I'm the ***** *******
your mother
told you about.
The creeping evil ******
with the boxcutter.

I'm waiting at the station
for the lone cow
separated from the herd
to walk by.

So I can lash out with my boxcutter
and paint the world red.
Nothing makes me smile
like that little exhale of air
that escapes
when the throat is cut.
Nothing feels better
than bathing in the blood
of the so called ******* innocent.

Watch yourself.
My boxcutter and me are lurking.
All we ever do
is lurk, and wait
and cut up cattle.

You aren't careful...
You'll be next!

ah, love,
you're a walking tribute to anarchy
and i love to hear you preach -
boxcutter lips wrapping around
the holiest words of blood and viscera,
rage and fear
that clench in the throat like a diamond called from coal.
in the name of the lord you drink the sun
and the burn is familiar,
an old friend
the father of the righteous fire
that drives you to drag down the sky,
or drag up the earth -
anything to approach
empyrean heights:
in your sermons you scale mountains to break into heaven,
dragging your scars
behind you.
you break glass just to prove that nothing lasts.
every manifesto is another gospel
in your holy book,
your promise
that promises mean nothing.
love me like a miscarriage,
hold me like a cancer -
prescribe diamorphine to the world
and watch it choke on numbness.
those who fear pain
deserve to feel nothing at all,
you say,
those who fear pain
deserve to never die.
bestowing the world with
the worst curse you know.
boxcutter lips
ripping words to shreds.
molotov eyes
and paper lungs.
your paper-lantern lungs
shine through your back
and you smother them with cotton to **** the sickly glow.
the sun you swallowed is still pooled in your lungs,
and it shines like a blasphemous joke -
green light in your sick midnight,
a burn to rival your molotov eyes,
your righteous fire.
you live like steel to forget your paper lungs.
brothers, sisters,
have you heard the good news?
you won't be the first to die.
of course not, love,
we can all see the collision course you're on.
walking tribute to anarchy,
you're crafting your own doom.
{oh, but i'll go down with you, love,
i'll carry all your scars for you
and blow out the sun in your lungs -
let me show you, love,
what i can do.
let me show you how sick i can be -
i've a twisted mind and i'd like to prove it,
like to take all your scars upon myself
and burn down heaven
if they won't hear your sermons.
i am your weapon so wield me well.
i am your weapon
and together
we will bring the heretics
low.}
ah, love,
you're a walking tribute to anarchy
and i want to watch you suffocate
when your fire burns the last of the oxygen.
your footsteps are ashes and broken glass
and i follow
close behind.
you scream
and curse
and cry to heaven
and i smother the sun in your lungs.
in your sick midnight sermons,
heaven pulsates like an open wound
and i stitch you up,
keep the gangrene from your gospels.
ah, love,
in your throat
coal turns to diamond.
rage and fear
behind boxcutter lips.

Unpacking
is a daunting task.
Take clothes, for instance.
Every slice of fabric has rubbed you raw,
taking skin cells and hair cells and a facet
of the person who you used to be.
You (and he and they and we) are layered between strings.

My love

is as beautiful as I knew she would be

silver, rough, sharp in only some places,

and she takes a bite from me every time I cry.

She understands my woes,

my fears,

and wants me always to stay.

She bites a little deeper, sometimes,

after I've been away.

How did we get here?  We were happy once,
before the rumors and the prying eyes, before the guilt.
Is that why you ran?  Our friendship bloomed into something more
Now you have snuck away, like a thief in the night

Your silence fills the void between us, suffocating me
I know that you feel it to but always act so nonchalant,
as if you never left, never told me that I was overwhelming you
Was I really that bad?  Were all those sweet words just lies?

Now I don't know what to do around you, I can't hide my pain
or anger at the gaping hole in my life that your absence has left
******* you.  You said that I was the voice in your head those times,
the one that stopped you from doing it, made you put down the blade

So what am I to you now?  How can you give up me/US so easily?  
Dispose of me like the others in your past--you said that I would never
be one of your mistakes, the ones you try to forget.  My heart is strong,
stronger than your words that night, stronger than the walls you punch
when you're mad, stronger than that boxcutter under your bed

You say people never change--I say that you refuse to see the change
that we made in each other.  Refuse to accept that it can be better, that
people are far from perfect, but they can always strive for that pure moment,
like a runner practically hurling himself across the tape at the finish line.

I'm trying to learn to let you go, accept that you can't be anything to me,
with me, anymore.  Maybe it's just me, and I know that I have my faults.
But it's also you, and your inability to let yourself be loved, to busy dwelling
in the past to accept a happy present, or a promising future.

The roofers are done with their day
So off they went on their way
But they left somethings behind
And wouldn't you know I'd find
When in the open box I took a look
And my hands they sure shook
I picked it up and put it down twice
**** my favorite vice
But I made a promise, so the Boxcutter had to stay
It was better that way
But I wrung my hands
The thoughts in my head where all crammed
As I paced back and forth
Like a tethered race horse
But your only as good as your word
Over all the other voices in my head was heard
My grandfather was a wise man
So like always on those words I'll stand
Done with my work day
I just walked away
I didn't make that awful slip
But my hands on the wheel had a tight grip
I wanted to do 80 but i could only do 65
Another promise that today would survive

Tell the people that I love

that I'm sorry.

Sorry that the wounds on my skin will not be healing

sorry that my eyes will never be opening

sorry that the mess I leave behind requires a cleanup you can't solicit from me

sorry that I won't apologize anymore.

It feels like every time I pick up a pen to write

All that comes out in the light of day is sorries.

Maybe I should write poems in the dark

I wish I preferred the dark

but in reality all the dark means is another missed opportunity

at telling someone I love them.

I don't even know who I'd say it to

but maybe myself

if I ever got over the fear of rejection I will imminently face

staring at the mirror

whispering the words until love turns to hate

and I **** in my stomach and wipe off my tears

and I give into the headache that has never left my mind.

Tell the people I love that I was sick,

and I was angry,

but I'm done with all that because the minute my boxcutter met flesh the anger and the sick gave way to scars

- I am a master at making scars -

and ebbed at the shore of my life,

my life is the sea

AND I AM DROWNING.

Eons ago when I would spend time with friends I felt empowered and happy

but now when I do I realize that I am no longer new or shiny or even worthwhile

and my friend's crossover into being just an acquaintance kills me every time

even though I am waiting in line

to end the tortuous tiptoeing myself.

Tell the people I love

that I am not sorry,

just at rest,

sitting beneath the dark shade that death provides

steadily freezing to death in a bath tub full of ice because

ANYTHING is better than you making me feel like garbage again.

Tell the people I love

that screaming at my grave

would be better than bringing flowers

because at least I could have something real from you.

Tell the people I love

that love is not a race;

you don't need to be first to be winning.

Tell the people I love

that I know they love each other

too much to spare any love for me

and that's okay.

Tell the people I love I won't get in their way.

Tell the people I love I won't apologize

for this.

My memories taste like medicine
use a boxcutter to carve your lovers face into a wall
I want to be wanted I want to curl up inside you like a parasite

if it were so simple
to backspace myself
     into oblivion
              than
I’d have done it
long ago.
      where words
             and pills and
your boxcutter
would never hurt
     as much as
              living.

i was an awful liar-
especially when it came to 
my parents, their eyes 
always on me, drinking my presence in
their sole daughter. 

i didn’t think
of them when I sat on 
the sofa of the tattoo shop
waiting.

soon, we were ushered in
who wants to go first?
seeing anxiety flicking over my friend’s face,
i volunteered. 

laying down on the table, 
I thought of my mom
who got a tattoo on her ankle when she was fifteen. 
she laughed when she told me, 
her and the tattooist chain smoked as he worked. 

are you ready? my artist asked,
extending his forearm in a stretch. 
a large tattoo of the Buddha stretched around it
smaller tattoos filled the rest of the space. 
i breathed out a yes, 
stress rippling through me as the machine buzzed
into life. 

i focused on the smell of the room
sterile, clean- 
all things I felt the opposite of. 
guilt sunk its teeth into me as the needle touched my skin. 

the needle itself felt like a boxcutter
my ribs a tightly sealed package.
pleasant, no
agonising, no
some sort of purgatorial sensation. 
gaining a tattoo,
losing that skin forever.

as it finished,
i examined the red patch of skin surrounding the ink in the mirror. 
guilt and giddiness coincided within me,
along with a strange sense of loss. 

this skin, 
grown and changed through the years
becoming freckled in the sun and pale in the cold
was gone.
in its place, the number 18. 

when i went home with my friend
the guilt was replaced by giddiness 
and flickers of nausea

i hid that tattoo until i was eighteen,
where i finally revealed it to my parents. 
they laughed and laughed
my mom pulling me close-
you must be your mother’s daughter.

Breakups in the A.M./
Fall back to sleep/
Back caught a rusty blade in it/
Brain drizzle... permanent/
Cold vein ****** pulse cannon/
False idols shut the **** up/
Or get throat cancer/
Ahem/
I'll hack it out with a boxcutter/
Allaah, give me strength/
Let me **** Godzilla/
Manic Chainsaw Man in Morin Hotel/
Wear the devils down/
'Til they offer up their hearts/
Please make it stop/
Then I tear it apart/
Break the faucet off/
And bathe in the blood/
Yeah... The Force isn't with you/
Life is crystal skull disco inferno/
Death is withdrawal in a courtroom/
She's a drama generator/
With a broken off switch/
I don't go outside, I don't like ****/
Isolation tank alt reality check?/