I wash my hands constantly, as the smell of anything unnatural makes me uneasy. I smell the tips of my fingers and the palms of my hands nervously; the smell of metal, carpet, and reluctance all trapped between my fingers nauseate me. I run to the sink and pump soap into my hands before frantically rubbing them together, forming as many bubbles as possible.

I only like my hands when they smell like soap or oranges or lavender.

I have nightmares about you during the day. I sit awake and wonder how much of you was real and how much is just sound that I created in a desperate leap for love. The leap I swore I would take over and over again.

There is paint on my arms and my hands right now and all I can think about is how i wish I were an artist
I wish i could draw myself into things the way I can push myself into things that hurt

My mom told me I am brave that I am fearless that I just do things
but I think I am reckless with myself
the way I run into pain face first and tear into it with my fists over
and over again
I have never been afraid of change
The way pain rolls over you and makes your stomach convulse
your whole body week and your sobs so huge that they don’t make sound beyond the frantic gasp for air at the end

I have always been to proud of being human
for some reason I think that the way I feel the way I live is somehow monumental
running into things over and over again

Brush your teeth!
Brush your hair!
Fix your dress -
No no! That's not what you were told to wear.

Clean your bedroom,
Dust the stairs!
Mop the kitchen!
Careful, clean with care!

I thought I told you
To buy new towels?
We can't hang out these rags,
They'll think us fools!

There is dust on the cupboards
This just won't do!
Where is the good China?

For goodness sake we will have to start anew!

We have let go of our frantic lust
for the shiny metal in the Sacramento hills.
It was hard for my grandfather,
in coming west on horse and with wagon,
dragging a family across the pimpled skin
of the young land, to help John Sutter
build his new empire.
He then found that his dream of good land
for ranching was subverted with easy gold.

Grandfather’s first home on the bank of the river:
a tule hut, or grass hut, left behind by
Mi-wuk Indians, who wandered with
the elk and circulated with the
wonderment of passing stars;
no regard for what shined beneath them.

It’s in the luring poems and the stories that the
old California adventure comes back to us.
No one longer builds much with grass,
and cannot so easily pick out fortunes
by following the earth’s deep cracks.

Some would walk away from jobs and cities,
bulging packs strapped on shoulders,
and head up through the openings
and narrowings of the valleys,
and into the foothills of the Sierras.
Camp beside ****** trout holes
and dip into the riffled water
at the edge of perfect green mirrors:
to find what is precious and become
free from the cycle of the frantic lust.

Ever catch yourself
caught between
the light and dark?

Has the stark contrast
blinded you, both
from lack of
and abundance of
luminescence.

Ever rounded a night corner
and prayed that the road
materialises beyond you;
that it follows the path
the very way you
imagine it?

And have you ever felt utterly ALIVE in that
frantic millisecond of uncertainty?

I have.

There is a Frantic Masquerade, I've heard it said,
where masquers revel in moonlight in the dark city streets.
Their iron shoes burn a smouldering red
and compels them never end the song they sing with their feet.

There is a leather Curtain, made up of silence and shame.
They place upon each dancer's face as they waltz through the night.
They never share a longing gaze, never whisper a lover's name,
and as their souls lose their lustre, their iron shoes burn ever bright.

There is a lonely Ballroom of sad rain and cold concrete,
where masquers revel in terror at the symphony in their heads.
Their steps move ever faster, but their empty eyes never meet.
Hearts cold, they dance with hot feet, ere they're dead.

     There is a Frantic Masquerade, I've heard it said.
     Their icy hearts stave off passion's heat.
              They'll dance that way till the shoes burn through their head,
and only when the ice melts might their heart's dance be complete.

My mind is frayed
Making me miss the days
I used to self-medicate
Didn't have to hesitate

Those days are far away
Sobriety making a lengthy stay
And it makes me manic
Paralyzed in an unending panic

Honestly I feel like ****
Calm and composed for a bit
Then hopelessly falling
Substances are calling

And it's ****** up
That I'm stuck up
Left confused and alone
Not to mention dangerously prone

To hatred and deprivation
Brutalized on the verge of starvation
I'm on a downward streak
Feeling more and more weak

So my pen bleeds words
That no one has ever heard