Lions, clowns,
Colorful balloons.
Someone asked them if they
Believe drugs should be legalized
And he responded with
If I walk into a gas station
And see drugs for sale I will
Not be able to hold myself
Upright.
But I also do not want a government
Establishment to tell me what I can
And cannot ingest into my body,
So I don’t know.
Newton’s First Law of Motion
States that something will keep moving
Unless some force acts upon it.
And once you start drugs
Or gambling
Or skipping meals
it will progressively
Worsen in time.
Festering in bloodstreams
Until you decide to stop it.

chalkboard dreams
the chalky dust coughing out of my lungs
forming words in the air that
I can not comprehend, but you
rearranged the letters
like magnets on a refrigerator
picking apart my insides
staples stuck in the skin of your lover
all I asked from you was an answer
but you gave me more questions

rope strung around each finger tied to the substances you have faithfully
pledged your existence to
but these knots and strings are pointless
when point b does not reciprocate with point a

you have devoted your emotions to a pseudo relationship
built upon the crumbling granules of sugar and all things sweet
but sweetness only gets you so far
before your teeth begin to rot

i have taken a butter knife to my collar bones
and sliced away at the sick residue left over
from all the attachments
the terms and conditions that i vacuously accepted

or maybe i just don't understand how you could call this happiness
tediously worshipping these obsessions
you're losing your sense of self
touch with reality and what really
is alive

it is dark with you
I squint to see supernovas
on yellow stumps

the wispy silver ripples
fall the wrong way
nothing is left but
tobacco exoskeletons

you brood against velvet arms
sinking into the chair
the stone in your chest is heavy;
immune to April plumage
spilled nectar
and the smells before rain