8:04
Rain
Inside and out
Sounding like a dream
And tasting like the bitter smoke from when you caught our bed sheets on fire
(I threw them out)
Charred hearts beating in unison lets hope this lasts forever like the empty pill bottles rolling down hills and right into your shaking hands- stained black from all the buildings
you burnt down
And when I told you about all the abandoned hospitals on the interstate you strung prayer flags and put caution tape all over my naked body because I left my soul underneath the overpass
(I must be a *******)
I continue to eat right out of your ******* hands

we drove through vacant parking lots trying to recover our lost luggage

the moon reflected off the gray asphalt making the *** holes look like craters

and your voice stung my skin when it broke the silence

because the interior has been worn down by all my angles

I was drowning in all the things I couldn’t say

for a second i felt greedy because

here I was choking in an ocean of thoughts

and there you were parched, searching for anything

any word at all

if this is what the surface of the moon feels like-

streetlights glowing on my hands, making a kaleidascope

of patterns and shapes-

then I still would never want to go

if it meant draining your bones until they are brittle

until they are nothing but dust piled in my hands

dusty books, pages thin and frail
like my mothers bones
decaying and oxidizing - the words fade
when the ink deteriorates
but that doesn't mean they weren't there
you tied a string around my teeth
and ran south for the winter and with each
step you took, a tooth would pop out
a constant reminder that you are no longer
here, but i wonder when i will run out of teeth
or when you will run out of earth
i sat on a friday night indulging myself
in stories and delicately counting the paper cuts on my fingers
but the dainty cuts will never compare to that time we ate cake
until our stomachs became flour, milk, and eggs
and you told me you loved me
then left to **** yourself
drowning in exhaust must be a silent way to go
and that cake won't taste very good in hell
i would know
recall your earliest memory and
divide it by all the unrequited stares
and thats how much i wish you would
untie my teeth, or stop running
and count the number of goosebumps painted on the
back of my neck and that is the
equivalent to the number of ovens you
accidentally left on
but I'm begging you to understand how immense
the ocean is because thats a very long way
to suffocate and salty water
will burn your wounds
Mariana's trench is a dark place
and the letters you wrote me reproduce on the bottom
not even the ugliest scar can revive my flesh that was chained
to those messages
but the meteor craters lick my surface like chloric acid
and all i wanted to do was repeatedly brush my teeth with the ocean sand
and clean my eyes out with mermaid tears
because you left a sickly residue that
hibernates under my fingernails
so next time you open your trunk
and find a mountain of broken glass
just remember that i loved you
i lost my fingers for you
i sold my soul for yours
but it wasn't even close to enough
what else do you want?
should i drain my blood until i am a desert of a human
shall i cut off all my hair?
and even then ill have an eternal debt to you
but you just turn the other cheek
so the plywood under my elbows
applies pressure to my spine
condensed newspapers stuck in the follicles
of the rain drops
but you don't even care

First things first,
you’ll have to remove your hat and
the plank strapped to your limbs.
Your body will be used to thumb-wrestle with
gravity.

Please remove the staples from your chest.
Find your new set of lungs.
There is space to breathe here.
Take this new heart.
You’ll beat slower, suspended.
Circadian rhythms will not help you.

Your body will become a willow in a storm,
never breaking.
There are no mistakes here.

You’ll learn to drink silence for sustenance,
washed down with madness and tepid water.
You’ll learn to compensate for lacking conversation, hold secret meetings
in the basement of your mind.
You’ll learn how to disappear in a room.

No matter how hard you pound against walls
they remain padded,
concealed behind billowing drapery.
No one will hear you.

But, you’ll fit in fine.
You’ll stretch your skin as a tattooed leotard.
You won’t grow up,
You’ll grow inward
fortifying your lungs with weeds.
L’appel du vide, your distinctive urge to jump down from
high places will be quelled
by the grace in lifting.

Take respite,
There is nothing left to destroy here.
There are no checkpoints to neglect.
There is no need to be a hero.

Still,
you’re not convinced this is so much better.

i pour myself another flask
tilt my head to the heavens and choke it down
as if to say 'that one's for you mom'
the gulps of jack honey that kiss my stomach
become a bitter reminder of the things that i relinquish in sobriety
they ask me about my coping skills and lately
i nit pick, mock, and overanalyze
see, i am much more bitter than the poison i swallow
yet it will never occur to anyone that i have a void in my heart the size of kansas
i take another swig, feel the whiskey warm my cheek, and
close my eyes to imagine my mother's hands cupping my face
as if to subtlety remind me that i'll be alright
but that never corresponds to the way that i've felt since that night
i stand in front of the mirror bearing a shocking resemblance of her
my eyes tilt down a little and my lips are thin, just as hers were

I see him on film
I developed him all wrong
Now he's a negative.
Cross processed by her,
And then hung on a wall
Bound by a wooden frame.

I have been waiting for you around the
Edges of my heart, where you lurk in
The underbrush and the shadows; still
Too lost in the rest of the world to know
To navigate back home.

I have been waiting for you in the
Pause at the end of every sentence,
the hitch of every breath, and
Within the depths of my waking lids-
Explosive starlight ablaze in my minds
Eye.

And
I have been waiting-
Patience my sedative-
For the hand that fits over
Mine and warms the chronic
Chill.

You have waited too; I can tell because
In your sleep I am always awake and
Pacing-I know you are restless
And need someone to kiss your crown
To remind you that not all kings have
Castles.

But they have riches--
my soul can promise you that.

i can’t care anymore because if i did i would crack.
exoskeleton.
so i don’t care.
i just endure and keep living.
it’s been a while. i don’t even have stripes anymore.
i think about the last time a lot.
all the time.
i think about that night when it rained
and i went out to the street
and didn’t look both ways before i crossed
on purpose.
and i remember waking up in the hospital
something like a thousand years ago
with a tube in my nose
and an iv in my wrist
and asking them to stop
touching me with their ***** hands
and no i don’t want this saline
can someone switch it to cyanide?
but they left me there without saying a word
and when the doctor came in i told him
just let me dry out
let me lay in street
and soak up the earth.
stop.
what day is it?
tuesday.
what happened?
you fainted.
in the street?
no. what street?
nevermind.
do your parents know about these scratches?
not these ones.
are you going to tell them?
i’m 18.
are you getting help?
i don’t need help.
do you want to talk about anything?
no.
and he looked at me
just looked at me
and took the iv out
and let me go.
i sometimes think he was god
cause he didn’t say anything to them
and he didn’t make me feel a thing.
not bad, not good.
he was as numb as i was.
and that’s the last time i woke up wishing i hadn’t.

The slick click of her tongue
sliding away from the roof of her mouth
as she opens her red stained lips,
and pops the tablet past them.
The faucet runs, currently the only noise in the house
and she fills a little paper cup,
listens to the dribble as the water slowly fills it
the pill is becoming sour in her mouth.
She raises the cup, faucet still running,
to her lips and quickly knocks the medication down her throat,
shivers as it grazes against the muscle there.
The water follows soothingly after it,
and she takes another swig for good measure,
then another to wash the taste out of her mouth.
She spits it out, and looks at herself in the mirror.
her hair is sticking up all over the back of her head.
she hasn’t had it cut in months,
hasn’t washed it in days.
She’s vaguely starting to resemble her father and wonders
“Is this what death looks like?”
She has no idea.
The coroner wouldn’t let her see the body.