Your violet iris leaves me naked
as your half-cocked upper lip remains stalwart while
a single drop of salt water backlash slips over,
falling to the ruin
where I tear your ventricles and,
blindly,
walk away.

I want the voices
to climb
back inside my head
where they belong

So I am going to strip down,
step to my side of the bed,
climb in,
feel the cold radiating off your back,
and cry.

I’m sideways, middle ground burned and left and right beyond reproach so I take no stand against a stand against anything that might be controversial and those thoughts won’t go away no matter how much I rebel because you instil so much that I never wanted to learn because all I want to learn is that you love me without taking a stand, without conditions, without thought.

I never think
of me in your bed,
but I always think
of me in your arms.

I never know what
you are going to say,
but I always want
you to say it to me.

I came in
just to see
your eyes light up
and I stayed to hear
your voice touch my ears.

I never expect
anything from you,
but I always want
just a little bit more.

Just a little
more of you
to go with
a little bit of me
and a just
a little request:
hold me.

I didn’t expect
to even touch you,
but I wished
I could feel you
beside me.

I talked to hear
my own voice
in the silence
and I was shocked
to hear yours
answer me.

I glanced
in your direction
to see your reaction
and I was floored
when I saw
you looking back.

I closed in for a
simple embrace
and I found your arms
wrapped tightly
around me

And when
you’re around me
I seem to lose
my ability
to stand
on my own,
so I ask:
hold me.

July 10, 2000
I woke up
after passing out
after smoking up
after coming down
from the wa-wa sound
induced by nitrous filled punch balloons

I woke up
after snorting lines of ketamine
coupled with hits of acid and ecstasy

I woke up
after seven people died
from shooting ****** into their veins

I woke up
in a folding camp chair
with a hand wrapped around
a bag of ****
stuffed in my pocket
to a booming voice
telling me I was going to jail.

and I thanked god when they put on the cuffs
that I was one of the lucky ones that woke up.

Condensation and cigarette smoke
filled the air as he leaned against
the hood of the car watching as
she walked through the cemetery
in the early morning, just after
dawn, holding a bouquet of white
tiger lilies, making her way to a
small marble headstone that read:
“Beloved Son, January 9, 2009 –
January 9, 2009”.

when forever walks
out the door, do i
cease to exist?

Sticking my finger down my throat,
I swallowed an entire bottle of them.
I realize life is worth living.
I don't want to ******* die.
I just need to ***** and I'll be better.
They've already been absorbed, I'm *******.
I don't want to go to the hospital.
Where's my ******* phone?  It's just three numbers.
I can feel my heart rate slowing down
Get excited, raise that blood pressure.
and my extremities are going numb.
They're just cold, rub them a lot.
Back to the wall, *** on the ground, unmoving.
Get up!  Dance!  Punch something!  Anything!
The darkness takes me and I have one last thought:
*I only thought I wanted to die, I swear.

I shout your name into
the wind and
like a cool, rolling breeze
at the nape of my neck,
yours returns.

Hypothetically, what if I was drunk
or high or ****** beyond repair?

What if I crushed four 2 milligram Xanax
and snorted them up my nose, hypothetically?

What if I packed my hand-blown, inside-out
glass pipe with good green, sticky bud?

And, hypothetically, what if I cut up some fresh powder
and went on a skiing trip that lasted through an eight-ball?

Or what if I dropped LSD in my left eye just to see the lines
combine and streak by?

But what if I was sober and what if I still felt
the same then as I felt was hypothetically *******?

What If I loved you?

What if you were all that mattered and

what if you diminished all the other ****?

My trip is my way into your life and the road that leads me there is filled with many things, but the psychotropic **** and barbiturates and benztropines and burning hash, I will leave at home because you are the only thing I need to get high.

What happened to us
talking all the time? Always
in one another’s ears, hands,
minds? When did you decide
that my voice, my me, was no longer
worth you? Why didn't you tell me
before you left?
Now I have to track you down and
kiss you one last time so
I can die with you
on my lips.