We wore our shoplifted morals
  on our very backs.
Shirts stained in lust and
  revelation plain.
Lost in odes to obscenity
and ****** light in boxcars
  to Ocean.

Fake wisdom chainsmoked
and chained up pressed
  to the radiator, burned.
Seventeen looked twentytwo
  and felt about a hundred
But danced like we were
young again in the ethereal
  glory of the night.
But the nights turned to
minutia as we packed
Luggage filled with memories
on an outbound train to
Adulthood and Adolescence
was left waiting for you
  by the tracks.

Trains trains trains
life and love gone flying
by at a mile a second
and the seconds are precious
and the miles are precious
and all the precious miles
and minutes still fly fly fly
speeding on train tracks
and we wave as friends become
blurred faces waving back
from portholes zipping
in opposite directions
and we becomes I and you
and I don’t quite know you anymore.


And this used to be beautiful:
  Writing gibberish on
our arms and legs
when we ran out of paper
sleepless nights pouring
forth beautiful poetry
and utter catastrophe
twinkle-eyed laughing .
  Driving streetcars through
Los Angeles to go get high
at the top of the world
and peal out when
the coyotes crash the party.
  Summernight shamblings
and skinny dipping
and kissing caressing
ashamed of nothing.
  Learning that peace
is only a word
until love breathes
life into its
lungs and that we could
breathe with each other
and breathe in each other

But our kindred fire
flickered and roared
only to flicker again.
sunken embers haunting
fingertips reaching,
but too far now to
ever touch again.
Charred and depleted,
flying in the tumult
of cyclone wind,
Memories stripped bare
and standing blasted by
the sands of time until
smooth and unrecognizable
they fade from our minds
Ashen shadows of smoke
from locomotive top-hats
chugging endlessly onward
to opposite stations.

                                                 10 October 201o

This is for the people who don't have the suicide hotline number memorized just in case.
For the people who have never cried sitting across from a counselor because their lives are actually perfect.
For the people who have never chainsmoked a pack of cigarettes while their brain flirts with the danger of "what if..."
Whose hands don't shake uncontrollably with the memories of what used to be.
This is for the people who haven't drank an entire bottle just for the peace of sleep
The people who haven't wondered if waking up isn't the scariest part of their day
This is for the people who weren't diagnosed with PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression all in a spin of words.
The people who don't have to hold themselves together with fake promises that survival is only half the battle.
To the people who have never met the call of a razor blade with the skin of their bodies.
This is for the people who say that mental illness is just whining.
Do you realize just how lucky you actually are?

I watched the wind drift through your hair as we chainsmoked
like we used to when we were sixteen. Mascara left
my cheeks damp and yours stained to the chin.

This was the closest I knew we would ever get
to be again, but with arms brushing slightly and the moon
streaking through the blinds onto the rug we once lay
on together - I felt maybe you could love me
once more.

A year ago
you kissed me under the fireworks.
I chainsmoked
way too many cigarettes,
you complained of me tasting
like smokey mints.

Now I'm chain smoking
way too many cigarettes,
praying you'll text me back,
praying you'll see me tonight.

We can get drunk, if you want.
I won't complain about cheap beer.
You can get high, if you want.
I won't complain.

Just text me back.
Just see me.
Just tell me that you'd still love me
and I'm not wasting my time
again.

all 9 of us put our money together and bought a '78 silverado that had a ****** up transmission, loose timing belt, blown headgasket, all the works. i can't remember much from that night. i fell asleep in the tailgate in the lap of some guy who had a budweiser in one hand and a backwoods blunt in the other. he kept calling me "babygirl" and he'd chug another beer and yell "LET'S WRECK THIS *******!" i got it from my mama. the ability to fall asleep to the classic rock station and the sound of teenage boys livin' their dream.

2. i broke all of their hearts on day three because i was so hung up on the one who played baseball and never stopped asking questions. maybe too much. he was the only one i wanted to love with every centimeter of my soul. the funny thing is this: i never had him to begin with.

3. august was a weird month. i never wanted to do anything except lay face down on the grass while drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. we liked to tell pointless stories and talk **** about congress while watching the sun fall deep into the crevices of the olympic mountains. his girlfriend and i had something like a thursday night ritual of going fishing then coming to the house and grilling silvers while i chainsmoked and sang songs reminiscent of her hippie days. big kahuna and i spoke to each other in dialects, okie accents, chi-town street slang when i was burning on thursdays. the crash always happened on saturdays. they tried to keep me from drinking but i didn't know how to tell them that it wasn't the borderline alcoholism that was killing me - being around so much love ignited a fire in me that wasn't there when i had nobody. i was in love with the world, so in love that it became a kind of insanity.

*-z. vega

We drank tequila straight from the bottle
and danced naked in the unfenced backyard

We chainsmoked the entire pack
And argued the difference between harassment and assault

We passed around the **** pen
and I don't remember what we were doing by that point

We woke up still naked
and asked ourselves if it was worth it