smiling though the lamps fade fast
smiling with white teeth against the night
to and fro they are dancing and
the dance is not wasted on us
white and silver marking your silhouette

touching though hands are pale
hums in rhythm to sad musicals or
distorted lullabies for grown ups
the necklace in your mouth is weeping
bleeding like my heart is now

dancing though the night's gone
the stars rock us away
he's rocking with his shirt undone
he's rocking quips and ego oh
it's a long way home from here

I will drag my knife along your skin,
sharp blade down into your fragile, shaking canvas,
incising an increasing beat of whimpers and whines.
Please hold still. I promise this will hurt.

I will expose your clattering bones,
rip out your chattering teeth,
erase every impugned utterance
you muttered against me.
I will carve my letters slowly
on your unzipped frame,
sliding the burgundy blood across to
blot
       clot
              dot.    

This is only preparation for what is about to follow.

I will puncture your throbbing organs,
slash your stretched cartilage
with an unwritten script.
Before I press further,
I’ll assure you, you are still alive.

I will twist each phrase,
haunt you to believe it is your fault,
force you to beg the slightest escape.
I will permanently etch my name
deep in the frozen chambers
of your quivering heart.

I will open up the blueprint as a demolition expert,
remove whole fractions of your fractured soul,
leave you a horrid wreck in the abyss
of a mess you just made.

You will not get rid of me,
though no trace of evidence is left behind.

My hands have been clean from the start.

You know you've got a problem
    When candy is more than dandy—
When all you want is sugar,
    And start trading teeth for candy.

O.O

‘Round the world and pieces of me,
So speaks one body come a –
A bad night’s blood spatter in Sioux City,
Lonely little toenail clippings swept Dubai,
Whiskey scented stubble, London nigh Paris,
Oh! The calloused skin round bend,
Wrought broken, my lovely Kyoto,
And maybe, just maybe,
A heart or five elsewhere.

So when the tooth-clerk barricaded
Dusty Chinese counter-top asked,
“Do you want to keep them?”
I responded and with haste, “yes;”
And with a thieves hand,
Snatched my two molars removed.
For I’d already left one too many
Pieces of me here, and though
It was only a tooth, I hadn’t much left.

Her teeth rotted tea,
But root and leaf tell tall tales
Where silence now sips.

If only luck would up and show
fortune for the fortunately
clinging on,
those blessed with life
though impetus bent
for one toe only touching the floor
with a venomous claw
for virulence and love
both impediment to the **** we gnaw
if only luck would wind a boot
to the fortunately clinging on
those blessed with life only
danger dismissed with no teeth
fortune for the titanic maw

i was taught to bite my tongue but never when to unclench. the only time that my jaws unhinged was when i would scream my monologues at the cornfields; my pain penetrating through the husk and soaking into every kernel. so when he's at your apartment, eating off of my favorite plate, i hope that my words get stuck in between your teeth and you are forced to scrape and swallow back every single morsel of the venom that i wish that i had spit at you. and I know that one day my teeth will shatter from the pressure and  that eventually your brain will burst from all of the headaches you've gotten from everything that i've screamed into ears that weren't yours.

- o.m.h