A mirror is never just your reflection,
My mother once said
The mind has this devilish way of
Twisting
Things around
Making then a lot more or a lot less
That what stands before me
Suddenly
My face isn't my face anymore
Instead
I stare blankly at a blueprint
Society itself has hand-sketched
For me.
Post-it's on where things had gone wrong
Scribbles on things I needed less of
Highlighters on places I needed
Brighter brights
Thinner thins
And I just stood there
Watching
As these self-proclaimed architects
Unraveled
The plans they had for a body that wasn't theirs.
Accepting
The new rooms they had drawn next to the ones that already existed,
The ones that were always there
The ones I made a home out of,
The mole on my ear
That never seemed out of place
Until,
The impact of a critical post it told me so.
The place where my thighs met
I've always ignored,
Assuming I was normal
But the scribbles that
Begged
For less of me,
Proved otherwise.
The marks of stretched skin
I considered battle scars over a few calories at a buffet table
Nullified
By society's architects
Disapproved
As if it were up to them
Invalid
Like human came in the form of overruns
But I stare at this blueprint that suggests to change me from
Floor to floor
Head to toe
And wonder
If the one who owns the lot in which I am
Wonder
If He wanted to change me anymore than them
If He liked the original rooms
More than the ones carved to fit the trends
If He wanted me to ignore the architects
And the drafts of copies
And copies
And copies
Of different versions of me

Didn't He want me to accept the mirror for who I am?

her hands: blooming. sugar, hot
and humming. those wrists, sweet,
no longer sticky. yet stubborn,
reigning the laughter of two years ago.

her lips: fruit. ripe, or rotten, you
no longer remember. still, they remind you.
sin is where your body overruns your soul.
let nature trespass you once in a while.

all she wanted, to be left alone
with sky and sea. something you,
not even you, could give her. life
began to leak away in her voice,

“if the world does not stop, darling,
i just might.” and you could taste
the blood in her sigh, all those
leftovers from two years ago.

her body: gardens. the former home
of such a lovely pulse. you liked to visit
her a lot. she was once a prison of colour
in your foggy seaside town.

but the air that day: salty. streetcars unfolded
in faces you did not know. you felt the world in
past tense. “it is not only the city you have left
behind.” and your message did not reach her.

swollen mudflap dreams
  voice of sinew street
the
     wooden flakes     clap the wind

terra-cotta creaks muffle
choir kiss velvet thin in
  empty mountain air, sinai drift
( peace be with you, peace be )

         a long year        here's to another

–


  gotta visit the family in an hour
coffee and cake,
  brother and i will argue 'bout politics
he runs some business, i've never worked in my life
he uses productivity to hide his loneliness
i use social grace to hide my emptiness

we probably understand each other perfectly
       but will never steep to sympathy


–

big canary
best in school
sing your
lelujah for the gulls

break your wings in
crumbs and sandwich tins

burrow down to a
                     maize of glass
    build a temple of sleet
   and have a cry in it

–

bed lump, bed lump   lump
lump

  fight your frozen toes

  last week a lily bush grew in our drain,
pools of **** and tissue clogged and sputtered out
  the flowers were real pretty tho

–

it's like that feeling, you know, when you wonder, if    you
  left the gas cooker on, with the children still sleeping
an anxious terror overruns you, but you gotta get to work
too late to turn back now,
  you can't just stop everything every \
time you realize how easy it would be to loose it all

so you keep on,   determined resigned comfort
   despite an unshakable certainty
                                 it all burnt away long ago

–

go for a walk to calm
            rolling cloud
valley glut
                       last light's wet custard haze
  a solitary bird tries to mate with its echo

  branches tear
cut weave through silence
            effervescent haze
  the
dust road hill the valley fall the blur below


i dreamt last night  an old crush held me
and pulled my teeth out one by one
i really miss her

–

and so you lie, there, thin cotton down, gunked up on the drip,
   i read you a story,
                                  you don't want me to
               tired and disorientated, falling into sleep, among the
            bleeps and light,                 smell   of alcohol and saccharine
                                        you can't handle the leech of words right now,
but you insist i continue anyway.
i need this,  i
to prove i was there   by your side,
  for your sake,
and you are too polite to refuse me this narcissism,
too scared to shatter it all
          and turn away at the last

–

oh, hey! sorry i haven't
  yeah
       yeah no,
it's been years, hasn't it?
i- i know i know, i was the one who insisted-
and then never made the effort
what's up?
uh, nothing new, really
  still haven't fixed the wiring
still just
        flickering
anxious feeling
ambling along a
                           longing

that paradoxical redemption,  that

           impossible unity
    of innocence and forgiveness

…

yeah, no,
    nah

–

and so you float up, out of the vents, above the roof
  into the clouds, the rain sets in,   oh - the
       drier's broken, you can't afford to get these clothes wet -  but
the  pattering feels good on your blistering skin

  so you drift
      melt

and
       far below
you 
             hear
                                                  the bell's pale ring
   sunday murmur bubble and gather
       muffle ***** wring shoelace voices
              river wiped bored communal toes
          mudfleck shoes and patchwork rags

  a turn, another, then,
                                worn timber creak


the church doors open

When something purely sweet becomes bitter from want of bitterness itself, it is indeed a tragedy. Because of the absence of this bitter seed (the bit of yin surrounded by yang), the bitterness instead overruns the sweetness as a ****.

     Today, I plucked the first **** from the ground, and in its place grew two new bitter weeds.

     I know in time, they will spring forth from the Earth with exponentially-increasing frequency, and I will perpetuate my own doom, compounded by the Hands of Fate spinning the Wheel of Fortune. I see myself yanking weeds only to watch them multiply with helplessly guilty eyes.

     And though I know Our fate, I will not tell Him of the tragedy that is forming (swelling, swarming) within Us and between Us. I will not let Him see the weeds syphon away Our love and sap the energy of Our commitment, nor will I let Him see my futile but frenzied desperation to salvage it all. I would prefer to allow Him to think it all happened naturally, that We grew apart and it was really all okay, that it was all in order with our respective natures and we would simply be better off because hey, **** happens.

     And in the end, We will lose each other in the bitterness, tangled in and smothered by the ugliness we spawned.




-LP

Mama told me

Never Fall in love
with a blond girl

God above
Seemed to say the same thing
But I ignore my God and
yours never meant **** to me
Now this blond girl
she makes me half
as good as I can be
Or is it bad to say?
All I want is today.

Start over start all over
Is it something different?
K.
1-2-3 go!

Mama told me don't you ever
fall in love with a blond girl
Lord above
he would be so angry.
The blonde is bad enough
don't let her B White!
No that just ain't right
but I had to
put up a fight
with my God and I
don't care about yours
going to stick with her for sure
She makes me so complete.
I didn't know I was empty
until she filled me up
now my cup overruns
with formless fullness grace
And I see her face in my dreams
Yeah she's wearing my
favorite pair of blue jeans.

Now on your knees
Mel kneads

Happy birthday girl from You
it means a lot that you stuck
around by my side cuz you knew I'd
be alright one day.
How did you know
something I didn't know myself
I was ready to retire
put myself up on the shelf
But you made me
Come back out and I'm
so **** glad I did
Whoah!

With you I'm finally rid
of all The pain.
Oh My heart is
a crane it
keeps reaching out to give
the
love love love
Whatever love you
give to me is multiplied
And it pours forth
like the sun Shines
Mel
a need.

There's a pounding in my head
breaking down my thoughts.
You carelessly step
in the silent space of mine.
Crushing through my images
A pathway to my soul.

In your attempt to withhold
you tore down my walls:
Nothing left to lean on
and no escape from the lies you told.
Deep inside my silent mind
there's a drumming of your fears.

And my diversions take me no where:
a river which flows too deep,
of emotion you wish to drink;
or a road so dark and lonely
only tears give me comfort.
Because you pushed me to my edge.

Upon the ledge of pain I see
a landscape covered in carnage:
deceit and betrayal burn the hope,
scorched and charred my view.
There can be no forgiveness
until millennia heal this stench.

As my eyes wonder to yours,
moist with guilt and hatred,
my sorrow turns to rage:
Because even then you fail to try.
Instead I find within
A silent whispering echo: "These too are lies."

My heart overruns the pounding head
with a racing heart on fire.
I'm burnt and broken inside these thoughts,
which wonder aimlessly.
Some days I look out to the world,
wondering when I'll be done with you.

Forcing imagination to reestablish itself, after prescriptive onslaught of docs, scientists, specialists and quacks, lacks for ease of descriptive purpose, genuine motivation. The pills, darling, the pills usurp rational outmode. This to counteract that, which causes symptomatic supersession of more to set aside a succession imposing supplant more supplements. I submit! This breaking down of the other and then an other in a pharmaceutical battery of which ***** next? Can common sense overrule? Overruled! As another script is scribbled, a blank gaze overcomes, and the drool drips and overruns.

Her anxious legs, her body feels the absence of the last smoke, the last snort.

She preps her shot thinking it will be boss but down the drain she goes.

She'll fight her mind, her body, her spirit, but doesn't know which way to go.

So her body decides, as she's screaming in her mind, let me go, let me go!

She preps the needle with the spoon as her priorities are left in the dust.

Everything ice cold but not that hole in her arm, it's slowly trickling out blood.

Seconds bring instant comfort, relieving her restless body and anxious mind.

She cannot bear the withdrawals that come along dragging her behind.

A sharp spear laced in poison detracting delicate skin to bruises and scars.

Unit, by unit, her shot dissipates and every inch of her eagerly awaits to embrace the rush of the high.

As time slips by, the high subsides and she is dry, all insecurities exposed in bare sight.

Panic..on the search..broke..fiending..stealing..robbing..lost loved ones..manipulation..broken promises..

The curse gets worse. It's meaningless synthetic comfort, the happy juice she can never refuse fills her receptors, a matching piece to fit the puzzle

The feeling can't be beat, a silent stream reminding her in her dreams creeping into the sunrise bursting with a desperate scream.

Worry and panic demands her full focus and the lies and deceit don't stop until fear of not having money has subsided. Begging and crying, playing the victim with no rest until she got her fix.

She's not happy, she feels dead. Synthetic pleasure breeds depression, and she's cannot function on her own, she disregards her responsibilities and continues to fail

Her presence overdue, regularly absent she won't pass, she'll miss out on every opportunity or simply won't care for consequences.

Dope is her only interest, where she pours all her energy and effort, she even proposed to forever be a servant, for what she loves most.

So much aggressive energy to remain living, guilt-tripping her lover into enabling her, she get's what she wants.

Time and time again until she drains his resources, with nothing left to give, he starves.

Confusion blocks her judgment as she believes the sickness is out to get her, but she has exhausted her funds too, tired of depending on her dope dictator, wishing to be free from the physical and psychological deterioration.

Her best friend ****** left her for dead, locked her in a cage kicking and screaming.

How much do you really love me?? Fight for me and score some more the funds to feed the fire, exhausted, not a dollar to my name.

Validate me, i'm what you need. I'll give you hugs and kisses, dreams of the childhood you never had.

Leave it all in the past because i'm the high that leaves you in a fragile state, mistake by mistake it's the price you will pay.

Near and far, nodding in and out, constantly chasing the dragon. Familiar pleasure filling the lungs provides the sense of stability blocking out pain and discomfort.

Oblivious to the vicious demise quietly poisoning your body, draining your youth as your life is dictated where the abstinence of dope exaggerates the sickness that overruns as you lose control of your life and question your purpose.

Losing touch with reality, addiction becomes erratic-out of control. You don't recognize the face in the mirror anymore, a slave to an demanding lifestyle draining you from the inside out.

Not sure your reason to keep living, hoping one day you can beat your disease never looking back. The day came, you're tired, you've given up, you need out. Looking back, you've accomplished not a single thing.

Only getting older with more expectations, forced to revaluate your progress, found out to be limited to none. You're so done.

Running with open arms into recovery is the only chance you'll succeed, and to breed your goals and dreams you need to believe. To put in your effort and defeat the beast thats waiting for the chance you slip up and bleed.

Take one day at a time, this is a must, far from simple , but you need to trust.

In yourself, a higher power, an inspiration, will be the motivation to reclaim your life back, claim true happiness, and become the best version of yourself

It's been 16 hours, and the voices are beginning to quieten.
My stomach feels empty
but I feel proud and victorious.
As I begin to search through her pictures,
my heart drops.

She is so thin
So perfect

And look at me
I'm so fat
I'm so worthless!

The voices appear once again,
Repeating what I'd just recently chanted to myself.
Only, they are louder,
More vicious in a sense.

Now I feel the pains in my stomach grow more and more
They are so loud
But never did they once overpower the sharp voice of my demon that lived in my head.

After only glancing at my favourite piece of food,
It began to shout vigorously.

Don't be so stupid
Pathetic people like you don't deserve things like that!
Look away!
Don't even think about eating!

At this point I feel ill
I was being forced to starve myself by my own "thoughts"

I can only describe this demon to be my conscience that has turned it's back on me,
It is a messenger from the devil that overruns my every thought.
Delivering so many insults and put downs in to my head.

"You have 4 months until prom
And I'M winning this one."

Soon after that sentence circled my battered mind,
I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke as it disappeared away in to the grey, afternoon sky,
It represented my life,
I was disappearing.
Slowly
But surely
*Disappearing.

I’m not an earthling
I am here to see what is alive
I couldn’t breathe, my own mucus can still choke me
It’s this horrible feeling that nobody else gets
My skin is so thin
The illnesses inside my brain
The overwhelming laughter, mental sound

My judgment is not right
I make a fool of myself
I cling to someone incessantly
Why is it only serious
On a dark application?
And not everywhere else?

How many copies
Will I make of myself before
My mind implodes and the mucus overruns me
From both the nervousness and the excitement
They say decay
I see the breaks get taken here
My influences break my ears and spill sappy

I didn’t understand
I have an urge to delete
Something that makes other people happy
I never bring them joy
My voice is over here
I can’t read a book

Where does this urge come from?
Does doing it make me strong?
A boy once said I only care
About myself, not others
I just dismissed it as not true
But now I see it

I’m so used to
Following rules
When I break them, I don’t realize
It’s so hard to
Sustain merely myself
I try not to wrong you but I can’t right you, either

Crank up the volumes that
Exist solely in my head
They say you can’t turn that **** up
But sometimes I’m in this state
Where it’s like a mental ****
Sounds attacking me

The ringing of a doctor’s office
And the tool that they used
Planted permanently

In the cool mist of the city, I walk behind her
There is only one thing on my mind, never to be flustered
The glint of her long, shiny raven hair and silent demeanor
Has infatuated me, smitten me and utterly enraptured me

She adjusts her glasses, quietly observing the chaos around her
Only permitting a small smile or a nod here and there
I am perplexed, confused and thoroughly engulfed
In a very deep and powerful sense of yearning

Yearning to be with her, to understand her
To know her every secret, her every emotion
A zealous hunger to know every perfection and imperfection
Her moments of depression, moments of exhilaration

Her whole being is a mystery to be explored
For she is a beautiful island to be castaway to
A lush and dense forest that overruns my heart
She is the deep blue sea where I lose myself
And drown myself in the wonder of her reality

She is an insurmountable and laborious sierra
I, the foolish cragsman trying to climb her *****
And thus I shall fail, tumble and fall with no one to save me
Such is the fate of men like me who are foolish enough to try
and tempt the gods to favor their deepest aspirations

She is the lone star that illuminates my deepest nights
But her radiance is different for she does not shine harshly
Hers is but a gentle glow, a quiet aura that permeates my soul
Alas, the human condition is a sad and ugly reality

That as humans, we aspire for that which we cannot have
That even if futile, we yearn to see and hold our special star
We dream, we write, we fantasize about it
But everything is for naught, as the fates dictate it to be.

Bogged down in the details,
  truth is undone

Swimming through the corn flakes,
  milk overruns

Looking at the forest,
  seeing just trees

Pieces micromanaged,
—big picture tease

(Villanova Pennsylvania: April, 2017)

Upon birth, a seed of thought is planted
And smothered in soil
Until its cultivators find
That they’re ready to water it,
That it’s time to dictate its growth.

Once it emerges from the protective seed coat,
Nurture overruns nature,
And it takes in the nutrients bestowed upon it
To become the thing
That it’s supposed to be.

It grows on its own, away from the home,
Expected to be a tree
With a wide canopy of varying leaves
Of knowledge
That can be trimmed down if need be.

Society tracks its progress,
Ensuring that it grows as strong as possible,
A novice to be molded to its full potential,
Within the limits set,
Maybe a little more, nothing less.

A leaf can be removed if it learns one too many,
A branch torn down if it’s set too low,
Flowers modified when colors shall change.
A tree should know that all it should know
Stems from the water fed from an unknown source below.

Spoon-fed knowledge can’t account for experience.
They’ve forgotten the impacts of seasons,
Hurricane force winds,
Harmful bacteria contained within,
Invasive species,
Weathering after storms,
They’ve forgotten to account for the things
That can’t be controlled.

Nutrients can be given
And leaves can be pruned
But knowledge won’t be confined
To shining small jewels.
We don’t know a thing
So they teach what they choose
But at the end of the day
We don’t know if that’s true.

We take what we’re given
And search for much more,
But our intuition can’t be taken
And won’t be ignored.

I don't wanna take the pills
That make me forget
How much I really miss you
It's agonizing, but it's you
The pain overruns the joy
But at least there's joy...
At times I can forget
That it was ever here
So there are days
When I just look over the pill
Fighting through the terror
For just a hit of you