The angels gathered
at dusk
when the sky was clear
and the wind was silent.
One was stick thin
with ribs protruding,
piercing the feeble
crumbling skin
and the angel was
starving, with
stomach growling
but the angel
wouldn't eat.
The second angel
had a fake smile
plastered,
so fake that its
mouth (decaying
with acid)
looked grotesque
and the angel
looked tormented
because it had
spent the past hour
on its knees
in a bathroom
emptying its
stomach
but it still thought
its smile was
convincing.
The third angel
had long
thin scars
bleeding red
all over its arms
but it smiled
its brightest smile,
chin up,
eyes bright
(but it secretly screamed
at itself late at night).

And many more
angels came,
all of them transparent,
with skin like
parchment
and eyes hollow,
eye sockets painfully
dug into their skulls,
with blue-purple
half-moons under
eyes losing their spark,
with crumbling,
burning smiles
that stung with
insincerity
and pure
venomous self-hatred,
and the angels dared not
face each other
and cut their own wings
feather by feather
and refused to believe
that they had not fallen.
But they hadn't, truly.
They had simply jumped.

tic-toc
goes the clock
you set your eyes on her
and now you're lost

tic-toc
goes the clock
you talk to her
and drown in the pools
of molten gold
that are her eyes

tic-toc
goes the clock
you talk to her
until the sun is up
and her phone battery's flat

tic-toc
goes the clock
you hold her hand
and know you've got her

tic-toc
goes the clock
you hug her tight
and know she's lost

tic-toc
goes the clock
you kiss her with
your deceitful lips

tic-toc
goes the clock
she's all yours and
you possess her

tic-toc
goes the clock
you make her happy
and maybe for a while
you even care

tic-toc
goes the clock
she's truly lost,
she loves you

tic-toc
goes the clock
but you grew bored
and faked it

tic-toc
goes the clock
you left her
and you broke her

tic-toc
goes the clock*
and now even
nursery rhymes
are about you
you *******

Do you see me first thing in the morning
when you wake up and your eyelids
are heavy with sleep?
Do you taste me in your coffee
when you try to chase away
your dreams?
Do I itch in your palms,
in your arms,
on your lips?
Do you feel that I'm
absent when you go back
to sleep?
When you feel like crying,
do you feel the ghost
of my clumsy embraces
and the ephemeral feeling
of my cheek to your cheek
and my lips on your lips?
Do you turn around mid-movie,
a lame joke on your lips,
and realise I'm not there
to hear it?
Do you feel the emptiness
where I used to sit on your
knees?
Do you miss the scent of me
and the taste of perfume
when you bite my neck?
Do you see me taking your clothes
off when you put them on
in the morning?
Am I still present
in your dreams?
Do you miss my rants
about freedom and equality
and solecisms and hatred
and depression?
Do you miss taking care of me?
Can you see me wrapped around
you when you shower
and the steam hides the places
where I used to be?
Do I vulgarly and rudely
interrupt your dreams
and haunt your thoughts
and ache inside when you breathe?

I hope you do.
I hope I am.
I hope you regret
that you left.
I hope you wish
you had stayed.

I hope I've become
your epitome of a
long-lost dream.

i was a spark.
you turned me into fire
but since you left me
i am ash.

i dream of you
and i am thine
but when i wake up
you're never mine

*

the next time you
travel by plane
and you look at the
person beside you,
remember my sweaty
palm clenching yours
and my nervous squeezes
and how I kissed you
a thousand miles above
the water
among clouds
and how i slept on your
shoulder in the bus
afterwards
and ask yourself
if another
will walk into the
duty free and put on
expensive makeup
that she can't afford
and then kiss you
with blood-red
a-hundred-bucks
chanel lips.

you're not mine
but i'm not thine either
and it is your loss,
honey.

Up until my insomnia meets me
I lied when I said I forgot
I was scared what you'd think
If I said that  I love you a lot

People have only cared for minutes
Leaving me to care for days
When I look at you all I can think
Is please don't go away

I can see me in your eyes
I dream of dreaming with you
I can trace your scars with mine
My thoughts are bleeding through:

My Talia, I know what it's like to not be seen;
what it's like to be alone in a crowded room.
For you, my star, I want you to know:
that no one shines as bright as you.

I can taste you moving on my skin.
My gasp is air you sustain.
hand in hand, under an umbrella
with you, I am safe.

first time my father overheard me listening to
this bit of music he asked me,
"what is it?"
"it's called Love For Three Oranges,"
I informed him.
"boy," he said, "that's getting it
cheap."
he meant ***.
listening to it
I always imagined three oranges
sitting there,
you know how orange they can
get,
so mightily orange.
maybe Prokofiev had meant
what my father
thought.
if so, I preferred it the
other way
the most horrible thing
I could think of
was part of me being
what ******* out of the
end of his
stupid *****.
I will never forgive him
for that,
his trick that I am stuck
with,
I find no nobility in
parenthood.
I say **** the Father
before he makes more
such as
I.
from ONTHEBUS - 1992

and I miss
random things
that I never knew
I could miss.
your body in
my embrace
though it's never
been there,
though it should be;
your scent
in my nostrils
and us,
skin against skin.
I miss your lips
on my forehead,
your arms around me,
your fingers
in my hair.
and what I hate the most,
what I never want to see
is a world
without you with me.

If there’s Heaven and there’s Hell,
show me where I belong.
And if my place is not in either,
help me burn them down.*

I.
I don’t know where we’re going or what we are
or who we are and I don’t know the right questions to
ask; and even if I knew I wouldn’t know the answers
and I wouldn’t know anyone who could actually provide
an explanation for why it is all like it is. I am insane
and maybe you too are and we stand on shores but  
my shore is not your shore and is there even water
on these shores and why am I drowning. I think
I’m underwater and maybe we all feel like we’re dying
or like we’re already dead. I just understand that
learning how to swim and how to breathe and how
to live are the things my parents did not teach me
and all I feel is salty air but my lungs are decrepit
and how do I take a breath when the air is full of poison –
the one you’re emitting and the one I’m emitting,
and aren’t we all just so toxic?
So I’m knee-deep into water but I cannot force
my lungs to work, and I’m waist-deep into water
but they still don’t work; and now my body is
feelingless and floating and I don’t know
how to live. Do you? Does any of us?
So we just let go there on the shore;
it’s sanity and it’s stability and it’s safety all gone.
I knew all the answers but then I grew up
and so did you.
We were metaphors and the world spun around
so now we are just malaphors and we’re ****** up.
How do I explain to you, to anyone that I am drowning
even when I can swim and that I am dead, my eyes
reflect the light; they do not shine, I have a pulse,
I breathe but I’m so not alive
and I am drowning ashore, I am away from the water
and still underneath waves that crush my fragile skeleton
and make me crumble to dust.
I used to be a metaphor but I’m a malaphor now
and I will burn that bridge when I get to it.
That is, if I haven’t yet drowned.

II.
I lie on the floor and boards are creaking and what is
wrong with me and with us and with everyone.
The dog is howling and there’s a silent cat but he’s
not chasing her and she is tired of chasing mice so she
just wants to die but the dog cannot bite and I keep lying
with snakes wrapped around my limbs and I am poison
and I ache. When did friendships become all about lies
and deceit and manipulation? When did I lose myself
in the world of masks? When did it all become about
sexsexsexSEX? Why is it all about who ***** whom
and why do we all want to die? When did we realise
that suicide is a way and how did we find out?
I hear noises and I drown in music and I scream
until my throat hurts and my lungs ache and I
keep thinking WHEN DID I DIE and why
is there no God, I need redemption and don’t we
all crave to be forgiven? I cut, you cut, we cut,
it’s not grammar, it’s life, we don’t do it for attention,
they all cut and we all cut, don’t we, with rusty little
blades ripping ourselves open, letting the pain flow
like red rivers on the floor and we think it’s okay
to carry our scars not like badges and medals of honour
but like shameful reminders of how useless and
worthless we are, and we cut hipbones and thighs
and we cut between ribs and we scratch and bleed
and drown in pure, unbound hatred that comes
straight from our vicious poisoned hearts
and we cut where it can’t be seen because just too many
questions that we’re not willing to face. And we all
write poems about how we want to slit out veins
open, how we want to slay our wrists and crumble and
diedieDIEDIEDE. Why do we want to die, why are we
the ****** up generation who thinks about ****** and solecisms
half of the time and death and virginity and self-hatred and
how our lives mean absolutely nothing?
When did we grow up and become so bitter
and when did our time in the bath become the time when
we want to drown and trains were fun once but now we
want to jump in front of one and trees are not where we
play but where we want to hang ourselves and we
want to jump from cliffs and all we want to do
is **** and die and die and ****, and we were kids
but now we’re not and we’re not adults so who are we?
We’re **** victims, we’re names crossed out, we’re
eulogies and pills and death notes and we want to be
over, why and when and how did the world
**** us up?
We’re caffeine-driven and we do drugs and we’re
all addicted to sadness and addicted to death and addicted to
hatred and we mostly hate us.
We starve ourselves until we can’t stand upright, we starve
until we can see the outlines of our cages and still think
it is not enough, or we eat and we purge and why did we
decide that we wanted to die?
Because we do. I used to be a metaphor
but I’m a malaphor nowand I will burn that bridge when I get to it.
That is, if I haven’t yet drowned.



III.
I want to hold your hand, just hold it and feel you with me
wrapped around and safe and home. I want to kiss your
lips and bite your neck and drown in your eyes,
I want us to **** and make sweet love and sing and
smoke and get drunk, I want us to roll on the floor
laughing and find ourselves on our backs with the wooden
boards underneath us and tears in our eyes, but from happiness
and not this constant sadness, I want love to mean something,
I want to be yours and you to be mine, regardless of gender,
regardless of age, love must be love.
I want us to eat ice cream and pizza and junk food
or healthy food or any food and not be judged and I
want us to live and to love and I want us to
look in the mirror and face our reflections and not
hate what we see, and this is it, this is us.
Do me do me do me, let me be your drug,
get high with me, get high on me, we’re greatness,
we’re power, we’re supreme. We can will it away,
we are who we wish to become, we rise and reign, we
shine and we are stars, we’re supernovas we bring down
kingdoms and we crown ourselves with thorns and twigs,
we’re rulers of ruins and ashes, we burn down temples, we
want to be the best but we think we’re the worst so we
just fake it, fake it all but we are all just galaxies with
potential that is not yet unleashed, we can burn bright if
we only learn how to, we need to learn how to live without
willing to die; we need to learn how to love ourselves first
before we love others and we need to stop hating
and we have scars that might never heal again but can’t we
just accept plain truths and bandage ourselves and move on?
But we some cigarettes and we breathe out the smoke or
we just keep it in our lungs until we burn and until we fall
apart and we’re just snowflakes that have turned to dust,
and we’re ashes that burn holes on the tips of others’
tongues, oh how I wish we could live without burning
scars, without causing pain, without withering away,
without crumbling, why can’t we, why do we all
so desperately want to die and drown and **** and die?
I used to be a metaphor but I’m a malaphor now
and I will burn that bridge when I get to it.
Oh how I wish I could love you and know you
would love me back but our world is so ****** up
and all we can ever do is leave gaping holes and
smoking wounds and salty tears and new ideas
how to die. Let’s change the world, or maybe not,
let’s just find meaning, or at least can we please
forever ever bring down Heaven and Hell
and learn to accept who we are. I used to be a metaphor
but I’m a malaphor now and I will burn that bridge when I get to it.
But then I’ll rebuild it and maybe this time
I will never ever drown.
And I will teach myself to swim and breathe
and live and love, I want to be a metaphor
one more simple and no longer lonely time.