My shelf holds worlds;
  bending under multi-colored,
peeling teeth; paper raked by pupils.
  Cream clenches then spreads,
like a jogger's lung, and I say,
  This is why I normally take it black.
  
Something Steven Spielberg presented
  is strapped to my wall, reminding me of
  my childhood that has left my memory
faster than I hoped it would.
  There's a decaf tin holding mini-presidential tombstones.
I keep a picture of a woman
  I don't even know because
she looks happy and I envy that.

This room is hermetically sealing
  3 AM insomnia and daydreams.

Beneath the surface, boiling blood,
A calloused, hardened soul,
Fragile hands of sticks and mud,
Still fighting for control,

On more hour, up in flames,
Another runaway train of thought,
Burn the pictures, sell the frames,
Pretend that I forgot,

Ashes, ashes, falling stars,
A prayer for reverie,
Concealed bruises, hidden scars,
Faded from skin, not memory.

Dragging a baseball bat through the alley,
old-fashioned stain, auto-signed by some
body that used to inspire, you know how it goes

And, of course, it's raining a type of
slippery sludge that gets on and under
regenerating skin, born today, dead today
forever and ever a boulder pushing life

It all stings, oh god, it will accurately burn
the way that a forgotten face trips into smoke
before the mind's wandering, hazardous dare
Then, before it was ever known, you break
into the breeze, a tryst of truth, floating

Where he stands is so close to where the
bat meets the flesh, bursting under babble
Swinging with the explosion of repressed
rage, stolen memories summoned into a
frenzy of freedom and self-imprisonment

Violent before the new world,
breathing into a rumored hollow carcass

found a garter snake when I was
seven. begged her to let me take it
home because it was dead anyway and I'd
never seen a snake not at a
zoo.

carried it on a stick,
limp, dangling, body reduced to a
morbid noodle that
bounced comically with every
step.

left it on the driveway in a circle of
leaves to get "When we
went home."
went inside,
forgot it.

looked for it on the last day,
car packed, rain starting to
fall and the snake was
gone.

Maybe, my dad said, His friends came and
took him for a proper snake
funeral.

ate up his words like
sugar, got in my car seat, didn't ask about it
again.

found out years later his
girlfriend was always scared of
snakes.

Doll, honey, sweetie, old lady,
Life's been tough, especially lately.
You told me I'd be breaking hearts one day,
But so far mine's been the only the break,
And the boys here are cruel,
And the world here is fake.

i never knew an empty house
until i realized i didn't have to step twice
with my right foot
on the last stair before i
closed the door.

& i never knew silence,
though i think i thought i did,
until the night the kitchen light burnt out
& i sat alone til morning
in the glow of the old refrigerator.

& i never knew shock i guess
until the day they handed you to me
in a box that fit too well in my hand
& their I'm sorrys were silenced
as i shut the door mid-sentence.

knowing you were in that box hurt almost as much
as feeling your body go still in my hands.

i'll miss your eyes very much, &

i will always step twice with my right foot
on the last stair before i close the door.

I awake to a rustle of leaves.
I find that I've my potential,
And I'm embarrassed to ask you
If I have grown past you.

Well I can spread seeds at the flick of my wrist
And I convert sunlight to sustenance-
Don't really need you...
Find your own soil to feed you.

With that
I uproot,
And I take the squirrel's nests with me.
It's hard to pull both feet out the grave, but
I've still got the stars to uplift me.
I've still got the stars...
They've still got my heart...

I'll
Bleed
Sweet
If I
**** well
Like,
And I want to.
Please carve your initials
In
My
Hips
Before you leave.
I tried to tell you, that
I'm
As
Simple as this.
But you
Got
Caught
All up in the
Webs the spiders weave
Between my arms...
My arms,
My arms,
My arms.

A crack and a tumbling of dirt,
You know dragging roots are so clumsy.
Don't touch me as I'm shambling past her,
This is
Something that I'd like to master.
My blue birds shake off as I move,
But
Slowly they're warming back up to me.
I think they're getting used to the motion,
I should
Stay steady, serve their devotion.

But:
I'll
Bleed
Sweet
If I
**** well
Like,
And I want to.
Please carve your initials
In
My
Hips
Before you leave.
I tried to tell you, that
I'm
As
Simple as this.
But you
Got
Caught
All up in the
Webs the spiders weave
Between my arms...
My arms,
My arms,
My arms.

This is far from stumble.
This is weep and kneel,
but muted,
like squeezing information from a rock.
There's catching yourself failing
and when you actually failed.
You forgot,
forgot to write it down first,
then Forgot.
You have to sit with that,
cause it was-- **** was so good.
And when you wake up
tomorrow,
at 4 pm, sober, and read
this
you'll hopefully
have a headache
and know better.

Dear Mr President,
My mother told me I was the universe
So I will be ****** if I am told I am only a kitchen
If I am told that I am 'the other room'
I am the universe Mr President, stars and all
So do not mistake me for rooms in a house
Because they will never be able to contain my spirit

The roaming rebels smoke their pipe-dreams
by the eroding wall.
Their pockets are as empty as their hearts
and they know it, and know
that you know it.

Her hairspray is a mist around her
beige-caked face --
and she swears she used to look good.
She swears that things used to matter;
that words once made sense;
that her boys won't forever stand by that wall;
that her boys won't forever stand still,
swept by the grains of time.

And you, in your desired attire,
in your calculated speak,
will never know that they know you don't know.
And you, well-adjusted and forever fluent in their inability to be temporary --
in their heartless self-awarness, with no ambition --
will sigh with sympathy
unneeded for the ******.