Here from the first time, from the day I lost my virginity, look:
I have carved out the notches in secret on this headboard.
The wood a dark brown, daintily placed  at the head of my twin bed.
The tallies face the wall, the romance is dead.

In the middle among the marks, this deeper divot,
Where the grains turn to slivers: that is the day my heart broke.
I can recount the exact moment and tell you now as I trace it over,
His name, his smile, pained me far longer then it should have.
The smaller hashes that follow, all six of them, meant nothing.
See, there is no pattern, except for the fact that they made it to bed.

Over time, as it occurred, I chiseled away not only the headboard -
But my heart.  Too many notches for my fingers and toes.
See, here, that was revenge, and here, he's now an angel.
A multitude of sin runs through it all.

See, this headboard is whittled nearly end to end;
Perfectly untouched on one side, badly beaten on the other.
Regrets have created it, tucked between the sheets.
Yet, as I make the bed I can't help but smile,
Sign after sign, there will be another.

Psychological issues?

Sure.

I've got plenty.

I don't know exactly when it started
But some time ages ago
During elementary school
I just felt so worthless
Like I was numb
I wanted to feel
But I didn't know how
And it wasn't a sharp pain
I would welcome a sharp pain
It was dull ache that wouldn't leave me
I froze in my own icy thoughts
Maybe it was the loneliness
Or all the things those girls said to me
Maybe it was the insults or the whispers
Or maybe it was just my twisted mind
But whatever the cause
I tried to **** myself
When I was just a little 11 year old girl
When some girls were still playing with Barbies in secret
I was secretly playing with knives and ropes
I would take that blade
And scratch a cut into my wooden headboard
One slit in the wood for every moment that I wanted to die
Because I was too young back then to even think of my wrist
That came later
A few years later
And still
There are days where I just feel so horrible and sad and broken
For absolutely zero reason
It doesn't make sense
Nothing bad is even happening
But I feel shattered
I spent a year feeling so. hollow.
So f!cking hollow
I felt like I couldn't breathe
Like I wasn't alive
I spent entire days
Not speaking
I still miss the cuts sometimes, honestly
I like my scars
Which sounds terrible
But I trace them with my fingernails absentmindedly some days
During the darker nights
It comforts me
Because even though I’m not going to cut myself ever again
I can jolt myself into remembering the pain
And it is a form of relief in itself
I don’t know
Not something I can explain
Is that depression?
Probably not though, I feel bad suggesting it in front of people who actually for sure have depression when I haven't been analyzed
But still, it's not impossible I guess

I spent 5 years
From grade 5 through to grade 9
Which is pretty **** young
Feeling fat
Hating my body
Hating myself
I can see my ribs but I still feel fat
It’s okay I can fix that
Eating a little less
Skip a meal
Just skip lunch
Just eat a tiny breakfast, no lunch
No breakfast, no lunch but it’s okay because I have a good dinner
I think I’m losing weight
Is it bad that I’m in grade 5 and thinking like this?
This is great
I think it’s working
I’m in grade 6 now
Maybe I won’t be worthless if I become skinny
I can still see my ribs
I could from the beginning
But I still feel fat
Okay, less dinner now
Hide it well
Let’s switch
No lunch, a little dinner and a bit of breakfast
Just enough to stay alive
Although how much to I really want to stay alive?
Fat.
Look at my legs
Look at their legs
My thighs God I hate my thighs
Eat less
Eat less and less
Until I’m basically surviving on snacks and just the beginnings of each meal
Just enough to take a few bites before they leave the room for a minute
Just long enough for me to throw away my food
But I don’t think I’m losing weight
I will never be enough
7th grade
Just a little less
Don’t tell any of them
Losing pounds
Check my reflection
I still feel fat
I try to be less so I can feel like I’m more
But does the number on the scale even matter anymore?
I’m promising and promising I ate before I came
But these pretty little lies are driving even me insane
And they can’t see through my smile they can’t figure it out
I’m slowly killing myself
From the inside out
Pretty soon, “I don’t feel well” is my favorite phrase and an everyday thing
A justification for my small portions that I don’t finish
It’s true though
I don’t feel well
I feel worthless.
It continues into 8th and 9th grade
Worse and worse
Looking up the calories of different food
Surviving on water and tea
Just enough food to stay alive
Though I really don’t care that much about my own survival, really
Is that anorexia nervosa?
I doubt it
But it’s a possibility I guess

I look in the mirror
And I feel so f!cking ugly
I literally cannot find ONE thing I like about myself
I cannot leave the house without makeup
Because I am SO ashamed of my own face
I genuinely feel bad for the people who have to see my face
I cry sometimes, because I look in the mirror and see my own worthless hideousness
I remember that sleepover I was invited to with the popular girls and I wondered why
When I got locked in a closet, got soap sprayed in my mouth and locked outside in the freezing cold snow without pants on when I was just trying to change into my night clothes
That’s when I knew I had been invited just so they could torment me
I don’t like being the entertainment for the party
I tried to just go to sleep because if I called home I would look like a coward
And my mother who NEVER let me go to sleepovers would get to say “I told you so”
And when they thought I was asleep
But I wasn’t
I listened to them talk for a full hour
My eyes on the clock
My ears on their conversation
“Is she asleep”?
I didn’t know they were talking about me until I heard them mention my name
When they talked for a full f!cking hour
In detail
About why I was ugly
On what levels I was ugly
The degree of my ugliness
I didn’t cry
I didn’t sit up and tell them I could hear them
It would be too humiliating
I listened
And I know they are right
But now it’s getting bad
My face doesn’t even look human to me anymore
It looks like some sort of beastly troll’s face
It looks f!cking hideous
My mother is worried about me
Because I can’t even look myself in the mirror when I have no makeup on
Because I Freak. Out when it is suggested that I might have to be in public without hiding my ugly face in makeup
It literally affects my ability to function properly in everyday life.
The thing is, those girls said it
And they ALL agreed
So if I REALLY had dysmorphia
Then it would all be in my mind
And if they all agreed I was hideous
Then I must be
So how can it be imagined?
I don’t know
Anyway
My point is
I suppose
MAYBE
It is possible
I have dysmorphia

But
Depression
Anorexia Nervosa
Dysmorphia

Those possible diseases of the mind
I
Have multiple
Psychological issues

BUT OCD IS NOT F!CKING ONE OF THEM

How dare he suggest such a thing
Just because I
“Always seem to be working towards something”
Excuse me for not getting drunk and high and naked
Putting off work
Not caring about anything
It’s not OCD though
It’s just called going somewhere in life
Because I may as well
Since in my mind
I’m hopelessly lost

Anxious she finds herself
Though lately less so
Childhood bed
In her childhood home
Thinking childish thoughts in her childhood head
Russian nesting doll

Nesting
Nesting soon to be though not so
Rings and nausea
And please let me sleep
Head in her mother’s lap

Mental illness and lack of routine
Tapping on her glass

The blurry light from the hallway outside the bedroom reflecting on the shiny wooden headboard.
How many many many times has this dappled wood revealed its imperfections in that blurry reflected light?
Put me to sleep with your consistency and resolve

Thank you little light
And mother’s hands that flipped the switch
And eyes that remember
And mini terrors of her adolescents that gave this reflection the right to sweep across her consciousness in swooning waves that feel soothing as they scrape.

In this moment its comfort is quite enough

so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace  my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary

His Funeral was today.  Well, his wake rather.  It was in his old colonial home on Elm Street, a bought of irony that Paolo would never get.  Anyway, it was an odd set up at his house. Family and friends downstairs in the living room, acquaintances and honorable mentions meandering through the hallways clearly more interested in the intricate little floral patterns that adorned the wallpaper than how his family was holding up.  The company of the house was split, everyone either legitimately full of sorrow, or completely full of ****.  In everyone’s grasp either handkerchiefs or hand grenades it was as if the invitation read “Come see it to believe it!” In the study across the hall a small memorial was set up.  Big cards, tons of photos, some flowers, anyone who actually cared stayed there and stared at his once happy face, who knew what it looks like now.  
He had died of some sort of overdose, one that destroyed his heart, so he would have looked fine in an open casket.  The doctors say it was *******.  I don’t believe them.  Paolo had his fun in college, ***, *****, sure, but coke?  There’s no way.    The services weren’t to take place for another two hours, so his family rolled him onto the second floor balcony.  It was actually his dad’s decision, something about a “disgrace” and not wanting to look at his face.
Apparently his mom had felt bad letting her dead son chill on the porch for a few hours, so she rolled him across the hallway to his own room him and kind of laid him out on the bed, as if letting her baby boy take his eternal sleep where he’d have had most of his shorter ones.  
Picturing him lying up there was the first negative connotation I ever had with the image of him on that bed.  He had that kind of headboard that when we started getting at it the bed would hit the wall with each rhythmic movement.  Steady and almost tribal as our bodies danced to the ever increasing beat of a talking drum.  Our clothes off and our skin glazed with sweat it was like my own personal method for getting high. Now don’t get the impression that our relationship was based purely on a physical connection, we’d been dating for three and a half years, the love was there all right.  
We had met in the strangest of ways, through a mutual friend that I was kind of, almost, sort of, but not really having a “thing” with, you know?  Cisco was his name.  So we were together one day and he, being the adorable spaz that he was, had forgotten that his own birthday party was that same night.  He asked if I didn’t mind tagging along, it was a celebration for him and two friends whose birthdays followed his in sequence.  
This had been going on for several weeks, and I know we weren’t dating but I still had a feigning interest in the guy.  So we arrive to this girl, Cristina’s, house and I noticed this other boy almost immediately.  In a backwards cap and pair of boot cut jeans he was jumping around, tossing his arms, right in the middle of reciting some hilarious anecdote to any of his friends who hadn’t heard it yet; even those who had seemed riveted.  He was so full of charisma and with such assurance.  Besides that he was kind of cute so, though pathetically, I tried flirting with him for the rest of the night; he didn’t really catch on.  We left that night without having exchanged more than ten words between each other, I thought I’d never see him again, turns out I was wrong.  
“Broadway CAREols.  Show others that you care by enjoying a night of with your favorite blend of Christmas ditties and Broadway biddies” And before you ask, Yes, I did come up with that title, I think it was great and it was at the top of each flyer in big red and green letters and if you asked me “If you could do it again…” I would do it the same each and every time don’t judge me.
It was a show I had to direct for a community service project and of all people he played the piano for my show.  Only me and several other girls made up the cast, and I knew how easy it was to mistake a positive attitude for flirtation when it comes from a handsome young man.  He ran the music over three or four times individually with each cast member before the night of the show, but when Paolo and I worked that night he stopped me and just sang. For me.  
Each night after rehearsal I had to give him a ride home, I was a year older and thus had my license a year sooner.  I’d never mind allowing myself more time to bask in the glow of his perfectly understated confidence, so I was happy to oblige.  Technically Connecticut state imposed a law forbidding new drivers under the age of 18 to be on the roads past 11 at night.  My mom, being a government employee, really stressed this one.  His house was a solid ten minutes drive from our rehearsal spot, and my mom often warned me to allow myself enough time to get back home before 11.  What started as me beginning to drive faster and faster during the trip home ended as a routine each night, where I would finally allow him to step out of my car just as the clock read 11:00 PM.  
Our first kiss was in that car, my first uncontrollable breakdown was in the car, hell the first time he told me he loved me was in that car…right at the lip of the driveway.  I learned to ride my brakes perfectly to the point where I could park just beyond the edge of the sidewalk yet just before the point where the porch light would flash on, reminding his mother that his son is out past ten on a school night.  It was so warm.  I’ll never forget the cadence of his laughter as it trailed off, seamlessly merging with that next statement “Anna, I love you”.  I could have sworn the porch light went on.  

Now I know it may seem like I don’t care for his being dead right now, but the thing is, I did something.  I did something really bad.

You see, I had mentioned that he was up in his room, right?  Still, stiff, simply waiting to be brought down in a few hours as the catalyst to another round of tears.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did my share of crying the night before.  He’d been in the hospital for only a few days and when they told us he was dead…God, he was just so young, two years into college, the friend you have who was chasing his dreams down with a brand new pair of sneakers.  That kid the whole town knew because of the multitude of silly town functions he attended.  He would always insist.  Every other weekend was one silly thing or another “Oh you’re gonna love this.  Two words – ‘Poetry showdown’.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t stay in the kitchen”
The day of the funeral I just had to see him.  I snuck up the two floors to his room on the third floor.  As I neared his door at the top of that final flight of stairs each creak of the floorboard seemed to resonate through the house, followed by the hollow silence of my stillness.  I paused with each step as if stepping in larger spans of time would make what I was doing seem less suspicious, should someone hear me.  Upon touching his doorknob I felt an immediate chill. I couldn’t tell whether it was some ghostly feeling of being in the presence of a dead person, or the fact that the thermostat had been turned down to keep his body prime for viewing.
I held my breath as I opened the door, and blinked a couple times when I saw him.  He was wearing what everyone else was in downstairs, black tuxedo and a dark tie.  I know he would have scowled had he known he was going to be buried in a constricting penguin suit.  We had a conversation about it, you know?  Out on Academy Hill, right in the middle of a picnic. We were in enough shade that his transition lenses were only half tinted, and when he sat up, it was abruptly.  Pushing my head off his chest he kind of leaned in to the cemetery in the distance and pointed out how sad it is that no one really ever gets the chance to choose how they want to spend the rest of eternity dressed in.  He would have preferred his puma sneakers, still white after seven months, his striped green and blue socks, his only pair of ripped designer jeans and that express shirt he loved so much because it showed off his natural physique.  
I moved closer, inching toward him at first, then quicker as I broke through a place where I just relaxed, and for a moment he wasn’t dead.  For a moment he was just sleeping, all ready in his fancy get up simply waiting for me to wake him up.  I found myself sitting next to him, my eyes cast downward, half expecting his gaze to meet mine, and while stroking his hair I got an idea.  It happened quickly, and I kind of have a problem with acting upon my impulses, it’s something he used to criticize me on that and I never really improved.  Without thinking I threw open his drawer and pulled out what I knew he’d have wanted to be dressed in, should he have gotten the chance to create a will concerning his death-wear.  As I pulled of his starchy shirt my hand brushed against his chest, chilled as the room was, eerie as nothing else.  I finally got him down past his pants and saw, of all abominations, that he was outfitted in a fresh pair of tighty whities.  God, it’s as if the funeral home was asking to be haunted by his tormented soul.  I found his single pair of silk boxers and reassembled him in the way I knew he’d have wanted to be.
So great, now everyone will think I’m a loon for having desecrated his body.  Well what do they know; I’m the only one who ever really knew him! But how the hell would I explain it to his parents when the pallbearers march in and there he is, laying face up in his street clothes?  
This wasn’t right.  He didn’t belong here, he needed to be somewhere comfortable, someplace he enjoyed, not sitting upstairs in a suit with the lights off and the air blasting.  He hated the cold!  Certainly he would have hated a hundred people staring at his dead and lifeless shell, and he would, without a doubt, hate being six feet under, pushing daises at the Nichols Road cemetery.
I wrapped my arms around him, and as the building adrenaline made my breaths deepen I inhaled several moments of ecstasy off his clothes that still clung to his musty scent.  I lowered him gently to the floor and took care as I dragged him across the carpet to his door.  After fumbling, for what felt like several minutes, on his door handle I got him onto the awning introducing the stairs.  I even made it down the first flight of stairs without freezing up at the tiniest creak when I heard someone coming my way.  ******, they must need to use the bathroom, why couldn’t they just use the one downstairs like any normal person?  Without hesitation I throw open up the window near bottom of the stairs, heaving myself and him, sending us tumbling onto the garage roof.  Ignoring my probable bruises I spring up and slam the window behind me while taking special care to hide us both as far away from the bathroom window as possible.
Sitting up there, my heart racing, I felt his hand in mine and it was probably because my palms had gone clammy but I swear for a span of time he was alive again.  I closed my eyes and felt the breeze in my hair and was transported to a place where I spent a single moment in each day we ever shared.  Each beach side sandcastle, each afternoon spent cloud gazing, those same afternoons turning into evenings of star gazing, each and every night spent utterly and irrevocably lost with this silly boy that chose to love me.  
I was torn from my oasis as I heard the bathroom’s occupant exit and continue downstairs.   Knowing that my van was parked on the other side of the street I pushed his body as close to the edge of the roof as I could without his falling off and let him be. I hopped back inside and ran downstairs, but not before flying through the doors of the memorial and interrupting his mothers eulogy.  In an act of sheer brilliance I mustered a few tears and tore out the back door.  Everyone figured I was just so taken away by his death that I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.  Who knew anxiety could be mistook for remorse so easily?
I ran down the driveway, losing the grace I had composed in my dress in high heels the moment I slammed that door.  I jumped into Emmet, my van, because only crazy people drive around in un-named vehicles.  
I pulled out of my spot, nearly ruining the paint job on both my and his Uncle Ed’s car.  I flew my trunk door open and set the third row down, the general idea being his landing securely in my back seat.  I reversed up the driveway with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a leopard right back to the edge of the garage where I had tossed his body.  I jumped out of my car nearly forgetting to put it into park before I shut off the engine.  I barely got halfway around my car before becoming transfixed on his hand, hanging off the gutter as if reaching for mine to grab hold and pull him to sweet salvation.  I jumped up a few times, unsuccessfully before I took off my shoes and got a good running start.  I flew up, grabbed his arm and ****** towards the car in a sideways downward motion.  He nearly cracked his head on the pavement coming down, he would have too if it wasn’t for my body breaking his fall.  I got up, too distracted by the sheer volume of my own heart to realize the pain I felt.  I shoved him into my back seat, slammed the trunk, stumbled into the car, stuck it in reverse and stepped on gas without even putting my shoes back on.

I told you I had done something bad.

5/6/00 3:49 PM
I am transcribing this mornings’ writings.
It is 11 a.m. I have been naked all day.  So many windows to look through, both physically and in the mind.  
I have been near silent the whole time I have been in this house.  I find it so strangely familiar here.  It fits; it all fits in the mysterious cosmic way I have yet to discover.
*I am a person who visits ‘his house when he is on trips.  And here I find myself on a trip or two indeedy.  The house, thought 1, I love his style.
It makes me think of what I want for myself.  There is fantasy and reality to indulge in here.
Reality is the space and freedom.  Space for all things special and ordinary.  I miss space and order.  He has all the thought provoking areas of interest of a real home.  The colors are rich, deep blue, burgundy, and browns, all used in an artful mix of styles.  Oddly pondering here because I would choose many of the same pieces myself.  Every room has space for dancing, which I have done naked a few times here now.
Everyone else is watching big screen movies.  I am in the other living room on a big brown leather couch; still naked, touching all of ‘his things with my body.  
I awoke this morning to the sound of the modem.  I swear it is the perfect alarm clock for me!  You know I get excited every time I here the perfect connection.  
My dreams were vivid awake and asleep because ‘he is on a trip and I am sleeping naked in the master bedroom.  There is the possibility he could have come home at anytime.  I had spent 6 hours already that night naked in his home without his knowledge.  Everyone is used to me being naked when we come stay here.  I don’t want to put clothes on here, in this house.
It is not the people around seeing me naked in the yard sunbathing, or running around the big house with big windows which have no coverings btw.
It is the space and atmosphere that draws out my facets.  This space sparks my exhibitionist in a feisty way. * All the ***** massages for me to relax and enjoy, just being papered to highs. *  
The white leather couch and a 60-inch screen for movies- others are sitting in the chairs and on the floor.
One joins me on the sofa.  Everyone is watching a movie, so am I when my eyes are open.  I am on the couch on my stomach, with a pillow under my hips and my head.  My legs spread wide, there I am being touched inside and out constantly.  I moan, open my eyes and see the many eyes on me and the ’s.  I close my eyes and smile and say “watch the movie you guys geez”, giggle, wiggle and moan again.  The surround sound covers some of my whimpers.  
As soon as the movie was over I walked to the master bedroom and turned on the light.  HIS clothes, files, and suitcases were still on the bed.  WoW he really could come home.  I wanted that bed!
-We- cleared the bed and I jumped in the middle and put ‘his pillow under my ***.  I don’t know ‘him, but I love his style and I wanted to *** on his bed and pillows.  The fact that I come here and stay naked all over his things excites me, and he has no idea.  And yes, I came all over the master bed, we ****** madly!  I know the others heard my bells and chains clinking at a feverish pace.  I listened to the sounds ‘his bed made.  I fully enjoyed his headboard, grabbing his oak poles, feeling each one up and down, as I was getting closer to coming.  Ahhh my hand finds a broken bar, I think how it must have been broken by ‘him doing what I was at that moment.  That moment I came.
My mind was so in this “space”, that after we were spent I jumped up and ran to the pool.  Everyone else was still wake and followed me outside.  Skinny-dipping after hours of pleasure is the best recovery!  Wooo Hooo!  
I was the only one naked – still, I didn’t mind and neither did anyone else.  They were announcing to me when the pool jets came on, giggles, they wanted me sitting on them.  A wind picked up and I went inside, everyone followed me in.  
We all watched Eyes Wide Shut, and then everyone went to his or her separate rooms.  
I took ‘his room, I love the big space, the many doors and windows all left open, so nice and free.  I stood beside ‘his bed and slowly dropped my chains and bells beside his slippers on the floor.  I sprawled about on his sheet and fell into a light sleep.
I was dreaming that there was a camera taking pictures of me, while I was replaying in my dream the real conversation I had with ‘him the night before.  He was asleep on the phone, I called and he never fully woke up to give my message to his roommate.  I listened to him breath, and I spoke quietly to him, softly and sweetly, he spoke back a few times and then I hung up.  But in the dream I was having it was *******, and I was talking in my sleep, in ‘his bed.  What a twist of cosmic ways.  With all the dreams: of the snap shots and the discovery of me in his bed, ****, alone and moaning **** me.   In my dream I was saying it, and I know the other people in the other rooms could hear me speaking my mind in my sleep.  The rooms are close by indeed.
Awoke by the modem with 5 hours of sleep, I was stiff bodied, yet excited to wake up in ‘his bed.  It was 8:30 a.m. I rolled over and moaned loud enough to draw attention to myself, knowing it would work .
I kept my eyes closed and softly said how sore my ribs and back were.  The hands of the night before returned to rub my body once again.  After a few minutes of morning massage, I smiled, giggled and rolled off the bed and darted to the pool.
Naked morning sunshine, I love it, jump in the pool and by the time I got fully wet the coffee came to me.  Everyone was eating breakfast poolside while I skinny-dipped my body into a limber state.  After breakfast everyone jumped in the pool with me, but I was the only one naked.  We all swam for 30 minutes or so.  I spotted the lounge chair and decided to sunbathe Seconds after my body reclined, the hands and oil came to pamper me once again.  I was spread out in full view of all in the pool, getting slicked up al over, with oil and such.  It felt great inside and out, I didn’t care that everyone was watching me get my ***** satisfied.  I was vividly aware of where I was, out in the open space and the freedom of space, as I thought my *** rose in the air and my body twitched repeatedly.  I heard the voices in the pool, and felt the sun on me as I came hard, right there in front of everyone.  Hell, I needed help getting up off that chair, and an oiled hand took mine, and led me to the master bedroom.
The master’s bed now has oil on the sheets and the headboard, and the wall.  I left myself all over his things.  He will know some of my essence whether he knows it or not, I will.  Here I sit naked in his den loving every naked minute of it.
I am back from being oil girl.  Being bent over people spreading glistening oil on nakedness, my *** got a lil bit to much sun!  I go to the master bedroom again, everyone is still poolside.  I try on things, because they are left out on the bed.  You know how I always ask what a mans' favorite pair of pants are?  Well there was 501’s in my size, I couldn’t resist sliding him on me, loving how they fit my ***.  I went back outside and paraded around showing how good ‘his pants fit me.  “Do you have underwear on?” I was asked, I laughed and said no.  I got an odd look from the people.  I danced off to the bedroom and put them back, knowing how he fit was enough.
Right now I am sitting outside writing and a camera is pointed right at my *****.  So I shall stand up for a few shots.  I got up and stood on the table and spread for some close ups, ****, ok enough sun, my **** are red.
After delivering a few drinks poolside, I return to ‘his bed, laying on my belly, thinking, pen in hand.
I hear the shower turn off and I close my legs, I feel the wet drops hit my back, as he sits on my legs.  He is holding them together with his weight.  I feel the oil hit my back, sliding down the crack of my ***.
The lower back massage becomes two bodies sliding against each other.  At first his hands slide between my tightly pressed thighs.  My hips grabbed and lightly lifted, raising my *** in the air, yet tightly holding my legs together.
A breath on my neck touched me at the same time he entered my ***** once again.  My pen never left my hand.  I was focused.
I go for a smoke and jump back into the pool, knowing its time for me to leave soon.  As I enter the main room, in just *******, I pick up my lotion and start putting it on my arms.  Hands from behind gently take the lotion and begin putting it on my sunburned back.  I defiantly feel the fact that I have ******* on as the hands reach my lower back and slowly pull them off……

I search for some decor
to pretty up my house
A headboard, some dead boards
or maybe a couch?

The said so to do it
on public TV
my kitchens not pretty
as pretty as can be

But what will the neighbors
think of my design?
they'll report to the magazine
that it's beautiful and sublime!

Some ship lap, some sconces
all wrapped in a bow
i will trend till tomorrow
then die all alone

Rip it all down
Says Chip and Joanna
They are more popular
Than Hanna Montanna

They live on a ranch
an take millions to make
a spectacular suprise
for a couple to take

We all laugh an cheer
at Chip's child like antics
Which makes great TV
as Joanna gets Frantic!

Do Chip and Joanna really
care about you?
As long as the station
gets ten million views

They tell us to fix it
even though it's not broken
go shop till you drop
and spend every token

Buy that cool sign
made from cheap yellow plastic
The richer get richer
but, our wall looks fantastic!

Do not give in
to the big corporate greed
there are sick, hungry people
and starving mouths to feed

so every cent spent
on the corporate wealth
helps the richer get richer
and we go to stealth

Wake up and see vanity
is causing distress
don't give in to pressure
of this corporate mess!

So Papa wants to buy me a headboard
My favorite man
A good, good man
When I make love here
On this bed
How can I wrong any woman?
No
I will have to be good here
I will have to be myself

Daniel, Peter, George and I sat in various stages of drunkenness.  Dee was sober and on the water. It was our annual dinner, the great catch-up, and most of us were drinking champagne. A great bouquet of peach roses sat in the middle of the table dropping petals by the hour.
“She’s got ginger hair.” Peter laughed.
“It’s more auburn.” George defended, pouring himself another drink.
“No.” Said Peter. “She’s ******* ginger.”
Daniel leant back in his chair with his arms behind his head, wearing his face of perpetual amusement.
“Dan. Come on, now. What colour is Melanie’s hair?”
“Oh…I don’t know.” Dan smiled. “A sort of strawberry blonde.”
Peter punched George on the shoulder."See! She’s ******* ginger!”
Boys will always jostle to be top dog. Daniel was the alpha and Peter resented it, but Daniel was everything that Peter would never be: good-natured, strong, calm, in control. Peter was loud and insulting, a bit of a bully but sort of sad with it, prone to fits of melancholy and drunkenness. We all had our role to play. George was fey and funny and got offended easily. I was the madman who did the things they didn’t dare.  The dynamic worked, most of the time.
Dee was quiet and an ‘outsider’, so he didn’t count. He sat with his glass of tonic water which was packed with slowly cracking ice, and he stuck to his usual routine : no food, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no smiling, no chit chat. Any time I laughed or told a joke, his silence would shame me. He reminded me of how desperate I was to fit in, to be one of the boys. He always shamed me just by sitting there, by not joining in, by being so ******* above it all, by being so himself.
“So, what exactly are you doing these days, Art?” Peter asked.
“Teaching. You know that.”
“Yeah but…why? Do they even allow mental patients around kids?”
Daniel leaned forwards in his chair and glanced at me, checking for discomfort.
“God.” I sighed. “******* Peter.”
“And what do you do?” Peter asked, looking at Dee. Dee took a long while to answer, focusing his eyes and adjusting his posture.
“PhD. Physics.”
“Sounds boring.”
“He’s mathematically gifted.” I said proudly.
Peter smiled with one side of his mouth.
“If someone gave me the gift of maths I’d return it and buy a calculator.”
Everyone laughed, including me. Dee started to fold his napkin, and then he unfolded it. Then he folded it again.
“Do you love maths, then?” George asked.
Dee pushed the napkin into his lap and shrugged.
“There’s something wrong with you if you love maths.” George said. “Maths is *******.”
“Do you want another tonic?” I asked Dee, putting my hand on his knee. He pushed it off with force.
“No. In fact - I think I want to go home.”
“Don’t go home!” Daniel said. “Please Dee, stay a while.”
“No, I really think I ought to go home now.”
“Hey.” I grabbed his knee again. “Come on.”
“No.” he stood up, the candlelight winking wildly in the silk wrinkles of his shirt. “I really want to leave.”
“The evening’s just getting started.” Peter said.
“The evening is not the problem.” Dee said quietly. “The problem is you.” He closed his eyes. “The problem is you.”
I felt my skin shrink. Dee stood up to his full height and exhaled.
“In fact, the problem is all of you. You’re all awful human beings. All of you. Awful, awful, awful.” His eyes sparkled as he warmed to his theme. “And you’re all so ******* boring!”
Peter and George were speechless. Daniel leant back and laughed beneath praying hands.
“Yes, you’re bores! You’re such ******* bores! Even the waiter is bored! Even the flowers are bored!”
“Dee, love.” I stood up and grabbed his shoulder. I was quite drunk.
“No Arthur, I’m going home, I’m tired. I’ll get a cab, you stay here with your awful, awful, awful, awful bores.”
He stomped off and Daniel blinked at me, his eyes wrinkled and drunk.
“Go on Art, go home. It’s ok.”
“God, Arthur.” Peter said. “What a lunatic. There’s something seriously wrong with him.”
“Oh *******, Pete.” I snapped, for the second time that night.
“Take this.” Dan said, thrusting his bottle of champagne at me. “I don’t want it. Go on, run and catch him. Go and get drunk with him.”
“No use. He doesn’t drink, remember?” I said, putting on my coat.
“Drink some water with him then. Tell him…” Dan grabbed my head and whispered into my ear, “…tell him that he’s right, that we are ******* bores.” He burst out laughing and sank down into his seat, watching me do up my buttons. “Oh my God!” he laughed, grabbing my hand like he was about to kiss it. “We’re so boring! We’re so ******* boring! Look at us! Even I’m bored!”
Daniel winked at me, still laughing. Daniel was one of Dee’s greatest defenders, and he admired Dee because Dee was honest, because he could not fail to be honest, and because Daniel loved the people that I loved, and I loved Dee most of all.
I grabbed the roses from their vase, just in case I needed them. They were wet, and dying, and they had no smell.
I caught up with Dee outside Angel In The Fields. He complained that he had a headache and told me he wanted to go home. He told me that he couldn’t have stayed one second longer.
He took the flowers from me, and buried his face in them until I hailed a cab.
Flowers were a running theme with us. Flowers in buttonholes, wisteria in gardens. Roses in his face. Buttercups in the grass. So terrible, when I think about it now. Perhaps someone was trying to tell me:
Arthur -  this story will start and end with flowers.

Dee had a habit of ruining social occasions. Perhaps the stress got to him, the terror of communicating, the fear of conversation. He became easily overtired and quickly over stimulated, if a conversation was getting too personal or staying at chit-chat level, he would begin to stress and flounder. If someone annoyed him he could not pretend to like them – he had to let them know that they were ****** or boring or dumb. He didn’t fully comprehend how offensive he could be. He didn’t understand that in order to maintain peace, you must suppress yourself a little bit, tailor yourself to fit the rest. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in suppressing himself, it’s that he simply couldn’t do it.
Most of all, he hated people taking up my attention, whether they were talking to me, amusing me, or even hurting me – he made it very obvious that he did not like to share.
Once, he emptied an entire bottle of red wine into a young woman’s handbag because she had been talking to me all night. He placed broken bottles in front of his mother’s car tires. He sent anonymous emails to my father, threatening disembowelment.  He beheaded ivory chess pieces, snipped the heads off anniversary roses, kicked people's shins under tables.
And he had the worst temper I had ever known.
When people didn’t understand where he was coming from, when he felt isolated and flustered by his own emotional poverty, he would begin to fragment. He would rock back and forth and moan. His voice would change, his face would change, and his anger would be frightening in its desperation, he would tear at his own clothes and hurl himself into walls. A few times I had to physically restrain him, pulling his sweater or shirt over his head to trap his arms, sitting on him, trying to calm him down.
But I could always deal with it, the crazy stuff – it didn’t bother me at all. The rage, the disconnect, the alienation. I knew what it was like to lose control. I knew what it was like to feel different. I used to say to him, “I was with Dee today and I seen hell in his face, Guv’nor. It was all red and blotchy looking.” And then, sometimes, he’d smile.
It was the eating thing that devastated me. It was the eating thing that made me feel useless. That was the one thing that I didn’t understand.

We took a cab from Angel In The Fields and went back to no.23. He went straight upstairs to get undressed, and took a pair of new cashmere socks out of their little beribboned box.
“It’s too warm for cashmere.” I said. He didn’t listen, and put them on anyway.
Dee had never had much of a *** drive, so I knew I was pushing my luck by kissing him – we had made love the night before. He kept his mouth closed and pushed me away.
“No, I don’t want to."
He picked the fluff from his black velvet computer chair.
“I’m not cross.” I said.
“Cross?”
“About…tonight. With the boys.”
“Oh. Ok.”
I went to kiss him again. God, I loved it when he bent his head back and his tongue met mine, his arms relaxing at the elbows, his limpet legs clamping around my own. But his mouth pursed up at me. No entry tonight, sorry.
“Goodnight, then.” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
Something cruel took over me as I opened the door to leave.
“Y’know, Dee – sometimes I think you really hate me.”
He looked at the wall behind me, scrunching his face up, wound up and stuck.
“Forget it.” I said. “Just ******* forget it.”
As I closed the door I heard an animal noise, a miserable animal noise.

Dee was the only thing that had ever made any sense to me. I had no real connection to my parents, I loved my mother but she was silent and neurotic, full of nervous energy that set me on edge. I never felt like I could fully confide in her. I hated my father because he had never loved me, and he had told me so. The only people I loved, my grandparents and my sister, were far away and mostly busy, unavailable, and I caught up with them through letters and telephone calls and occasional rushed visits - holidays, weekends away from school, time away from parents and *******.
I once walked to my grandparent’s house after running away from school, and I fought through a cage of conifers just to ring their bell, turning up at their door wild-eyed and full of pine needles.
I always fought to be with the people that I loved. I fought and fought and fought.
I loved Dee because he was mine and he was never too busy for me. He was as quiet as my mother, as vengeful as my father, but he was mine and I loved him, and he loved me back.
Perhaps that sounds very naïve. But it wasn’t naïve. My love was grown up, full of sacrifice and sleepless nights and heavy talks that left me exhausted. I searched for him when he wasn’t there, I talked to his mother about his health, I took his blood pressure, I poured his fortisip, I calmed him down, I made him laugh and I loved him, ******* hell I loved him, and I watched him like a God and reached out for him in the morning because he reminded me that I was alive, because he made my realness real, because he was my cold fire and he burned by the side of me, coldly, to balance out the crazed orange bonfire of me.

He followed me to bed soon afterwards, brushing his teeth and taking off his clothes, sitting down next to me.
“I hung up my blue.” He said. “Could you fetch it for me?”
His ‘blue’ was an oversized shirt that he slept in sometimes. He put it over his head and it fell around him.
“You know.” He said, “Sometimes I think that you hate me.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
He got in next to me.
“I don’t hate you, not now, not ever.”
“I’m not one of your friends, though. If you had to choose a friend, you wouldn’t choose me.”
I didn’t reply, because I didn’t understand what he meant.
“Daniel is your best friend, isn’t he? But you’re my best friend. What happens when I have to talk about something, something that I can’t talk to you about? I don’t have any friends because I don't like anyone else. So who am I supposed to talk to?”
“Me! You can talk to me! I tell you everything.”
“Well, what if I wanted to do something, but I knew that you would try to stop me from doing it?”
“I wouldn’t stop you from doing anything you wanted to do. Not ever.”
“Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Please Dee, you can’t just start a conversation and then abandon it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore, I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”
“What is it? Come on, please. What is it?”
He turned away and curled up.  I stayed with my head against the headboard, looking down at him.
‘I love you.” He said, without moving. “I thought I should tell you. I thought you should know.”
“I love you, too.”
And then he went to sleep, leaving me to the house sounds, the clanging inside the walls, the discordant duet of two sets of breathing and the occasional cough.

When I woke up, he was in the shower. His socks were bunched up at the edge of the bed, shrugged off in the night.
Like I said. It was too ******* hot for cashmere.

a storyteller's perspective, steppin' off the ordinary edge, into the unknown

An unsent letter lay on the rustic log cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light comes in,
where it laid fallen, half *** crumbled, yet never a wadded ball;
never an unspoken thrown paper stone,  a befallen regret was all.
Silently atilt and leaning against the canted wall's slant
behind the gathered dust a squeaky hinged burl wood door

A timeworn tarnished copper wind up clock roosted,
an old lip smirched coffee cup time stood still;
an empty bottle of gin sat near the bed post headboard
where the ink stains and blotted spillings let the memories in.
Stained pages torn and bent like fallen paper wings
returned to the unread sender … postage due,   south a heaven sent ―

A sullied envelope, gnawed and mouse chewed,
for a nest of new beginnings ―     
                                                          just read:                   Lydia  ...  ♡
                                ... followed by a scribbled empty heart               

The time aged brown tattered tablet paper left behind
stifled like the unread heart it holds upon the threadbare pages
of smudged tear’s ache and spilled gin

The weathered rock hearth fireplace filled with spent ashes,
hand rolled cigarette butts, traces of an aching lament;
scratched up old vinyl records lay ***** and tired out,
from a time of sweeter fallen fences, a musical bliss, and
a lost angel's abandoned red slinky party dress,  
aside a busted off black velvet high-heel stuck sullied
in a hollow knothole in the ancient barn-wood floor
a sparkly pearl pink jewel entangled in a spider web

An unsent letter lay on the rustic cabin floor
A cold wind musta’ blown through the cracks the light gets in

The final unread words silently said:

                               "We lost our way,
                                  it all went wrong,
                                  it all turned bad"

                             ..."This is the outcome when someone you love  
                                  up and throws you away"

                             ...“I’ll reach out from the inside
                                  I’ll rise up again and do without”

                             ..."You went out into the world
                                  with an untamed hankerin’ ―
                                  like a carefree restless gypsy breeze
                                                                 and come back worlds apart"

The Unsent Letter,  
                          just whispered words to the dust in the wind
                                                            ­                        in quivering ink:

                             ..."how can I ever unremember you...?
                                  a thrown stone sinks wordlessly as a rock...,
                                  an old wood bucket with a rotten hole the heart,
                                  fallen forgotten, rock bottom as an empty well"

                                        just signed:   ...   ❤  August


                          *January 1st, 2017 ... august ... wild is the wind  ♡

On the day that I met you, I knew,
Something, some thought, some feeling, bloomed,
Some thickening, welling honey, through,
Which glued, that golden glaze which gild,
My eyes, my heart, my feelings, still,
Which seven years would slowly spill,
And now our hands are covered.

And all days since, I've vowed to live,
My all, your happiness, all that is,
My gift to you, accumulative,
To scorn the world, undeserving of us,
To prove to you, that white-hot dove,
That I'm not moving, my lover, my love,
I want for you to stain me.

In the morning, awake with haste,
We both agree, ignore the taste,
Of us, our wine-filled mugs, placed,
Swill, replaced with water at three,
The thirsty, the woken, the golden beam,
The bronze-capped flower, headboard between,
A kiss, just ours, both bodies; clean.

rarely do i have a title before a poem,
but sometimes it feels like i've abstained
from ******* for a month and i write one down;
i'm surprised i didn't take the bait,
i was a blind man that was give sight years later,
every gold-digger's wet-dream some might add,
but what post-Marxism has revealed is that
that bourgeoisie like to belittle those of menial-task
labour rather than the upper-tier socialites,
it's just that they don't possess insignia of power,
they exercise their power on the lowest kind,
men who'd gladly spend a hot summer's day toiling
the fields in full happiness of physical splendour
than spend it pampered in a Versailles parlour kin -
they think books are their macaroons...
i should have not minded my self-worth so much
and settled for the prize of easy-living,
it was more like a self-obsession but made kinder
with the word solipsism... whatever it was,
i spent a month in St. Petersburg like Al Paccino in
Alaska insomniac witnessing the white nights...
i could write a honorary poem with rhyme and
perfect punctuation... but life isn't like that...
it was a night to remember, a great **** on a bed
with a tortoise green headboard and a line of mirrors
where the concept of ******* was made clear:
Narcissus watching himself ******* with nymph
after nymph until Echo's turn came; it was no longer about
the face or beauty, but the insect-like banality,
Narcissus inventing fiction, ******* in-front of a mirror,
discharged and opened a Pandora's box for himself,
pronoun usage... strange how all monotheists contest
the existence of one among no other, like polytheists
contests the existence of one among many... like now...
if they be gods, their names do not necessarily denote
a chance encounter and formal airs or grievances mastered
for a brief conversation; very much resides in their poetic
investment being banked, that Narcissus, less noun
and more imagery is best understood -
for i claim that poetic techniques are equally needed in
the lessons of grammar: such that metaphor,
onomatopoeia, imagery, pun are equal with noun, verb,
adjective... etc.

rude words? crude words? well, i guess
you're fine with the carnage of images,
you abstract someone in alternative versions
of dimension and say a £-D person doesn't matter...
when did Luis XIV ever bow before a *******?
so she calls you up, this rich, pampered,
self-righteous Cinderella hopeful from
St. Petersburg with a flat about 10 minutes
shy from the the Hermitage...
she's walking on glass, i can hear her from
a mile away like a shark sniffing a droplet
of blood from a mile, the salt, the salt
agitates it's senses, god be merciful,
but god wasn't with missing eyelids on
aquatic creatures and serpents, i'm guessing
the Darwin in me swoons to say:
eyelids breed dreams, mammalian blood,
no eyelids, no dreams,
amazing how a rainbow can penetrate a
cave of darkness, don't give me the meaning
of dreams, Freud, give me how it happens,
your why is perfect for the rich,
a second coming of communism -
those neo-**** punks don't know what
they're defending, they think is glam-rock
style obituaries, it's degenerate culture
right on the pitch of saying... it's a fork.
no, i don't have any respect...
why did you leave Edinburgh, she asked.
i don't know, he replied.
now comes the abstracting of rigid
fiction systems due to the psychology of
being attracted to ancient pronouns,
after all psychology was always attracted to
ancient pronoun uses,
we have the scholarly etymology from ego
as the up-keeping of Greek -
fair enough, keep the alphabet, but forget about
the ideas behind it... but wait, you kept both!
and the urban etymology from self
as the insertion of slang & slur and what
other nonsense you'd come up with for applause...
so she calls you up after you asked her:
those anti-contraceptive pills working?
yes.
you asked me to not use a ******.
yes.
can we keep it casual?
yes.
am i looking at torture instruments in a museum?
yes.
**** me, i better get drunk every night and hope
for an early death... 'cos that's what i'm doing right now!
i don't want to live more than i had wished to live...
every ******* time i open *harold norse'
autobiography: memoirs of a ******* angel i'm nagging,
i read the **** thing, too much premature **** in it -
or.. swearing... a healthy approach to a vault of vocabulary -
it's not a version of bankruptcy, it's just economics babe,
say it blunt, use a sharp knife... better that than
saying it sharp, and having to use a blunt knife,
believe me, you'll be taking oaths on a guillotine by then...
but you'll find it easier buying a harold norse memoir
than one book of his poetry...
it's antiques we're dealing with, this ain't
alan ginsberg's howl, it's the fringe, a scotland of
the roman empire, antiques!
i do wish i never said: get an abortion...
but the dialectical dichotomy in me that some would
say less eloquently as being schizophrenia now wishes
i didn't... but... what's that argument for feminism?
i forget taking contraceptive pills he ***** me on my period
or he ***** me on my period and i get impregnated,
so this is some miraculous ****-up situation by chance?
she said the exact words: i think i'm pregnant.
the Cartesian in me says: i think... so i'm guessing
she doubts she is.
better still... i don't know!
so she is, she isn't... my truthful reply would be...
i, don't, have, any, money... she's the one with
a spare apartment roughly 10 minutes from the *******
Hermitage and i'm stuck in limbo to her game plan of
having parents and never growing up...
well of course poetry doesn't sell, we don't have
patronages from popes, and if only english teachers
and aristocrats write in this medium...
then you're all about to pack your bags for
Disneyland...
still the first page from that autobiography ****** me off,
i don't know why, there's so much pompous pie
in it... given social stratification the outcasts feel
empowerment by rebelling against social norms and
expectations, while the social in-casts have to feel
shame... and this is an existential shame, a sense of
purpose without a sense of continuum -
that's what's bothering me, it's that shady grey area
of ratios 2 : 1 in China, 2 : 3.4 in England or...
1 : 2 (single mother, two children)... if i really did a runner
would i write for zilch? if i did a runner i'd run blind
completely, i wouldn't expose myself to some minor
event in my life... i'll repeat...
approximately 10 minutes... from the Hermitage...
i can see the Shard of London as a toothpick from where
i'm sitting on the odd day in the park...
my position isn't exactly one of power, but more of gob.

She said
you don't understand
it's more than that
it's bliss
it envelops all that was
and has ever been
I said don't be silly
I want to make love
and then I want to ****
I want to play songs on your skin that your lips don't know the words to           drink the candlelight in your eyes
  get drunk like wine
  sweet as
   summer
I want to paint goosebumps on your thighs
trace the outline of our future as our shadows
  dance on the wall
I want bodies to quake in a thundering rhythm
ships soft as silk under siege by some
  unseen storm
I want to color outside the lines of your body
  scribble musings with my fingertips
  read the response with the rise of your hips
tattoo your curves like there's ink on my tongue
I want to make you hit the high notes that make the sky split open
reach the moment of utopia  
where ragged breath is broken
and for a second
gravity consumes the both of us
I want our consciousness to float, made one by unseen forces
while you lay beneath me *******
souls no longer out of focus
and words no longer spoken
rather,
cloaked in
golden    hopeful
      moments
left to float in some abyss of sacrilegious potency  
Your aroma has a pulse
    it sighs in my ear
draws me in with scented fingers
   between your thighs,   beneath your fears
I want to soak in the madness as my sight disappears
and all around us sprout the roots of prayers
   unanswered for years
I want to collect the moments I leave you breathless in a jar by my bed
so when the arch in your back leaves you on the cusp of
   paradise
             and
      lust
I’ll crack the lid
and let you feel nirvana like Buddha never did
I wanna pay homage to your eyelids
  fluttering in heavy silences
a testament to science how your stomach falls and rises
I’ll savor the way your headboard creaks
take pleasure on a ride through valleys and peaks
I want ecstasy
   and movement
      to unite
    with the clench of your fists
   your trembling lips
your sweat as it drips
onto the sheets
A sacrifice of pleasure
and the message is received
embrace the fire of each other now the Gods are intrigued
I want heaven to fade away
seeking solace in the midst of weak and shaky knees
I want to hold you as satisfaction encloses
the walls fold and collapse in on us and all that’s left in the world are
two bodies
the matrimony of synapses and
two    bodies
a mattress moaning in the blackness and
two      bodies
a matching set of sins and quick gasps and
two         bodies
In a flash I relapse and there's no
body
And now I've perused road maps, mused with psychics
read encyclopedias front to back
trying to help find my way to...
to I don't know what
no
maybe it's a who
to help find my way back to the lover I lost my love to
And then when I do
I can finally ask her
how come when we finish there’s no divinity left to hold onto?
You see
   ***
is my magnum opus, what I live for
  why I wrote this
so as I sit engrossed in thoughts that linger and control me
  I want to say I picked a lotus
watched in awe as it unfolded
melted sorrows into roses
with one colossus stroke of bones and flesh I learned the road to death
   gets bumpy
if you’re lonely.

Settle into darkness, naturally, and take your cue from unoiled gears jolting forward only to lure you into false stability and lose velocity, stop suddenly, merge the definitions of stopping and falling by balancing the cart on the back of the tongue as sherbet dip dab’s your gums in 3…2…swallow down it drops FLASH past the oesophagus there’s your photo op show us some teeth show us some skin darlin’ begin to dissolve in stomach acid bile’s vile hold it down we will use force if necessary like handcuffs to a headboard excuse me sir may I see your ticket? Right you can’t sit here, you’re 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphphetamine, that’s upstairs you need to swing a left then straight up to the top floor not a bad view, you can’t miss it it’s got a hundred golden bulbs flashing hypothalamus, no we’re not really bothered about our environment take the lift elevate heart rate
                                           C-C-C-CRANK IT UP
to the cerebral cortex’s House of Mirrors home of distortion. What can we do for you sir? We like to pride ourselves in our ability to mess around with the wiring and stimulate receptors, all part of the Deluxe Mega Deal complete with moving walls, disco ball skin and a talking butterfly the size of a car crash for a limited time only whilst serotonin stocks last they fall as fast as the lubricated log flume SPLASH. Please remain seated until the end of the ride. Thrown out into the gift shop. £30 for a 12 hour come down. Come again soon.

Chest to chest,
Sweat on sweat.
Moans loud and sloppy,
Faces wrinkled in pure ecstacy.
"Gerard" Frank moaned,
And didn't hide his pleasure.
He dug his nails into Gerards bare hips,
Definately leaving a mark.
"****, some more" Gerard groaned, and thrusted harder.
The headboard smashing against the wall,
And the neighbours shouting.
"I'm almost there" Frank yelled,
And pulled Gerard hard.
A few moments,
And Gerard was done.
Gerard rolled off of Frank,
Without a care in the world.
"I'm going to work" Gerard said,
And pulled on his clothes.
"B-but, you don't have to be in for an hour.."
Gerard grabbed Frank harshly by the hair,
And pinned him down.
He smirked down at the younger man,
And harder in love Frank fell.
"But you're my ****,
And you know you love it."
Frank thought for a second,
And well,
**** it.
"I'm a bad little boy,
With no heart left,
Or soul.
Just ruin me Gee,
Take my body through hell."
Frank bit his bottom lip,
And looked at Gerard.
He was smirking,
And blushing hard.
"Yeah,
You're right little boy.
Now get on your knee's,
And at least have a try."

This is exhibit A. witness testify to a false maker
of false hopes a dreamers dream disappearing on the lids of
a waking being. So is the theme spoken in rainbow
brilliance the soul is trapped in a toys body break me discard me
no use for this
this is exhibit B. a lifeless rendition of a restless warrior begging
to be freed from his crime in watching his own hands  children
and a pregnant woman willing to sell her soul for redemption.
Break him, discard him but never let him forget
Time elapses travel to the future, Raggedy Andy and the soul
a machine cold and calculating everyone wants one for Christmas
unwrap the gift and sell it tomorrow
wont get much out of it. Devoid of extraneous packaging
it's lost it's worth and the scars are blessed tracing them with my tongue
a willing conspirator in your lie that you live day to day. Praying to whatever
that tomorrow you won't wake up and the pain will stop. Should have never
beqeuthed my soul then because now I'll never let you go
The welcomed touch of another to soothe the decay build a house of
legos galore a horror left untold but whispered in empty space someday
it will reach the ears all will be out of place the blessing of scars and the blessing
of tides. Wash the dreams into reality
yet with your eyes squeezed shut you cannot see the smiles
I flash you from across the room. Another cold winter with plastic walls,
the floor rough beneath my paper thin feet. I am getting older and your passion
still falls to ripping me open and seeing what color I am today. Your
dream is my hell. A reality we all want but some never have a blessing
of the tides for you but not the patchwork of needle veins left on my
heart
A ragdoll sows well after unthreading unraveled secrets that are being
spoken a hidden meaning in things known so well and held
so dear the addict is addicted the silver polish of another exit
and a feared exit (exist)
picking away at the surface he is relieved to see his own
reflection on fates tinderbox. Matches with his name on them and other
wealth's of knowledge he cannot comprehend. I take in his
apathy and replace him whole.
Existence is superficial floating ecstacy through a ravers midnight
meltdown the drugs that soothed soon are smoothed out of the system
a gentle touch the softest if skin paper thin paper thin
licking the edges and listening fast, a deep puff, euphorium. Wanting to
play tonight the caterpillar sees, puffing his own blue smoke fast.
bloodshot eyes hide the daylight from your stolen afternoon. The headboard begs
for some grease, let's at today, my love, let's break me again
The twins of wonderland and the cat disappearing a story
forever after faintly breathing from the lips of the souls
sought wondering
sharing a shotgun with a confidant the after taste sour and strained. Not
enough we all see into your twisted head. Plucking on my heart strings
too rough. Wanting to see me bleed. Not this time the queen of hearts will
soon beat you with a flamingo and send you flapping
through the hourglass a king of king and clams
A nursery rhyme for all children to sleep a child's toy finally
dies leaving behind soiled

1,187 words

My eyes begged you,
Forgive me,
I know not with whom I speak,
you are but a mirage to me,
an oasis only existing
in the realm of my twisted mind.

My hands pleaded you,
come and love me,
show me what you have inside
that golden box,
you keep hidden behind
the headboard.

A light faded and
flickered
in the house across the street.
Up on the hill,
branches swayed peacefully
with the wind.
I succumbed
to your darkness.

A path which winds
through desert sands
is no path at all,
but a choice made each moment
with each aching footstep,
the song of a stream
in the distance,
was only a breeze
passing through the air.

The shadow of the man
that had appeared before
was no longer there.

I was born with a knack for reading and a passion for writing and a terrible, ten cent memory. although I can't recall what I ate for breakfast (unless your mother made it) I can still remember the first time we met.

I remember looking up at your apartment, seeking refuge from the cold, pushing away "this is a bad idea" and thinking maybe honey colored windows and smokey air could change my life. plants hang like bodies behind the blinds. now I think "this was a great idea" and I still can't decide if I should've ascended those stairs- two flights- right into your life. you were sitting on the couch and wouldn't look my way because the cigarette between your lips was far more intriguing. car horns and screams erupt from the tv. this is the first time we speak since I first saw you in middle school, pushing my friends into the bathroom of the wrong gender.

I remember spending every day working my way to the couch. first the floor. then the chair. then beside you. and once I found this place God knows I knew I was at home. I've never liked watching you play video games and swing from roof to roof and flip a truck with the push of a button, but now there's nothing I miss more than the sounds of that glowing controller. only when I traded my dark sweaters for a tight tee had I caught your attention.

I remember the night we taped your mouth closed and your wrists tight and tossed you in the trunk as a joke. I still have pictures. you tried to speak and although your words were muffled, I could understand. I was the translator. and I still am. you told me you'd be satisfied if you kissed my best friend before the night was over. I told you I couldn't handle myself on an empty stomach. I puked all over the side of the car.

I remember trying to start a fire for forty five minutes and chugging liquor like water before our friends returned. asking you to sit with me that night was an invitation to fall in love with me. however, the type of love you showed was not one I knew well. I never let anyone **** me because I was too afraid of myself. but I never stopped you because you weren't afraid of anything. I wonder if you still would have done it knowing how far along id take you. I wonder what kind of dreams you had when you passed out in the trunk and I shuttered in January air, 3 am and the tape from your mouth is on the steering wheel. there is no such thing as silence. there are only hands rubbing my back as I try to remember how the sun feels.

I remember bruises on my thighs that looked like Van Gogh touched a canvas with a blindfold on. I swear I shook for three days after That: when I saw you, when I wanted you, when I thought of you. three things I still tackle with every morning smoke. I used to think you'd never speak to me after that night. who would've guessed we'd have a million more.

I remember the first time you had me completely exposed, and it was not just my skin. I was knocking things off my bucket list, knocking my head on the headboard, knocking on your door at midnight with a blunt in my back pocket. remember when you punched me in the throat on accident? I leaned into it. should've knocked some sense into me.

I remember laying on your bed listening to the messages my first love had left on my phone a year ago. "I love you, I love you. please come back. I love you." you thought they were creepy. I wanted you to need me this badly. I wanted you to hold me when I cried. "message deleted." "message deleted." I wanted to keep you from walking out of the room, and I wanted to keep your mother from walking in. she thought I was a good one. "I like her," she shouted, cackling over the sink. "she's good for you. she's so good for you." she doesn't know I carved her couch with your knife. she doesn't know how you dragged me in front of the mirror and told me I was beautiful. she once called me and told me I used her as a hotel. it was my home. I am still there, somewhere. I remember so many things and yet not one is valuable when I try to find words to fit. I can't tell you what love is. you can read every poem and hear every love song and see every photo and you will never know. but if you give me an hour and a bottle of wine, I can tell you what it's like when it's gone.

Night was falling, a full bright silver moon was rising, and Seraphine’s hunger had become unbearable. She needed to feed, had to have young fresh female blood, to stay alive and young.

Science had caught up with the reason vampires needed to feed on the youngest, preferably baby’s blood. In 1866 a Frenchman named Paul Bert had conjoined rat’s circulatory systems in a process called parabiosis, and thus the Prize of Experimental Physiology from the French Academy of Science.

In 2012, Cambridge University’s Julia Ruckh found old mice cojoined to young mice physically and mentally rejuvenated, becoming younger, smarter, and more energetic. Subsequent research discovered proteins in the plasma caused the rejuvenation. News outlets had proclaimed, “fountain of youth discovered in ordinary plasma.”

Seraphine needed the youngest, which has the highest concentration of rejuvenation proteins and hormones;  the purest, which is virus-free, and female, which has the highest levels of estrogen and progesterone.

Ideally, a baby girl’s blood would be best, but in today’s modern society, killed babies drew attention. The next best and the pragmatic thing was a 15-year-old runaway girl. L’ Association Assistance et Recherche de Personnes Disparues (ARPD), estimates 1000s of Parisienne girls, ages 10 to 18, runaway each year due to ****** and or physical abuse, ending up on the street, and having survival *** in 48 hours or less for food and or protection. And few if anybody cared. They disappeared, never to be found, presumed dead from a ****** overdose, or stabbed in a fight for food, money, or drugs.

Since runaways had high levels of disease due to survival ***, ****, and ****** addiction, Seraphine focused her attention on young troubled Arab girls living in the Habitation à Loyer Modéré (HLM) or projects of the 93rd, the department number of Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest, predominantly Maghreb Islamic Arab banlieues of Paris.

Seraphine would undo her ponytail, letting her raven black hair cascade down around her shoulders, so she could fly around and into the projects at night landing on rooftops, listening for arguments, yelling, or shouting of eahira (*****), waqha (****), or haram (forbidden). When she heard those words, she knew a father was forcing old-world customs and religion on his born and raised in France daughter. The daughter, going to secular French public school, knew neither Arabic nor Islam, rebelled, wanting to live a secular, feminist rather than a submissive religious life.

Seraphine had found this month’s mark. She focused her superhuman hearing and sight on a tenth-floor open balcony window of the building across the street.

She could see an older man dressed in the traditional white dishdasha tunic, and taqiyah skull cap worn to evening prayers, yelling and throwing his hands in the air. Further in the flat, Seraphine could see a girl, crying. The man yelled waqha, waqha, then slapped her, and she fell to the floor. An old woman pulled the man back, as the girl got up and ran out the door.

Seraphine knew how this would play out and where the girl was headed. Four blocks away was the Lycée Général et Technologique, which housed a 24-hour crisis center for teens facing physical and or ****** abuse, pregnancy, homosexuality, ****** addiction, or homelessness.

As foreseen, the girl burst out the front doors of the HLM, running, crying down the street. Seraphine leaped from the 13-floor building into the air, silently following the girl like a bird of prey. The girl walked down Rue Bonnevide to Rue Guy Moquet, taking a shortcut through a wooded park.

Seraphine flew down to the ground, landing without a sound, and followed the girl from a distance. She could smell her youth, see her round hips and long shiny hair. When the girl had walked deep into the dark and silent park, Seraphine sprang forward like a puma, tackling the girl to the ground, and slitting her throat before she could scream.

Seraphine savored the ****, drinking the squirting blood from the carotid artery, relishing the warm fresh blood. The girl, in shock, blinked rapidly, trying to process what had just happened to her. She tried to speak but gurgled only blood, tears of fear started streaming down her cheeks. She knew she was dying, was afraid of dying, and wished her father was here to protect her, and make it all go away.

The blood slowed to a trickle. The girl had bled out and her body died. Seraphine continued to drink, ******* harder to get the remaining blood. The girl’s body convulsed then stilled as her brained slowly and finally died.

Seraphine had fed and would be satiated till another full moon.  She got up and licked her lips of residual blood. Her clothes were drenched in sweat and blood. She looked at the girl’s dead body, admiring her clear complexion, and big brown doe eyes, but felt no remorse for the ****.

She picked up the girl’s body in her arms, jumped into the night sky, and flew 65 kilometers northeast of Paris to La Foret De Compiegne in la department d’Oise, a secluded and rural part of northern France. Dead center in the forest lies Saint-Jean-aux-Bois, a small, and forgotten farming village of septuagenarian and octogenarian.

Seraphine flew to a farm a kilometer outside of the village. As she neared the farm, she could smell the putrid stench of pig ****. She started her descent, dropping the girl’s body, which hit the ground with a thud, in the barnyard, as she gently touched down.

The farm was dark, the only light was that of the full moon. She heard a rustling coming from the farmhouse. She saw an old man walking her way, holding a dim flamed oil lamp. He did not look at her, only at the ground, afraid of what would happen if he looked her in the eyes.

Seraphine grabbed the girl’s body by the hair and dragged it to the main pigpen, and threw the body over the fence and into the pit of sleeping pigs. The body hit a pig, startling it out of its sleep, squealing, waking up the other pigs, and realizing they had been fed fresh meat. The pigs sheared the flesh off the bones, then chewed and ground the bones. Within a couple of hours, there would be no trace of the young girl’s body. She was just another disappeared runaway.

Seraphine turned her attention back to the farmer, pulled out a brick of Euros from her coat, and threw it at his feet. He didn’t dare pick it up. He was too afraid of her. He knew what she was. And she knew, he knew what she was.

He’d seen the countless girl’s bodies come through like chicken carcasses at a processing plant over the decades. He knew he would die of old age soon, and only hoped God would forgive him for helping a monster.

Seraphine turned around, jumping into the sky, and disappeared. He was trembling and relieved that she was gone. He won’t see her for another full moon. He painfully bent over and picked up the brick of Euros. His hands were shaking.

******

Seraphine got out of the shower and wrapped her hair in a towel. She looked in the mirror and admired herself, the flawless white skin, the blood red lips, the pear shaped figure, but most of all her firm perky *******. She was brushing her teeth, when the doorbell rang. She rinsed out her mouth and wrapped a towel around her, walked to the door and opened it. It was Damien. She mischievously and alluringly smiled. He grinned back, knowing why she’d called. “I was so glad you were still up when I called,” she said poutingly.

She took his hand and led him to her bedroom. It was softly lit, a low yellowish light, not unlike that of a candle’s. The walls were decorated in red damask wallpaper with gold crown, base, and chair moulding. It was very elegant, very French. The bed was a large four posted red ruffled canopy, covered with a red duvet and pillows.

She got to the foot of the bed, turned around, unwrapped herself, sat on the bed, and shuffled herself to the headboard. She looked at him and spread her legs, showing, offering herself to him. Damien took off his clothes and crawled to her, over her, and leaned down to kiss her. She rose up to meet his kiss, wrapping her arm around his neck, then dragging him down in her.

She kissed him hard, ******* his tongue into her mouth, biting his lower lip. She stopped. He looked at her, a questioning look on his face. Then she pushed him down towards her *****. She had a trimmed and sculpted bush, just enough not to hide her full lips.

He started kissing around her bush, her tummy, and inner thighs. He could feel her squirming, as he circled around, edging closer to her *******. He kissed her lips, sliding his tongue up and down, then penetrating her.

She was wet, and tasted fresh, like sweet spring water. How amazing he thought to himself. I’ve never tasted a woman like this before. He went deeper with his tongue, pulling back the lips with his hands. She pushed his head hard into her. He licked her splayed ******, as she moaned in pleasure and approval. He moved his tongue up till he got to her ****, and lightly rubbed it then stopped, kissing her tummy. She relaxed and sighed.

He kissed his way down to her ****, kissing it softly then circling it with his tongue. She arched her back as he vigorously rubbed her **** with the tipe of his tongue. She moaned, then yelled stop, stop, in breathy gasps, then fell back into the pills. She took his head in her hands, and pulled him up to her mouth, and gave him deep, passionate baiser amoureux.

She took his hard **** in her hand and guided him towards her *****. She slid his **** up and down her *****, lubing up the head of the **** with her wetness. Then she let go, and he penetrated her slowly, as she gasped then moaned. He felt her wetness and heat as he slid deeper into her.

He started to pump rhythmically back and forth, slowlying picking up speed, as she moaned and groaned as he bottomed out his **** into her. He was going to *** and started to moan, when she yelled, “choke me, choke me.”

Taken back, he slowed. She looked up at him quizzically. “Choke me,” she said sternly. “You're a big boy. Choke me,” she repeated with a bit of irritation in her voice. He placed his hands around her neck and lightly pressed and started pumping. He got back into the rhythm and was back on track, getting close to *******. “Harder,” she said, “hard like you mean it.” It turned him on, and he clamped down harder as he pumped harder, animalistically.

He knew she was getting close to orgasming as she moaned and writhed under him. “Oui, oui, oui,” she screamed, and in a blink of an eye, she’d flip him on his back. Her hands on his chest, holding him down, as she rode him hard. She screamed, “ah, ah, ah,” then collapsed on his chest. His ****, still hard, inside her. She slowly rolled over, taking him with her, till he was on top, then rocked her hips, wanting him to continue, to finish.

He started to moan. She hooked her wrist around his neck and pulled him to her mouth, kissing him hard and deep as he came. He convulsed collapsing  on top of her. His **** still inside her, as she wrapped her arms around and rocked him back and forth, kissing the top of his head as if comforting a child.

He rolled over, crashing into the bed with exhausting and fatigue. He looked over at her. She was staring up at the ceiling. He saw the reddish purple strangulation marks he’d left on her neck, and slipped into a deep sleep.

I
am
******

and not in a clawing flesh, body convulsing, banging headboard kind of way

that kind of ****** I can rock the **** out of.

No
I am more the
twisted mess of forced misconception
enlightened by time innocence forgot
forced into a life guided by trust in the lies truth told

Yeah,
it's the end of life as I know it
that's the kind of ****** I am

I knew joy
it was based on trust in what was true

I knew love
it was built on that same foundation

So yes,
I am ******
this mess of **** crumbling to pebbles while blinding me in the dust of my own ignorance
is anything but blissful

and all I hear are the cries of beautiful dying
not that dying is beautiful, though it can be
but of the death of beautiful things
of things I found implicitly lovely
the painful dying of all I believed was good

I am so ****** sideways

protected by others
I can no longer say for certain who I am
or who I believe myself to be

****** hard and unrecognizable
***** into truth by the kindness of others

No more questions because I am ****** that way too
no one wants to hear their old news and ***** laundry

I knew love once
now all I love, I question
reliving my choices in reasons why
trying to piece together my life had I always known
trying to define how I love by my own definitions
and not by what I knew love to be
because that love never existed
only in my ******, shattered memory

So, hey
guess what
I used to love you
now it's tainted with yesterday's **** streaks

I'm still me
But boy
am I ******

Welcome to the ten step guide on how to fool everyone into thinking you're okay

Step One: Smile. Smile your biggest brightest smile to ward off the people who don't know you well enough to realize that it's fake, let your pearly whites be the shield you hide behind so your secret stays a secret

Step Two: Even if the clouds have opened and poured down all the tears you're holding in dress up in your nicest dress so you get more compliments on how pretty you look than questions about how puffy your eyes are

Step Three: When confronted; say I'm just tired, push the fib through your teeth and hope your nose doesn't grow to the size of your lie and make sure you maintain eye contact so they don't catch onto how nervous you are that they might find out

Step Four: Cover up the jawbreakers decorating your skin by wearing a long sleeve shirt even though it's summertime

Step Five: Break out your inner actress, especially when he's around because while he's using your headboard as a punching bag he'll expect you to like it

Step Six: Every time you wanna say hate replace it with love...I love feeling helpless every day, I love being your human doll, I love being camouflaged with purples blacks and greens...I love you...

Step Seven: Fasten your dog collar onto the next notch because he wants you to remember how his hand feels around your throat, he wants you to remember what being scared feels like, he wants you to realize he owns you

Step Eight: Think about what you can do to make things better because as he tells you it's all your fault and he only hits you because he loves you and you're lucky that a guy like him sticks around with a girl like you because you're worthless and you believe it

Step Nine: Let it all out, scream into your pillow and shower off every fibre of him like it's a poison setting into your skin and then cry yourself to sleep to prepare for

Step Ten: Repeat

I'm going to love you like the floorboards do. I'm going to touch you like your bedroom walls never could; lay your forehead against me like the shower wall and try to recount every lie you ever told laying down. Your nails will hold me against the headboard in a dark act of crucifixion; I have been dying of your sins since before I understood that they were not the kinds that I should love, and perhaps this is not the kind of love that ends well on glossy pages but it is the only love I know. I was a nearly dead stray on your doorstep and you fed me pretty words from your hands like you knew how to take care of things that had no home (despite having never had one of your own). You know too well how your name sounds when your hand is on my knee, you know too well how your name sounds when you are coaxing the life out of me, as though my trachea were the back door of your apartment, and you know how deadly you are with a look on your face that burns like the candles in a chapel but never melts - I sit vigil over your dead body but your ghost is always touching me, you are always bringing out the worst in me and stretching it out like sheets over a ****** mattress and I cannot take care of myself and I am incapable of breathing until you are watching me.

As your hand grips the headboard
and mine grasps the wrinkled sheets
I wonder what this is
One night stands are supposed to be straight-forward
We are not in a relationship
But if I spent all year trying to get you
And all night having you
What do I do in the morning, when I have simply had you
I no longer know how to speak with you
I know there were no strings attached
How do I casually let you know it would be fine if you ever wanted to do it again?
I promise not to get emotionally attached
We never have to be sober around each other
We can take shots in your bed again
I just wanna watch you take your bow-tie off again, I could help
Something about you makes me want more
I promise it's not emotional
I can **** without it meaning anything just like you do
It can be purely physical

I almost wish one of us had left after
You asked me if you could stay, but it was your bed anyway
I asked you if I could stay, but you never answered
You should have answered, you should have told me to get out
Who the hell cuddles after a one night stand?
I barely know you, but you read my body like braille
Whispering drunken secrets after
You don't get to teach me how to shift from screams to whispers so effortlessly and decide you only want it once
Just one more time before you leave
I swear I won't get emotionally attached

I want to feel your fingers slip up my vest, feel your hot breath dancing down my chest.

I want my pillow embedded with memories of you that put fantasies and dreams to shame. I want scents, moans, tastes engrained.

I want my naked skin weaved around yours, I want to leave claw marks along your spine as you beg for more, smash your palms into our headboard.

I want to feel your legs shake, as I start an earth quake inside of you, that'll leave you quivering for days.

Stick around
Shucks shucks
Long necks like water pipes
You spout words I like
Words I like

The bench we sit on can’t hold our excitement
Our legs like jackhammers
****** wildly
And there’s no switch to turn them on or off
Our word centipede crawls into our butterfly bellies our
Awkwardly loud laughter
Fuels our one way-two-way train wreck
You’re funny
I like it
I like it

I’m twisting my wire pipe fingers into
Infinite loops
I won’t stop
Because there’s no clocks in our world
They only tick away for legs
Straight and solid like enslaved cement blocks that sway
Only when forced by the machines they’re trapped between
The machines that
Won’t let them stop moving
And we’re breathing
Breath as fluid and exact as the clocks that don’t exist
Between our bodies so fitting

I think gosh gee
I think
If I could
I’d tell you it’s okay to sit closer
And the sun wouldn’t be the only burning
Gem in this world
Ill float upstairs with you
And the overhead light of your staircase wouldn’t be the only bulb burning bright and bold
The mattress a pseudo pool
Of fierce waters
And shallow rivets
Hearts inside clamshells
That peak out
Hesitantly
From salty sweat erupting from jackhammer limbs
Invigorating
Tell me you mean it
My taste buds sting with your coat
Of dangerous bumpy roads
And car sick groans and moans
My head hits the window and then your shoulder blade
And lastly the front seat
Drive me away
No
Drive me home
Drive me straight into this pit of broken glass and wrecked car doors
****** specks against cracked windows
The cracked sunroof fills with debris
Blundering amongst a whirl of unexpected destruction
and the eyes remain glossy and indifferent
Where star dust and bellowing wolves
Sink silently
Glare slovenly with laser beam vision
Sneering
Sniffing for a heartbeat lightening bolt
Shiny pearly whites
Against
Rusty stained gums
Hurdling into each other with irrevocable force
Beneath the corset of Athena’s bloated body
Where babies curl underneath to go die
They bleed ****** blotches unto bruised blisters, bleak and bolted tight
By warrior instincts now
Infantile, fetal
Caused by the men who tore off more then they could chew
Chosen like a useless card in a mismatched deck
No second thoughts I said
Why me
I said why me
Floating into your room
I’m a piece of furniture
A lamp a chair your headboard beating fiercely against your brittle wall
You look at me with double vision while my eyelashes remain speckled with the tears of
Spotty speeches and surly surfing
Amongst warm waves of love god would be jealous of
I’ll say it again
Tell me you mean it

~
abruptly waking to discover
the sempiternal daylight of herself
in a small silent village in Brussels

the sky's a cloudless blue
and she needs the sun
like children need two parents

sunglasses conceal bedroom eyes
smiles hide like inverted *******
clothed in peekaboo milieu

a highly individual creature
in an era of the exaggerated curve
she's an amnesiac

doodle-dawdling in the altogether
wrapping herself around
mise-en-scène

it's breakfast with Mr. Svengali
then unacquainted foothills
and undergrowth
in the flaring of conjugal
light and shadow

hum
thrum
'n strum
she's got the whole wide world
in her hands

her simple slantwise silhouette
declivitous neck
inclining embonpoint
summoning him

no clock, no watch
the keeping of time
is served by rapping
her crown upon the headboard
at regular intervals

her open-tempered sighs
closing with the heaviness
of a sleepy hush

until the echoing of church bells
announce the footfalls
of tomorrow-come-looking
~

I have on a pearl necklace, the beads like cabbage
stonewashed by sun

and sitting upon this veranda I
watch wind feather a hilltop where your sister
lost her virginity to a man while she was but a girl –
the sort that marries nothing besides memories.

She would wear what I do if I remember correctly.
Your sister had taped posters on her wall
of which she would stay up late to kiss goodnight –

I heard their rustle
through the plaster, through your hair covering my
neck when you hid me next door
pouring my secretions onto your mattress.

Somehow, she was younger and older than you:
chopsticks in her whiskers twice your age
**** a scalp whose hardly brushed one’s headboard.

You and I, on hiatus
and she and I were always clean –

skimming our knees together while you had another
girl in the shower-stall, who cried when
she ate a sandwich
or abbreviated the name I wished never would end.

In the valley, the willows cut a dress your sister would
wear with my pearl necklace, and
I think I will marry my memories, too, if not you.