you wedge your pointer finger between your canines-
in an attempt to appear sublime- or nervous- or seductive
either way it doesn't succeed.

your tooth, teeth
speck of blood, bleed
emerging as you pierce your calloused
yellow patch of skin
(layers & layers of the girls you've touched before)
but you crave one more-
for in every sleepless night
there's a quote to be fill- a new slit to drill-
you're a man.

i can sense it-
throbbing and shaking beneath your olive exterior
how you long to drag
your now bloodied, prior prettied
finger up an off white thigh-
to disregard the things obliged-
to forge the paradigm
from faulty tools,
splintered and battered in a worn down knapsack
duct taped to a hunching back,
you're a man.

thoughts of droning monotone
quiet your hungry bones
(i can hear them)
rattling as you ****
your head and lift that heavy glance up to me.

i can see you,
flopping and thrusting and sweating, which
after years of curiosity has handed me
nothing,
but sweaty sheets and burning ***.
i lay beneath you, silent
i'm a woman.

avert your eyes ( i am tempted to plead)
from the onset of premature varicose veins
(i am pale, glasslike, arched & stained)
allow me to suffocate the already immune-
girls born into the world with ******* brandings
stamped onto their lightly acne ridden foreheads.
(SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE)
trim your ribs, shave off the cellulite-
turning a blind eye to accessible insight..
a salad for lunch, make it dinner too.
finger down your throat, orange acid hurling,
stick like dancers twirling,
they bring tears to your eyes,

if only {you} possessed the grace-
but there are pounds to erase.
i'm a woman.

thirteen years of advertisements stapled to your eyes
standing barefoot    in a bath tub   with chunks of blood
running down    shaking legs    
kicking off a now crimson pair of old underwear-
stuck  &  tangled on trembling feet

[ silence your voice and push up your *******
  til they're touching your neck.
  get a nose job
  get a *******
  you're a woman  ]

in the summer before
everything ended,
we went to an art museum
that had entire rooms showcasing death
and you pulled me away before I could admire the human composition
stains, melted into bronze silhouettes, because
what if I thought it looked ugly

what if I figured out
I didn’t actually want to **** myself
and instead just wanted to escape you –

stains of strawberry juice around my mouth I thought of
as blood and you thought of
as lipstick

I prettied myself for
suicide , I scratched maps into my thighs – little guides of where a
knife would go
little hopes that if I saw the death display
maybe I would have known.

for years
it was all experimental. I watched pieces of us
come and go like art exhibits, you watched me as if I was nothing but
a work in progress
that soaked up so much paint I could
not help but look like you when it was through. I was
a child,  was
impressionist (impressionable –

now your thoughts persist
as human composition stains – happily, I am alive
and you will never be dead enough.

Lies are lullabies
Sweet songs that we sing
To ourselves and to others
Trying to convince ourselves
That something isn't our fault
That our world is more utopian than
Reality allows for
We tell ourselves that
It's better to live a lie
Than face the harsh world
Without our emerald glasses
Or maybe everything we believe
In is a lie*
The faerie tales have even been
Changed to suit our own needs
Pretty ballgowns and sparkling glass shoes
Forget the truths of rags, dirt, blood and filth
The romance still remains
But the glamorous side is tougher
More truthful, less plastic
The grime and dirt gives the story life
These Disney-fied, prettied up stories
Are just machine made, molded
Plastic. Commercialised. Dead.
And they spell faerie wrong too

When I was a boy I fell out the pocket

I fell out the pocket

I dropped down

Left instead to the beats in my head

Which called me ahead to a timeline

Where I prettied up the ambience to the end rhyme

Given a first rate view into the sounds; I drew

Wrote and only knew how I could combine

intertwine and multitudinous vines

of personalized style defined

into my lockstep, rock depth

So do I search for meaning in a land of intrigue

Do I look for a song in the silence, in the air that I breathe?

Or given the choice do I add to the mix?

Given the choice now do I voice that I can add to this rift?

Break open the barricades and give a name to this shift?

Give it a flow, give it a flare, give a decision, commit

Bring it in low, give it a lift, give it a rhythm to drift

Don't give into shiftless insistency, sometimes cadence begs immediacy

Give it a rest, give it a pause, know that some of it hurts

But give it the Barricadence, I think you'll find that it works

Depression is not when I attend a funeral,
And the dead have been prettied,
and the coffins have been chosen.
It is not the sorrow I feel..

Depression is not when I fail a test,
Nor is it when I dishonor my family,
Or when I make a fool out of myself that day.

Depression is when I laugh heartily with family,
And chatter fills the air, it's a grand time!
But hell.. Is it hard to breath.

Depression is when I am alone and at peace,
And the clock ticks and the ink drips,
And suddenly I am suffocating in my thoughts.
Like a deep sea of worry, stress and negativity.

Depression is when my body is stone,
And every move feels like I'm dragging tons.
And so, I shed black tears.

It is when my thoughts are in blots.
It is when I am inky.

~ M.M

.slipknot's (sic) "vs."
  stone sour's get inside...

don't know,
sunglasses in the night,
beginning with a crescendo...

i'm pweetty sure that these
pro-life hags...
ever be presumed schizoid,
spending time with
fellow psychopaths
at some outskirt
London allotment...

     with a bunch of:
pick up, take elswhere,
    put down,
watch "it" dribble...
then expose itself
showing off a ******* *****...
and then,
a dave rubin,
finds it weird,
making an interview
with a pro-life advocate...
    well at least the mad
are not brain dead...
compared to these:
'here, by the grace of god',
wonders of the world.

sure thing, chief.

this, this...
pro-life advocate,
is going to suddenly turn around,
and play the priestly role,
of not being
the cabbage-kid caretaker?
really?
you know...
   when i was digging out
these potatoes,
i've seen more humanity,
when sheep were being
herded,
i've seen more humanity
when, even in their "claustrophobic"
setting laid eggs...
what i came across what:
wish you were in aushwitz
readied **** nurses...
about to shoot in
the back of the head
with these vegetable worth
of humanity...
    
        **** me, if they asked:
i would have brought an axe...
and this, pro-life chick,
so deluded from her experience
of the cabbage-patch kids,
well, sure as **** she won't be taking
care of these deviances,
will she?
                         it's somehow "life"
once the ***** passes the *******
"criteria",
    prior to? dead-tadpole...
something that would
resemble frog mating...

  people would rather prefer
petting three-legged dogs,
than any physical / mental
abnormality of humans...
   they would rather...
feel less of the "love"...
  and...
             squint at the spring blush
of a tomatoe...
         because people,
tell trimmed,
perfect nails...
expect others, to be "human"
when caring for the outliers,
like my grandmother said,
talking to an outlier
neighbour...
     so how do you feel...
with a heavily disabled child,
needing to express
his only ****** capacity,
you putting on the ****,
him jerking off...

while your healthy one
is roaming the rooftops,
readying himself to jump?!
i'm suicidal...
              claustro-**** or what?
like yahweh wasn't the purge,
the god of the purge,
against moloch?
    or beelzebub
                       or belial?

honestly, people who are pro-life,
don't even stratify in my screetch
at watching pro-life to its fullest
extent...

             cabbage-patch kids are far
from even hearing the arugment,
you have remnants of auschwitz nurses
herding them,
  i've see more tenderness
associated with herding sheep,
than what these people endure,
   and i call them "people"....
sure, the shape is there,
until the tongue and freelance
genitals come out with
a speech best associated with
onomatopoeia...

        it's always "pro-life"...
once you've made your argument,
and then did the Pontius Pilate
token of reply...
                    always the responsibility
of the argument,
but never, the responsibility
of the care...
              nice...

i've seen them, pretending to eat,
drool, strapped to what
euthanasia would have done
much simpler, ethically...
            you'd guess a *******
tapeworm would have more
existential focus to continue...

because... it's... not... supposed...
to... be... fun... or... easy...
              mind you, they're not kids...
30+ and almost brain-dead,
i've honestly seen humans
herd sheep with more humanity
than these, "people"...

           that's the "glorifying" aspect
of humanity,
it abhors abnormality,
i've been taught the lesson...
****** tatoos
over chernobyll birth marks
and subsequent scars...
   mediocre: rules!

              pro-life my *******
just became fused with a chilli-esque
rash...
        i wonder how it would fare,
if i just kept shooting blanks...
and women were shooting
out fertility,
   waiting for my shots of void...
would i "feel" less like
just doing a pol *** genocide
into a tissue...
more like: ******... better own that...

next thing you know,
you'll be placing your mortage
on a single roulette spin...

        i'm not laughing...
i know how the dichotomy of man
contra the inverted ontology
of nature prescribes relief
when subjected to the outliers...
it kills them off...

but these, petted,
prettied...
nail varnish....
   primmed hair...
       you think these arguments,
from these kind of people,
will solve the "problem"
of the cabbage-patch kids?
   ask me a different question...
like i said,
i've seen dogs treated with more
dignity to these half-brain-dead
outliers...
              and look how close
i'm standing on the ledge...

               hello england...
             hello the fwee wowld.

His love was a sort of
branch of the heart,
forever reaching,
with rough bark that
chafed the skin
and precious, sticky sap that
ran beneath the buds.
When it stormed,
its petals plastered the ground,
a dewy, soggy mess,
and prettied up the mud.
Until winter, and the weight of snow, when
it cracked, tore, broke
and fell without a sound.

Why a writer writes I will never know.

Though rich of me to even group my pitiful
expression with that of 'writing', whatever
I have thrown down on pages over the years
must have had some purpose, some reason for
existing, but having stopped writing for some
time the reasons for my words have disappeared
and I sit trying to throw my head at a piece
of paper and everything that comes out ends
up right in the waste basket.

Where it belongs.

But nonetheless it seems unnatural to give up,
to think rather than do, as anyone who has the
urge to write must do so because there are just
some thoughts that are better off not left
inside, some thoughts that look better written
down, thoughts that one feels have to be read.

Whatever they are.

Though perhaps not knowing why is the drive, the
push, the emptiness or the fullness of your soul
that begs to be dribbled down your chin into a
bubbly little mess of verse, prettied up with
similes and metaphors and stupid run-on sentences,
perhaps it is a 'somebody' that a writer writes
for, a lover or a friend or simply just a stranger.

Who it is probably doesn't matter.

Why a writer writes I will never know but thankfully
I will never be a writer or at the very least think
of myself as one so any of my baseless assumptions
will just meander on this ugly page until it catches
the eye of somebody, because I have a somebody,
a somebody who I have written for, but I do not write simply
for her because writing is a selfish act and writing
'for' somebody rather than 'to' them feels insipid
and contrary.

Whichever way you look at it.

Most of all an unwriter does not write so
much as spew, hence the occasional bouts
of 'wisdom' that pepper my confusion may alter
one's perspective about how truly awful a writer
I am, because I do not write to learn, I do not
write to express, and I most certainly do not
write because I can, I write to write and I
write just so somebody can read.

Whenever it is that she does.

Friends, we can get a long in a harmony of jokes
But where are we when one of us chokes

Down on the quarry, where the music silences
And the beats in between our hearts become apparent and orient
And the acoustic birds begin to ring our ears
When the face of an angel, blinks and tears.

Scatter yonder my feelings bare, barely
Before the hint of a moment reaches it's highest point
Cause I find you more beautiful with mascara worn away
Then prettied up for some pesky bar date.

Sad songs chime joy when in rhythm with the feeling
But every song you've sung is so commiserating, when you threaten me with your leaving.

Cause you casted your line too many times
And you're just about out of string
I've been stringing you on with my ***** paws.

And as we embrace this street with our youth
I could tell you one thing to hear
But it might be a different feeling from year to year

And maybe when age takes it's tole
I'll tell you I've just been living in fear
I've just been living in fear, let me tell you
I've just been waiting for the right time to hear.

glass heart
painted red
you are dancing but your eyes are dead

glass heart
prettied up
lines on eyelids but it's not enough

glass heart
starved all day
wasit tiny, watch her waste away

glass heart
all taped up
you are smiling but your edges rough

glass heart
pointed shards
hurting others, leaving scars

glass heart
cold to touch
i know sometimes life is rough

glass heart
icy case
inner warmth, revealed one day


my dear glass heart
please make it through
it may hard
but i believe in you

if I brought you flowers would you know
your grave all prettied up
a token of my heart
a caring for you still expressed with beauty
do you hear my prayer
know of the ache that you left behind
do you know how lovable you are.

as dawn approaches
the man on the sofa wakes up

stockings are empty

living room looks like normandy
   after the invasion
crumpled gift wrap everywhere
ribbons and bows languishing
   lazily on the floor
the dog sleeping soundly like
   someone snuck her a bowl of gin

the note to santa has disappeared
like the fat turkey plopped down on
the dining room table, all prettied up
for the christmas feast

and now everyone is left with today

holiday depression ensues

the man on the sofa longs to see
something joyful, something that
says there's more to life
than the gray of winter
the chill in the wind
the loneliness of long
silent nights ahead

he knows he's old, tired,
too disillusioned about the world
to make sense of anything anymore

he feels that hope is an
endangered belief that eludes
too many people now

in defeat, in resignation, he
returns to the ultimate escape...
a peaceful, dreamless sleep far
from the uncertain present

and outside
the sun
like hope itself -
bright and glowing -
begins to rise

Do you have a problem with
The way I
Dress
Talk
And walk
'Cause if you do
***** I'll knock your *** to the floor
I might be ****** up
As all holy hell
But **** hunny
I got way more culture than you'll ever know
I don't give two *****
That you've been across Europe
And seen all Seven Wonders
Because at the end of the day
I still got more love
I couldn't give a flying rat's ***
About your big hair
And prettied up nails
'Cause *****, I'll still ******* up
You wanna mess with me
Go right ahead
I'll tear off your throat
If you talk **** 'bout my people
And I ain't judgin' you for
The way for the funny way you
Talk
Dress
Or walk
I ain't even judgin' you for your upbringing
I, too, can talk in a highly sophisticated manner
With my nose upturned
My hair permed
My nails done weekly
In high heels
From behind the gated community we
Both lovingly call home
I can even join you and your gaggle
Of acquaintances
For a night at the country club
So of course I don't judge you for any of that
*****, hunny, I judge you
'Cause o' the way you treat
Me and my family,
Which yes includes friends,
Like we's all some sorta **** you stepped in
Do you have an issue with being real?
'Cause **** you wear
Eau de faux
Like I might be your last breathing sight

the anchor is gilded with gold, set with silver.
made from the ship's own husk,
manufactured to glide with the frame,
sailing as one over the sea,
braving the storm as a singular essence.
but,
look -- observe the layers of gold
that have settled, rubies and emeralds
adorn. and the ship
is weighed down.

i stretch my hand out over the hull.
the sea tastes more bitter than salty,
more rancid than relentless.
once when the moon was still blue,
and dolphins still sang,
my mother told me
that voyages are made err wind, err sea.
she did not say err anchor, the one
she had made me.

this morning, as the sun rose,
i fell into the ocean.
i swam to its depths
i ran my tongue
over the anchor's hooked end, its pointed arch
drawing a drop of beaded blood from my lip,
trailing red.
the gold no longer tasted coppery, only
my blood did.
it tasted of prettied practicality,
soured security and
sedated success --
detritus the ship had picked up
on its voyage.

i tried to scrape them off with my nails,
but my nails came off.
i tried to bite them off with my teeth,
but my teeth cracked.
the ship is stuck.
and so am i.

tonight, i will dream.
i will dream of my
extended tails and jeweled fins,
embellished with diamonds.
they will cut through
the anchor's chains, threaded with strands of
jaded words and loft.
they will cut through them just as easily
as the ship will knife through the water
once it is freed.
slowly, at first, softly unsure; but after,
with lethal agility
that cuts.
it will cut through the water just as a scream slices silence,
grinding metal against salt,
kneading wood through air.

land will be reached:
the ship docks,
and i
can learn
to breathe again.

Half its contents stashed away
Or shipped to another state,
Primped, perfumed and prettied up
It no longer reflects who lives here.

It no longer echoes happiness
Or tries to hide despair.
It’s just another pretty face
Looking for a suitor.

It promises hope for someone new
Who will hang the walls with their own joy
And shed their sorrows in the garden
Beside the bubbling fountain.

It will be the gate to a neighborhood
And an enclave of belonging.
It offers safety from the storm
And the ravages of the city.

It’s up for bids beyond the price
To see who wants it most
Or has the deepest pockets.
With preference to those who’ll love it.

The house is open for the world to see
And guess about the owners,
Crying softly somewhere else
As they prepare, unwillingly,

To kiss a beloved home goodbye
And strike out for a new beginning
In someone else’s home, now theirs,
In hopes of finding Shangri-La
In the new world of Nevada.
ljm

It's always a house.
In shelved books, in five-drinks-in five a.m talks, in cheap rhymes and lavish ones—commonplace for anywhere you can find words on, a standard metaphor to stumble upon. Infrastructure lets itself be borrowed for anatomy and soul: a soot-tainted chimney standing for smoker’s lungs, the fire burning warm at its feet for scorching anger, the crayon scribbles on nursery wallpapers like the prints of anyone an angry smoker has ever loved, shutters as eyelids and walls for bones and tablecloths for clothes and pillars as brawn.
An easy metaphor, a house as a body. A lazy one. Sluggish, yawning Metaphor, craving a nap, a break from being used up. Boring enough to make me look up from my page and at everyone else sitting around the table, writing about vessels vined in breezeblocks and headache diagnoses from front door knocking. Dreary enough to make me want to leave the room.
So I do. The door closes shut like a wind’s mistake, clicks, and it stands between me and the other side of the bone-white wall, an oaken bodyguard of drowsy writers working on.
Go on. Look around the room.
Chair. Tables. Walls. Oh, a roof leak.
No. Really look, I mean.
Lining paper yellowing in the places where hands and chair tops brushed past for years. Shiny furniture with dust collecting in the crannies out of sight. A bowl of food (dog one, full to the brim—human one, empty with a filthy rim). Rusty hinges and inherited silverware.
Marked up, unkempt on weekdays, prettied up for visitors, its value found in numbers, its keys given out for access, put up for rent or sold to the best offer, filthy, hungry, painted, remodeled, lived in, abandoned—and they won’t let me back in now, but I’m scratching on the body-guard's wooden trunk to write down about body-like house limbs.

the first girl who ever kissed my neck
had bones in her bedroom.
like taxidermy, right? i asked,
squeezing her hand,
my thumb rubbing hers, innocently.
the early days are always beautiful,
mind.

could i offer you some jam?
the fruits of my labour, i said
as she dipped the knife into my open wounds
smiling wide, ‘i did this for you’
and i said it so proudly, at the time.

i prettied myself up with doilies,
a gingham tablecloth too,
covering the unsightly parts of me.
only for her to give me that look,
that disappointed, never good enough

look.
its pithy. there’s too much substance.
and she spat it back into my face,
the red creating a clown-smile
the only smile i could muster, at the time.

and then she started to scream,
and that’s where my memories lapse.
hacking sounds, bones snapping.
it happened kind of quickly.
severed heads, severed hands,

what does it matter?
if your lover is thirsty, let them drink.
it’s simpler that way,
it keeps lovers as lovers, the naïve part of me said,
like a mantra, over and over.

deep inside, where my strength lay
(and i wouldn’t usually tell people this
but as you may have guessed,
mere air particles don’t have much to lose)
i wanted to scream, fight back

give me that back, that’s not yours to take
but the words are lost,
her slickened hands over my mouth
drowning out the nose,
as she runs away.

******* coward. leech. parasite.
i want my body back, i wheezed
as the final breathe escaped my chest.

They stitched me up and sent me out
with a world-class, white-toothed smile.
Tradition sewed with thick black string
until its thumbs went numb and calloused.

Truth tarnished the needle and burned my skin,
but who was I to talk?
If you don’t have anything nice to say,
you best not say nothing at all.

Grandma prettied me up and dried my eyes,
said I should talk with God.
He’s an awful bad conversationalist;
The Saints remained silent night after night.

When that town was done, I was a right lovely thing:
delicately embroidered, just enough flourish.
Unsung secrets where a soul should be;
I guessed Blood was overrated anyway.

Now seams have ripped and sutures popped,
revealing gruesome wounds and ugly verity.
Momma, I’m sorry, it didn’t last;
I am not as strong as you are.