I'm afraid to write about you because
Ink makes me feel everything,
And everything feels so much more real
When my cursive words smudge up against
The side of my hand and stain it blue
As my pen races to keep up with my heart

But it can't be real,
Because I thought I was moving on,
I thought I was growing up,
I thought I knew all of this was
Foolish and starry-eyed

I thought, I thought, I thought
But maybe I need to stop thinking
And just let myself feel;
Feel the butterflies you put in my stomach,
Feel the pure bliss you infuse into bloodstream

And maybe I don't need to know everything,
Like exactly what you're thinking
Or exactly how I feel
Or how all of this is going to turn out

I guess what I'm saying is that
Everything isn't always going to be clear,
I may come up to "two roads in a yellow wood"
And not be absolutely certain which one I'm meant to take,
But I do know that whichever path I choose,
I'd like to be able to scan the trees and smile
Because you're there walking alongside me.

Scientifically, we are made up of a combination of atoms that somehow resulted in spinning minds and thirsty hearts, soft skin and aching bones.

I heard somewhere that if the atoms of an object could spread far enough apart, we could pass through anything.

If we are merely atoms, I suppose I spread mine so far that you passed through me.

You came through me, you hit my bloodstream and God was it a rush.

My atoms reacted with yours and it felt like they started to merge into one.

I felt you become a part of my spinning mind, my thirsty heart, my soft skin and my aching bones.

I spread myself so far so that you could really see who I was and before I knew it you had passed through me.

My atoms are tinged with specks of yours and I can't get you out of what makes up who I am.

This is why I miss you with all that I have.

I don't know why I went to the park that day, to be honest. But it was as though the idea was contained in the center of one of the anti-depressants that I swallowed that morning, as though it was released into my bloodstream along with the rest of the ingredients that usually bring me a sense of peace (on good days), as though it bloomed like a vine that weaved through my capillaries and consumed every part of me. Once it took hold of me, I couldn't rid myself of it, so I succumbed to it. As soon as the bottom of my sandals made contact with the soft dirt of the playground, goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin like every memory bursting through my subconscious. The last time I was here, my shoes never met the ground, because you carried me on your back like a child and set me down gently on the tire swing just inside the entrance. I walked slowly towards the swing, envisioning how we must have looked that day. My hands clinging to the chains supporting the tire like they held tightly to your heart strings, my legs kicking from beneath me as though I were splashing in the waves of every ounce of love that poured from us, and my hair flowing in the breeze with the same ease that we existed in each other's presence. Your hands pressed against my back and pushed me higher and higher, and although I was swaying several feet from the ground, I had never felt more safe. I could hear your laughter from behind me and the soundwaves wrapped around my chest like a parachute that I knew would carry me to safety. I felt drawn to the swing once again, so I lifted my legs over the tire and wrapped my hands around the chains once more, rocking back and forth slowly. I closed my eyes, allowing myself to feel the rythym of the swing throughout my entire body. But my meditation was interrupted by a familiar sound that seemed to be gliding upon the invisible fibers of the light breeze that was softly kissing my cheeks. The sound wrapped itself around my head and entered my ears, filling them. I opened my eyes to see several shadows walking in my direction in the distance. The trees overhead were offering them a cover that they slipped quietly beneath, but within seconds, they stepped into the sunlight and I caught my breath. You were among them, and your head was tilting back in laughter, and your hands were moving gracefully in front of you, and your feet were walking swiftly as though you weren't wading through a swamp littered with my memory. And that was when you saw me, and if I hadn't been looking right at you, I wouldn't have noticed the slight twitch in your smile when your eyes met mine. But you didn't miss a step, you never did. Not even when you wrapped your fingers tightly around my heart and then shattered it into a million pieces. I couldn't remove my gaze from you, from your graceful and unaffected presence. I couldn't even register who you were with because I was so focused on the way your tongue slipped effortlessly in and out of your mouth. And if I wasn't mistaken, you slightly lifted your head in my direction as a nod of recognition, but you kept on walking. And I kept staring, because I always seemed to be the one clinging to something that was already gone. But it was in that moment that the vines in my bloodstream dissolved and I suddenly felt free from it all, as though it was my purpose to revisit the place I have replayed in my mind a thousand times only to replace it with a new memory. And it was in that moment that I realized that all you would ever be from now on is a memory, an empty tire swing swaying in an invisible breeze.

I hate how your memory is stitched onto my veins,
I spent all day in bed trying to scrub you off my skin,
I spent all night trying to escape these shadows,
I can't seem to allow myself to let you walk towards the light,
I'm waiting for something that's never existed,
It's so cold here and I can't feel my heart beat anymore,
It's so loud here and I can't hear myself think anymore,
I spent all year hoping to stop this feeling of regret,
I blame myself for all that pain you conjured,
The creature in my bloodstream chews me up,
I can't feel the blood flow through my veins anymore,
I can't hear the strange voices anymore.

Don't do that, babe,
don't tell me I'm not trying.

I swam through 12 oceans and drowned
in every single one of them but
each time the water swept into my lungs
and the fish started swimming
in my bloodstream.

I spat it all up and went on swimming
'cause I know I can't face another day
without you in my mind.

There will be no life rafts
and I will definitely not pop in the middle of the ocean
like murdered bodies in crime scenes.

I am a ****** sinking ship.

I promise you
I will make it to shore alive, though.

I. Your touch is like bones breaking; unforgettable, and breathtaking.
   I know that normally people don't associate love with broken bones
  but even when you cause me pain, I am still so effortlessly in love.

II. On the day that you made me yours,
     you rekindled a fire in me that I thought
    had long since died.

III. And in those eyes that resemble speckled emeralds,
      I see a future brighter than I could have made for myself.
     The feeling is treacherous, to love someone more than yourself.

IV. The thought of you lingers in my bone marrow,
      and it doesn't leave, not even in sleep,  
      you live within my bloodstream.

V. You ignite a fire inside me,
     hotter than I knew was possible in relative existence,
    and every day I burn for you, slow and consistent.

VI. Sometimes I wish you would strip me down
      and love me like a limited resource,
      like I'm a priceless medal, or gem of iridescent hue.

VII. You're the type of guy that gets me to put my phone down
        and that's an accomplishment in itself.
        you're more interesting than the internet, and that's romanticism.

VIII. Your kiss is like electricity, but instead of electrocution,
         you send shivers down my spine,
        and put the sparkle in my eyes.

IX. They say that home is where the heart is,
      and before I met you, I'd never been home before,
      you are my home.

X. I've run out of words to tell you how much I love you
    so now my next mission is to transcribe a new language,
    to do just that.

To get together, you wind your watch
But time only exists when you stop
You pause and collect all thoughts you forgot
Add them up on your mathematical clock
You spend all your hours hypnotized by TV
But the outside world don’t like you drugged
Tambourine man’s stuff is laced and empty
You lose your edge every time you turn the key
The beast called rock and roll’s in your bloodstream
The twirling snake just turned into a tree
The magician’s waiting with a sign-up sheet
The herds of birds are flocking to the scene
And there’s a door in your dusty ceiling
God and the devil are playing poker there
You tend to meet both in your fragile dreams
Which one is which, just flick the light switch
When did being happy get weird
Beneath the moving clouds and the fixed stars
In your heart you know there’s something better
But never mind, I’ll see you at the bar

there is this drug in me, swimming inside my bloodstream, kissing insanity away and forming sunflowers on potted vases, in to vast gardens. I can't stop it. sometimes, when I don't consume it, it rips through flesh and wriggles itself in, tickling me until I dissolve in to fits of laughter; and then it would usually pick one of the sunflowers and ask me to take it for a dance and I would, oh I would. I think about it every time I wake up or read a book or breathe; some days when it's quiet I would still sense it's touch but very faintly, very softly; I can't live without it though, not ever; even if it couldn't come in some days and plant it's sunflowers I'd still need it; I wouldn't want those sunflowers withering away without it, and that drug I need swimming in my bloodstream and kissing insanity away and gifting me with sunflowers is, yes, you.

**You.

When she told me she loved me
I didn't believe her.
So i killed myself instead.
A fairy came to me & whispered enticing secrets in my ear.
He outlined a closet upstairs
where I live alone inside my head.
Tidal waves of white roses grow in & out my of spine.
Suffocating the fishes prancing in a field of raving vines.

Lunar Lullaby plays hopscotch in a cloud of flies.
She licks cherry red ice pops & sings bird hymns to oak trees withering in the wuthering skies.  
Swarming dragon-lies fly in lakes upon Monet's canvas.
There he paints a beauty of Thumbelina whose grave resides in the darkest corner of my empty heart.

A red cape looms above & flutters without wings.
My cave is growing vaster
And so I sail amongst its seas.
This Psychosis is no more wearing thin than Rigor Mortis can begin.
I'll live sedentarily as a maid serving rotten apples to men chained as apes.
A lotus will float on by down this bloodstream & into the night.
As a crater on the moon your corpse died suddenly as when fruit bloom.

What a beautiful world, so fragile and fertile
Pain filled the void when boy met girl
He’s a puppet to nature, one year later
Now so deeply and sickly in love it makes him hate her
The average romanticized American relationship
Sinks, capsized when either side becomes a slave to it
Conditioned, dependent, afraid to be alone
He needs that feeling that he can’t create all on his own
He despises the fact she has a life outside of him
It drives him crazy to think she’s not insanely consumed with him
Give her the guilt-trip and maybe she’ll quit living,
To stay behind his prison walls and lose all individualism
Well this is happiness, masochistic torture
Played by the decadent, craved of affection
The needle digs deep to push contentment through his bloodstream
And drown out hollow, the pothole of a ******
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If he could only hear her sing, he wouldn’t want to break her wings
But emptiness has such a warm, subtle sting
She makes up for what he lacks, trapped,
He can’t imagine life without someone like that

We’ve rediscovered the long-lost art of dying
Only the lonely resent angels for flying
Twisted, living off of each other’s sickness like parasites
This is paradise

We’ve rediscovered the long-lost art of dying
Only the lonely resent angels for flying
Addicted, afraid to take control of my own life
This is paradise

What a beautiful world, emotionally destroyed
her became plural when girl met boy
Between several breakups and plenty relapses
Routine bred-comfort led to serious attachment
Now every once in a while she forgets to breathe
Terrified of losing him, paradise is misery
Too much faith in the life-saving knight in shining armour
Now her knight’s noticing the scars she can’t hide any longer
But they were her story way before he was
It was gross hope to think he could heal such deep cuts
At first it felt so right but after one too many fights,
He turned out that hallway light and all the wonder turned to spite
So they sleep in the same bed with guns to each others’ heads
Dead to romance, boiling the blood that painted roses red
Suffering from post-honeymoon disease, bleached through
His whole existence, she’ll die if he decides to leave
Addicted to the way she feels when they spend time together
Detouring the now in a childish attempt to find forever
Despite the fact they hold each other heart to heart
You can’t be that close to somebody without being so far apart

Silence, the most obscure sound I’ve ever heard
Those lonely, giant spaces in between your every word
And maybe, I’m totally crazy for holding on but
Just *** I’m insane, don’t mean that I’m wrong
Now that you’re gone I can’t sleep at night
I barely even function right, my memory’s on overdrive
Too hungry and too cold to cry
Miss the companionship I once took for granted
The way you helped me manage, the partnership that vanished
But I don’t expect you to stay chained by the ankle,
There’s so much world to see so, fly free my angel
I’m dying without you, but it’s teaching me to live
Heaven ain’t something someone else can give
It’s all inside of me.

By: Eyedea - Paradise

Where I was, was bad,
But where I am is worse.
I feel like they’re taking away who I am,
Filling my bloodstream with anti-depressants,
Forcing me to become someone I’m not
Someone I don’t want to be.
The fact remains that my sadness defined me
Struggling against the medication
Desperately attempting to hold onto the part of me that’s me
Wanting so badly for my days to mean something
Instead of the same bland depressing schedule I face everyday
The pills do nothing but supress my suicidal thoughts to my subconcious
So I'm forced to fake a smile, one unlike any other.
This one is to keep them from increasing my dosage,
And I'm scared.
I've never felt so alone
This is what I get
For asking for help

Inhale, feel, lets the flavors collide.
**** it down if you can
Every taste from your poisonous gauntlet
Reminds me of me your kiss.

Passionate, I keep sipping.
I love you more than I love myself.
You have become the reason I breathe,
And you will prove to be the reason I die.

My skin under my eyes loses color.
It is tired from the things you have thrown at it.
Trying to combat you is a lost cause.

In those moments,
I look into your brown eyes
And try to find something weak
Something human.
Your blank stare frightens me
As it is comparable to a demon, the devil
Devoid of remorse, or guilt, or sorrow.

Your words cut deeper.
They are the IV in my veins
They penetrate my skin
And invade my bloodstream
Yet, I continue to hook their machines
Up to my comatose body.

I have gone from having a bright smile
To wearing a perpetual look of anguish.
You have aged me ten years.

I stare down at my hands as they tremble.
My eyeballs have sunken into my head
I am a ruin of anything lifelike.

It is a defective disposition
But can it be cured?
An addiction is a pleasure is a curse
That grows as you feed it.

I must cut myself off from you, my lifeline,
Completely.

I went from a lover to a liar in a heartbeat;
the flip of a switch as soon as I heard I could get what I'd been craving.

The jolt of electricity through your bloodstream, the feeling of being alive with your senses on fire, the ability to seem untouchable: superhero like even...

Almost nothing compares in that moment, but in the afterglow, when your cape begins to lose its wind and your heart starts to slow, nothing feels worse than pondering it's destined finale.

Discovering your conscience, all the while knowing that no matter how much you love someone, the poison always comes first.

It's a terrible reality, the ability to choose.

And I always choose wrong, down the path of the chemical adventure, knowing that at the end, I always inevitably fall off the cliff.

But it's an obsession: being on top of the world, and no matter how much time passes, or how far I think I've come, she always wins.

It's the slow onset, the clarity, the peaks where everything seems far better than it actually is, but now the dream is over.

I need to let it go or it will consume me; living in a false reality, locked in to my need for perfection.

She used to calm me and make me godlike, but now I've fallen from my pedestal and upon looking up, I see she turns me into the monster I've never wanted to be...

Hiding, in shame, from the soul I love the most. I wish I could tell her, divulge all of my secrets, but the fear of the disappointment on her face is too much for me to bare.

Because I know she could help me,
if I would just tell her the truth.

Dazed.
The stars never seemed so far away
Lying with hopelessness sleeping next to my pillow
In the arms of seclusion, still I lay
After a long night we formed a *******
No strength to pray
Withing my carapace
I inquire a reason
Of why I'm so numb
Where is my lighter?
Concealing my pain
Where is my grinder?
When life is like a sudden rush of fresh air to
A raging set of flames
Savagely searching for an euphoria
But it's the impossible to maintain
Longing for an escape
Only in sweet serenity
But when 5 fingers deadly hugs your heart
& wrings out your
Innocence, happiness, and tranquility
You are forced to watch them leak
Decrepit
Reaching for a lighter to blaze the leaf
Because in the sober mind
You Are Weak
No that is me.
So I begin to pollute my temple
Taking it all into my bloodstream
With the exhale of a breath
In the mist of a cloud
I release my exhaustion
My emotion and my temper
Enhancing my inner being suddenly,
I know with facts that I am steel
Making it through another dreadful night
My wounds are temporarily healed
But
When there was no soul to console
No arms to hold
No pen to make art
No illumination from the dark
Only the flame that I flick
Which forms so beautifully &
Dances in front of my eyes
Offended that beauty could destroy so ruthlessly
A killer in disguise
Or ruthlessly be destroyed
In this life full of void
Consumed by the misery of all the screams
All the noise
When the Sun's job is done, it hides from the World
Full of hatred and pity
Another night comes
Captive in these four walls
No where to run
Now I'm forced to look at how far I've come
I could have died in insanity
Arson my soul
Plead guilty of ******
A Killer Upfront
If I had not match all those nights with all those blunts


                            Copy Right 2013
                                 ©Patty Ann

Loud and all around i hear the bells ring
I am but one cell being pumped through the bloodstream
Pushed and shoved side to side
Too quickly with haste to even cry
I clench my fists and close my eyes
Feeling panicked i want to hide
I see an opening and duck inside
My fists un-clench
I relax my eyes
My heart stops racing as i have arrived

i still straddle the fence on this
immigration reform manifesto

i see both sides of the story

it's good to have the grandfather clause
for the immigrants in my bloodstream

- the scrappy scots-irish-ingles-welsh
in me - but too late for the cherokee

behind the old fences of history.

r ~ 11/9/14

acceptance is something we all wish was contagious,
but true acceptance comes from a heart that is filled with patience.
fingers tremble as dreams race through your bloodstream.
trying on different clothes and attitudes makes your body ache and turn,
outside is an identity that isn't yours which feels as bad if not worse than a peeling sunburn.
"don't." you tell yourself. "don't give in to the personality you've thrown in the highest corner upon the highest shelf.
it's gone.

(j.a.r.)

~took a walk in the city today,
and this happened in the O'Henry traditional way~


the blind man crossing E. 15th,
does not look, nor does he care,
all foes on-coming,
come hither, he dares

his light is red,
yet his cane extended,
he click clacks steadily ahead,
unaware and unbeknownst,
his new step by step sidekick,
Sheriff Natty,
is writing an air poem to a
taxi driver with his
shotgun *******,
a NY gesture of
welcoming *******...

a green light means passage
is a taxi's right,
but my left shoe firm
attached to his bumper,
plus multiple looks mine,
any of which could ****,
his argumentation poses
do somewhat chill...

the sheriff of the city, his motto,
sic transit finger gloria

~

among the sadder sights
of city life
is contrast...

the dark-only coolness
of an Irish bar,
on a bright spring day
when life and love
is bud sprouting
while old white men,
on single soiled solitary stools,
their colored cheeks green
from the reflection of
TV emerald diamond fields,
sipping many pre-game $3
Guinness draughts

around the second inning,
they switch, onto
boilermakers to make
the languid afternoon stretch on,
this I know for sure,
for in the large gilded mirror
behind the bar,
see the barkeep's back asking me,
"what will it be for you
this fine spring day?"


~


next to the bar, in the corner market,
an old man's hands tremble in an old man's way,
in a way I only know thru his testimony,
as he does his daily self-feeding,
his wallet removed, fumbling for two
single soiled solitary one dollar bills.

the shopkeeper's fingers
beat the counter impatiently,
the old man's beer brown bagged,
transport ready, though the old one
rather be next door,
the extra Dollar saved causes
a last minute delay, shaky fingers,
asking for an extra purchase,
a small can of dog food please,
so he can watch the game at home
and share the same meal
with the man's real and best,
and only true spring weather friend

~

the mayor proclaimed as a matter of
public safety, public decorum,
a pack of three or more woman
wearing all black Lululemon athletic wear,
were now banned from being outside after nightfall

later this night, in Carl Schurz Park,
many vamp(ire) voices were heard
singing the lyrics to
"i want to do bad things to you,"
but they staked him only
to a free color reeducation

~

these takes I witnessed,
all or some,
these tales I took
some or all,
from beneath my skin,
where city streets grit
injected beneath my skin
came with the title,
City Boy,
and honored me
with its O'Henry life and lore,
and the vision to believe what is
in my bloodstream
just another true tale of life in Manhattan.com~

The color of those sadistic green eyes still burns in the back of my mind.
The soft texture of your cheeks molded into a frown still lingers on my fingertips.
And I could never forget the smile that held steady as I fell for you.
Do you remember when you told me that if you were stuck on Mount Everest and could only call one person, you'd call me?
I remember. Because you said you'd guarentee that you wouldn't even be there without me.
These memories pierce through the cast on my heart and I'm forced to face the fact that my heart isn't healing as fast as I thought it would.
My tongue tastes of morphine from the many nights of trying to forget you.
More so, trying to forget that you're doing okay without me.
Do you ever reminisce or has the ink in your pen forgotten my name?
A toxic love, part depression part anger, a poisonous concoction, somehow so addictive.
You left traces of sorrow on my skin that sinks deep to my bones and flows through my bloodstream.
A bitterness so strong it shakes every muscle in my body.
I could never forget the way you controlled every fiber of my being.
I remember the butterflies that once danced in my stomach, but they've been replaced by a tornado.
An unforgiving whirlwind of reasons why I will never be good enough for you to show remorse.
I will never be worth the apology that you could never admit I deserve.
You taught me how to soar, gave me wings so I could fly.
Feathers made of clouds until they dampened with the tears of a solitary night.
You were never sorry.
Indifferent to the scars on my flesh that screamed your name, caused by the pain you brought me.
You can't erase the wounds by telling me to be sorry.
Seeking repentance for the blood you sought after.
You found delight in my pain, a serpent attracted to my weakness.
I could never forget the smile that you held steady as I fell down Mount Everest.

-k.d

I am empty.
You have taken every last word,
every phrase,
every letter,
every whisper.
They all belong to you now,
locked behind your weary eyes.
I can only hope that you keep them safe.
Because they are the last parts
of me that are still alive.
They are all that I have left.
And now they keep you alive too.
They are the warm mug of tea
on the mornings you feel weak,
and they’re the words that leave your mouth
when you feel too scared to speak.
You’ve ruined me.
Every last bit.
And this cavernous heart refuses
to drink deeply, for it knows the blood that
filters through it no longer has your touch.
You’ve ruined me, and I am empty.
But you are filled.
I am empty,
but I will be okay.

You are my morning cup of coffee,
My hot, steamy, caffeinated beverage made to wake me up,
I sip you,
Bitter,
Some sugar to cheer you up?
I dowse you in vanilla cream…
Any better my darling?
How come you are so nasty?
Not a morning person either?
Well I can't blame you,
Why do I think I drink so much of you?
Because I like you?
Well I do,sorta, the effects you bring to me are quite uplifting,
I shake,
Nervously,
Oh you startle me and delight me,
I feel comforted as you break open into my bloodstream,
My body on fire and ready to start my long and trying day,
Maybe we can get through this together,
Another cup is what I think I need of you,
Whether bitter or not we can make it through,
So my little cappuccino, so frothy and frilly,
I want you to know that I need you,
Like to start my morning, my every morning
Whether you are just black, or a venti latte with skim and carmel syrup stirred inside,
Or else I be stuck in bed all the time
There be no you to keep me awake or alive,
No reason to go outside and try,
No motivator, no mover, just me living my days on my own,
How terribly depressing I must add,
So I'll keep you company if you keep on stirring my brain with your caffeinated ways

I have been told that a love left untouched will never disappear; that because the corrosive oils from our fingertips have not dissolved its coloring, it will, theoretically, endure perpetually. This love, left in its shrink-wrap casing, looming over the heads of the meek and the caustic feels like a scarlet letter hidden behind the robe, a feeling so foul none are to know but, Oh, what if it begins to fester, there in the moist dark?

This worry had been sitting in my stomach, churning with the bile and swallowed blood, coming up acid in my throat; I could feel it radiating out. Thought: it must be nuclear, must be radioactive and glowing, eating through me one layer at a time, but love –this uranium longing– has a half-life.

When first the reaction began it boiled and popped like lye on skin, singed off my eyelids so I could not help but see it there. I found myself woozy from the fumes, a high I had never experienced before so I inhaled, let it torch my lungs and leave me gagging. My hair began to fall out. I was soggy from the chemotherapy, tried pumping this bitterness into my bloodstream to remove the evil that already existed there, unaware that they were the same entity. It could not survive on a diet of itself and obsession, and so it began waning.

An exponential decay, the intensity of this passion varying directly with the frequency of contact and inversely with time, yet it will never be gone, entirely. It will decrease incrementally every time I say good bye, every time I see scarred knuckles, every time I want and he does not. I have counted the days since the day I counted on him and he was accountable and the number is growing larger and getting more difficult to remember. I have scribbled it onto scraps of paper and it has only browned the edges, no longer burns all the way through, and this love –this radium affair– has been losing its toxicity.

A million poems seeking light, I haven't attempted to write,
Create waves and tides in my bloodstream day and night,
Demanding to make them heard blending  words that inebriate,
Before I forget them and chase  other butterflies in my garden.

I feel guilty about my choice of words to weave, later sometimes
Couldn't get the emotions I try to express,in my poems,right, regret,
True, there is no democracy even in my choice of poetic subjects,
Disorder could be  the suited order in making my inner world speak.

It's as if I am some other guy when I write, my heart's real prompt,
I don't even insist to be perfect,an inner voice wants to speak it's truth,
I am stimulated by a creative lust and in the frenzy of inner coitus,
Forget even myself,it's a  race towards ****** and strongly I  *******.

You are the systole to the diastole
Of my four-chambered cavity
You are the pulmonary rhythmic control
That fills air to my capillary.

You are the Pituitary Gland
That drowns my bloodstream in dopamine
You take my brain to a wonderland
Drunk and overdosed in Seratonin.

You are the only Mitochondrion
That powers all cellular activity
My Cytoplasms are in motion
For the sexiest Golgi Body.

You are the ultimate synapse
In my every granule of neuron
That gives an involuntary prolapse
To both my dendrite and axon.

She's got her eyes on her hand holding somebody else's
and she's got tiny planets stuck on her tongue

She doesn't understand how nice his hands felt covering hers,
how it reminded her of cotton fields
Funny how he has cotton candy smiles to match everything else about him

He makes her want to shed her skin twenty times
until she's clean enough to touch

But he also makes her want to grab a syringe
and inject some insulin into her bloodstream—
The whole thought of him frightened her to catatonic
and she knew her diabetic heart cannot handle such sweetness

She wants so much to let go of his hand
but he would smile and he would laugh and he would be
heavenly
and she would hate herself for ruining this

So she watches on at her hand holding somebody else's
and grit her teeth to the tiny planets exploding in her mouth

My mom told me when I was thirteen years old, that friends can really be enemies in masks and you won't notice until you're crying in your room at two in the morning because they said something that cut so deep that you think you might bleed out right there. She told me to stop talking to those people because they're going to destroy you, or even worse, they'll make you destroy yourself. What she failed to mention was that getting the poison out of your blood is so much more difficult than anyone will tell you. When I was thirteen, I brushed off her warnings and told her things weren't like that with us.  I wish I could tell myself what I know now, because it's always easier to quit before the poison hits your bloodstream.

Darkness suffocates me.
Ever-present blackness fights to enter my bloodstream
Worming its way through my pores
While tendrils of grey fog claw at my eyes
Obscuring my vision

Suddenly a light appears.
The tendrils retreat,
Skittering into the surrounding shadows
White fire circled by a hazy purple brilliance,
Floating in my direction

A positive thought.
Possibility
“I am a good listener.”
Corny, yes
But I like that
For a moment, I like me

Connection
Brilliant fire envelops
Light radiates from within me
A supernova, I shine overwhelmingly
Before collapsing in on myself

With the light gone
I lie in darkness,
but not despair.
Glowing dimly,
A flickering ember sits in the corner

Hope

Deny it; it makes no difference:
the American government pitches its deceitful realtor-reality to the world:
flaunting our flag as the banner of the free, but avoiding
our faults and failures as a country.
“Oh yes! We’re rollin’ in the (borrowed) bucks!
We’re a proud superpower capable of chaos; calamity!”
Well, kudos on your catastrophes: we all know it’s a hollow show.

See, we’re slaves to China, bound by China’s chains
to billions of dollars, the deficit deepening daily.
And who’s to blame?
“Not I!” says the Democrat.
“Not I!” says the Republican.
“Not I” say I, but we
weaved our financial woes together.
It’s not stupidity; if we could see into the future, we’d be shakin’ our money makers.
But have you seen the current fiscal guillotine
whose blade looms low and approaching our throats?
Oh, irony of ironies: the American government isn’t free.
Oh mah gee.
Freak out!
Calm down...
Forbes informs me that federal spending spurs private sector growth.
But when fifty-four thousand buckaroos from you
and you
and you
and me too is just enough
to cover Congress’ **** until the dimwits there do another... (insert something dumb),
it’s time to draw the line.

And time to erase lines previously drawn:
George Washington warned us once before:
“...the common and continual mischiefs of [political] parties are sufficient to make it the... duty of a wise people to discourage... it.”
Yet here we are: the media’s reporting majority wars
that serve only to sail us further offshore from Pristine America
and a time when things really seemed to matter, especially when they did.
Deny it; it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t change
our chances of escaping another Cuban
Missile
Crisis. If we waged World
                               War
                                            Three, what would we
                                                       do?
                                                               One
thing: debate, procrastinate, our fate
a fragile plaything fought over
by infantile, full-grown fanatics who never quite phased out of high school debate.
They never learned to lose, and so they play the inane blame game,
I say quite frankly: gurl. Dat cray-cray.

Dear Democracy, when will my words hold water?
When will the weight of a rainbow OREO or a
monogamous monotone monotheistic chicken sandwich
on my guilty conscience be lifted?
Must I muster a hungry lackluster life in the land of opportunity
to oppose tyranny
and uphold justice? I turned eighteen last December,
but for as long as I can remember
I’ve been voting with the dollar bill, my ballot
traveling through the bloodstream, fueling the body of big business, who fuel the daring charities, who fuel their bills in congress.

Democracy, do you know me?

For this faux-democratic nation where the population waits for the government to lay itself to waste, the Founding Fathers sob, disgraced.
                                                       Oh, God Bless America!
the nation where when faced with any
[man, woman, child, intersex, genderqueer, etc.] who dares defile the status quo,
accept the stigma like a crown of thorns, on top of all the scorn
                                                                    We The People
donate millions to “charities” who dare to speak for
Jesus,
the meek and mild. John chapter eight, verses one through eight:
he drew a
fine line in the
sand, man:
it’s where your rights end and mine begin. Irony, irony: they are as good as
mine.
For this faux-democratic nation where the population waits for the government to lay itself to waste, the Founding Fathers sob, disgraced.

Bleed into me with your all;
You're already alive within my bloodstream

If there were a formula
for the way her lips seek out
for mine while I am still attached
to those of a boy,
I would plug it through with
the determination
of a scientist, feeding it
back and forth through the
machines until someone
could give me an answer.

She visits me
in my sleep, bleeds
through the walls of
our separate dimensions
until she finds a way
into my heart. From there,
she rides my bloodstream up
into my brain, she puts
her hands on my controls
and guides my dreams

through to her childhood
home, where she knows
I'll fall in love with the gap
between her teeth and the way
she practices the word
"kindergarten"
when she thinks no one
can hear her.

I could never find her
through the keys
of my Macbook,
she calls to me
through typewriters in
store windows, when I think
I've lost her, I go into bookstores
and flip through the pages
in the poetry section until

teasing

she gives me a word,
just enough
of a puzzle to hold me
until next time. I think
when it's completed
it will look like her freckles,
the eyeshadow she spreads
over her heartache, the lipstick
she wears to feel like a woman
on the days when she needs to act
like a man, if I were a man.

I'd no longer be captivated
by the mysticism
of their skin. No longer see
the revolutionary twisting
through their spines. But
if I were a man, I wouldn't have
the same parts as my lover.

Maybe then
we'd be
just different enough
for me to tell her
how I feel.