As I **** this cigarette
my life go's up in smoke,
in clouds of gray and white
some day I'll die of stroke.

If only I would quit
this habit that I have,
my lungs would never rot
all cancerous and scabbed.

And though I know this all,
to my love I still return,
for nicotine I crave for nicotine I yearn.

Take this poem to heart,
and let thy cigarette go,
for dieing of lung cancer
is the slowest death I know.

When I first heard of the concept of self harm, in sixth or seventh grade, I didn’t believe it could be addictive. I didn’t understand how people tore apart their skin just for the sake of tearing things apart.

That changed real quick when I had my first panic attack at 14 and used a dull pair of scissors to scratch a line down my arm. It barely even bled, but it was the beginning of something. It was a temporary peace, a comfort in the moment and a monster in the next.

And so it began. I bought men’s razors, carried them home in my pockets and hit them against dressers and with books until they broke apart. I hid the blades in a small cardboard box behind the books on my shelves, hid bandages and antiseptic and a long, dull razor blade (the kind you use to cut glass and paint) that I’d stolen from my dad’s tool bench. Just in case I needed to escalate.

I wore long sleeves and jeans to cover my misdeeds, the long, thin scratches lined up neatly along my thighs. Monthly became weekly became every other day as I lost control of myself, lost myself in the glint of blades and the pools of red and the feeling of pure, unadulterated relief. I was 14 acting like my life was coming to an end (I was convinced it was). I wrote poetry in the empty pages of my French workbook and scratched panicked lines down my forearms in Geometry. I became a shell of myself, a shell pockmarked with fading scars, little white lines that screamed at me whenever I dared to look.

I liked them. I wanted more scars, I wanted them everywhere, I wanted physical, permanent records of my failings and my abysmal self-worth. I wanted a reminder that I could still feel something.

Sometimes I stopped. Six months after I started I decided I needed to quit, so I drew butterflies on my arms and labeled them with the names of people I loved. I stayed off the drug for something like three months, leaving my blades untouched in their hiding place. When my grandpa died, it became too much and the blades came out, crashed into my shaking hands as I heaved with loss and the revelation that I felt nothing.

One weekend I came home from a lake trip with my dad and my best friends to find that my blade box, hastily shoved under a pillow, was gone. After searching under the bed for a good twenty minutes I determined that my mom had found it. So I waited for the next few weeks to be approached, for her to ask what the deal was, for her to say anything. And she never did. That was when I lost faith in the adults in my life and that was also when I bought new razors to keep in a new box in a new hiding place. I carved my resentment into my arms now, instead of on my legs where I’d already mapped out months of self-torture. On my arms they were visible.

I sometimes rolled my sleeves up in class, past my hidden Band-Aids and sometimes up past my scabbed cuts, to see if anyone would notice. No one did. I wasn’t cutting for attention, but I was lost and looking for help.

My best friend taught me how to sanitize my blades, walked with me to Target to buy razors and bandages. It was surreal how normal it was to us. We were talking each other out of suicide every other week because we didn’t want to be alone but we didn’t want to be alive, either. I was so, so scared that I would wake up one morning to find her dead.

My cuts went from panicked, messy, urgent to carefully executed, perfectly straight lines. I had it down to a science, sometimes going months in between but always thinking about the next fix. A year passed. I thought about it less.

There was never a moment that I decided to stop, but somehow I did, between my first job and my driver’s license and my transition into adulthood. I traced the scars on my arms but didn’t really feel like making new ones -- I was still sad, constantly, but I had started teaching myself to be happy, to find love for myself and beauty in life. As I write this, I’ve been clean for over six months.  

The urge fades over time. Sometimes, in the midst of a 3 a.m. surge-of-panic, I’m tempted to take the few blades I still have out of the iPhone box in the top drawer of my dresser. But then I remember that cutting didn’t solve anything, and it never will. My escapades in self-harm taught me to be kind to myself. And it’s so, so hard every single day. I still wish for more scars, more representation of the suffering I lived through, but I’m still breathing and I’m slowly clawing myself out of the mouth of this beast. I’m alive.

Because at the end of the day, all you can do is survive.

Don’t love me.
Please, don’t love me.
I know myself, we’re quite close actually, and let me tell you, you don’t want to fall for her,
you don’t want that girl, I hate her.
I hate her because I know her so well and I know how horrible the truth can smell.
Don’t love me, because even I know to hate myself,
the vanity that despite this loathing I might actually believe that someone could fall for me.
Don’t love me.
Don’t love me, because I met Heartbreak once and she left me gasping for air
and I will never meet her again.
I refuse, so if you love me, please be aware that when you do,
some day I am going to leave you, battered and bruised, because
twisted self-preservation has taught me all the tricks to keep myself afloat by drowning you.
Don’t love me.
Because as much as I will love you, I’m not friends with Commitment,
and whenever I see him on the horizon I set off running in the opposing direction.
I will treat you like there will be no oxygen unless I’m holding you,
but when you’re the one reaching for my hand I’ll become the wind.
Commitment is not my friend, I said, but no one listens.
Don’t love me, because I am a tornado, a storm to chase until I’ve taken everything from you.
Don’t love me.
Someday, you will be married and happy, and I will
whirl back into your life like the hurricane that has never been named after me, and
you will believe that all your scars
and your broken heart
have healed enough that you can run with me.
But I have razors between my fingers and wedged in my teeth,
and your scabbed over heartstrings will be powerless against me.
I am an expert at running, at hurting, at ‘maybe’s.
Don’t love me.
When you ask me for something more,
I will tell you that I am not ready, because I never will be.
Chances scare me, and trusting someone so much will always be risky.
I will tell you that I am not in the right place for your Commitment,
for your future Heartbreak,
and you will tell me that you understand but you’ll stick with me,
and fire will consume everything.
Don’t love me.
I can’t even go a few years with a friendship before
burning it all for at least a few evenings, but we’ll always rebuild the
rickety ashes of the bridges we’ve passed.
Don’t love me.
I’m only saying it for your safety.

i. the 1st week is the rapid hemostasis. the fabric of your body clutching itself together, rushing to staunch the bleeding. you breathe and oxygen settles in your chest like needles. you are so tired. you, in your continent of pain, will never be enough of anything for anyone. you burn softly as your cells scuttle to repair the damage. you burn in silence.

ii. the 2nd week is the inflammation. the itching and swelling of flesh. the fingers you move over your own body, holding your hips quiet. your **** is no longer a ****, but a rumpled and puffy city, a strange piece of art, a crime scene after the police have left where everyone is sweeping up shattered glass. someone’s murmuring a poem of soul and death over the radio. it might be you. everyone is shouting and the radio is getting louder and the crime scene is turning into an emergency room and the doctors are flying around in their yellow haste and there is no oasis, no peace, no open window, until the automatic hospital doors part with a groan and she is there, and you realize you are about to be saved.

iii. the 3rd week is the proliferation and migration. she tells you to remove the gravel from your body before you grow a new skin. so you do, you pull it out with black tweezers and it makes you scream until you are raw and humble. you watch as you mend yourself, sped up, like a tiger lily caught on long-form camera, bursting to life. someone says the words love and breaking and heal. someone says i will take you and i will carry you. is it you or her? does it matter? your skin is rearranging itself. you are pangea, splitting and reattaching to new places. it should be violent, but it isn’t. she’s calling you in from the cold and you go to her, scabbed up and scabbed over, unable to close your eyes. she takes up your whole field of vision. her lips, her nose. her irises, where you find god and every angel. the only sin here is the distance between the two of you. which you are closing. by the minute. by the second. by the breath.

iv. the 4th week is the angiogenesis. the development of new veins and ligaments. the deeply complicated process of creating new paths for blood to flow. the beating of your heart when she rests her hand on your knee and leaves it there. your tectonic feelings. the way you look for her in a crowd. the sudden daylight.

v. the 5th week is the  reepithelialization. a big, funny word that sends heat all through you. it asks questions. like: when you broke, did you know you would stop bleeding? when you lay prone in a pool of your own carnage, did you know that Good And Beautiful still belonged to you? that even in that crushing agony, she would come to you, and, with her seamstress hands and surgeon heart, put you back together? did you know that the light was never out of reach? that the walls around you were cardboard, not cement? that she would destroy them gently, then draw you from the wreckage? and still see you whole, even with all your throbbing fissures, the parts of you that just can’t add up? did you?

vi. the 6th week is the synthesis. your wound has gone. it’s a tuesday and you are watching her walk to class. it’s dizzying, the way she moves, the way she walks. she doesn’t know you’re there and you would like to keep it that way, because you are a naturalist observing something rare and exquisite, and you do not want to scare her away. she’s the white-hot sphere of the sun in the sky, and with your woundless self, you take her in. you can feel it, when you look at her—the spin of the earth / clouds sliding into other hemispheres / the swarm of your blood cells and pathogens / the aging of trees / airplane turbulence / earthquakes in places you will never see / lava cooling in the ocean / the rings we grow on our hearts—you can feel all of it. she’s turning the corner now, hair ignited. you are in love with her and you don’t want her to be late. she is so beautiful, even though you can’t see her anymore. she’s the last of her kind.

when the lace
from my shirt
fell away,
you helped me
tie it back
together,
even though i know
you'd love to love me
uncovered

i knew,
you cradled
the scars
the sunlight
gave me,
you kissed
between my ribs
where the swollen
skin lay tender,
you would have
stitched them up
if you knew how

i remember
the ultrasound
my fingers took
of your heart,
i could see it
beating
red and angry
in your chest,
trying to
unfasten the ties
that held it inside

my palms
were hot, but
they healed you
my scabbed knuckles
brushed over your eyes
and you settled
into me like a gasp,
slowly but alive

sweetheart,
i would
end the earth
in one swift movement
if i could watch
the asteroids fall
in your eyes

On Monday, November 14th
She wore her favorite dress.
Blue with grace.
Lace that covered her shoulders.
Lace that teased all the men that walked by.
Falling to her knees.
Barely brushing the scabs and scars that sat there.
Hugging her hips like the night hugs the moon.

On Monday, November 14th
She smiled.
Cherry lipgloss smeared quickly across her thin lips.
White teeth peaking out.
Her lips perfectly outlined.
The corners tucked up beautifully.

On Monday, November 14th,
She stood.
Pride in her perfect posture.
Proud of her lean body.
Her body perfectly aligned.
Not a flaw.

On Monday, November 14th
Her arms were pale.
A gold bracelet hugged her wrist.
You could see each blue stream, happily working.
Dusted with freckles.
Soft and pure.



On Tuesday, November 15th
She did not wear her favorite dress.
She wore a different one.
Black with sorrow.
No lace.
Falling to her ankles.
Encasing scabbed knees.
Hugging her in all the wrong places.

On Tuesday, November 15th
She frowned.
Blood red lipstick stained her thin lips.
Her teeth hid inside her blooded lips.
The corners fell, drooped.

On Tuesday, November 15th,
She sat.
Too exhausted to stand.
She let go of her posture.
She was cautious of her appearance.
Aware of her flaws.

On Tuesday, November 15th,
Her arms were whiter than before.
Each vein slashed.
Red.
The gold bracelet still hung there.
Her freckles throbbed with pain.
No longer soft, or pure.

On Tuesday, November 15th
He died.
Early in the morning.
With him, he took her strength, her smile, her pride.
He left her bare.

On Wednesday, November 16th
She missed him.
She missed him a little too much.
Her heart couldn't take it.
Her eyes red and swollen.
She was there, but gone.

On Thursday, November 17th
She joined him, quietly.

Feet. Gnarled, scabbed and bent at the bone. Where‘s the beauty? I look at my toenails, my arms around my knees, as tears roll down and hit the sidewalk. The splash is exciting, and a thousand images come to mind.

I stand as I take in everything around me, savoring each breath, watching the colors enter my mouth.

The wind. It’s colorful here. Rolling rainbows of blues and greens and reds caress the buildings around me. It’s astounding when it blows.

Last week, the sun exploded into a thousand little ***** of light and they float around me now, serene and inert. Only when I walk do those in my path slowly twirl out of my way.

Slowly, slowly. As if they are moving through gelatin, as if they are slightly begrudged that I‘m counteracting their inertia.

I know that this is beauty. It is beauty that is this place. I would give up every element comprising my being to have this beauty with me when I leave, but I know I can’t overstay my welcome.

I place my foot onto a step behind me and I walk up. There is a balcony above me where I bring my camera. I sit on this ledge and I let my feet hang over and I try to capture everything this beauty is.

But it can’t be done. I have tried so many times to take this place, to put it in my pocket. But it can’t be done. No matter how many times I try, or how many ways I turn my camera, I can’t capture it.

I set the camera down after a couple minutes and I look to my left. A little ball of sun is floating beside my head. I stick a finger out to poke it and, as if by a magnetic field, it slowly pushes itself back when I am but a mere inch away. I try again, and fail. I put both hands out, cupping, as if to net it. I miss, and we play this game for a while.

But the suspense goes nowhere, and the ball of sun finally anticlimactically slips a few feet away. Disappointed, I stand up and walk slowly down the steps, my hand on the edge of the wall next to me.

The suns begin to lose their brightness, and I know it is time for me to go. I’m almost sad, knowing that I won’t see beauty like this until the next time I am able to return here.

Almost. This place is so great, so majestic, I can’t help but leave with a sense of pride, knowing I am privileged enough to come here.

With a final look back, I take in the glow of the setting ***** of sun against the background of the wind. I hesitate at the bridge, to put my hair back up into a ponytail. I slip back into my sneakers and I put on my lip gloss. I’m ready to go back to the side of the world from which I came.

I have to catch my breath as I prepare myself for the world I’m returning to. I breathe in deeply, and I look down, at my feet. Gnarled, scabbed, and bent at the bone. Where’s the beauty?

I take a reluctant, mournful step onto the bridge

Destined to never be satisfied, that is me,
I will swallow the world and purge,
Wiping my mouth of the spittle, off too comes the grin,
Momentous occasions amount to invisible entrapment,
They'll try and tell me that it should be enough,
Sedated and post-op lobotomies on pedestals,
Formaldehyde jars packed with vernal reward,
Plopped on sofas staring at the **** tube barrel,
Fancier and well built imports,
**** measuring contest gone wrong,
Debt built up and drowning rats,
Tunnel vision scoped Dharman,
Wicker trinkets, frail mistreated,
Lunatics that love for the wrong reasons,
Insanity epidemic gross over-exaggeration,
Billy clubs fly from hands of misguided lawmen,
Prayers knelt under the bus benches,
***** corroding the underbelly of the social glance,
Blind blues moutharp in the corner still playing,
Trains running on time, taking the life from the patrons,
Steel breathes burnt crimson,
Foggy cauldrons from medieval nightmares,
The haggard ***** dangles her ***** precariously above,
Just an inch or two in the wrong direction,
And all this meaningless mess might be forgotten,
Books burned, learned forgotten, buildings from the sand,
Starting the sick cycle over again,
With an even wider **** eating grin,
Chartreuse Cheshire cats with inviting eyes,
Taking the breath from the first borns,
Replacing motor oil with sugar canes,
HOWLING what history has shown,
Making a prophet from the scammers and thieves,
I can't believe that we don't all see,
What my path of professed malnutrition,
Gambled stimulus, Golden fleece lined nimbus,
Never enough for the scabbed *****,
Never enough for the howling idiots in the sun,
Never enough for the lunatics undistinguished,
Surely never enough for you and me.
Continuing on snickering underhanded,
Snide underbreath worried about repercussions if found out,
Maybe even too ignorantly blissful enough to not give a ****,
Head down looking at your shoes,
Or ready to inflict a flat tire,
Graceful or oafish,
Humble sniveling whelp, prodding pious peacock,
Dividing rod stuck in the teeth of our teeth,
This is the loner society,
At least tolerance is taught in our schools,
Has anyone really learned anything?

i want to be here for
the ugly.
the inopportune,
the odious.
moments when
your back breaks
from carrying
a heavy load,
when your heart bursts
from the inside,
when your tongue
becomes toxic.

i want to
plant hydrangeas
in the crevices
of your spine,
rose bushes
in your heart,
peonies in your mouth,
so that when nurtured,
you are able to stand,
able to love,
able to speak of yourself
splendidly.

know that this
is not the end.

know that even when
my hands grow weary,
and
my knees become
scabbed and
dirt- covered,
i will happily
wipe the sweat
from my aching brow
and tend to you.

because all of the ugly,
the inopportune,
the odious,
will be forgotten,
the moment
you begin
to blossom.

I'm A Suicide Bomb.
A Nuclear Explosion Of Unexplainable Inadequate Ambition.
A Hand Granade, Pull My Pin And  Watch Me Self Destruct.
A Land Mine Beneath Seven Inches Of Soil, Tensed Like Piano Wire, Ready To Sing Under Pressure. Ready To Scream.
Genocide Of My Own Veins. Pull Them One By One, Out Of Their Homes And Send Them Off To Interment Camps, Built To Hold The Blood Of A Body That Only Betrays Me.
I'm Holding Each Limb Hostage, Each Finger A Prisoner Of War, Every Fingertip A Monument Where Everyone I Have Ever Loved Will Mourn The Tragedy Of My Own Destruction.
Gas Masked And Gagging, They Will Always Ask Why I Did It.
A Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Diagnoses To Give Them Some Closure. I

Know They Didn't Understand The War I Was Waging Beneath My Ribs.

Waking Every Morning, Clawing My Way Through The Wreckage, With Knees And Palms Painted Filthy Black, Ears Ringing, Like The Sound Of A Thousand Dead Voices Vibrating,

I Have To Tell Myself It Must Be Happening For A Reason.
I've Been Wearing A Kevlar Vest Made Of Lies, White Ones, Stained Red.
A Purpose Born Inside Me, I Have To Ask How Much Longer Must I Keep Running?
I Have To Believe The God You Pray To, Prays To Someone Like Me, Because Who Else Would Declare War On This Kind Of Humanity.  

Every Day Is A Battle, Every Aching Moment Is A Last Attempt At Redemption,
Every Bone In This Body Is A Bayonet Aimed To Splint Apart My Skeleton.
This Isn't A War Anymore.
This Is Terrorism.
Terrorized My Paper Thin Skin,
Handed Me Black & Blue ink, and Told Me To Write Out My Surrender On My Skin, Like Bruises

Branded,
Wrapped In Kelodial Bandages.

I Am Damage.

I Am Destruction.

I Am Savage.

I Am. Terrified.

My Home Is A War Zone, Scabbed Over And Still Bleeding, No Where Is Safe, Not Even Inside My Own Skull.
I Am Eyelid Explosions And Neplam, Burning One Hundred Thousand Degrees Above My Own Boiling Point.

An Open Wound. Bullet Bomb Shell, Left With More Holes Than Whole.

Had Spent 6 Years On This Planet, 2,190 Days Too  Short To Understand What It Meant To Watch Twin Towers Fall.
They Said The Word Attack.
Lived Eleven More Years In This Body, In An Existence That Seems To Only Be Fighting Against It's Own Skin, Cutting It Into Pieces, Cutting Corners, Cutting Edges, Looking For Answers Beneath Whatever Remains Of Me.


How Can You Win A Battle When The Only One You Are Fighting Is Yourself?

I Think My Violet Eyes And Indigo Insides Believed In A Peace Treaty, But I Have Shrapnel Wedged So Deeply Inside Me, That It's Become Difficult To Understand Existing Without It.

How Do I Fight An Invisible Enemy, With Kerosene Lips And Matches For Fingertips?

I Am A Solider.
There Was A Draft And It Consisted Of A Single Six Digit Number That Matched My Birthday,
Like A Bad Joke,
I Can't Remember When It Began, All I Know Is That I Haven't Lived in A Time Without Bloodshed.

Mental Illness Runs In My Family,
A Weapon Of Mass Destruction,
Built Into This Blood,
O Positive,
Unsure,
Yet AB Negative
Of Where It Will Take Me,
Except To Live A Life Wondering If I'll Catch The Family Flu,
They Call This Biological Ware fare.

How Do We Wash The Blood Out Of Our Own Genes?

Us. The Sick Of Soul, The Diseases And Dying, The Psychosomatic, Sociopathic, Undiagnosed And Overmedicated,

Must Tell Ourselves

That Atleast Suicide Bombers..

Die For Something.

Blind sighted was I as I traveled the darken roads,
walking within the confines of my mind.
Learning of the darker paths again,
trying to explore the things left unsaid.
Occasionally trailing off the path,
patching the wounds that still bled.

Such a fool to let your guard down,
Such a fool to leave the paths unguarded.
Such a fool to believe again
Such a fool to suffer in torment.

Only to learn of a new wound there,
close to the one left by authority figures.
Stepping closer to examine it and
wondering if it could honestly be true.
Poking at it to try and learn more,
finding it a wound that travels deep.

Such a fool to let your guard down,
Such a fool to leave the paths unguarded.
Such a fool to believe again
Such a fool to suffer in torment.

Morbid curiosity encouraging me further,
extending hand to learn of the depth it holds.
Finding it to be larger than my fist,
what a deep wound this doth be.

Such a fool to let your guard down,
Such a fool to leave the paths unguarded.
Such a fool to believe again
Such a fool to suffer in torment.

Pus and gross things spilling along side
of the blood that seeps out.
Deadly infection having set in,
where I thought healing had started.
Silly thing I have been when I thought it scabbed over,
and healing as it should've been..

Such a fool to bare this burden.
Such a fool to think it was gone.
Such a fool to believe in trust.
Such a fool deserves to suffer.

i'm not sure what to do with all the distance
it's been months that have felt like years
i can remember when you came into my life in the winter
and I can remember when you left in the summer
arrival and departure
the distinct difference between the two
i'm only at the thin line of division
the way my emotions don't add up
like miscalculated algebra
all to your advantage
i kept your love letter
the letter where you plagiarized a novel
because i wasn't good enough for your own words
that was my only closure
i wanted desperately to burn the stuffed bears from the carnival
i could only part with one
when i hold it close to me
i feel like how a child would
expecting prizes only in fabric and cotton stuffing
not words of affirmation or love
i almost drove by your house
but i knew i would only go mad thinking
of who has been touching your new furniture that i helped pick out
leaving their fingerprints in place of mine
i miss my t-shirts that you still have
i hope when and if you wear them
you can feel me close
my heart beating where yours is
sometimes i feel like i miss you enough for you to show up
as if my pain could teleport
the craving of a complete closure
one where i don't need liquor or a lighter
others bring up your name
as if i'm not in the process of misplacing the letters
or dismissing the syllables
i've been trying to forget your face
your face of sharp bones
flaring nostrils
and nostalgic lips

i've been trying to imagine if that night would have never happened
when that veteran couldn't take himself anymore
he chose you to be his last interaction
it was all in hints
he was screaming for help without making a sound
how were we supposed to know
i still wonder where that blue jay is that he buried behind the building
i just couldn't bare to see it
now i wish i made a map
X marks the spot where our love died
i remember when you had to bury your own blue jay
you never saw it coming
you took the wrong step and it was under your foot
just like he said his bluejay was
fidgeting and fighting for life
i'd like to think it was a sign from him
to let you know it's possible to move on and forward
so you did
you moved on to scabbed skin and worn-out lungs
i moved on to scholarly headaches and false pretenses
back then i could never fathom my days without you
now i find it difficult to recall how we were
it feels like our romance was a dream
because it only felt real when i was asleep

This is me apologizing. This is me finally coming up for air and coughing up apologizes instead of swallowing them down with gulps of water. This is me looking at your face and seeing the bags under your eyes because you stayed up all night trying to call me and apologizing. Looking at your nails and seeing the skin around them ****** and scabbed and the beds unevenly bitten down to nothing and apologizing. Looking at your eyes and seeing the way you bought colored contacts to cover the fact you spent days unmoving from a mirror trying to love yourself and apologizing. This is me seeing the needle points on your lips from where you injected your own blood to attempt to regain that color I claimed to be in love with and apologizing. As I'm looking at your arms and seeing where you scrubbed your skin with chemicals trying to erase the essence of me and when you smile I can see that you chugged a bottle of bleach to try and whiten your teeth bright enough so that you could be accepted by God himself into the pearly gates all I can do is apologize. I'm sorry that you spent hours carving my name into his back with your fingernails and biting your own tongue so hard it bled when he told you he loved you. When his flesh connected with yours causing the world to stop for a second and listen to your shrieking I know it was me you were screaming for and I'm sorry. As I'm standing here staring at you and watching them put brush stroke after brush stroke of blush onto your lovely pale cheeks trying to restore the life you lost so many years ago I'm finally realizing it's too late to apologize yet all I can think about is how this isn't even close to the eulogy you deserved. I should be talking about the way you danced and how your voice made my own falter momentarily and how you were more alive when you were dying than I ever will be when I'm living rather than apologizing but all I can seem to rationalize is how I spent years dry swallowing your love and spitting up knives to use to carve my initials into your thigh so you would always remember me and how I never even had the common decency to count to three before destroying you and I'm sorry. I'm afraid to look up now that I've finished apologizing because I know your empty eyes filled with nothingness will be staring back so horribly confused because I doubt you ever continued listening after I used the world eulogy and I'm sure you're going to wonder why I'm talking as if I'm sitting at your funeral rather than on the end of your bed but I don't know how else to make you grasp the concept of what you're doing to yourself by loving me in a better way than this and I'm sorry. C.a.l

footsteps are echoing
down a corridor long since empty.
as they resonate,
a ghost stirs from it's slumber within me.
each passing sunset
a key turns the lock,
to reveal the Creature of the Night,
the sweet Darkness I'd forgot.
like the pages of a book
browned & tattered, lying unread
your scent awakens
a soul I was certain was dead.
how refreshing you are,
blood upon my white dress.
a release from gripping fear,
I crave your death on my breath.
let us massacre the stars
& chance Hell on the Kid's gaskets.
Heretics by nature,
we can spite the Gods
& waste life on their caskets.
you feed me the poison of my father,
& your name rings a painful past,
you've destroyed the world as I know it
& filled my nightmares with your laugh.
devouring words of evil
& Satan himself on film,
I think, my dearest Devil,
I have fallen under your spell.
still a single thought, it haunts me.
a doubt, deep in my mind.
when I smile, do you see my submission to you,
would you pleasure me with your bite?
I haven't fed in so long,
can I bind you to my dungeon wall?
each sunrise we part,
I pray to the moon
for my blood in your heart.
these tombs in me,
breathe life once again.
be my Dark Prince
& I, your Babylonian.
we can spread our scabbed wings
across the eternity of Zion,
put our faith in the flesh we see
& forsake the terrible dawn.
our eyes betray our sign,
& our hearts beat in the South.
but the torture we could bring each other is divine,
let our cries erase the doubt.
we cherish the scars of our skin,
yet we are not brave.
getting closer to God, becomes a Requiem
& the bedroom can be our grave.

It’s not about the hand you were dealt with,
It’s about how you play the hand you were dealt with.

But
Imagine that the hand you were given
attached to fingers
with blistered pads and splintered prints
that wound in swirls of blood soaked skin.
Imagine, that the nails of each finger
crucified you to stars
willing you to brighten the night
for children who fear the dark
regardless of your burns.
Imagine, that your palms
were crumpled pieces of paper
stuffed into the back of a trash bin
on fire,
the burning smell of garbage and secrets
indistinguishable from one another.

See
Some people,
they are given hands lined with rings;
diamonds, silvers, and golds
not a single callous and well-manicured.
Some people,
they are given boneless pieces of plastic
that fail to do so much
as curl and unfurl themselves:
hands that are growing desperate to feel
the things they touch.
Some people,
they are given scabbed knuckles
that shake so bad
they can only find comfort
in scratching themselves henna tattooed scars;
digging six feet into their skin,
creating burial sites out of their own bodies.

Tell them anyway,
It’s about how you play the hand you were dealt with.
It may never make a winner out of them
But it will keep them from leaving the game entirely.

If the writer is not the reader and the reader is not entered
(entertain-ed?) by the trial or trier
here in our phor of oroboronic

wheel spinning, our world of
entertaiment
contained,
be
coming to meet, um,
-phatics of sorts unheard,
ignored,
or unshown, un-

init-
iated unit-
ary, you,

become the
eleventh hour ***, none hired.
Apo

Unem, come work my field, *** my hard rows
no early helpers
weeded

Attention glitch... some signal intra fearal

No worry,
-- fear of god beginning wisdom boot code;

that connection
has been loose so long, missignaling
special and free,

a special sort of
crudescence has scabbed the short.
It's a brain fix.
You get a feel for it, the augments help,
Om as the
Axionic go, is tuned to absurdity. Listen.

Hear me, dragon-lizard-brain. We are a team. The team.
All the story stories tell of you and me. We unite.
We get our act together, and we
go mad, in the sight of all earthlings augmented to see
Youtube.

By my ab-surd-ifity, all our stories change. An unmatched wave.

-- forgive the footnote, but don't lie about what we both know is true:

absurd (adj.)"plainly illogical," 1550s,
from Middle French absurde (16c.),
from Latin absurdus "out of tune, discordant;"
figuratively "incongruous, foolish, silly, senseless,"
from ab- "off, away from,"
here perhaps an intensive prefix,
+ surdus "dull, deaf, mute," which is possibly
from an imitative PIE root meaning "to buzz, whisper"
(see susurration).
Thus the basic sense is perhaps "out of tune,"
but de Vaan writes,
"Since 'deaf' often has two semantic sides,
viz. 'who cannot hear' and 'who is not heard,' ab-surdus can be explained as 'which is unheard of' ..." The modern English
sense is the Latin figurative one,
perhaps "out of harmony with reason or propriety." Related: Absurdly; absurdness.
--
Screech, boomers know, finger nails on the chalkboard, the blackboard
jungle screech,
when teacher is takin' a smoke. Absurdity is entertainment.

It can make you think in whole new ways.
Or stop your believing of a lie

for long enough to see
a hope, no lie, a hope of something human
**** sapien sapiens augmental,
upright under Good and Evil,
sheltered from the storm.

A class, a level, a common value beyond Belief and Dignity and

dexterous sinister plots of points where clues were pinned,
yet you
overlooked the message, daze-led by the angels dancing.

Thales fell into this hole. He survived. It all ties in

The new -phatic word that started this stream ends it,
with our common
scream for meaning fullness apo-

apo-phatic mystery of sympathy,
bha, bha --

Paradox ortho
pedic augmentations, koan to mantra,
meditation on the word of words,
step to step to step logical
logos-centric reason, logo-istical rite to
evince a visible faith,
a virtue signal,
a mark, between the eyes,
an aim,
a point to spring a story from
upon an unsuspecting child averse to boos.

Trauma at a bubble pop. When all we know, dear
reader, is lost, and our bubble's edge sur
past our horizons,
we are mine-yoot, mispent attentions being

recycled, for goodness sake. Old lies twisting
into first fruits of the know
ing tree, ideas mani-fest
ing
ting, ding

Aha, my bubble of thought ala
funny papers in the old days where we met and laughed
together
in America, before we knew
earth from this distance
fifty years ago.

Wishbooks were real,
Whole Earth Catalog suppliers
sold me my nets, my hooks, and lines,

I learned the ways men have caught fish.
Wishing all the while for a way to live as earthlings live.
Guided by witty inventions, messengers
from the gods, eh.

Easter eggs, tucked away in retro games surfacing on Wall Street.

Who manages the messages released when the
first trump sounded?

That was me, as real, Asreal Kanbe, a walkon role.

I saw a third,
at least, of all the fish in the sea die,
in the duration of a single
short-span standard life. All seven trumps did sound, though,

they may be like lizards, we don't hear them well.

These seventy years of captivity
in the tales of my culture, my people and the ways they live in peace,

in the ways they resist war, sistere in peace with faith, the idea, the deed,

faith works in acting. True. Eh. Faith without action is dead.

Incandescentis onburnedupus, ****, dark. Switch on switch off
nada
dark dark faith sees nothing, ah so what, we muddle in puddles

and fail to portage for fear of surface I can't sticking to our
iron shod feet,
miry clay, heavy steps ******* the good news socks off
our beautiful feet,

see hear focus id - i dent ify the why, find the how-

thought change changes thinker, not thought.

Which of you can make one wire plus or minus by taking thought?
Taking anxious thought? Eh?
Fret not. Ohmmmmmmmm

my god, why the threats? Why must I fret for never making sense?

Dee ahna knowledge chan zen

consider the opposite, the shadow of turning, not doubt

preserve light and darkness little man
preserve sun and moon and stars

lose your wish to catch the Magic Fish.

But that is my wish, my wish for one more wish,
I wished to catch the fish

which taught the lessen to the fishher whose wife
could not be satisfied.

I wished for a source of all the answers ever found,

Ah. and I got this global brain that remembers ever,
though we know only now.
Never before,
has this been past that which men hoped for,
unseen.
Faith for the world to become as it now is,
is finished.
What a man sees, why does he hope for?

It worked. Self-evident, right. Same class as life and liberty.

Chickeneggical,
**** or ovoidal elliptical slices of life, those arrive for our

per-use-al, right or wrong. Like a Fabrege' egg:
You break it, you bought it. Life ain't fair. But it works.
Pick up the pieces.
They all still fit. None are missing. Some are broke,
but a soft touch can fix em.

You were always Humpty-Dumpty. This had to happen once.

Good side always shines, when
the rub has been dealt a shine-on signal for ever sake,
no reason,

just cause. A man can, even mad, be as happy
as he can imagine being,
at the time, all things considered, augmentasciously.

This was my oldest memory today, the future
shall come, and whatever
shall be, shall be, que sera sera.

How are you bored? This is earth. Even if you wish otherwise.

There are new things we may learn if we choose.

--apophatic (adj.)
"involving a mention of something one feigns to deny;
involving knowledge obtained by negation," 1850,
from Latinized form of Greek apophatikos,
from apophasis "denial, negation,"
from apophanai "to speak off,"
from apo "off, away from" (see apo-) + phanai "to speak,"
related to pheme "voice," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say."

I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden.
Maybe I would call it eating light.
Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice:
apophatic mysticism, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and
kataphatic mysticism, less well defined:
an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation.

Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole,
a kataphatic mystic,
as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts:
but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles.

Francis and Thérèse were made, really made,
any mother superior will let you know,
in the dark nights of their lives:
no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms

When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period,
my grandmother took me aside and said,
'Now your childhood is over.
You will never really be happy again.'
That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.

But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.” 
― Mary Rose O'Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

prophet tongue with
stabbing perceptions
i gave him my name
while in bed.

soft white curtains
though still chamber thick
cold steel hands
and the room sliced into pieces
by morning light
but haunted by night sounds
crept into open wounds of the heart

chills.

his hand
resting on my thigh while he snores
summer bruised and adventurous
though callous youth
with his unbandaged scabbed knee
skating last night.

moment forgotten in the carride
but a stone monument staring
at me on the kitchen counter.

didn't shower
sitting in the cubicle
for long hours
didn't shower
and blood
is still on hands
and feet are still riddled
with dirt
staining cheap
carpet floorprint
afraid to touch
anything
coworkers peer
over
their fabric palisades
eyes burning holes
through ripped shirt
and crooked tie
head down
don't exist
no one has to
know a thing

didn't shower
hair is manged and
disoriented
I can feel blood
drip off fingertips
pat - pat - pat
on bland slate
carpet design
can't concentrate
didn't shower
everyone stares
black eye
swollen and scabbed
everyone knows
have to
it's all puddling at feet
washing with the dirt
look away

******* look away!

head is severed
on the mahogany finish desk
black eye bulged
black and purple tennis ball
everyone gathers
whispers whispers
jaw opens
teeth fall out
pat - pat - pat
no one says anything
look away look away
look away
get up to leave
the head stays there
dark souvenir

quick drive
home
shower
hours melt away
infirmities recede
sink back below skin
didn't shower
everyone knew
what happened
last night
but now
no evidence
no witnesses
no one knows
the perfect crime
a cruel smile
emerges on
bare white teeth
as night sets in once again

911 used to be scabbed on the back of my
knees, and soaked carpets
were like coming
home. her eyes were nothing like
mine, and the police always
wanted to know. but i hated the way their
lips smacked against their teeth.


911 used to be tied to my fingers with
****** ribbons, and if you ask me who my kindergarten
teacher was, i couldn’t tell you.
chocolate milk nights were thick with
bruises. i made friends with the images in between the tiles
in the bathroom.

911 used to be etched on my stomach,
and even now i cannot see red blue and white flashing lights
without wanting to puke.
six months is forever when you’re seven years old,
but daddy
always said life is too short
anyway.

1 cut, 2 cut, 3 cut, 4. cry for a while then cut some more. open cut, closed cut, cut scabbed over. drink away the pain, then cut again sober. old cut, new cut, cut dripping blood. drag the blade across and watch as it floods. cut on my wrist, cut on my thigh. wait til everyones asleep, then cut in the night. small cut, big cut, cut too deep. sit and watch as it continues to bleed. hi cut, bye cut, it keeps bleeding out. see you later cut, its over now

i've known the boys like him, the boys
with the gentle eyelashes and the
lip petals and spikes.
he touches my hair, twirls it in his fingers.
i am always nothing more to them.

i want to be earthquakes and avalanches,
yet i fold, becoming the beers in their guts, the ash
on their tongues.
but the way his tongue finds my pelvic bones,
how his calluses kiss my bruises.
his scent echoes inside my pillows,
denial like ***** bordering my throat thick.

the boys want my skin, to flay and wear it.
i am a prize, shiny and golden,
and he is licking my insides, my blood and guts.
like wine,
on his mouth, dripping down his chest.

i see how he stares at others,
calculating and timing,
but in the end i am the one, bent over, the one he says he loves.
(to ****).
and i wonder if this will always be this.
nights tasting like cider and ***,
knees scabbed and bleeding and scabbed and
bleeding.

he never touches me outside the bedroom, his
fingers glued to the bike handles.
i want to cut him open and see what's really inside.

a toast to the gods of self preservation
twenty one with plenty coming
allowing to pound sounds within
the crown aroused voided a founders of it’s bruises
spells hold the fold, I’m coasting with the best
resting in the east so I sleep with blinds low
the comfort zone is far from solitude
my molecules have aptitude to channel Jupiter
seatbelts are useless wastes of matter, excuse me
just a minute so you can miss me with that individuality
your calloused grip on reality impairs the singularity
old school, gold noose, silver lined diamonds
Jesus pieces reaped the seeds that teach your blind lids
came back with scabbed knuckled and heart scars
hustled the portal of pretension ever so ethereally
inner synthesis purged the day the plague hit
on the courts or the graves, you name the slaves
the game slayed the day the chains changed hands

We waded knee deep in the puddles
of vacant lots when the flood filled
our gutters to the brim.

When the rain died down and the water pulled
itself from the streets we watched the rainbow
of oil swirl around our ankles,

walked the wooden footbridge that broke
apart under the weight of our feet,
the water-logged wood rot

splitting while rusted nails slid
out of place. We followed the streams
back to the plaza, back to fake IDs

and the ash-stained tobacco shop.
We found ourselves under flickering
lights, leaning against the rusted

siding of the family market, faces hidden
in a mask of smoke. We got lost
in the electric hum of the laundromat's cyclic drone.

They paved over it all -- covered freckled
skin with cloth and hot tar,
crushed vacant houses like hollow skulls,

ignited neon lights and street lamps,
strip malls and drugs stores
that burn holes into old hiding places.

They still try to sift through shattered glass,
silence the hiss of the popped bike tire,
wipe away the blood flower that blooms

from my scabbed knee.

It was a heap of plaid,
Orange and vinaigrette
It dully blended the white washed denim
The sod contrasted around his knees
Pete Abrams Jonesy was a discovery on his own.

The glow of the night sky released
The party goers and the venomous tendrils
That loomed beyond the tree hats and
The milky grey drift of dust that
Skated around Jonesy’s fingers as he dug
Scattering the Earth,
Searching and searching for the creepy crawlies
Between the plates of dirt,
the patches he’s scabbed away before;
His mother,
Hard at work building a nation in the kitchen
And Johnny filling his swine
Slipping between the cushions of the sofa.
It was that very night
Tucked away under the fresh linen and the feeling of
His mother’s lips pressed against his forehead
Warming his entire body –
That he realized his kneading desire to take his journey farther
To take it to school.
That day on the playground,
His hands knuckle deep in the land’s treasure
Creating pressure beneath the stubs of his fingernails,
Did he meet her
He met Charlotte Anne Avery.
Her ladybug blouse was loosely cast away from her shoulders
And he felt the urge to push her into the sand
But he couldn’t.
Charlotte Anne stood with her
Pine cone hair mushed on either side of her face;
The chocolate spit smeared on her cheek
Was enough to lure the mosquitoes all around
And he wanted to be her friend;

She’s always seen him around
Though; never before had he been keen on
Gazing back at the eyes of curiosity
Or rather her brown ones,
The plain and wide innocence –
It loomed over her face as she knelt
Bent beside him and dug a hole into the cream sand
With her elbow, gently brushing the circumference of
The minuscule hole she created.
Her glitter pink glasses were
Riding down the bank of her nose,
With her bottom cushioned in the crevice of sand
And Pete Abrams Jonesy’s sandy-fingers
Shoving her glasses back up
To rest beneath the kind eyes
That laid on him.

The end of germs and suspenders came fast,
Summer sped around the corner
While Pete Abrams Jonesy and Charlotte Anne Avery
Flew through the highlights
And the untouched parts of the forest –
Gallivanting beyond the age of the bell toll of adolescence,
Did they lie beneath the Sugar Maple Tree.
The promises they made of an un-relinquishing friendship
Grew beyond compare
And ever so did a union of love between him and her;
Every day was a hot hurricane of journeys spent
Devouring the wilderness together
Until the occurring reign of school
Sprung up again.

A new appreciation for the human body
Was as much as Pete Abrams Jonesy
Had accumulated for the first semester
Attending Mayfield Middle –
His life was horribly array without the presence
Of Charlotte Anne Avery.
His new herd of acquaintances
Brought about a new kind of education,
One that was foreign to the halls of Mayfield
And while his afternoon lunches
Sparked a flame in his soul
He became well oriented with the hypnotizing effects
Of Rummy and Black Jack 21,
His mind still sauntered to the round table
In the bull’s-eye of the café
Where a cloud of pink headbands and perfume
Captured the interest of his Charlotte Anne Avery.

She couldn’t believe the variety of books and music
That were made to live in this world
Sharing the same space as her –
It was enthralling, thrilling, and slightly frightening
The tales and the morals were anything but limited
Was it possible to live a well versed life having heard them all?
Would the chance ever be presented?
Her friends were of everything that was made to be
From sports to gymnastics to video-games to art;
It had all been opened to her in a flurry of welcoming gestures
From the minute she sat down at this particular table.
Even as her best friend now swung in the birches
As his friends, the panthers, ran low
She’d always be welcome on his other side;
Though, surprisingly, she was comfortable in this
Shade of manila spotlight.

A second semester, of many years,
Was a gift in its own
A surprise gesture wrapped up in a bow
Of questions, tutors, late night studying
It all amounted in a pile of stress –
A mound of snow
Of tests and quizzes and failed homework grades;
Pete Abrams Jonesy wasn’t alone in his mind
There in the far corner of sawdust
And memories of the plethora of parties he attended
Did lay his old friend from miles ago;
Charlotte Anne Avery had moved away across the lake
On the tips of his fingers so far away
For whatever reason she had moved away
It was amongst him unknown.
“Should I feel an ounce of sorrow, of grievance
For this new found distance between us?
I suppose not; we have new friends now
A new family
I haven’t known her in a while.”

Solemn years passed.
Days of solitude and confinement,
Days of pondering and guilt – heartache
Mr. Avery had passed away
Lost to his kin
His pristine precious child
Charlotte Anne Avery.
The wake had been nothing more
Than shades of black and blue and grey
Uncomfortable heels and rough tissues
That rubbed her eyes and nose
As raw as the pain she felt for the absence
Of her father
Her mother’s happiness and
Pete Abrams Jonesy.
It’d been years since she’d uttered a word to him
Years since they’d even been in the same room for long,
Though her hands still cowered
When she shoved the letter in the mail
Serving him the news of what transpired –
He made no appearance
Her expectations should have dwindled over time
But they remained the same
As strong as ever,
Slightly calloused with time
Until there was nothing left but a sore spot
Of where he should’ve been.

The rumors still rang clear as she began to heal
She fell in love with Marcus Stalling
The final year of puerile days
Now left to rot in the past;
Graduation was held at noon,
Her cap was arced on her head
Perfectly set in place
The rumors still rang true.
Pete Abrams Jonesy was the
Shadow of a boy she once knew when she was
Figuring things out
He didn’t even make it to this day.
The rumors of the hit and run, the drunk driver
It spread around the halls like wildfire
She had been ashamed to have once claimed him
In any form of the word –
She missed him still.
What would his life become?
“No one will visit him. What will become
Of the adventurous and jovial mind
I used to spend time with?”
When she heard the news on the local station
She’d lost her father all over again
And still no one had the answers
To any of her questions.

College and Marcus
The grand scheme of life begun with those two
Wisdom came with age
Anger subsided
And joy was restored –
The life she once dreamt of having
Still rendered mist to her eyes
So many individuals were supposed to be
Toe to toe;
Charlotte Anne Stalling the center of it all
Yet she felt the same orbital satisfaction
Yielding around her with only those two elements.
All mornings were the same
Her sanity strove from cycling about
In comfortable routines and an endless screenplay –
A memory of a future once shielded her sight,
The warm bodies were anything but familiar now.

The winter would always be cold
Rushing the blood to the tip of her nose
But spring came about
In a parade of confetti and open arms
The coffee shop on the girth of the boardwalk
Met her every day during the breakfast of the sun
And the coffee kept her warm.
It was a morning where the tide was crashing down roughly
The sun fried her skin,
She was glowing
Her attention was snatched away from the scenic grounds
Stolen away by the scream and shouts that traveled
From the end of the boardwalk,
There stood Pete Abrams Jonesy
Clutching his arm while peering at the welt
Given to him by a Sugar Maple Boer.

My grade school
burned down
twice.
Once in the 1930's
then again  in
the 50's.
They rebuilt,
there were two
large black and white
framed photographs
of the school houses
before both fires
hanging in the
main hallway.
At some point in
the reconstruction
someone had decided
on two boys
restrooms.

The one at ground level
was always clean.
There were small white
tiles and fresh blue paint.
It always smelled like
pine cleaner,
never ran out of
paper towels.
There was always
sweet smelling
liquid soap in the
shinny silver dispensers.
There were doors with
shinny silver
locks on the stalls.
It was a timeless
space,
pristine and somehow
preserved.
Free and unscathed
by the ugliness of
the world.

Then there was the other
one.
The restroom below
ground in the basement.
There were ground
level windows
with round wire cages
over them.
The view of the
***** untied
tennis shoes
attached to
saggy socks and
scabbed knees.
The children
ran about
with purpose
over every inch
of the playgrounds
hot black top
as I'd try
to guess who's
feet were who's.
There were no doors on
the stalls,
yellow stains beneath
every leaky
******.
Smears of rust around the
faucets ,
a coarse hand soap
in the often broken
dispensers.
More fit for prisoners
than students.
It smelled like
**** and was always
cold.

I don't know why
one was always cleaner
than the other.
Maybe it was an
unwritten janitor
law.
Maybe they seen it
as somehow lower
than the other.
I always chose the
basement restroom.
It just seemed more
natural to me,
it made me feel strong,
made it all feel more real.

Now after so many
hardships as I sit with drink
in hand or lay down
while high on some drug
I can't seem to  help
but look back and
remember.
Then ponder the question.
"Have I always been
meant to live in such a *****,
harsh environment,
even way back then?"

Thatcher vacuum seals nicotine
Slurps cigarette like mosquito
Ravenous lungs gnaw and grind for the slow pander,
Thatcher’s just another name for the labeling
We plaster and pine for an out,
Stitch that finite lie beneath squeamish child skin,
Thatcher’s the black lung paradise,
******* infancy coddling cigarette stifle,
The caloric crack of his canines fletching out lust and sickly groove
As he’s scopes out fiend and vexed vandals,
Clutches the sick theistic *******
Cuddle those bruise licked hips
Give God the gross percent,
Cause heaven’s in those greenbacks
and God’s in the ******* kick,
Suckling bout the American tip
The Christian capitol,
Seething on shadow puppet ****** and American dream,
Gods got nothing to do with the slickened crinkle of gain and glamour,
Thatcher’s just the candy man give and cult,
Cough the crutch of contagion greed
And clutch the cuff of your porcelain sleeve,
Thatcher gleans your blackest suite tight,
Struts raven blade shoulders perched on American made spine,
Thatcher does as Thatcher please,
Thatcher thinks as Thatcher bleeds,
And Thatcher bleeds venereal blend,
Gout with the American veneer of broken girl and scabbed moral traumatic,
Trauma tastes as the hollow pixies give out the get out,
Bandaged baby girls,
The teenage horror show,
Just another blazoned hit of one two take the hand me down generic give away,
Desensitize the humanize,
Girls got to get the days glossy puff and sniff,
Thatcher’s content to satisfy,
Callous coroner a spectator suckling Marlboro lick,
Lodging thick smoke and toxin between spittle slick lips,
Albino plumes clotting and unfolding,
Thatcher clicks back the cartridge
Filter and cigarette,
Thatcher gulps back the need because brain’s got a favoring kink for the buzz,
Thatcher sings with the screaming in his straggling lungs,
Hums the western creed
Laughs fickle with God at his need,
Thatcher’s the true American dream

Glances from across the room louder than the music
louder than the bass that everyone is waiting drop.
Musical notes clamouring against the floor,
don't pick them up.
leave them there,
walk around them
on tip toe
in ballet slippered feet.

feather light or lead heavy.
veins of lightning.

forming vowel sounds with my mouth.
ooooooOooOOO
EEeeeee
i. i. i.
AHhhhhh

Sew me together with fingertips like the soft kiss of lemon drops,
coming up the stairwell
the warmth of wanting
the bite of yearning.

Flushed pink.
Pinched red.
Pricked purple.

Spaghetti mind of soft thoughts
turning hard and stale like cracked chapped candy cane lips.

Naked and waiting.
Scabbed mosquito bites that bled bright red.
OOoooowww.

Gimme a sec.
3-5 business days until rejection.
I'll keep you posted.
48 hours of maybe.
Lemme get back to you.

No RSVP
establishing a lack of certainty.
but but but
Re: Urgent: Plz Respond ASAP

*But when?

my sister is picking fruit, tummy aching
with the weight of a second basket;

my mind three steps to the left
of my skull,
i ask for pomegranates

(the sun is dead that watched me
last time i ate.)

my sister says:
"there are no strawberries"

my sister says:
"there are too many raspberries"

i need something
the size of
my fist, bursting
with red cells and life
to swell my chest, ground me
here

like a phonebox, my heart
can barely hold one person
before we start to bruise each other,
peach soft, blushing
dark and aching,
as each mistake rots through
to the pit of my stomach

juice runs down her
fingers like old blood

plasma gilded, scabbed
and spilled, please
give me thicker skin,
cake me in rind and membrane
to hold the magma in.

The Devil is alive
I hear its suffering
Burnt out eyes and vacant lies
Which whisper in my ear
He snakes a hand across the chest
And lies on glowing embers
To writhe like centipedes in Nyx’s hair

He walks into the kitchen at half-past five
And takes my honey jars
With scabbed hands and bleeding tongue
He licks the sides and cap
Transforms into my wildest dreams
And rearing back at ecclesial verse
Lies with me while I nap

When the bodies are buried he returns home
In the sewer marked with rotting pheasant
Three feet in, light fades and dies
But shrieks of anguish always faint
He bids goodbye and leaves me here
To stand in purest morning cold
Still holding crucifix to die a saint

Down behind the communal garages,
Our knees were scabbed and scarred,
Badges of honour, to ten-year old savages,
Earnt in chasis' of burnt out cars.

There, on the side of a wall,
Nineteen-Sixteen, had been daubed in emulsion,
Just another target for our ball,
To find its meaning ? we had no compulsion.

It was a circular Nine, like a giant comma,
And the Six was rotund, as well,
Against all the rules Sister Mary of the Immaculate Madonna
taught, in those hand-writing classes from hell.

It was similar to a giant 1690,
I'd seen in another part of town,
On the gable-end of a property emptied,
Before an our street versus your street showdown.

Then one day, the Old Fella' explained,
In 1916 we stood up for ourselves,
A pride in our nation regained,
As the G.P.O. was shook to its shelves.

"Son, we tired of crawling on our belly,
Being beaten, battered and conned,
Surely you've heard me talk of Connolly ?"
I said, Yeh he's me favourite James Bond.

But this was Liverpool, Nineteen Seventy-Two,
And me Da' had been over here years,
What he was on about, I never had a clue,
Though it was the first time I ever saw him shed tears.

I'm four years old searching for bugs, lizards and frogs then putting them in boxes because I wanted to be like god.
They never lived long.
I buried my pet frog then dug him up to see what death really looked like.
I'm eight years old getting baptized in holy water, my uncle puts me under. They say all my sins have been washed away but I still feel the same. My dad wore his suit and walked like God.

I'm twelve years old behind home plate wearing my battle gear and scabbed knees, look dad! Did you see that catch?  I thought it was beautiful. He says I'm leader of the team.
I'm fifteen years old being swept in to this strong boys arms. All I wanted was my dad. He never taught me the different between a boy and a man.
I'm fifteen and a half, sitting at the park high, pathetically high. My lungs are cussing me out right about now.

I'm fifteen and three quarters being sent to rehab for trying to die because of a boy that was nothing close to being a man.
He left me with ******* in my system


I'm sixteen years old and I found myself a man. He's my NA meeting whenever I need it. He reminds me of my dad.

----
1. no beauty

was it beautiful?
like sitting at a desk
riddled with indents from
keeping the scissors away from skin
rocking back and forth
with only one thing circling
through an addled mind
the overwhelming urge to die
feeling ready to write that final
chapter on a life barely lived

was it beautiful?
forty pills that seemed like
enough at the time
choked down with soda water
and so many built up tears
feeling the rot of depression
absorbing the medicine that was
supposed to make things better
*******

was it beautiful?
regretting waking up hours later
younger sibling in the next room
noticing the stumble
the swearing that came from
feeling organs clench and shatter
but nothing coming up

was it beautiful?
admitting to taking so many pills
tongue feeling shredded by the words
being asked to stay awake
but only feeling so much anger
at having failed
at waking up again
at still being alive

was it beautiful?
three psych wards
every time a voluntary check in
unable to stay safe
healing scars
bashing limbs against every hard surface
ripping open old wounds
both inside and out
there is nothing beautiful
in self destruction

2. no romance

was it romantic?
hospital beds and an iv
in the back of a shaking hand
monitored bathroom breaks
too many to count while a body
too young to feel so old
purged itself of so many toxins

was it romantic?
fingernails chewed down to nothing
ragged cuticles
raw and ****** knuckles
because those hurt just a little bit less
than constantly pulling open
scabbed over splits in
gnawed on lips

was it romantic?
looking for love to give to others
not leaving enough behind to keep
not caring about that
too busy wanting to go home
please fix this
make the hurt go away
make everything shiny and new again

was it romantic?
unable to find respite
from the mental onslaught
in the unmarred arms of another
because illness and depression
do not care about
kissing scars to heal them
or boxes of chocolate
or roses
or whispered “i love you”s
because life is not a
teen romance novel

was it romantic?
wanting to die
even while sitting next to
that person that made things
not hurt so bad
and feeling guilty about fresh cuts
fresh bruises
burn marks that could be explained
away as accidents

was it romantic?
mass media certainly seems to think so
here’s looking at you
john green and jay asher
because why should people have
struggles if they can’t be candy-coated
and wrapped up in neat little bows
with complementary
packets of tissues on the side

was it romantic?
smelling of blood
and sweat from so many nightmares and terrors
trembling and shaking
racked by guilt and anxiety
waiting for an ulcer
waiting for something to happen
to make it seem worthwhile
because in mental illness and trauma
there is no prince
no princess
no damsel in distress
no disney movie happy ending
there is no romance
in wanting
to constantly die

you,
you are poison ivy.
growing in my heart, sprouting first as a little bud at the base and then wrapping your tendrils and vines around tighter and tighter until I can barely breathe.

you are poison ivy
itching at the disassembled strands of my affections and i want to tear my chest open, pluck off the petals of my heart, hands coated in pollen and
tell you
there are no more petals
left to give.

you are poison ivy
you still spread your arms around me, reaching for more that i can give, lathering my pollen into every crevice of your poison skin.

you are a silver bulb and I am the moth that attaches to it, shadowing your every move,
the way your fork always grazes your plate before
you
set it down.
The way you run your fingers over the delicate arch of your ear or how you draw the sides of your books close together when you read,
as if trying to pull the
literature close to your body, letting it seep into your naked eyelids.

I wish i was that literature.

There was a whole new garden of emotions, of loss and sorrow sprouting delicately at my fingertips and
you
were not aware and
now all i want is to uproot my garden and start again.

you are poison ivy

and i can't stand you, that itching that feels like screaming and ripping and scarring

You were an itch that i scratched over and over until i bled

and once the bleeding had stopped and the cuts had scabbed over
I itched it again

and

again

and

again.

I feel like I'm breathing but I'm not really alive.
The blood pulsing beneath my skin and the air going through my lungs
Means nothing when I feel dead inside.
I am a ghost. Walking through a hall of smiling faces and joyful laughter.
Feeling insignificant and invisible.
Although the scars are fading, my past still haunts me.
My wrists are clean but my heart is not.
Its been beaten, scabbed, broken, and bleeding...but it continues beating.
Death seems peaceful, easy, but I'm not finished here,
Even though I'm in a season of a nightmare.
No matter how hopeless and dark it seems, I still see traces of beauty in the breakdown.
Hope shining through in midst of adversity.
Maybe a smile from a stranger
A flower from a loved one
A kiss, a hug, a touch.
Your beauty is weaved through this storm.
True love is waiting for me, not with a box of chocolates, but nails in His hands, pinned to the cross
Its time to let go and thaw this heart of stone.
My demons have no match to the power of Your name.
My wounds will heal, my heart will stitch up, and through Your power, I will recover.

Two pointed crosses scabbed over
My Achilles tendons.
Left upright said, LOVE,
Inverted right said, HATE,
That I might never forget
Feeling too much of either
Would undo me.

Eleven years later,
I knew, I would know
Her touch by how she caressed
Both calloused words,
Like a wolfmate
Licking my wounds.

i remember when we smiled
through the phones
and we wondered
what it'd be like
to hold each other close--
and it was such a far away dream
of a happiness
that i had never known
and when i saw you
standing
real and tall
your skin,
dark to my pale,
caressed the bracelets of scars
i wore as badges
of honor
and you held me
like i was something precious,
a feeling i'd never known
and it all just felt so real
and endless
and i closed my eyes wide
to all your faults
just to keep that feeling
for a little bit longer
and you smiled and held me
clinging to my skin and
to the thoughts
of a future
that we would never have
and now snippets pass before my eyes
of years later
like the snips upon my wrist
the same wrist that you kissed
the wrist that now
wears a bracelet of your name
etched into a scabbed memory
of screams and decay
of a once first love.
but there was still a day
where these carvings weren't real
and all that mattered was your eyes
finding mine
and for a moment
in your arms,
i was warm.

My mother only had one son
But it ain’t enough

I’ve paid all my dues
It ain’t enough

Oh no
Rolling on to ruin
Gluing quarters to the roof
Make a dollar, it’s the rule

Used as a man, seen as a boy
This is all
Am I moving too slowly?
Does anything move?

Roaming over love until noon
Rapid rivers look brand new
Licking scabbed wounds

Overlook my truancy
As if you’ve never known
Looking for nonexistent proof
Looking over cratered moons

When his mother was dying we each said goodbye
I was moved to tears.

The funeral came and though I tried to remain stoic, English, I cried.
Then he died, pulled under by umbilical cords, tied by my bloodied hands.

When the service came I cried then too.
My parents told me not to cry, as though it was an admission of guilt.
Still I wept through the service, as though their sternly worded advice meant nothing.
I sat and felt several tides of sorrow wash over me.
I tried to clench my bowels when it came. Through the first I stayed strong, forcing the emotion down.

The second wave made my eyes water; and whilst a stray tear dribbled off my chin I remained strong, forcing the emotion back down my swollen throat to maintain composure.

The third wave came, and though I kicked and struggled to keep my head above the guilty waves I sank below
My weeping, scabbed face betrayed the guilt of a murderer and finally I let go
Allowing the full horror of what had transpired to engulf me.
I drowned, my face covered by my ***** jacket.
The priest offered for us to share a final moment with the victim before he was burnt to ashes
And I, like the guilty party sat stock still, paralysed by the truth; that I, at that young age, had killed
And whilst I swore that I would never **** again
I collapsed adrift on a bitter sea of tears,
Howling at the injustice that I had wrought.

Later, when composure had been regained I felt a stirring in those clenched bowels.
I sat down on the porcelain throne and proceeded to **** out a large and meaty ****
I strained, my eyes watered, and my **** tipped to the edge of prolapse.

Comforted, I wiped and then felt nothing.

With humility I knew, that I was not noble Simon Daedalus but lowly Leopold Bloom.

The same avenues corporeal brinkmanship that led me to that sad place
Had led me to safety.

It was at first a sad realisation
But I’m happier now.