Hands clinging to rocks against the mountain side,
strands of hair falling to my face.
Almost to the top, just one more step.
"Pull up your socks!" Everyone below yells, nagging me to do so.
I ignore, focusing to make my way to the peak.
"Pull up your socks!" The repeat, daggering at my toes.
I am anything but a child of theirs.
I continue on.
"Pull up your socks!" They scream again, my eyes rolling.
I arrive to the top.

You painted your eyelids with green velvet and ruby red. The fractured mirror kept your insecurity at bay, as sparkle blue glitter poured all over your head from a little tin can.

We drove across the bridge, and through Shocko bottom, stopping at a nearly deserted parking lot sanctioned by an honor code. We double parked behind an Acura sedan, and waited as you snorted half a gram of Molly off your manicured fingernail into each
nostril.

You took in a deep breath, smoked a Parliament, and blew smoke out the
window. After ten minutes we shambled out of the car with our purses tucked under our armpits, and red fire dying in our eyes. When we reached the Hat Factory venue, the line disappeared from our view and we walked to the entrance where two bouncers were posted up. The tall giants marked our hands with black sharpie ink, drawing a large, bold “X” on each one.

Once inside the spacious warehouse, we ascended a white marble staircase and paid a ten dollar entry fee. Another doorman took out his marker and drew a red line, crossing through the dark black “X” that was drying on our hands. You broke off and away, going
straight to the bar. The bartender asked what you wanted to drink, and you requested water. She smiled and gave you a red solo cup filed with tap water and ice-cubes. After you thanked her, she handed you a bright pink glow stick that you wrapped around your forearm, fitting a figure 8 around your skin like a cloth sleeve.

On the stage was a young man dressed in neon colored plaid and skinny jeans. He climbed up a tall stepladder and jumped from the top, belly flopping on a beautiful African Queen bodacious gluteus Maximus, daggering deep into her soaking black spandex, the decadent bodies swimming on top of each other, stroking and staining the pink gymnastic mat with hot sweat and salt. A huge beach ball colored with red, white,
yellow, and blue pinwheel stripes sailed through the air over the balcony, smacking into a deathly thin model who was smoldering her Parliament cigarette into a clear glass
ashtray.

Mollywopped undergraduates gathered around circles where reggae artists harpooned inflatable black and white killer whales with thrift store bought switchblades.

Laying flat on his stomach was an Asian photographer snapping away with his Nikon digital SLR camera, pale hipsters in ***** black blazers and black fedoras hurling red and purple plastic assault rifles into the intense mass of worry-stricken college students carefree for the moment, gyrating and grinding to the womp-womp bass booming from rectangular speakers that squished in a disc jockey and his hardwood stand with his mixer and two turn tables. He scratched the needle along the worn edge of a battle-scarred vinyl record. His fingers zigzagged the sliders, pressed down on buttons, turned up the volume knobs.

Some hyper-maniac golden child bounced around the dance floor, sneaking up behind university sophomores mesmerized by the makeshift floodlights in the rafters blinking on and off. Conversations were made in the head, but never opened up when the girl approached. Stuck up super senior girls with heavy black mascara and matted eyelashes raised their eyebrows and swatted away ***** flies with a wave of their lotioned hand.

***** girls dress in high heels and septum piercing, their ear cartilage stabbed through by unclean metal. A rude person bumps into the Hyper-maniac golden child, causing the golden child to shove squarely into the rude person’s back. Name-calling ensues, threats fired and received, looks exchanged and bitterness rose over any other tension in the fuming room.

In the far right corner were a couple of kids making out; they’d just met.

Walking away from the fight, sidling between sweaty ugly people, the golden child swayed upstairs to the second floor, passed another bar and balcony tables, chairs, and dance platforms.
He went through a swinging door and joined a conversation between
a bunch of strangers. Wary around the golden boy, he starts practicing his standup Comedy routine, almost bombing on the first joke. Cheap jacks burned bright orange after a blue flame ignited the tapered paper end. Arms snared around the golden child’s body. Oh how nice! It was his friend from Modern Grammar class, he used to sit next to
her in the second row and copied homework answers from the blackboard with her.
She was happy.
And he was happy.

Your lungs bare a breath
That drives my sensations,
Wild.

A warm, slight gust.
It takes me aback,
Like a house attempting to withstand
The mightiest of hurricanes.

I am defenceless
Against your daggering, crystal blue gaze.
It pierces my soul,
And penetrates my very heart.

I am a wounded warrior,
My heart no longer a heavy hitter,
But a lingering weakness.

Stepping into battle against your tender touch,
Would prove to be a futile mistake.

I will tremble before you,

As many have before.

You are the anchor,
Bound to my feet,
I cannot stay afloat
Whilst you plummet,

To the ocean floor.

So much laughter perhaps in front
of the console

If when we hand over what was given,
we are inconsolable.

Assume this position when
reaction is demanded:

You could, a massive day.
You could, a spectral of night
daggering into the forthcoming of nakedness  that was your title,

enmeshed, and then in a moment’s brief charade,
        torn apart, contained within four bedposts and a notch
        for a shimmering body lined with a peregrine skin.

how much it cost you, putting a face in this profile
    losing the document from flinging in the last time over and over
  as if we do not die only making copies of it each day

a    page is  turned not over but crimson  with   blame,
forging a lie  about  every  gilded moment  as  if  touch could  end it so

                      this day collapsed into a breath’s span crossing rivers.

Barren empty sidewalks
gray and unforgiving,
winding on in never-ending concrete roads;
making un-melodic thumping sounds
as my feet rhythmically step-
dance-
and twirl-
Cold and lifeless buildings,
garter-ed in girders of steel and glass;
reflecting everyone's business-
every nosy little thought,
every scathing deadly glance;
Steep towers of frozen brokers,
daggering into other's precious dreams,
and optimism-
like the person you used to be,
like the hopes you used to have.
Saber teeth tigers leer down from high ledges,
ready to pounce and **** out my resolve-
while I flutter-
whirl-
and waver-
in existence;
teetering on the edge of perception,
of failure;
There is no color in these devoid cities,
no happiness held in these forlorn faces,
no smiles to stoke a burnt-out heart;
Just me-
dancing-
twirling-
leaping-
hoping -
trying-
to make you remember yourself.

Because
With me, I walk blindly forward as my mess is overturned behind me as I sulken dream. To turn round eventually I find all that’s been done, with me left to tidy - to replenish and erase the mess that has already *******, spread rapidly into every corner of my insides. The lights go off when it burns off and the ashes tend to tell of time wasted of thirst and sense of waiting for his return.
I’m then diving into the spiral of aftermath that leaves itself to solve without answers. Heart stretches further and further away from its halves to avoid being engulfed by incoming wave which floods of knowing I would never have you.

And now
the pen I resist from daggering into my wrist so it’s ink can bleed into my insides with mellow wordly turmoil.

- See though, alone I thought I was safe. But those words that dropped out her mouth so unimpeachably illustrated you breaking into me. At that very moment. And unleashing the demons from their cage. I think I feel them gnawing now.