(A realization of otherness)
Frenzied shaking has taken my soul
I am crushed by the burning of gold-brined teeth
My unclean lips draw back in a grimace
As I rest my head against the beam of
Some ragged torture device and get
Splinters driven into my constricting scalp
Take a spike and drive it through my temple
Into this piece of time-worn timber which
Is saturated with skin flakes from my victims

(The reception of the sacrament)
Shall I not raise my filth-clotted hands up to
This presence which is like smoke and fills
My lungs with the kind of fear true power brings?
Let there be flesh to envelop my quaking body
Let it be caught between my teeth and drape
My skin in a new raiment of priesthood
Let there be hematic torrents rushing down
To clean out the wounds and make them imperishable
To be better drink from well-dug cisterns

Of all the games
we learned to play
with jokes, with rules,
with risk and trust
we never chose
to lie.

But then you did.
And nothing
held.

No knot was tight,
no safe word sure,
no breath between us
true.

A whispered “yes”
became a guess,
and touch
a kind of theft.

Now every scene
rewinds itself,
the lines we drew
blurred…

For once a lie
slips past the lips,
nothing
truly grips.

I want to annotate your margins with my mouth.
Then I wanna arch you, till your spine curves.
I’ll take your pretty cover off and touch your soft paperback.
To affirm the words you wrote to me,
So forth, I’ll even say: And I, you.
So I, so you; so much.
You’re so then, such a good girl.
I’d use you and reuse you, maybe even never, ever let go.
You make me turn to our next chapter.
So, I do.

Stunted, the same, by
          highs
            and
           lows
           alike.
A jubilant parade inside
           some nights.
Silver linings? Ticking timebombs! Infinite splinters!
No good time left unexploded.
Rusted blood iron and red wine
filling my eyes.
          Tired of feeling "weird."
          Tired of knowing I'm being.

I wish I wanted anything in a way that didn't
                              scare me.
I wish I could love anything in ways that
                            couldn't hurt--
                           --inward or out--

                    I wish...
                    I think...
If I sit on this bench...for a long time,
and keep perfectly still...but make subtle
                    eye contact
          with some of the crows...
they'll accept me as one of them?

                    Teach me to fly
                    Or, at least, hide
                       in plain sight.
        A new vocabulary for my quiet
              when it starts to get mean.

Entangled, alike, by
          lows
          and
          highs,
         the same.
Convenient jailbreak for a Name--
               --Say it.
Chewing paper? Eat the playbook. Shred this formula.
No good night goes unpunished.
Rusted blood in my mouth, and red wine--
crying outside
                    Tired of being fragile
                    Tired of knowing I know.

                   And how 'bout the crows?

                   I'm good for a laugh, they suppose.

Hypnotic,
Dizzied in frenetic sway
She commands gaze
With black licorice lips
Hourglass hips,
And the bluest sapphires
Darting through rust-colored tresses
She’s a Victorian *****
Obsessed with scented depth
A lover paler than death,
Clutching like raptor talons piercing my heart
I give freely to dance to the beat of
Zephyr winds howling and my organic drum.

Lust creeps like a sneaking thief,
Undone by a mischievous Cheshire grin
Fingertips upon me, tracing little circles
Tickling the silky flesh of my lips
I want her in the worst ways,
Blood flooding the gates,
Erecting the bridge I wished to cross her streams
And drown myself face-first in her eaves
I find myself paralyzed in time
In hopes she would unbind,
She simply turns the light off
Whispering into the night

“You are mine”

Squishy fated
Topography
Meant to puzzle
Together,
the nexus of
Interlocking
limbs--
pulsing and
pumping.

The conductive
catalyst
the dazed hazy
Swooning--
I bite my lip
and you start to
give in,
I won't tell you no--
take a hit
to the bed
grabbing sheets
*******
air past teeth
no thoughts
just breathe...
or don't.

Choke
on the nexus
of firing synapses
the electric relapses
into shivers and moans--
****--
I need
to
feel you.

Your skin
lingers in
the shivers--
in the wake
of the day
my body
Remembering
that you
aren't there
and it aches.

Please--
Lead me there,
Take
Me
Please,
Let me
bathe in
your twilight.