they're faded now
red crosses and red lines
like traffic lights guiding the drivers
gang signs littering the skin the lights are impaled on and theyre disappearing
leaving the yellow metal a dewy gold
almost orange like the crimson never dissolves
instead it
absorbs
soaks into the fixture
mottling the cracked skin and sealing up the fine lines with microscopic lesions
turning ruby black and back to ruby and black and back to ruby and black and back to ruby
drop drop drop drop
smile and black and frown and back to ruby and black black black black black black black black black black black black
black
black
black
black
black
the lights are burned and the scars won't scar
and the skin is black and the blood is black and her body soaks in the black and she is black black black
and she doesn't know how to get the ruby back

winter lips
press into her memory
bones aching with the fever of remembrance
quiet words raise half lipped appeasement
mostly scarring scars scar her mind but occasionally words stir up like rosebuds of alphabet soup
spelling out novels of repeated notes
picture picture picture
click click click
half lipped winds
greased strands flap loose flap in the loose whipped winds
white comforter white blanket white snow white southern comfort white south
corporate and government city lights counting monies
greased oil slicked back hair scalps scalped dentists appropriating native american hunting tools
scalped girl appropriating brown skin
winter lips kiss kiss kiss
from root to tip toe down the hallway to scar thighs
thigh highs soft like southern comfort white south and the blood is red
but red blood cells are combatants of white blood cells like
winter lips are combatants of
her thoughts

chaste pecks from the super-sonic youth
numb lips flutter to the hollowed cheeks of normality
no longer the hand-prints on the guide book to hostility
a pamphlet of rudimentary teachings;
the principles of tolerance and rebellion and acceptance of human beings
a concoction of suppressed psychotic behavior, quick wit, and center of satirical tease
constantly moving with heavy footsteps and heavier hearts
their minds and bodies plagued with actions from a deserted youth
soul lusting over the naivety of people before self-actualization; how crude
do they call it an existential crisis or the daily life of a agoraphobic nobody
shouts from the depths of caged fears that scrape the oblivious flesh in their brain; a bit gaudy
mother, sister, brother, father how your words crush the knots of comfort that line my internal organs
bleeding from the pores of my screams; streams of moon-beams shooting out my eyes; oh, not again!
stomping our metaphorically spiked toenails against the idealism of pop culture
oh, my, how adolescence is the worst kind of torture
cherry slushies lined with cigarettes to create a whirl-pool of nostalgia
recreational drugs and ironic situations to ease our instinctual sense of proverbial nausea
loud-mouthed demons spawned out of clothes-hangers and emotional turmoil
show up in our nightmares that we nick-name ‘a good place to contemplate suicide’
repeated imagery stacked like flap-jacks in the mouths of blissed-out sociopaths
too self-indulgent to include us in to their personal stories so we can observe, record, and assess
i don’t perceive doctors to be particularly and predominantly just and true
but i one time met a doctor who told me ‘being a teenager is perhaps the hardest thing you could ever do’

who are we
in god we trust, the ruler of a nation bereft of purities
corrupt ink in the capsule of a human’s casing
wages printed on the stoic faces of our leaders, blood and gore imprinted on their eyelids
spilling our incoherent tangle of words into songs and pleads for relief
we are spitting images of our mother, and her mother
iodized wounds that stretch to our finger-prints that they deem must be caged and stamped at all costs
our wrists are battered and tied with the rope of our pride
and our pink flesh is swelled up with their brand freshly printed onto our skin that reads, ‘you are nothing’
nothing but chains of forgotten children abandoned in rusted swing-sets
children who’s screams are full of hot air like the balloons that loiter about our minds
the balloons that burst sharply in a staccato beat when bittered thoughts contaminate them
we are children who press our fingers into our eye sockets and scavenge around the recesses of our minds
young hands damp with drops of the dreams that cascade down the pores in our bodies
the drops that empty into the gutter that encroaches the territory of our bones
pushed back dreams like the rotten tomatoes that stink of moldy desperation in the grocery store
memories melted into perfect formations like a drill soldier with a stone-cold face empty of temerity
memories stacked up like all you can eat pancakes that drape over us like an everlasting blithe
they leave vague impressions of naivety and sit despairingly upon our caged ribs
they cower behind closed doors and occasionally peek out from the clouds of illusions to say,
‘are you happy?’
but they disappear with cruel inspection like a fading smoke because we don’t dare to discover the truth
but even still we harbor desolation-spiked weapons that secrete through the same pores that piece us together
we are the ripest of onions, a scintillating mixture of strong scents and spirits
and the moment we realize this we try to scrape the walls of our binding
try to peel ourselves of the revolving emotions that we have been programmed with
and as our wrinkled layers flake off, we learn a bit more about how different we seem to appear
until we are nothing but a sun-dried core, who has found the truth only to move never-more

the droplets of water are singing a trail down the bricks of the houses
through the alleys of the glassy-eyed broken people with soft hearts, a pre-disposition for death
weaving a tabooed trail across the sidewalks that when gazed upon reeks of obscurity
and leaving faint lines on the creased skin of all the sinewy fatalities
the mildewed rain peaks across the rusted windowsill that sighs with familiarity
it sloshes against the children’s playground and slaps at the pavement with a sudden clarity
it empties itself into the spiked maze of the tree branch hoping the leafs will cling onto to it dearly
it mellows into a pond that breaks apart with sharp staccatos when mushy feet run down the street
and it hurls itself into the bitterly sweet lips of two frost-bitten lovers who will soon meet
it daintily steps into the burning embers of the flame, only to be flushed out in shame
it turns to the shower as a last resort, but whines in dismay when it’s slurped down the drain
it embraces the eyelashes until it’s shaken in misery and then watches wearily as it’s blinked away in positivity
it lumbers down the path of the bruised ego, a shattering of phrases that leaves the person’s mouth
and before it has the chance to drop it is scooped up and chastised until it moves no more
the tears and the rain drops wander listlessly for all of eternity
only to be hastily thrown away or brushed into cotton for fear of a restless divinity
it is never to reach a destination and only doomed to be forgotten
and so it seems dear friends, that raindrops are simply you and me