1

decide not to hurt her. but don’t decide to pull her back. if she wants to go she can go. I do not plan on stopping you. it’s not my choice. nonetheless I must warn you; I do not pick up phone calls from numbers I don’t know. if you don’t plan on showing me your scars I don’t plan on showing you mine, I will live inside myself without your help. stop pretending you’re in control.  your presence does not make me a better or worse person.

2

drink beers, sliding your sleeve over the x on your hand. sway like you never stood so still to pretend you were just a charicature so no one caught your scared stench. you **** the stench. you grab it and rip it right out of yourself. **** your rules I will ******* fly, I will ******* dance, I will ******* love. you cannot stop me. you are not my guilt, so stop.

3

look at his eyes as he says it doesn't really matter where you go anymore. safety is not a cold room, an exorcism, or a catechism. mushroom clouds are dancing like rotted sugarplums and fairies with crippled wings in my head. through continuous trial and error life has taught me you can run but you can't hide. don’t take off your coat until you’re two drinks too deep to care if anyone sees the dried blood. laugh at the people who stare, laugh at yourself, laugh at their ******* social rituals. always remember not to let them get you. you are not paying any debts.

4

think about tasting sweat and his pulse. search for it. find none. and you do not require just any pulse. ask him if you are scary, let him touch your open wounds, let him lie and tell you he doesn’t think you’re depressing to be with. even still, you let him win. know that he would gladly take on a less complicated girl. feel like target practice. feel like a faulty product with no receipt. feel like a body, always, you are feeling like a body. it consumes you before you can consume it, filling yourself with holes. This bleeding is further beneath the surface. split skin doesn’t let any more sunshine in. go back to bed sweety. don’t believe in humans. don’t believe in love. they are equally transitory. they are equally fragile. they are equally hungry.

5

think about the fear. think about it. ******* choke on it. do not deny it is there. they never really cared. you don’t really need them to care. So this is what getting older really means. remembering the streets you grew up on before they painted limbs into the pavement. It's hidden in the exhale at the end of the way most people say tired. when what we really mean is, the way things were still lives in my head and i can't deal with the present because it's just a ribbon wrapped around a nuclear bomb. Humming. You tell him you don't think running is worth the effort. He calls you a liar with affection. You are choosing your bus tickets. Like a car driving from a tornado. You just want to see how far you can get. before...

4/19/2015
dedicated to the girl I used to be

crushed right next to the
broken glass.
"I don't write
nearly as much poetry
as I used to,"
I tell her in the orange light
of the German café
this time it is shining in through.

"Like you used to
before you were sedated?"
No.
I suppose it must be the weather.

I remember dancing to morrissey
in my darkened room at 3:43 am
on a January tuesday,

it was a good lay, good lay,good lay
Like some sort of charicature of teenage one dimensionality

I remember picking up a half empty
Heineken at a dorm room right before
winter finals like some sort of charcature of teenage pretentiousness and

putting my tights on, "my mom thinks I'm shopping, cute, right?"
Old floor crushing my shins minute before like some sort of charcature of teenage indulgences

"Don't you sort of miss the cold?"
I ask, picking at the cake and
the girl I used to be this time last year
infinitely more innocent weeps at

confrontation

How can I confess to the desire in my being
Sins both of the flesh and the betreyal in it's meaning
All the while I'm calling you the one who was decieving
Whilst lying flesh to flesh with you

Hypocrite stood preaching on the mount
Devil whispering upon his shoulder
Calling on the truth to shut it out
When will this absurdity be over

Paying lip service to all the virtues of the father
Offer up my body charicature of a martyr
Demanding salvation turns straight into a non starter
And still I hold this hate for you

Hypocrite stood preaching on the mount
Devil whispering upon his shoulder
Calling on the truth to shut it out
When will this absurdity be over

We all lie
Let him without sin cast the first stone
We decieve
Let him without sin place the blame
We conspire
Let him without sin sit with Judas
We all die
Let those without sin be born again

Let me breathe

____
To wish dementia on anyone, one
must have some sense of the state,

mindless, or careless, must one choose
at entry, as the power on self test clicks ok
the idea
that we are in some
sorted form, some charicature of our kind,

we mortal thoughts, of the worthiest sorts,
science and religion and the arts, with
little time for developing technique,

the instant the amusement stops,
bemusement proceeds to untwist the plot,

for we are poets, are we not
bound,
by many vows we each must make, to here
the court of last resort, the literal last card,

in such games as have clear winning outcomes.