we both know and accepted the theory of birthmarks, that they reveal how you died in your past life, and the more birthmarks you have only means you've been blessed to be reincarnated as human once again.

it all started when i noticed the birthmark on your neck, and you told me you come up with ideas on how you got it. my favorite one was when you told me it was because you drowned in the ocean, you said it could be the reason why you never learned how to swim because you kept saying you hate the water.

and then i showed mine, which was not as interesting as yours, a shoe-shaped mark on my right arm, i said that i died because i loved rollerskating that i accidentally got hit by a bus, hitting me on my right side first, and yet until now i still love rollerskating, i guess i was a daredevil in the past.

if we ever get to meet someone who has a birthmark we instantly theorize about them, this was our bond, it was what brought us closer to each other.

we were sitting on a park bench, it was winter, and you keep staring at your gloves like it's the first time you've worn something on your hands.
i asked you if you were okay. you hesitated but after a few seconds you took off your left glove and i saw something i have never seen before.

it was a mark, but not a birthmark, if it was then i should have known about it from the start, it was dark and screams violence at one glance.
i wanted to ask what happened but my mouth was voiceless, but you started to speak up.

you said it was a reminder of pain and sorrow, that people who you love could hurt you. you said that it was a mark just like any other birthmarks on your body, only that it reveals how we die in our present and how unlucky we are to be reincarnated as a human who only knows how to love but never to learn.

Big ears
Small nose
Frizzy hair
Chubby thighs
Flaws,
Scars on legs
Birthmarks on arms
Small *****
Flaws,
Flaws are nothing to be ashamed of
They are our hidden roadmaps to places only we really know
Embrace every flaw that covers your body
They make you, you.

Chapter one:

  The strange entanglement of the sun, twisted in kooky bedlam with The Great King Moon in winter.

Have you ever looked down at yr feet on the long walk home & wondered if you’re really moving forward any more or if all your really doing is just moving the ground? Don’t answer that, its a rhetorical question. Of course you have. We all have. You think you’re moving in the right direction, following the north star or the compass in your brain or maybe just your nose or your thumb and fore finger. You  believe that you’re gonna make it somewhere, you have to believe. What else is there. The truth is, you’re going nowhere, we are all going nowhere, we just spin on the slanted axis & never really go anywhere. We have been conditioned to believe that this is the way the world works but I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t, you gotta buck up, **** up or ******* ‘*** let me tell you, yr ‘dreams’ mean nothing to anybody ‘*** living, real living is not connected to REM. That’s all just more ******* you’re gonna have to put up with people trying to sell you. Lick the boot, get over the barrel & bite down on your watch strap. That’s all there is to it. The mind is a magnet. If you find yourself staring in to the abyss: Jump right in. Swan dive. Hold your breath & wait. Everything will be OK. I promise you.

I’m writing, ah writing! Writing this worthless piece of *****// manuscript of means for you. For me, for the future, for love, for lust, for hatred of all things hating, for your mother & farther, for my friends, my beautiful angelic, clinically insane friends, for time, for the soles of my shoes with hundreds of miles under their laces, for your fat greedy pockets, for the moon, for the sun to spit on, for the wind to taunt, as he does like the great cowardly, perverted invisible fiend that he is, for nothing, for not quite everything, for your aching lovers, for your broken hearts, for the worlds water, may you always be clean & run free, for the great biblical liars, for the sorrowful wonder of the great homeless & may all their wants come to be wanted, for *******, for fumbling, for the vast oaken heavy doors on bars that keep us safe from the  horrors outside, for guilt, for sugar-blue smoke, for all the kids sitting in **** stained squat houses with half a horse embedded in their face, for my schools that gave up on a bored child, for warmth & fire & woollen clothing, for Paris where I can fulfil my great dream of becoming a sullen cliché, for the gravel-mounted marching marvel, may you never lose your way, for the Parthenon, for Aubergine, for The Firefly, the swan, bleeding,for growing up, for all the music makers,all people should play all instruments to any degree(rather than just, age & shrivel), for Howl for Carl Solomon, for every down & out that ever clawed his way up the street & through the yellow door, for all the animals that gave their lives to keep me fat & red faced, for Christ sake, for the invisible man in the sky, causing all war & so much death-thank you, for the wild west, for Bert & John, for the great literary mastodon to look down his reset nose at & ask me why. Why?

The way that old dial telephones look & feel. The questions that need no answers. Feeling down, down & out, upside down & inside out,upside in & downside out on the pavement at five am. Waking up in unknown beds & crawling down drain pipes. Getting lost in a place you have lived your whole life. Being in the woods simply to be in the woods. Drinking coffee even though you hate the taste. Never telling a stranger the truth. Living under a false name. Drinking yourself to death in the dark lonely-crowded corners of ***** stained wood floor warehouse floors. Feeling solid-sterling-gold for feeling so terribly horrifically half-corpse-like the only way you can really feel is completely statuesquely angelically magnificent and the only way is down(you really have no idea how far I fell that morning) , Only going out when it rains. Only going out in the dark. Staying up all night dreaming and sleeping all day. Remembering to forget, forgetting to remember to remember to be forgetful. Understanding that you and no one else understands nothing but eat-drink-sleep-****-death. Smoking until yr tongue bleeds and yr eyes burn like that fire in the sky in the fearful month of June. Wishing you knew how to tie a noose & writing ”suicide” on yr calender on a day you have no planned engagements. Shooting to the moon & back in the bee-bop-bo-bo-batter-batter-chitter-chatter like jazz on the neon streets of the earths mother. Crawling in to a stone cold bed after walking for six days & feeling bored & lonely again in ten minutes.

That’s why, I’m glad you asked. If I’m going out, then I’m out going with some steeze in a cloud of smoke, yr wife & I’m not taking you with me.

For all these things & more is the reason I write. To write for the sake of writing. For, some people write, just to write & they are truly the the lost meaning of it all.

Automatic travel rambles to plug up the holes in yr lonesome pockets. Blues.

Chapter two:  

Creeping moss-stick under-flowering the useless but grateful Tuesday poet, Jim Gravestone Sr.

The ghost of the monorail, living only in upturned memory sits slow & smooth/low against the Sunday evening rapture. You gotta know which way is down. Down. The dew on the grass & the creamy-green residue of the night before is just too close to a real drama. Absolute dahma. Down in the cold rising damp & the stain on your shirt.

He sits , sits like you, like me & like old Tom Mooney the prison king. If you ever saw such a sad sight as he, I do believe you would roll out your tongue on the pavement right there & then & wait for the road sweeper & all his secret, early morning charms & the great wolf man, pork chop sideburns (lupine dreams)to clean you up & clean you out. I do declare!

For he knows-for he has seen. Seen the sun rise from his pearly throne up on the dark side of the moon, the very face of Bowie, right there in the eye socket. He sees all. You can live your life, & you do, & you should, but he, O’ he, he has really been there & where & back again. You carry on with your sleepy routine of mule-back coffee office doom death jobs(you sleepy Bohemian, you)  & in you spare time trying to keep your nose from filling up with water & your private parts entwined with somebody else’s most private of parts, & on the side lines of you spare time you can deal with your family & all the friends that you’re sick of but hold on to, only for the fear of being left alone in the dark with nothing but all of the above. Then again you always have your studies(STDS)all of the ologies, of course.

Sleepology, cocaineology,rainolgy, sunology, lonleyology, depressionology, suicideology, talkology,empypocketsology, meaninglessology, masterbationology, coutntingyourmoneyinpintsology,walkology, onenightstandology, jumpthetaxiology, begology, borrowology, stealology,feelology, upallnightology, sleepalldayology, Xology, ologyology, etcology etc…ology etc.

Just find something you can care for ‘*** [insert atheist god/idol] knows that nobody is going to do your caring for you, even I they do in fact care for you.

I have been beginning to notice,that I(and I may not be alone)

always look at the past through a marigold monocle.

This, meaning nothing now ever seems to be joyous or gay or splendiferous until it is a past memory.

A cobweb. A rafter. A leaf on the ground. …I guess.

         Chapter three:

I know you know it but people that you don’t know, really are a funny, funny thing…

I stand outside the rain & watch the people passing by; really the most depressing experience of my ever increasing years. Un-jolly fat men with whiskey-nose & scuffle-feet stanzas of gibberish, talking gibberish & gibberish being their inner most self. Pre-war women with Arctic-blue hair, faces melting, everything pointing down, shuffle. Kids pushing prams full of ugly babies towards a house of who-gives-a-**** & ******* & I’m-gonna-die-here and what of it. Is there really no more to life. Listen to the top 40 on the radio, clueless, oblivious. Cogs. All cogs. Military troglodytes following them back in a dead eyed daze, dreaming of killing in the real and virtual. No you may not have a cigarette. Leave me alone, please. Let me listen to my watch ticking in peace & at least pretend that you don’t exist.

The human body is comprised of several ‘substances’

including..

Mercury,

hydrogen hydroxide,

fountain pens,

the lost dates of calenders,

various small woodland animals,

including…

Voles,

rabbits & field mice.

Other such things as…

Misplaced birthmarks(of the brain)

feelings of remorse and regret,

the stolen trinkets of past lovers,

and of course,

white blood cells,

pesticides,

and the second hand

from a 1956 ’Hamilton Rail road’ pocket watch.

E.L August 7th

           Chapter four:

Last night, last night was the last night it was the night last

Picasso raincoat. Imagelessness. Bottomlessness. I lost my umbrella & my Holden Caulfield head-wear, again. I was skipping on a rain cloud, corduroy boy and scarecrow girl, reunited in a soft entanglement sticky in the senses. Hoof! The only way is up when you walk down these stairs, snakes and blisters, but you’ll sweat it all out in babble cream conversation and love in your eyes. Tell me a story, tell me a story, tell me something to prop my chin up in this brown tunnel. Your name it is something I cant care to remember but of course I never really had a name of my own either, so we shall be the great wonder of the nameless masses, the ones born to no name and never wanted one anyway. A name is nothing but a label, a calling card, call me anything, call me king Charles II just as long as you do call me, the sound of a voice, your voice, any voice reeling off a comprised anagram of the alphabet is enough to get my short attentive ears to perk up and twist my noggin backwards towards the direction of my inbuilt gypsy sonar. So anyway, I was going to talk about something, something great… but now its gone and all I have is bloodshot eyes and sweaty liars palms to prove to the world that I had an idea once, I swear I did.

Here’s an idea for you to dig you heels into:

The world keeps making mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, its natural, nothing to fear, it happens all day every day. BUT, with every mistake we make, we then proceed to learn from that mistake, so.. stay with me here… Once the world, the whole world meaning everyone in it, has made every mistake they can make and of course and one would hope of course, that they have also learned from all of these mistakes; once this has happened, there will be no more mistakes to make, right? Therefore leaving the world perfect as a whole, no mistakes to make, learnt their lessons on every lesson and we can all go on with living a perfect existence, yes?…

No.

I’ve really thought long and hard about it -could never happen, people are not perfect, they never will be, if they were I wouldn’t want to know any of them, and the world, well the world is an imperfect place, and the same rule applies.

But let me hit you with another bit of knowledge to round things off and maybe put a positive spin on things. Hoist ye marrow-thumbs around this;

One of the many few early times that my legs forgot how to use them selves, I was sitting on the pavement, trying for one to reattach these two now useless appendages stuck like butter to my lower torso, but foremost trying to light a cigarette with my useless cold hands and equally useless matches, fearful of the sneaky clear coward, invisible old Mr wind, when a kindly stranger, half my size, red my hair, opposite my *** and now opposite my broken legs appeared like a person will appear when you mind is in other minds, a smile, a sympathetic look and two working hands to fire up the stick in my mouth. I said my thanks, babbled about babble and the generation of gibberish and im sure many other things inconceivable to the sober ear of a dame such as she, the bringer of flame and enlightenment, not of the smoke but of the simple mind, an idea is what she left with me and it never left. She stopped my rambling typewriter of a tongue and said ‘shush’ she held my head in her hands, looked at me straight,so I thought she might be death or god or that I was passing out,she all green eyed and like the woods, looked at my eyes like they were tethered together and dropped the bomb on me, she said ”if you are looking at the moon, then everything is alright” kissed my warm on frozen forehead and was gone into the night, never to be seen again.

That’s all the advice you will ever need, & so ll I will leave you with.

You never left a name, but I never wanted one anyway.

Midnight moment

beautiful rags

midnight joy.


Nevermind your little light,

set apart your golden dreams

that offen break,

& come to play.


Chapter five: There are things I want to write but I am not going to write them.

The End.

‘Stay gold, Pony Boy’

i found a birthmark shaped like Alaska
on the inside of your kneecap,
and i only saw it the day you
let me cross the border;
it was sensitive to my touch,
the moon-like ripples leading
to the needles on the pine tree
in your back yard.
sometimes i can read behind the
lines of DNA makeup,
like the lonely biologist you seem to be,
but your lingo is foreign to me,
tattered words and language deficiencies,
i can hardly follow along the braille
carved onto your outer layer,
the marble you worked so hard to
weather on your own time.
yet, somehow its turned to rubble again.
sometimes i hold an out of order sign
against my breastbone so i can set eyes
straight and wish anyone would light me on
fire,
           (but not literally, i'm absolutely against abuse)
i want the sticks but not the stones,
since wood won't leave my body bruised.
use my transitions for kindle,
and my organs for the flames.
i want to be colored red,
like ambulance lights, stop signs,
painted like a signature to warn others
how my frequencies can only be heard
by animals.
maybe some other life forms,
or god,
but i have never hoped more that
you would pick up on my signals,
my freckles scream out samples
of how this could be
or what we could have known.

Two, of course there are two.
It seems perfectly natural now——
The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded
And balled¸ like Blake's.
Who exhibits

The birthmarks that are his trademark——
The scald scar of water,
The ****
Verdigris of the condor.
I am red meat. His beak

Claps sidewise: I am not his yet.
He tells me how badly I photograph.
He tells me how sweet
The babies look in their hospital
Icebox, a simple

Frill at the neck
Then the flutings of their Ionian
Death-gowns.
Then two little feet.
He does not smile or smoke.

The other does that
His hair long and plausive
*******
******* a glitter
He wants to be loved.

I do not stir.
The frost makes a flower,
The dew makes a star,
The dead bell,
The dead bell.

Somebody's done for.

this one girl I used to be friends with, she was so beautiful and never ever did she see it in herself. I used to look at her though, and I used to wish I looked just like her or had a personality as kind and sweet and determined as her. I used to want to be as free of a soul as her and sometimes, even as guarded. It made me sad a lot of the time because she was so depressed and mysterious to me; her life kinda ****** back when I had first met her. I remember we dropped acid together twice and I told her that if ever there was someone I didn’t want to lose, it was her. And then the following year we had a fall out and we don’t talk anymore. I guess people change and that should be okay but sometimes I still wonder about her and what she is doing now and how she spends her friday nights.

then there was this other friend, who I may have even considered myself closer with but in a different way. We used to sneak out of my house during sleepovers when we were younger and sit on the curb and share a cigarette. we’d talk about all the people we miss and how afraid we were of the future. I always felt like I hardly knew her even though she shared most of herself with me. the first time I saw her cry was terrifying to me, but I didn’t tell her that. I remember how pretty I thought she was. physically though. and physically alone. She had a lot birthmarks that made her intriguing and skinny legs with pretty knees. however, she was mean and usually very bitter. one time she told me “I hate people until they give me a reason to like them” and hearing that disappointed me. I tried the most to be her friend again after she walked away but it was no use.

another friend I had I was friends with since I was six. I knew her from pre school and we were inseparable. I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about how amazing that girl is. I could do the same about how bad I felt for her. she was a friend who I never thought I would lose and I remember we had the type of friendship where our parents used to sign us up to do the same sports (horseback riding, gymnastics). after we stopped being friends I heard she fell off the deep end and was doing a lot of drugs. I got back in touch with her recently however she never seemed interested in hanging out and some of my texts went unanswered so I gave up. when I think about her, I still see my 12 year old self, playing mermaids in her pool as if time had stood still. if any of the people I’m writing about read this post, I hope it’s her most of all. miss you.

These berries are bruises
Fading birthmarks I have still
Fresh from that morning you opened my curtains
Rolled down your window
Promised me honey and a candy-colored life.

These berries are bruises
You made me breakfast in bed.

Too early you lifted my tent,
brought a full spread:
Fruit, toast and black coffee--
But when I tilted my lips
You drunk first of my womanly cup.

Pouring out hot, bitter slick
My lips swelled blue blister
I stiffened under your dead weight,
I killed my tongue.

I tried to keep dreaming of
Hands to knead me
And butter the softness of these
Blueberry scone hips,  

But instead you picked all the berries out
Your greed a mouthful,
The growing woman inside me leavened--
Watching you stain my girlhood,
Popping one fruit bead after another
******* the seeds from my teeth.

we were born with death written on our arms.
you
wear it like a tattoo;
i wear it like a barcode that
god
stuck on the ******.
cashier yells
                         “NEXT PLEASE”
& you try to get laser treatment.

smoking in graveyards the clouds sang.
we
fell in slow pieces.
nobody will recognise the tune.
god
has left us a sign,
sign reads:
                  GONE FISHIN’
i hold you crying in his hallway.






you started wearing death on your sleeve.
i
need a new skin;
you need to get a better shirt.
god
is not a dressmaker
but instead
                       a lover -
unbuttoning the words on my headstone.

Push back that limp piece of hair behind the thinness of your ears
and look at yourself full on, no make-up, or mask, or paint or picture
just DNA,
yours.

I see waves of songs and lyrics attached to flesh, can you hear it?
That transcendental vocal  like a babies cry and a mother tender eye,
a demise too immortal for human opinion.

But I know you hear it too, the other sound of lies that are inescapable
and so pungent it turns milk sour and crushes noses
you take small bites, and pretend to dance
as you listen to that melody as if it was truth

but darling its not truth,
for the acne scars, and full lips, the birthmarks and stolen hips,
flat chest, and dent of skin, is beautiful to me cause I see what's flowing from within

I laughed in places
   Where Laughter was not asked for,
     In granite market towns
       Beneath refugee palm trees shivering.
                                    

Running from giant hands
That were covered in car wash fluids,
   The back of children's heads imprinted
     On their palms.

I laughed during disciplinary procedures,
  Before authority figures
    With cornflakes in their red beards
       And my laughter crept over the edges of their flowerbeds
         And the grass laughed with me.

I laughed at funerals,
The sounds of horses beyond the churchyard
   And a messenger ran down the aisle
    panting and exhausted,
     He had a message for my laughter
      ' Quick you must come at once'.

I laughed during marital feuds,
Laughter rising out of its own body
  above broken guitars and dried up bonsai,
   Above all the things I said
    That contradict me now.

I laughed during serious films,
The tulips drooping on top of the T.V.
   The sun slumped against the door,
     Behind heavy curtains
        I mistook for pigs on hooks.

I laughed over exercise books,
Above algebra and history
  Behind impossible bra straps
    That appeared out of acne and ink flicked backs.

I laughed at the swimming pool
Hiding birthmarks like stains,
  Drowning above the water saying
   'I am a fish I must get back in!'.

I laughed in surgeries among migraines
and told my mother that robots were taking over,
  in the same rooms where they removed my brothers' verucas
   And I saw the doctors small blade
     escape through the window.

I laughed during friends confessions,
In between the silences of repeated songs
  While pantomime dames walked past windows
     make-up running in black and yellow rain.

I'm laughing while making coffee in a campervan,
I'm laughing because its a monday morning,
  Because everyone else is busy,
   Because we have an oil lamp from a pound-shop
    Burning beneath the sound of rain on the roof,
     Because the radio's silent…..

And because sausages are best done slowly.

i knew you had a hard farm, where the livestock was stoic and the hills less harmless.
you had wolves that would breathe down your neck. and weeping willows made of funerals
and ***. U knew you had an old world view of birthmarks, where life is stampede and riddle
and lost art...
i knew you had guns, and an April of dead suns... a humid dementia of lecherous guile and innocence.
a distinct remain.    [ a loose cherub in the Wednesday...]  
a bowl of fruit and tyrants
catching spark.

i knew you meant no harm that a legion of crossed charms could reason to decimate my reckless.
you had rules that had deeds, done in the name of nameless. a thing, pillows dread.

the soul of your soul is the spot spotless; a dowry of feathers and blood

and yes.

I dare you to close your legs, button up your shirt, fasten your bra, put a locker on that zip and see if they will stay,
the parting of your legs should not be the only conversation you are meant to have,
collecting your bra straps or looking for lost earrings on the floor should not be the only time they bend over for you,
as if the only time you deserve worship is only after you have screamed home coming in their ears.
The dimples on your thighs and the fabric of your hair should not be the only time they learn to pronounce your name,
there is more to remember of you than the scars you left on their backs,
that is not the only time you know how to hold on tight,
you have held graves on your wrinkled forehead from the day blood came gushing, unarmed for from your womanhood, a tragedy from which you are yet to recover,
you have held far more important things, far more important secrets, far more important names than the birthmarks under their arms,
there is more profundity and wisdom to your being, your family name, than the disentanglement of your lower lips and the ruin of your own flesh.
There is more to you than the wetness of your womanhood and your hardened *******.

Pocketbook

Transformational intercepts,
messages to the brain.

Time babe, it's time,
to take a next step.
change the bulb
to a higher power.

100 watts insufficient to light
the forward motion of a
Great Leap Forward,
like in a prior writ, when,
limitation awareness
was a borderline crossed.

Like learning to walk without tottering;
We probably don't know we passed a line,
invisible to ourselves,
but all clear to everybody else,
on that special day, one,
that just came and went:
when you could no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

We were accessorized with body parts
most useful to make our way thru life,
but our exterior-designer
neglected to provide pockets knowing
full well that fashion acessorizing
was more that just a way to carry tools;

Individuation, maturation, needed,
a way to communicate I've arrived

Ain't no child no more,
double negatives
a thing of the past,
cause once you leave the
comfort of the abode with
handbag corpuscles inhaled,
from that day onwards,
you could no longer:

Walk these feminine streets,
leave home,
without a pocketbook,

Judgement day becomes
Every day, nowadays, so,
when from the cave you emerge,
and face the world:

Gonna need what ya gonna need,
to negotiate the way through,
don't matter what's
inside your handbag
or your head,  
if you are eight or
eighty eight,
you know,
you believe, you need
in handbags,
as much as you believe in god

I am incomplete,
my body undressed for all to observe
If I walk down the street
after that day,
that came and went,  
when you could no longer
leave home without a pocketbook

Amusing ditty,
nah that's not my speed,
this is a treatise on
serious matters,
when changes in our lives occur,
when we earn a stripe on our sleeves

Pilgrim progress to
a feeling of vive la difference!
who I am is not who I was,
awoken from a previous dream,  
marks on my body will come,
some wanted,
some unwanted,
some happily dismissed
like the curse of braces

Free at last,
free at last to forget
a painful child's past,
sometime it's losing,
sometimes it's adding on,
but for sure, the day I changed,
was the day,
when you could
no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

Oh boys,
don't think you are excluded
from this rite de passage,
I'm one of you and I know
what we kept secreted
in our over stuffed wallets.

Ain't referring to our student org. card
or the emergency folded twenty
Dad gave you in case,
somehow you got
on the wrong bus and
ended up on the
wrong side of town
where bad things
could be found,
somewhat more easily.

Like the comic book store,
next door to the tattoo parlor,
next to where the
Nice Jewish Boys
where never supposed to go,
and the Stars of David and crosses
were removed discreetly prior to arrival,
like Portnoy foretold in
Technicolor detail.

I know you well recall
that bar mitzvah party, school dance,
When the bottles fell to the floor
unbroken, spinning, pointing to you,
When you realized it was that day,
When you could no longer
leave home without a wallet

Times they don't change
all that much,
and pocketbooks now called
Handbags I am told,
and year old babies play
with iPads like they were
born knowing how!

but I ain't impressed that much,
cause I know that it may  
come sooner as the world changes,
there still,  always be,
a day of  painful,
transformational,
generational passing,
when indelible, invisible
birthmarks somehow
became both visible and erased.

Though they may
come different ways than they use to,
in case new parents need guidance,
**It is still that day when
their little girl,
can no longer leave home
without a pocketbook

fall in love with someone
who treats your scars
like birthmarks

Dear lover
By the time we fall in love i would hope that you will have already learned my name, but just in case you havent i will tell you. My name is danielle lauren shorr. danielle like some ancestor i never met, lauren because my mom liked it, and shorr like the beach. I like the beach. No more like love the beach. Maybe almost as much as i will love you. I like the sand between my toes, the way the wind blows through my hair and makes it an ugly mess, i like the way pigeons search for any trace of food like its all one man for himself and this is the hunger games. I like food. But at first i might be embarrased to eat in front of you, i can attribute this to my history of insecurity and that ******* belief that girls are supposed to order salads on dates. But fear not. Because i hate spinach and fries with extra cheese are my favorite, and soon enough i will learn to embrace it. I will always want to embrace you. To hold you, to be close to you, i have an overwhelming need for touch. But a slight fear of intimacy. I will be afraid at first when you try to get close to me, i will put up my guard and attempt to hide my battle scars and everything i dont want you to know about me yet, ive been hurt before. And i know im not the only one on this earth who has been. But when i tell you that i want to get to know you i am telling you that i want to memorize every part of you like the way i used to stay up at night as a kid memorizing lines of books. I love to read. I love getting lost in the words that someone else wrote that so closely manage to speak to me. I want you to speak to me. When you are struggling or lacking in anyway i will assure you with 100% certainty that things will be okay. I will pull you out of pits of depression with every muscle, bone and limb i have in my body, i have not always been comfortable in my own body. And thats been a cause of my own depression. So when the day comes when i give myself to you, i am hoping that you will remember that every part of me is devoting itself to learning you, i want to learn you. I want to trace the lines of your skin, connect the dots with your freckles or birthmarks, play silly little games and hope you let me win, i will let you in. But only if you let me. And theres parts of me that arent my brightest, i will have days where i will be unable to see anything but darkness, i want you to hold me regardless of what i say, or my stubborness, i am stubborn. I am a taurus. When we fight i will be a bull, strong in my pride and unable to see any other side of the argument, i will tell you this right now: give up. unless its important. I want to feel important. I will want to be included in every part of your existence and when I’m not i will get annoyed and ******* and demand to be the center of your universe. I will act like this because i want to feel like i matter. Like i am matter on this earth so important that if i disappeared even for a mere second the earth would crumble and fall into pieces. And if i crumble and fall to pieces, i only ask one thing of you. Do your best to help me back up, im not asking you to put me back together but to try your best to keep me from breaking even more. And when you break, know that i will be here to comfortyou. To hold you. To tell you that i love you. to make you laugh at the most innapropriate moments about the most innapropriate things, to make life seem a little less painful, and a little more bearable. I will do my best to help you stay your best. And if we end up not working, it will be okay. Because nothing will matter more than the love i gave to you when it was good and if in the end it doesnt go the way we thought it would, well, we'll be okay. But if it does. If this love stays, know that i will love you and give you every single day i have, i will make you remember why you decided to fall in love in the first place, i will make sure to make you feel okay, i will always make sure you're okay. if you're having a bad day, I'll be right there with you. I'll be here now and forever.
Sincerely your future lover.

We are not defined by skype or video calls
or text messages or distance
and I won't let those things change us
or the lack of those things.
I miss you like hell
and I love you like heaven
but that doesn't change the fact that
this gets ******* difficult
or the fact that I get mad over nothing.
I know we are different and I know
this is worth it.
I know we seem crazy, insane, even unrealistic.
But I don't care.
I love you I love you I love you.
It's worth it because I know that someday
you will find the birthmarks that cover my torso and the scars
that cover my hips
and I will find out the way your spine curves and how your
voice sounds when you get out of the shower
and the way your lips part.
These frantic wishes fill me up
and swallow me whole.
My love for you saves me and sinks me
but when I'm down at the bottom, I find you
have not left me.
Despite the number of texts we send in a day or the
number of times I hear your voice
I will love you.
I will love you more than I hate the miles.

You're an anomaly.
Your frizzy hair
And strange birthmarks
Give off a less than fantastic impression
To the shallow.
You are soft spoken
You are obsessed with fan fiction.

I hear that you write...

I know that you are
A home schooled super-christian.
Maybe that's part of the reason
For my lack of understanding.

You are an alien
In my socially awkward agnostic world.

I  want to see you in the daylight
Morning blues creeps onto your birthmarks
Eyes are so very bright
Your hair
Wrists
You.
You own yourself now
This is very important
Please love yourself
Please please please
Listen to me before my voice turns into an insane wild howl
Hitting the highest notes, disappears and I gasp for breath please listen
You are your very own
This is pretty much all you have.
Your belongings consist of two ardent eyes, stretchmarks,
Arms, legs issued by a pair each.
Your mind
Whatever is your every thought
Whatever you believe is true, simply
Because you believe it.
It’s all yours, this is you.
It’s all up to you.

The moon woke me up for the third time this week. The white light always looked pleasant on our white comforter surrounded by the dark sky and empty room. As badly as I know we need curtains, I can’t stand the idea of buying new curtains for an apartment that couldn’t be more run down.  I turned over and watched your chest rise and fall as your body remained in its C shape.
I know your skin. I know every inch of it, the feeling of your five o’clock shadow, hidden birthmarks with freckles due east and west, the scars, and the stories that go along with each one.
I tiptoed over to the linen closet, hitting creaking floorboards between every honking taxicab on the avenue below. When I grabbed the accordion door handle, I could hear you rustling in the low thread count sheets.
“Come back to bed.” you said while yawning away last night.  
“Go back to sleep.” I let out some anxiety filled air with my words.
An ambulance and the Doppler Effect ran past our building, numbing my senses with the moment we were parallel.
“Why is every day a melodrama with you?” you sat up.
“Just please, please go back to bed” you were right, but I didn’t feel much like talking.
“I just can’t stand this much longer Natasha, I can’t stand living with someone who won’t talk to me.” Your voice faded and you stared into the moon’s beam of white light. I wanted to hate you for everything thing you were saying, for propelling me into his bed that night, for you changing and losing your luster, because we aren’t, and haven’t been what we used to be.  
“Just close your eyes, and just fall back asleep, it is really just that simple” I said firmly, hoping it would put our communication to an end. I stood at the linen closet for five minutes, pretending to look for a blanket that wasn’t there. I tiptoed back to our bed. Your body was as flat as a plank with your chest to the ceiling and your hands by your sides. Your eyes were open, and your skin hadn’t changed but I couldn’t match your eyes to my memory.

Honey Pickle.
  I can't let you go alone, into the night.
  Leaving me here bathing in fright.

I didn't mean to not listen with more care
  Oh Honey Pickle I will not even let dare
  Thinking of my life continuing with you not there.

Dearest wait and please please slow down.
  Speak once more and I beg you to turn around.
  She stopped. And then she slowly fell to the ground.

My darling Honey Pickle wept so loud into the night
  Minutes of anguish and sobbing were sounding her fright.
  I would stay with you if paying more attention you might.

I dared not turn away and let her go
  I put other things first and she seemed to know
  My attendance to her was something I did not show.

Her sobs they fell from her mouth to the earth
  Sad sounds revealed betrayal from me was what she heard
  I flew down the stairs and out the door like a bird.

I ran to the spot where she crying laid low
  I then realized complete attention to Honey Pickle I should show.
  That was the only way a life long love could ever grow.

I stared at Honey Pickle to the skin of her neck above her back
  I lovingly saw the birthmarks that reminded me of my lack
  Of attention to the details of of speech that I had seen as black.

When you love someone like my Honey Pickle focus on words
   Make sure you hear properly and respond right to what you heard.
   Listen. Listen and Listen, and remember them even if slurred.

If you have your own Honey Pickle nothing else matters.
   If you want your future secure and you heart not to be shattered.
   Keep your lover's heart intact, don't leave memory in tatters.

I was born with birthmarks etched onto my skin
And I’ve acquired many scars
From all the battles I’ve fought with myself
But it wasn’t until you came marching into my battlefield
On your white horse
Disguised as my knight-in-shining armor
That I gained the title
“WARNING: MAY HARM YOU”
Put onto my suit.

I’ve received medal of honors
From barely escaping the war zone
But never have I ever received an award
As charming as this,
Especially when it came from
The self-proclaimed commander-in-chief of the red army.
All the false pacts we’ve written before
No longer matter,
And it only took a couple of months
For us to forget the promised truths.
You know I only meant to save you,
To leave you unharmed,
And you meant the same for me
But instead of standing side-by-side
On the trenches we’ve built together,
We landed on opposing fields.
I claimed you my savior,
Yet all I get is the title of WARNING?

We’ve written peace treaties before,
We were allies once upon a time,
And you thought I was the princess;
You wanted to swoop me up
And take me on a ride on your stupid horse that can’t even gallop correctly.
You thought I wanted the crown
And all the glory that came from being royal.
You didn’t want me up on the front with you,
You needed me safe, I know,
But I can fight for myself
Even if it’s you I’m up against.
So give me my glass slipper now,
I can put it on myself.
Give me a sword instead of this plastic tiara on my head,
I don’t need your hand to get me back up,
So don’t offer it
Unless you want it cut off
And returned to you on a silver platter.

It’s funny how things work out,
How they never go the way we ever want it to,
And I swear
I would’ve hid my armor a long time ago
If I hadn’t known that this would turn into an all-out war.
We slipped and tripped
And came running back full-force
But betrayal happens every so often,
Our backs were turned towards each other
And I could say the steel from this knife I hide under my dress
Slipped
Like we did
And fell onto your back
And I could say that I tripped
On these glass slippers you gave me
But they’re both false truths
Like the pacts we wrote before.

So forgive me
For being a back-stabbing princess
And go on,
Call me and label me as a warning
Stamped with your approval,
And I swear
I’ll wear it with
Honor and pride
Like how I wore your heart on my sleeve once upon a time,
And I’ll have it etched onto me
In permanent ink
So it can stain my pretty skin
Forever and ever.
Just like my birthmarks and my scars,
It will stay with me wherever I go,
Until the day I die,
Until the day I’m buried six feet under
With all of my past mistakes.

Go on,
Warn other people
About how much harm my presence will bring into their lives,
But it’s not like I never warned you either,
So don’t act like you were hurt the most
After the whole ordeal is done.
We’re both as bruised
And scarred as the other;
Don’t act like the victim here
Because you injured me as well,
Or have you forgotten?
Did you forget that you left me alone
Without telling me?
Did you forget that you gave me no explanation,
No written apology?
Have you forgotten that?
I can’t say that I blame you,
I would’ve left me too
If I had the chance,
But because you so blindingly placed this title upon me,
I will wear it honorably
Because of this war
Because of you
That way others won’t have to get into my battlefield
With false hopes
And wild dreams
About saving a princess dressed in all kinds of dresses.
I’ll meet them up in the front,
And they will see me
With this sword drenched to the hilt
And with my white armor
Stained scarlet
From the blood of those who’ve betrayed me
And they’ll see you as the warning of what they’re about to get into.

I want to be inside every girl you ****** before me,
show you the birthmarks you never noticed
shaped like canoes and rocketships.

I will get her chest to rise, then fall,
steal the very source of her breath and curl my fingers
around it –
into dough, how you never could knead.

I have my hand on her throat
because you hated when she would talk.
We could work together, tie her hair into a knot.

I just want to be inside the girls who have intestines
like cotton candy and ******* like watermelon
explain why you should
have loved her as a woman sometimes.

You say you prefer my skin, and the way I whimper
but maybe you just did not
**** her hard enough.

The human body is comprised of several ‘substances’
including..
Mercury,
hydrogen hydroxide,
fountain pens,
the lost dates of calenders,
various small woodland animals,
including…
Voles,
rabbits & field mice.
Other such things as…
Misplaced birthmarks(of the brain)
feelings of remorse and regret,
the stolen trinkets of past lovers,
and of course,
white blood cells,
pesticides,
and the second hand
from a 1956 ’hamilton railroad’ pocket watch.

I won't write of the "L" word or that I'm feeling sad
This poem is not about the horrible day I had.
I won't try to inspire you with philosophical prose
Or tell you about colors of flowers like a rose.
I want to confuse you
Amuse you
Abuse your mind
your thoughts maligned.

With poetry you undress yourself layer by thin layer
Each word, verse, poem or page reveals who you are,
where you've been, how you've been treated, your reasons for despair.

Birthmarks, bad hair, too fat, too thin
you hide your shy smile, or a big toothy grin.
Eye color, the size of your nose too big for your face
imagined only by you but these thoughts have no base.

To others you are beautiful, funny, amazing,
confident, conceited, smart, loyal, sincere.
Against your own knowledge or impression
all these quirks to you others endear.

It doesn't matter what part of the world you are from on this Earth
Even from thousands of miles away through poetry we can evaluate your great worth.

Thank you for sharing yourselves with us
For enlightening our lives
Thank you for giving us your perspective
and with each word making us realize

For you life is ... something different ... than it is for me.

© 2012

you are a painter
and i am a
blank canvas.

paint a vivid
picture for me,
for us.

make sure to fill
my eyes with
the wonder and the
curiosity and the
infatuation that will
be present when
i see you for the
first time.

leave my hair
messy because you
are going to tell me
that you like it
that way someday.

include all of the scars
and the birthmarks and
the little wrinkles on
my skin that i hate,
because you will tell me
that you love every
little thing about me
down to the smallest
freckle on my cheek.

pay attention to all
of the little details.

you are a painter
and i am a
blank canvas
waiting to be turned
into something
beautiful.

and the glacial
pace
of god

your fingertips glide across my skin;
tracing the curve of my back and
all the faults that reside thereof.

scars,
dimples,
birthmarks,
s t r e t c h marks.

these little imperfections
appear to be not just here,
but everywhere
on my godforsaken body.
they are all so uniquely diverse,
yet i find myself loathing
each and every one of them.

your touch sends
a sudden shiver racing down my spine,
as if a wire were tied around it,
sending electric waves throughout my body.

i can feel the goosebumps forming,
and the familiar chill that comes with them.
they spread [across my body] like wildfire,
making them a contradiction.

my pulse quickens,
and i find myself feeling restless.
as the night goes on,
i cannot help but give in
to the terribly obscene thoughts
that i have for you.

A broken screen door creaks my name
An invitation my ***** ears know
The voices behind it all the same

The flickering lamp strives to stay
In this dusty, sleepy home
A broken screen door creaks my name

A memory in each carefree stain
At the rotting table where I eat
The voices behind it all the same

In the dead grass I play my games
Dirt clings like birthmarks to my feet
A broken screen door creaks my name

At night, on my shared bed I lay
Staring at the chipping door
The voices behind it all the same

Bug infested and near the shore
I don't know how to wish for more
A broken screen door creaks my name
The voices behind it all the same

I will search for you in my little toy boxes
filled with old ancestors and sayings slipped from tongues, revealing stories of my birthmarks
I will search for you in the light
I will search for you in the dark

I will gentley remove my skin
in my mind you are so royal
so monarch

I will drink my water
all alone
I will light my candles
in the late night and imagine what would be the smell of your cologne
I will stare into the world at night until Im
****** and moonstoned

I will linger wax inbetween thigh bones
flirt tales with wishbones
until all the stars beg me to stop
uttering moans

I am beseeched in interlocking strangle
of submission to my loneliness
and waiting with a white transparent dress
on the bridge of london
hoping to see the dark eyes
that put light in the souls of the peasent in my
disabled heart, mused in desguise

should I sit here and speak the anecdotes
and the lies
of the littler girl inside of me
who everytime thinks of your dies
slower and slower
each time

the goodbyes
and the standbys

I reply
I have ran out of supplies
to fix my sunrise

and now I sit here in the absence of bright skies
life I see takes hold of the wise

but you see my lover
for you I shall be patient
I shall be humble

and I shall be kind.

I want to feel known. I want to bring someone home and tell them about how my brother and I used to live in elaborate mansions in the trees.

I want to drive them around my home town and tell them of all the places I got heartbroken and all the places I ran to hide and all the places I smiled at the sun believing I could never go blind.

I want to tell them of all the friends I've had and how I miss some and am scared of others, to tell them of how theyve grown while helping me grow too.

I want to show them the home I grew up in and how I thought it was the best place in the world, surviving tornados, fires, and sadness but we lost it to the lawless.

I want to show them my birthmarks and all the constellations and myths my grandmother wrote about the stars on my skin.

I want someone to know every curve of the letters in my name. To be able to hear me in my quiet, see me in my dark, hold me in my cold, and love me in my despair.

I remember when I found her in porcelain
cracked. she shivered the shell until she pierced
out a tiny foot – a baby’s foot.
five fingers and toes were revealed at a time,
but then came bursting out her head: all-black
eyes, large and quaking. skin as pale as the
egg she split from. but instead of wafty locks,
she had soft brown feathers, flowing from her
widow’s peak to the small of her back.
besides that she was a perfectly normal
child.

i grew her up in town, with the other kids.
i fed her what i knew: seeds and corn and the
occasional peanut butter pinecone.
I made her a nest of blankets every night,
and she sang me songs goodnight and
we always slept soundly and unthinkingly.

she grew up quick though, and soon came the days
when you send your daughter off alone
to school. she was five and I was thirty eight,
and I was the one terrified. most other girls
don’t have feathers, especially this young.
I offered to shave her spine, but she refused.
she crooned that she was born in an egg,
and she didn’t care who knew it.
I was frightened for my beautiful bird-child.

schoolday came, and off she went, dancing her way
to the moaning old bus. it puttered off
in a smoggy wheeze. the sun sulked some miles
before she slowly staggered home, without a
backpack, shirt torn, blood rubbed on her knees.
I asked her what happened, and she never told,
saying it would only make me dark and bitter.
but every morning she still hopped her way
onto that bus, with her bright smile and ******* eyes.

I couldn’t take it. one day I followed
the bus on my bicycle, and visited
her school for the first time. it was large and grey,
like a cynical stone with bunch of windows.
I roared in, asking where she was, attendants
voicelessly pointing in any direction
but the right one. I saw her on the playground,
lanky kids pushing her, bony fingers grabbing,
trying to rip off her telling birthmarks.
she screamed, shouting that she was a child, too.
they asked if children came from eggs, if children
ate only seeds, if children had those things down their back.
she said that this one did. they all laughed.

an angry boy pinched a long chestnut feather
and pulled; she wailed a song of aching.
I jumped in to rip him off but he wouldn’t let go.
the feather stretched longer and longer,
four feet, five! her body bucked and we fell over.
her feathers spread from her spine, wingspan huge
and she glowed a stunning yellow-pink.
her black eyes shimmered, looking at me, apologizing.
I ran to hold her, tears on my cheeks, and she
held out her hand, no. I asked why and she said
goodbyes are too hard this way.
before I could ask what she meant, she sang
I love you
and exploded upwards. her wings stroked lightrays as she
burst higher. she went straight to heavens, and just
when I thought she was out of sight, she spread her feathers
and her silhouette erupted on the sun.
I waved, and saw her white smile glow from her grand shadow.
and off she danced, feet playfully poking at clouds,
with regular birds gliding beside her
and regular children watching below,
her boundless black eyes unjudgingly
gazing at the world running beneath her.

she was my bird-child, and I was her father
for a brief period. I wonder where she is nowadays.
whether she found others like herself,
others who didn’t care. or whether she’s still in the skies,
dancing with the stars, her ten fingers and ten toes
wiggling in the blue, feathers proudly spread, singing.

I have sticky skin
it's too humid outside and
looking through the bathroom mirror
into myself I think my
veins are sticky too
and maybe the blood in them
is too
I'm not sure
does moving blood make
your heart rate faster

all you people
u r losing it mummies frick the mummies
spinning in circles in Beatles boots
     C     I
S            R
E      L    C
of throbbing pulses
brand new birthmarks on
necks of people
why so empty
vacillating back and forth like miniature
seconds seconds of time
time like
breath marks in a piece of music
BREATHE beFore YoU dIe and it is over
the 'it' has yet to find a definition
this is a rhetorical question
why did you leave?

for lacy clothes under cotton
pants bought somewhere on the beach
in MuMbAi covering
a gentle sloping navel
u ppl
feeling nothing
like a rubber band snapped
on a leg covered in jeans
snapping a rubber band against my wrist
until it is red

feeling things
lips are stained with coffee
and my teeth taste sour
of caffeine
this is the song of the
Lost oNe

my arteries burn less now and
breathing without
laying backwards on the carpet
comes easily
lOsT OnE hasn't changed
but I
have