There is a cement path
Cutting the belly of the suburban grotto
Burning pine smell
My friend toils
A girl sits feeding
Into the fire
Small sticks from her
Hands as his voice
Reaches the deck

With me
Head in phone
Alone in my mind
Breaking orbit
I struggle against gravitational
Moments of self doubt
Red memories incarnate
In the subtle awkwardness
That brands my madness.

Day 1: I want to tear my skin off. My heart is beating so fast i can barley breathe. I feel so filthy.
Day 2: I can't believe this. I don't want to be here. Why did this happen? Why did I let this happen?
Day 5: I guess I drank too much and my friends were to drunk to stop me.
Day 10: I can't face my friends, I can't live my life.
Week 3: No one knows. He hasn't said a word.
Week 6: It happened again, I was sleeping and he did it again. Why did I stay the night? Why didn't I go straight home?
Week 7: He left and kissed me goodbye. I don't know how to feel.
Week 10: My life's out of control, I can't believe whats happening.
Month 5: My boyfriend knows. But not all details. Just thinking about it, makes me want to take a shower.
Month 8: I finally came clean to my friends. They're appalled. They hate him now. I still feel filthy. I can't get his smell off my body still.
Month 11: The anniversary is soon. What am I going to do?
Year 1: I haven't spoken to him in months. I haven't thought about it in days. I still feel as if hes on top of me, why can't I wash him away?

Its an uphill battle with myself and others. Some days I can't get out of bed or even feel like breathing.
But I try not to let him get to me. Because if he sees my weakness from what hes done,
He's won.

Lips like bloodlines,
Carmilla kisses her mirror
and calls herself dangerous

Naming myself for dead things,
for ruinous things;
fire,
the ash that drank Pompei,
the ivy that made your walls cave,

Was Lady Macbeth sweeping her hair in braids
to nest her crown?
Or Nefertiti painted gold to reclaim God?

I’m asking for the lavender girls
See, we do these things to be holy
to be myths in our skin

Tying feathers to our shoulders
and glitter to our tongues,
thinking
I can be gold if I want to
I can be thorn-tipped ugly

In pink fur, black lace, we kiss the toes
of Courtney Love and Venus in one breath

Cut back
to my blood-laced lips on the mirror
as though saying Narcissus is my idol
my skin placed above heaven
and I wish to love myself so much
I’d choke for it

waking
newly human
strange and soft;
pinpricks, feelings -
the crawlings around inside you
shiver as your skin becomes real

a nightlight for daytime sleeplessness
carry the seas inside yourself
like people:
walking barefoot
drinking sunstreams
and braving the dark red nights

hark, choir voices, still
slurring miss you discrepancies
howls in empty skies
wolves die

a misunderstanding of your insides
bones
more sand than rock
crumble at a press too hard

on this,
last day of your first life
hung on a boy’s fingers
the edge of a cliff
taste the water in your nerve endings dragging you home
you splinter,
and you rise -

when the bruise blooms, you shine

don't fall victim to the snake.
for its venom will slice
through your blood stream
as smoothly
as a blade across skin.
don't let the snake's eyes fool you,
behind his sly tongue
lies sharp fangs
that are waiting
for your vulnerability to show.
and any minute,
the snake could turn you
from his prize,
to his feast.

The mumbling stumbling father of the faith.
Who makes it too his service fragile and made of glass.
Who reads the book upside down knowing eyes will never see.
The blankly staring flock who are programmed into their seats.
Who tells a story of gambling, then spends his children's coin.
Who speaks of the wrongs of killing, then buries his victims down.
O the mumbling stumbling father of the faith.
Who leads you blindly to other gates.