I will pour myself
like coffee in your morning cup
and tickle your nose
with my greeting aroma
I will wisp my steam
through your nasal passages
stimulating your system
of sluggish nerves
I will listen to you,
  my favorite song,
keeping beat with my heart,
harmonizing with your hum,
lulling me to sweet oblivion
I will forgive you
as one forgives oneself
because we are human,
vulnerable and feckless
  lonely and restless;
I will lay beside you
all season until sunrise
when light peeks through shade
and fire burns in our eyes
I will fall deep down
the well in your iris
and find myself inside
  guiding us both
towards essential growth,
to intertangle like vines

I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still ***** his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before morning
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I die before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about me
There is nothing I want to do
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

a cigarette on his dry lips,
he is cold, he grips
onto the lit cigarette,
imagining a person's
neck,
and he is determined
to break it.

Once
upon a time
a little girl had a dream
that she was fading
losing
falling
and she hated it
and grew to have a
hatred
for ghosts
just like you
just like you
just like a star
something
quick
here and gone
in a flash
of purple light
and red fog
something to remember
but never to speak of
to hunt my ghosts
to hunt them down
and drown them
in smoke and white walls
something to hunt
nothing human
the deepest parts
buried beneath
a thousand
falling
shoes
and a basketball jersey
something hated
like someone I used to know
and then
with another flash
a streak across the sky
and the flick
of a lighter
like silver dripped on a wet page
like ghosts
in the mist
of a sad park
          with a sad man
                      and a very sad girl
because they have ghosts
haunting their heads
with a whisper
and a forgotten tear.

My throat                             is an open hatch
     for you to jump down, take a look
                around my insides,
                            see what's behind
pink skin,
                            past ribcage into
          soft tissues of lung
                  and heart
and see the animal burrowed in my gut:

How I feed him some days,
                       because his presence brings me
  comfort.

How other days I starve him,
                       because I want to be
            free.