Lately it's been so cold here.
Really, REALLY cold.
So cold fingers go white and waxen,
And icicles shake hands with snow banks,
As old friends do in grocery stores.
How can time go by when we stay still?
Progress is not a form of knowledge.
So stop with your talk of intelligence.
It's too cold here to say you're smart.

Well I suppose it's not really cold here…
It's cold there.
For I am the carrier of almost warmth,
And duct taped pupils.
I am the one sitting on the windowsill with the telephone in hand,
Tracing windows on the fog laced panes
That makes you yearn so deeply.

The cold doesn't touch me.
The cold doesn't possess me like it does you.
Because it's not cold here,
It's cold there,
And you can't deny it.

For I am awake
And I see what you were up to,
I am not happy when you listen.

I will pretend I am happy
Because smiling carries the luxury of acceptance.
I like being excepted.
Acceptance…
It brings warmth.

She's got her hands in her eye sockets
And love between her teeth...

Deadbeat floorboard
Screaming to come alive.
You're a wasteland in a sea of Utopia,
Thriving on salted lacerations.
He's got his feet on the ground
And hopes that are up a little too high...

Pressed against the wall
To watch the ghosts march on by
1,000 screaming soldiers
And a closet door sealed shut...

You're a desert in an ocean of bustle,
Living off of see urchins...

What happens when monsters below mattresses
Are calling out your name?

Trembling under stapled eyelids.
You are not the same,
You are not the same...

You've stationed yourself by the side of the road,
Convinced that maybe the billows of exhaust
That are streaming by will make the smiling faces
That are drifting passed you a little less real,
Or maybe even get you a little more intoxicated.
(You secretly hope for the latter,
After all it might be better than ribbon noose
You are considering to later on wrap around your neck.)

... The dinner table is set and ready,
But your hard work is in the process of being torn down.
You shut your eyes and expand your lungs to the breaking point
And avoid centering in on the fact that you're in the middle of an
Endless, ****** war zone.
(The scrape of metal on teeth is hard to bear
When you're the only one who has butter-soft words
Rotting on your tongue and slithering  down your
Collapsing esophagus –
Perhaps a noose won't be necessary
This time around)

You tremble chassis with calamities bit behind your folds of brain matter,
At first you were picnic checkered in alarming shades of ruby and paper.
What you tried to say told me that your breathing is altered by the gentle rotations of my train track mind,
Condemning you to what you define so strongly as  "Beautiful"
--I must be blind.
You manifested in cocoons I'd tucked away in mental crevices,
Redundant,  you trace enamel with soft flickers.
You removed the formaldehyde from my collapsing veins.
Declivitous,  you let your lips part and seep through the stains of former mistakes.
"Preservation is for lonely:  never staying, never going.
But growing is for two...
So thank you for waiting so patiently."

It's called a lack of respect for the ones who deserve,
Bitter sweet flavor of the blood within your mouth,
The clash of dirt on your rotting teeth,
You're so willing,
You're so willing.

Crooked finger bones and red patterns
Are not the ticket out-
So get off your knees and clean the hell up!

For I now see that you're all wasting away.
Did you expect me to be the one to pull ahead?

You started out chasing butterflies with strawberry baskets in hand,
So insignificant in their own right.
Barefoot splashing in the tides of winding creeks,
Taking shortcuts to steppingstones.
Your dreams were as big as the clouds you never even took the time to gaze upon.
With eyes sparkling in the midday sun,
A child-like ferocity held deep within your core shown through your every step...
The signs always pointed you down the right paths,
Safe and sound from the world asunder.
Sunlight framed your face in a perfect eclipse,
While you called for your nature's shames to grace your flesh.
The untrodden breath should have screamed  "Aposematism" in your favor–  instead it whispered luxury.
You had Pine needles jutting from your vellum heels as I watched you wander away;
Precariously denying the flush of red they had while they hung their heads to let you pass...
Irresolute on how to perceive dead ends:
You, gnarled and bleached by the lap of oak
You scrambled over boulders and crevices
Only to find collapse was nothing but your suitor in black,
Caressing your lechery in a labyrinth thicket.
Peach scraped patellas and a taste for champagne,
You should have seen right through that lush disguise.

...From day one you where laced in the notations of prima donna,
With your sticks and stones and ivory bones;
The only song left to resound drip memories of your
Hand-crushed wings.