He was never my classmate,
Neither was he my schoolmate,
As we have met on OkCupid,
Which is where we got suited.

He soon became my tablemate,
Then got promoted to bedmate,
Ranging from late-night nosh
To some naughty oh-my-gosh.

He was my almost-roommate,
Now, a hopeful housemate,
Since he would visit me daily
And keep me company gaily.

He was frequently my seatmate,
As well as invaluable playmate,
For we traveled places together
And cloyingly wrestled each other.

He has always been my helpmate,
And is presently my best teammate,
As he has cheered me up from afar,
As we chat as if there is no au revoir.

He will one day become my inmate,
Plus my hard-working workmate,
Since we will both have mini-me’s
Forcing us to slog away on our knees.

He is undoubtedly my soulmate,
One who is to become my lifemate,
For he is a romantic yet **** geek,
A keeper with charms all too unique.

When you tell a lie,
does it taste like cancer in your mouth?
Perhaps you felt the taste of sour milk assault your senses.
Or perhaps it tasted like cloyingly sweet honey that soothe your throat as the words went up in flames.

Perhaps your words hold truth in them
but the world is twisted
and the promises you made were broken
even before it reached my ears.

symptoms of anhedonia.
                   a triumvirate, perceived
                   Inanition& Inertia& Inaptitude:
                                      they are ugly triplets who hide under leather
                                      and self-loathing &stink of last night’s pinot
                                      noir
                     ­                        from **** knows where.
                   their fingers, cigarette-stained and calloused,
                   reach into my prozac pillboxes
                   &crunch my anxiety (meds)
                   into fluoxetine powder and ivory between
                   their yellowing teeth.

I Do Not Cry When The
Sandman Knocks                                      
For He Sits At                                      midnight:the witching hour,whenthe
My Porch Bearing Sweet                                      siblings curl up besides me to
Dreams &Sister Death, Whose Touch                   ,                   ravage;
I’ve Long Wished For                                                         they will not
                                                                ­                       leave me
                                                              ­             untilthe
                                                         cloyingly sweet
                                         perfume of Death
       is scrubbed clean fromthe

                                                        ­                    pulse
                                                                ­            point
                                                                ­            of
                                                                ­            my
                                                                ­            wrists


There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing for you here.

Nothing will bring me back. In three years time I’ll still be dead. My bed sheet is my shroud and Death holds my wrists in a vice grip. He still leads me below.

                                      here is the untruth:
                                                        ­ i am here,
                                                         Penelope at her loom,
                                                         waiting for a lost lover whom I know
                                                         will take ten years to come back to
                                                         my awaiting arms.

                                      here is the untruth:
                                                        ­ in three years time,
                                                         I’ll still be dead.

                                      here is the truth:
                                                         nothing exists six feet under except:
                                                         hell
                                                         chalk dust
                                                         powdered calcium.

Hans was outside himself. Perched on the edge of a daydream, he looked below, distantly aware of his bustling dinner table. How casually they live, Hans thought; with what feigned clarity they can connect and understand. There were his brothers and sisters; his aunts, uncles, cousins and ah—there was his father. Look at him personifying repugnance, locks of hair falling clumsily on his tattered shirt. Look at him! (Hans could yell only in silence.) Look there and see him cloyingly preparing his knife to hunt, to tear, to slice yet another hunk of meat for his own gluttony. With what excitement—what vivid, forbidden ecstasy Hans would take his father’s knife and turn the hunter into the hunted.

Somewhere in the cluttered abyss there was a sound followed by a warming light. Hans was entranced. And again, a gentle thunder followed by a thread of heat connecting for a moment earth and sky, father, family, and son.

It was goodness and caring, it was a mother’s voice. It was this graceful fluttering in the medium of time that awoke a primitive yearning in Hans, grabbed his throat and stared him lustily in the eyes. What could it be? Hans wondered aloud, what could it be that she desires, for he already knew that he had to be the one to deliver any object she longed for, to slay any beast that tormented her—it had to be him, to be Hans, to be her son.

Please, she said; can someone please pour me a glass of water. Oh how Hans was enraged to find that this whim had not been made solely of a son. It was his right to quench his mother’s thirst; it was his place within the natural order to satisfy her needs. What cruelty and ice! Hans said, but also felt; and in an instant returned to himself below, tumbling violently from the high canopy of his trance to the sight of his father’s filthy hand reaching for the water jug.

In base impulse, Hans jabbed at the jug, forcibly pushing aside the carnal hand. Upon contact, Hans felt an overwhelming calm, an absolute peace. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the handle, closed his eyes, and breathed deeply. At once he was joyous, he was spent; he was adrenalized and gloriously dominant. He would be the one to tend to the maternal flower, supplying water for a thirst that he prayed would always be there.

Fiery
Furies,
Lapping
At the base
Of the door.

Whisper
Cloyingly sweet,
"Let me in..."

OH!!
If only
To rapture.

when the world,
was much younger
and i was a stupid-crazy
girl-ly-chick, enamoured
with her youth.

i drove, a sunshine,
lemon, yellow bottomed, white pith on top combi van. coyly, cloyingly named Mello Martha.

it was...surfboards and swimsuits,
egg and bacon sangers,
early morning breezes,
after a blitz at the breadbox.

before... changing into
the structured, tortured baby, bank teller blues,
in the back,doors left open.

it was... rockin, knockin,
***, on credit,
to a promised future,
alluded to, but postponed,
for the moment.

it was... bruised back and
grazed knees,
harder, deeper oh god!
oh god! please... faster, fucken frenzies,
on a saturday night.

it was....running away to nowhere,
to find myself,
then finding me,
running away from,
the self i didn't want to know.
noway, nowhere, nohow.

it was... a barrel of monkeys, a barrel of laughs,
a keg of beer,
a box of wine,
under the crowded stars.

it was.... a roadtrip,
up the coast,
midnight bonfire,
midnight munchies,
playing hunches,
exploring reefs and reefers and such.

it was...far from family
and church rules,
a friendly rebellion,
of loud, proud youth.
totally and brazenly,
uncouth
it was... wham! and m.j.
cindy and boy george's culture club ,paperlace,
billy idol and the beach boys.
sung with abandon,
at spinal tap level eleven.

it was... peaceful, quiet, sleeping grace.
insanely in love with...
i forgot his name.

it was.... the birth of bodaciously me.
all brass hair and bosoms,
wild and carefree.

it was ....so long ago,

it was... yesterday night,

when i saw... Mello Martha's identical twin,
stopped at a traffic light.
it was... sunshine and lemon, bitter and sweet,
as she sailed off, down the street.
i sat and watched,
wist, full of recollect,
far and away, from my presently minded place...
sitting in, the driver's seat,
of my mom-blue subaru.

She listens
And though she is right beside me
She is a million miles away in thought
And yet she listens
She still somehow hears what I say
Even though
She is a million miles away in thought
Her emotions are paper thin
And her charade is opaque
She is easily broken
From her mindless stupor
And yet she listens
To the troubled words of a troubled mind
And yet she listens
To the sorrowful twang of teenage vanities
And yet she listens
To the colors and the smells of burning candles
She listens to the feel of skin on paper
She listens to the cloyingly sweet emotions
Drifting off where no one else can hear them
And yet she listens
To taped-back-together-but-so-far-apart souls
Desperate not to be blown away

Touching the moment, this delicate moment
Touching the face with its’ sad falling tear,
Softly aware that strange feelings surround us
Cloyingly close with their aura of fear.
Fear of a mantle of misunderstanding
Fear of uncertainty choked in forlorn,
Cloaked in thick prejudice clad by constriction
All drowned in a sea of wet ignorance borne.

Where stand the rational reaching for reason?
How seek the humble in searching for more?
****** not the javelin of angers’ contrition
In weighing this moment, I humbly implore.

For thus sits the fabric of deep understanding
Thus lies the tantric of feelings unspoke,
Thus the true substance of one to another
Uttered in wisdom through words best unwrote.

M.
30 September 2015

Leeching light, vampire-like, her eyes burn,
Stolen attention lingers, cloyingly sweet,
Pearly laughs cling, bedeviling,
Shaking hips, like a disapproving finger,
Rising tides hold secrets close, unveiling,
A smirking smile, sweet as the taste of death,
Oh, angel lips, fallen to hell's debauchery,
Legs like an ignored muse, passion banked,
Hair's flick-kiss, black-heart dark,
Spicy scent, alcohol-like, inebriating,
Breathing deep the essence of the bonfire rose,
Ghost dance footprints fade and fulfill,
Everest's peak, an unscalable life-long goal,
Her free, stained-glass heart, my hopeless hope.

Like honey, cloyingly, sickeningly sweet
You cling, coagulated, dripping
Sticking and

I find you between my fingers
caught in the corners of my lips
Taste of clover stinging and

No matter how hard I
Try to scrub, clean, lick you away,
You remain ever present and

I find that I am helpless
Stuck solitary and motionless within
A candied cocoon

Have you sipped a good old fashioned?
A perfectly crafted cocktail
One that costs 12 or 15 dollars
And is made by a man with a mustache?
It's sweet at first, almost cloyingly so
Sugary and malty and fruity.
Underneath the sweet is something sharp
The alcohol, the citrus, the bite.
Not sour, just bright and crisp.
It's a pleasing drink, dancing across the palate.
But if you pay close attention,
If you really focus,
There are the bitter notes, the astringent moments
The ones that pucker and hurt.

A good old fashioned hides the harshness,
Like the memories of a love that walked away.

I am tempted to let you enter this room which is my being and soul, but you see - the last person in here trampled over the grass, uprooted the flowers and tore down the lights. He brought storms with him in place of the windy spring air and poisoned everything he touched with his fingerprints; permanent stains on a fragile heart. This is why everything smells cloyingly of rain, grass and roses here, overbearingly so.

He has stayed for years, coming and going as he pleases, so often so that the hinges of the door of the entrance are rusty and breaking apart. The gates used to be white and intricately laced with wildflowers that screamed freedom and naivety, but now they are wilted fragments on the remnants of charred wood from the lightning and thunder.

When he returns and lingers for a long long while, I take pity on him; placing a candle on the table and fixing a lamp above his head. I give him water and food and nourishment, emotions taking over any rational thought. I give him comfort and attention and answer any whim, demand or request. I give him all and everything I am simply because he is who he is, and I am who I am. During these moments he is sometimes pacified, and destroys less of me than does in times of anger and desolation.

But if he becomes too tame, too kind, too gentle - without warning, he will disappear. He will disappear into the dark but come back in radiant light. He will leave with an apology in his eyes and a smile on his lips, but return with fire in his soul and anger on his tongue. The storms he creates are violent and threaten to collapse the walls of this room, but never do.

During his disappearance, other people like yourself try to enter this place, but he takes the key with him and locks the broken door. I have an extra key to escape, but it is dangerous in here - glass shards, broken smiles and plaster masks that litter the wall and floor - so I never let anyone in. Only he knows how to tip toe around the chaos and ruin to find his way back, and allowing visitors in here would hurt them, so I stay alone till he returns. It is safer this way.

-

You will ask why she does not run if he is destructive and as deadly as she says. You will wonder why this girl refuses to escape from the storms she is terrified of and return to the spring. You will relentlessly beg her to stop watering the roses whose thorns ***** her so, but it will all be futile.

Because regardless of what you ask, she will answer out of the same conscience that makes her care for him endlessly; love, love, love.

(A.H.Z)

<>

with raggedy old words, this is how I write,
in a raggedy old navy t-shirt,
upon a ragged edged old chair,
whose splinters will soon enough,
seed themselves in poet's unreceptive,
but just asking-to-be-barbed
flesh bared

splinters asking with the phony politeness ,
in the manner of a steady, but  minor irritating
would-be-a-friend, annoyingly, but cloyingly

"am I not a poem, yet Father?"

Poet has no answer,
mixed words
deemed satisfying suitable but unusable,
unconvicted upon the hard hearted
mixed wood

poet waits for the ragged clotted cumulus
of old grey ladies shaped clouds
to dissipate

clouds shaped like the
puffed up shopping bags
that the old ladies clutch
while crossing mid-street
making the traffic play
"dodge'r the codgers"

bags fill with the odd things
that old ladies treasure,
objet d'art of empty
Oil of Olay Ole! and mindless dribble,
mementoes of completed containers
of emptied out hopes

expired coupons,
that they refuse to surrender
even under threat
by sour faced bossy
supermarket manager dictators,
who hate their lives and  
in the deepening creases
of the elderly clientele,
foresee their own fate inevitable

poet's waits for them,
these images,
these clotted bursts of sourpuss,
to depart his skin, sky's.
yes, his sky's

wits and wilts while he waits,
for he always has much to say,
of what lies above,
the unseen,
hid behind the bland uniform of  the overhanging
one-no-color sky
of blanched meh and feh crinolines

thinking to no one now,

this is how I write, this is who I am,

waiting for insight inspiration foam to form,
from the multi-variable model that predicts
with a high degree of confidence,
failure with tainted certainty,
even as clouds are shuffled along,
a new poem will pass
that haha, no one will read

but nonetheless, arguing among his several selves,
better to be more fulfilled by the emptying of himself
upon padded cell of paper, of his staining,
the piece of him now
un-chambered & un-containered
thru magma fissures, steaming & cleaning,
providing a penny's penance
for his disparate gloomy idiocies

the gray ladies always smile at him,
always so nice and gentlemanly like, that poet,
underneath his cowardly disdain,
against his pretense's  grain,
contempt for old grey ladies
with old lady odors emanating

is this who you are, is this how you write?

*with raggedy old words, that splinter our delight?

Lingering coastal fog
  climbed up the seaside cliff head
    The windward crest-edge
       sprawling  out
        the rolling waves
        misty breathe,
       shapeless as an ocean
      sigh betides;
    cloyingly crawling
  through the lush
hillside meadow verdure

The clinging mist dissipates
   like teardrops soon forgotten:
      the Dawning of the day
          caressing the evanescent dew;
             an ebbing tide
               remembered for a while...
               Dawn awakening
               newly sun kissed Daffodils
            animated with felicity and mirth;  
         lilting ballerinas
     gracefully swaying,
   contagious with the leavening
    serendipity of the westerly
      sea breeze ~

        Velvet bisque painted
            daybreak constellations,
              embossed by sunrise
               splendor ~
              each root bound bouquet,
            kismet choreographed ballerinas
         in Spring's  Rustic  Ballet


                        Jesse

By : Nabs

At dusk, I woke up to find that my whole body alight with pain
From the very tip of my hair
To the very tip of my toe
A pain that struck me deep as it is rooted in me

My head feels like it is not my own
Where my thought are filled with images
Where they took every single memories
Just to replay it over and over again

Although it is some specific memories that they play

( I should have known it was you)

They are images of you
Either the way your eyes disperse the light
Glinting with rainbows as you laugh
Or the tingling of your voice when you speak

Or the little quirks that you have
How you scratch your head when you're confused
Or how you tighten your fist and hold it close to you when you are in anger
Or how you look pained every time someone mention your father

Even my subconsciousness was not safe from you
How in the nights you seep into my dream
And how my mind seem to speak your name with reverence
As if you are a saint and i am a sinner begging for forgiveness

Not to mention
My head feels like it know you more that I know my self
How my consciousness remember every single way your body move
How you react
How you never seem to notice how breath taking you are

You do take my breath away, you know
You make lungs constrict
My throat sore and my windpipes clogs
My chest ache

Just from seeing you brush a stray strand out of your face

( No wonder I always choke)

I know now that you are poisonous
Because often you made my mind sluggish
How you made my tongue numb
Struggling to just say something

I feel like I could die from just being in your presence

Some how, I wouldn't mind that

You seem to have taken over the control
Of the beating of my heart
It is not mine anymore
You took it from me

And i'll let you do it any day

How do I not realize that you poison me?
That you attacked me

No

I couldn't say attack when I, my self are a part of perpetrating the crime

I let you poison me with your kindness
And I succumb to it
Kindness is very lethal I find
Very potent

You are causing an infection
Spreading across my heart
Making it rot
The stench is cloyingly sweet with a hint of pain

I think I know what poisoned me

You make my heart a bruised little thing
Banging across my rib cage
Sometimes I can feel it to thump so hard
I wonder if there are fractures littering my ribs

It is a miracle I do not get a stroke
With the way my hearth clenches
Every so often just by a single word you said
No matter how un important it is

There is something growing inside my body and I know I am diseased

I'm going to be erratic soon, at the rate this is spreading

The rate this is spreading

Why

I know you planted some seeds inside of me
And how it is growing in my body
The pain is caused by them
How it is thriving alive, and ******* me dry

******* life out of my marrows
Making me prone to bend and break
To bend and beg
For you, I would do it in a heart beat

Why do you do this to me?

You do not intend this for me
As I do not intend to succumb in the first place
But intentions will always be intentions
If we do not manage to realize it

One of my symptoms is butterflies in my stomach
How did the caterpillars get in there?
How did my stomach turned into their cocoon?
It does not feel beautiful, the butterflies in the making

They feel like acid and agitation

Now I am trembling

You make my whole body quake
My bone to ache and shake
It is as if you made them corrode,
Maybe that's why my knees shake just because of you

How it will always tremble
How you make my hands tremors
How psychosomatic it is
And I seemed to caught this sickness right to the bone

Maybe I tremble because you are more than I can handle

You with your kindness
Your attempt to become normal
Your fear of closed space
And how you would unconsciously scratch the silvering wound across your heart

Maybe because yours do not rot, you infected me and rotted mine instead

( There is something wrong with my eyes)

As i said, not only that you have took over my heart you also took over my mind

I seemed to still do not mind

My whole body is trembling
My lips quivering
I feel my eyes are watering
I feel my temperature rising

I feel horrible and yet I do not mind this pain
This high fever I am in
Comfort me some how, even if i know that
if I do not get well soon this might **** me

If I do not get it treated, it will **** me

But I am still hesitant to cure it
I do not want to be diagnosed
I do not want to
I do not want to

I am infected

(There's something trying to get out of my stomach)

I am trembling again
And you saw me trembling
You saw me
You smiled, and a snip could be heard

There are a string broken and it might me my sanity

Why do you deny that there was an earthquake
Why do you always deny that
Why
Why

Why do i still got close to you despite knowing
That the episentrum was you

You are a natural disaster
An epidemic
Spreading disease in your wake
You couldnt help it

No one could help being them self

You know I feel pain all over my body
But sometimes the pain felt so intense
That it renders me numb
How do I still exist in this paradoxes of mine

( I fear my liver have stop trying to purge this toxic away)

You make all my nerve go alight
I feel like i am burning
Ashes, ashes is what left of me
I have nothing left of me

You burned me down

But why do i feel so cold?

Yet, I do not mind
Because even as my heart is aching and in pain
Even if my whole body is black and blue
My body is not mine anymore

That was your betrayal, wasnt it?

(At least i still could bask in your presence)
You made me betray my self
(Such exquisite pain you cause me, i want more)
Why do you keep smiling as if you know nothing?

Maybe you do not know anything

(My legs just gave out and I am on my knees)

The poison is muddling my mind
I am poisoned
I already said that
I am trembling again

The butterflies got out of their cocoon today.

They were beautiful, and red with my blood

I still do not mind

You betray me
You causes pain to me
You poisoned me

I still do not mind

You smiled again today
It was like my medicine
I feel like i am addicted
You smile like you were happy with the way i am

I fumble with words now
There is something wrong with my eye
I cannot see clearly
Everything is blurry and tinted

(You said my eyes were beautiful)

I was happy but now I am sick

Why

My legs and hand do not properly work anymore
I feel like someone just pierce giant big hooks in them
Because i keep being pulled
I keep going back to you

My body is not my own, it is infected

You poison me and then you put parasites didn't you?
I was fine
Did you think your poison was a cure?
I did not have anything wrong with me

I did not
Now i do

( I can feel my mind crashing down, it feels like freedom)

The fever is going up again
My words are hazy
My arms taste sweet
I feel disoriented

Why do you need my to be like this?
Wipe that smile of yours
Wipe it
Please

(Please)

I am addicted to you
Your whole presence
I do not mind
What do i not mind?

I am sick, i am going crazy
You drive me crazy
You infected me and you rot me
I still do not mind

(There are tears dripping down my eyes, it is black)

I do not mind

(My heart just gave out)

I just diagnosed my self today

There is a paper thin difference between hate and love

I think it is the latter

I am such a liar

came you pinkly curving over curving rush
by flaming lipped in sleeping flowers
the aching stem; the caving hush
from easy darkness there sloping towers,

the falls deeply leaning on pelvis *******
moonlight coiling rolls and peaks
a column steaming at each terminal's cleft
whose each glowing timber cloyingly reeks

of my wreak, and the uncarefullest youth
who the stupid *** of creaking motion
is frailty distilled in instant truth
and mocks, by beauty, the immortal ocean

toward ecstatic dying we slowly leap
from the sickled moon where darkness creeps

violent You are like a biggest sound
cloyingly honeyed on my mound of massed
and singing chords
                                         (you are a rose most thorned and beautiful
    i clutch idiosyncratically
strangled scarlet petals bursting
                     a foal i;ve nursed with tremoring pits of bold
gangling and accurate stench

             violent you're a tedium
a lush and decaying growth
         so lightly cancering my cell
and I breath your daily blood                and i whimper first glowering fist

      my hand to take that penitent shape
                                                                            

                and i"ll whisper it



to their chins:
                                   they who art most a mortal folly
as to wade in my
                                        quaking presence


         andi


'              
           ;ll



     sleeep               them                           quickly rushing rushing



               oBliviOn)

i promise to make pain look beautiful,
i will make you wish for thorns instead of roses
just so you can feel my ebony words,
just so you can choke on the bitter truth
for a while.
i promise to paint love as the most beautiful sunset you’ve ever seen,
i will make you give everything
to have a world of your very own.
i promise to hold a permanent spot in your mind,
trail through your thoughts like music notes,
feelings so overwhelming you can’t breathe.
i promise to have you scribbling lines on any surface you can get your hands on,
post-its and notebook pages and tree bark
and your ex-lover’s lips.
i will make you ******* words, cloyingly
sweet with an acrid aftertaste once you realize
”oh, he’s not actually hers.”
i promise
to make you feel something.

This Picture Perfect Family
Is family of contradiction.
Hands hold the frame of the Portrait;
Bitterness seethes with friction.
Repulsive as summer cockroach,
Its artwork I wish to reproach.
Faces full of fake smiles-
Cloyingly sick, I want to puke!
The portrait presents many lies.

This Picture Perfect Family,
The truth is it has been defiled!
Father fights Mother; home havoc!
Harmony crushed by clamor.
Though I may be a naive child,
This family has a vicious void.
Resentment rattles with full force;
The essence of love long destroyed;
Hatred only settled with divorce!

This Picture Perfect Family
Can only appear in my dreams.
The tone of painting I abhor;
Behind our smiles, gloominess gleams,
It does not show there is a war.
My mind screams in frustration
Like the ******’s first castration.
I wish this wretched pain to bury-
Emotions blurred by apathy!

This Picture Perfect Family
Will not exist any longer!
I wonder now what is at stake-
Foundation of love macerates.
Hands tremor in anguish anger;
The Family Portrait drops and breaks.
Glass frame shatters; heart lacerates.

Oh, let this Portrait rot in hell…
Picture Perfect Family farewell!

(c) Jo Swan

the scent that lingers
after my lips blow the flame of a candle is my favorite
I’ve always held on to the end of the moment a little too long.
savored the last bite ‘til it was cloyingly sweet
I have never learned
how to let go,
even after the smoke clears.

elle n'est pas one hell
of an elle in does
brightly chafe with
dower stocking removal
hastily into thigh as thigh
does improbably hairless
Glide into petite grande
pink pretty pinched heaping
of dryless ****** helping
of **** help needing

A quick drizzle of angles that
unsuddenly with immortal pairing
bare the rude stem of Spring–

which cannot unbarley but to shreak
the tiniest whisper of "please into my
house enter the deepest blooming
of red red red steam   "

being i just could only
that at
the naked perfume
of her
seeping incessantly laughter
but to boom as wide and cloyingly
drunk with open health

as God had said
making the world
by one word: she

said not one word
(making my world)
but two,

               "**** me"

She listens
And though she is right beside me
She is a million miles away in thought
And yet she listens
She still somehow hears what I say
Even though
She is a million miles away in thought
Her emotions are paper thin
And her charade is opaque
She is easily broken
From her mindless stupor
And yet she listens
To the troubled words of a troubled mind
And yet she listens
To the sorrowful twang of teenage vanities
And yet she listens
To the colors and the smells of burning candles
She listens to the feel of skin on paper
She listens to the cloyingly sweet emotions
Drifting off where no one else can hear them
And yet she listens
To taped-back-together-but-so-far-apart souls
Desperate not to be blown away

sometimes I wonder if it's you who is lost or if it is I
tied to each other by spider silk
as delicate as a whisper
as strong as a promise (or whiskey)

our laughter booms forth
as loud as the trucks rambling off the freeway
as pure as the water we consume
our limbs entwined in sheets peppered with dog hair

endless stories fall from your lips
a boy not yet a man
a man with the heart of a boy
of far off lands, of another world

your eyes sparkle secretively
devilishly, mirthfully, wondrously
you lips curl cloyingly
slyly, impishly, lovingly
conjuring ways to trouble and adore me

if only tonight could last forever
there will be no other like it

tendrils of marlboro blends cling to the air
permeating the drawers, the walls, the sheets
and underneath it all
a heady fragrance burns and smolders

i fish for my lessons of you
in sleepless nights, in strength
measured in casts of iron
of release, acceptance, presence

the snow has melted with the rush of rain
permafrost given way to daffodils
how time slips away when i'm with you

let it be.

it clings and
hangs.
god!
it's so
cloyingly
thick.

it smothers
and
Pervades,
like
a thick
pea soup.

this crushing
obliteration
that is
a sober
mind.

it is reminder
of longing and
loss.

i wish You were here.

whoever "You" happens to be.

Is this how Debussy felt ?

i can only sit
and stare.

it just hurts too much.

and there aren't words.

I don't remember it tasting so sweet
the kind of sticky-sweet that makes you lick
your fingers
so the taste won't be as fleeting
as the memory
dancing waltzes
across your tongue

it's addictive but perhaps only
for me
because I swear I'm the only one
made out of sugar
crystalline
and with the slightest
word
slightest
touch
slightest
provocation
I would crumble so silently
so effortlessly for you

it has been too long since I've felt this way
a fairy tale for children laced
with summer fever dreams and other
cloyingly untamed fantasies
that should have no place
in my life now

and yet
after everything
I am still here
still ******* my teeth for the last of it
still savoring this feeling
that even time could not dull
the flavor of

after everything
I have not grown sick
of this
though we've both grown sick
of each other

desperate to be seen, read, heard

validation is cloyingly sweet and unbearable on the soul when withheld

but on and on I’ll bellow in the spotlight

desperation pouring from every pore

sweat breaking on my brow from the forced performance

dance monkey dance

and at least if they laugh i’ll know that they noticed

what a pitiful thing to find in the pit of your soul

that need

to be seen

Anything I create has a different character,
A cursed quality...
No,
I don't believe it!

"Just take what I made..."
Said the External cloyingly.

You will never hold a candle
To these riches spawned by your death

And no,
By the way
I will not validate your attempts to take credit for them!"

My decisions.
I take responsibility.
They muffled my cries.

But I never take responsibility,
Not according to you!

I...
I can create!
I am not just here to consume your art
I myself am an artist!

And you can't have this without me
So come on,
Let's get there together
I'm putting the work in.
Just think positive.
I will.

So take my story,
Take it well,
Hold it in the center of your heart and make it shine
Whatever it takes
Because I swear
You're a brilliant artist, yes you are
But I am not just here
To behold your art.

I am here to create my own.