I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

Friendship, is a thing for all to enjoy
It‘s a beautiful song full of laughter
But be careful with this supposed toy
Or there won’t be a happily ever after.

Love, is a mirror to hold close
To show you what lies in your own heart,
A picture in time for which to pose
And then that is to be torn apart.

Pain, is a kiss of knives to be felt
An ever-growing, body length scar
And an agony for which to cry and melt
As it drenches all that is good in the black of tar.

But as these three intermingle and you fall,
They fix the others, so it’s not so bad after all.

I don't know
Which one is WHISPERING
I want to go left
I don't know if that is a question mark or exclamation
Tar and desert

Inhale swiftly
come down quickly
hit the Floor
Be no more.

What a comfy Carpet,
but it ***** me under
like a tar pit.
I'm left to wonder
If it's dragging me
down to Heaven.
I've sunken seven feet under.

I see the light,
it's been lit.
Maybe this time I just might
reach for it.
Reach through the rug.
Reach down and give a tug.

But my arm won't budge.
A mortal's terror
What if he holds a grudge?
It's just not fair.
God no not like this,
Think of all the things I'll miss.
If I see the suns rays
Lord I swear I'll change my ways.

This Time...

Don't be a human being
be a human doing
inspirational fallout
raining on the students of my high school
human doing
it's a funny notion
viewed in plain sight
it meant Carpe Diem
it meant go to college
your valuable brains
crammed with academia
get a job
work your way up
it's the American dream
it is your
Manifest Destiny
meet a swell girl
take her to a chapel
cracked church bells
shattered stained glass windows
now knock her up
you've got a family
better start breaking a sweat
get that promotion
buy yourself a nice suit
because you earned it
******* it
pay your taxes
keep on climbing
up up up
the tower of babel
rack up some zeroes to that pay check
vacation time and comfortable insurance
plus you get dental
year after year
and before you knew it
you're an old guy
your belly has grown
far more rotund than you planned
your wife resents you
because she relies on you
and you don't understand your children
the job has grown bitter
a double shot of cheap bourbon
only it doesn't burn as sweetly
on the way down
and when you feel like
you're enclosed in a tar pit
black liquid creeping down your throat
and up your nostrils
take comfort in knowing
that you were a human doing

Batshit crazy,
Batshit soup.
Am I just lazy,
or caught in a loop?

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup.
Razor blades,
Razor blades,
Razor blades,
****.

Love is not a competition.
Love is not a game.
You see me as a player,
and it's a downright shame.

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup.
I am totally lazy,
and caught in a loop-die-loop.

Glass houses and baseball games
Angels wings and tar
SEPTA lines and pine trees
Can take you pretty far

Love is not a competition
Love is not a war
and acting like a soldier
is really quite a chore!

Silly souls and wacky words
Dragonflies and tar
I want to make some art with you
but I don't know how you are

it's
Just another slide
down the razor blade
of life into a bowl
of sour owl ****

Batshit crazy,
Owl **** soup.
Am I crazy,
or am I caught
in a loop?
Razor blades
Razor blades
Razor blades
****.

I've woken
alone & crushed
By the evil around me
In unfamiliar lands
I've fallen
In deep dreams of despair
Where no one
Was reaching for my hand
Where I could not stand
I have lost
Sqaundered & regretted
But no more
I am found
Not by those who love me
Not by those who don't
i have found me
I had to stop seeing
The darkness first
I had to concentrate
With everything in me
To find the light
I created
I've had to run the race with demons
To win me back
From the despair
And child did it want me
It tried to keep me
With words
Promises of no pain
the despair snatchedme
With lies that I better right there
It promised me an ending
To the evils placed upon myself
Despair lied.
All its promises
Were only to entice me
To suffer more
it was loves lil light
That pinhole peeked thru
Loves light spied in mine eye
Even when it closed with tears
Thru it love shined
And when I
Raised my head
From the evil
That had my grasp
Thru loves light
Spread over me
Lifted me thru the despair
Washed away
The tar the evils
Spattered me with
Thru such very small words
I heard them
In my deafness screaming
"I need her life, to continue on,
I need you to shine"
Thru loves lil light
That shined
Pinhole in mine eye
I saw the tiny hand
That pushed thru the despair
As if it were only air
Holding me there
And when loves hand
Touched me
I felt all the people
I lost
And the ones still out there
Then loves hand
Touched my face
And reminded me of my own
Beauty that the world
Was desperate for me to share
I remember this time in my life
The blood on the floors
Empty pill bottles scattered
The tears of pain
And the screams
Oh the screams
I remember them clear
I tremble even now
From that time
I fear its grasp every second
Mostly because I dont know
Exactly how it got
a hold of me
Love has no longer
Let me be scared
Love has brought me thru
To you
To share
Loves pinhole of light
To shine in your eye
To make you aware
I'm desperately holding
out mine hand
Thru your despair
Thru your pain
Thru your loss
Thru love saving me
I did not know then
Thru love I was brought
To reach Thru to you
What saved me
I love and I care...

"AGoddessOriginal"
6-6-2011

I like sitting on my rooftop, in a city that the one over finds
degraded and blue-collar. Its quiet and the sun heats the
tar- a soft lullaby on the bottom of a pair of feet that traverse
a life I’m always trying to get closer to.

I like things like ginger ale and lemonade; faded colors
& antiques. The belief that people still listen to vinyl
and care about our founding fathers. That they
still hand write love notes to themselves as much as for
Another.

People okay with the company
of an occasional fruit fly and a toasted bagel with butter
and honey alongside a sweet peach iced tea, sweating from the
thought of summer’s
sin.

I like sky lights & well-lit rooms; shadows permitted the freedom
to dance across exposed brick and structures
incapable of forgetting the daily histories of all their inhabitants.

My passwords are always about the planets or Greek mythology;
(I rotate).

Because I need a daily dose of the cosmos & humanity’s
attempt to better understand its purpose on this solitary fleck of dust.

I tend to bleed my existence through learning history and maintaining eye-
contact. Weekends are where people smile and emerge from their
carefully soaked-in showers, feeling clean and comforted by the silence
of a fogged mirror.

I like sentimental movie trailer music and bathtub tunes - whatever
can put to rest the parts of society that demandingly vibrate within me

(I leave).
my front door open because I appreciate individual curiosity
and creating an invitation for people to look in and see how very
much we are all alike. Needy and wanting to watch for signs of life
in others.

I like people who can carry sorrow in their back pockets & yet
**still offer to
pay for your check.

and through the pane of glass,
beyond this musky scent developed from
my living secretions of skin and blood and *****;
is the pinnacle of a human condition lacking in my placid genes.
rusted fingers on clone-like machines, screens,
that scream into the ears of jaded men.
A new day!
it rings out through my entire street,
but they all drudge through grey hallways,
for cheap coffee and soggy flakes of flavourless cereal.
curtains closed to the sun.

the lines on their faces,
corrugated to match  the lines on their garage doors.
and with a well-worn-in suit
their car door and shed door open simultaneously.
"no time to breathe in the spring air filling their diesel-filled shed"
I thought.
And with the roaring of the engine,
and the car-port opening wider and wider to the world,
the rusted husks of decaying metal
recoiled into their greater-shells with dissonant creaks.
and it was then I noticed this scraping of steel
had become an orchestra,
or a dreary opera, so apathetically choreographed
for all the sagged faces and fatigued hearts
in the entire drone-army of identical town-houses.
all around me, like bees burdened with their bodies worth of pollen,
one by one, their diesel-pods and people movers
left their hives.
and one by one the rusted-razor blade howling of garage doors
ceased, and the engines had pursued the black tar-road
off further into the distance.
and though the sun shined with such benevolence,
one by one, each car's sun-roof closed,
shades pulled down, blinded willingly to the light.

Ruddy and worn,
Dusted by turf and salt,
Sun rose cheeked and blue
Clouded eye spurt in a gait
Ended by mute journeys and toil.
He breaks the long day with a shove
As the old pocked door is waiting to be
Opened.  At the crowning stand of the bar
He orders his Craic, some froth of tar, his black
Medicinal and when the tales of tall pints grow, sinking,
Live, flickering light slows and smoulders, shoulders with moist
Embers of smoke trailing by with an impromptu céilí and all is brilliant,
Blind, awful and right, cast in the sprite, spirited dance of the verbal swirlings.

My hands were shaking
Not as hard as yours, I'm sure

You almost lost everything and I
was forced to watch,
bearing silent witness to a
destruction not my own
but at which I felt at fault,
thus I digested it as my own

Who knows?

In my mind, I had lived fantasies of
something like this happening--
you, helpless, I hold fast to your life and then
salvaging you, just barely,
scaring us both out of life and then
falling back into something new--
dark, strange, and yet intimate

This has happened to me twice now (for real)
and neither time was nearly as glamorous as
I had played out in my mind

(I'm a stupid girl)

Both times I felt drained of a vital energy I couldn't
call back--ever

I became an echo
of me
and us?
we were skeletons of
the children we once were. Both times
robbed me---
of sleep, and years, and appetite.
robbed me---
of innocence, and soul, and
love
which always
bleeds out uncontrollably
in times like these
unclottable

and out with love
spreads guilt and shame

(I'm a jinx, I'm a cursed girl)

across the tar, filling the black empty
cracks with invaluable energy

Full of foreign weight
cargo stored too long
too far pushed down our throats
too removed

My hands were shaking
Not as hard or as long as yours
I'm sure

i listen to my parents argue about what made me break this time
debate whether it was the way I started counting calories again or the way even when it's bright outside I don't feel warm
but I can't tell them that even when I plaster a smile on my face
it's only covering up the hole in the wall
I kiss goodnight with my knuckles.
when the tar in my heart seeps into my stomach
and my mind
poisoning my thoughts

but it doesn't matter
can't even make myself care that my parents think I'm more likely to smoke a blunt than drench myself in gasoline and light a match
my own father pays more attention to whether or not my tongue is stained with wine
than the crimson stains on my sheets

I've been lying,
I'm not any better.
i apply makeup in my mirror and I am reminded of the way
I often drown flowers in water after they have already died of thirst
trying to make up for the holes in my smile with pink lipstick and blush
i keep acting like the color in my ******* face is natural but the only time i ever lift my lips in anything other
than a grimace is when
cannabis seeps through my lungs and takes the weight off my shoulders

and i can drape scars on my body like tattoos as often as I like
drown the butterflies in my stomach with *****
knock back pills that eat away at my stomach lining and balance in my mind
throw a smirk in god's direction and act like it's all a ******* joke
taunt him like starving myself isn't some attempt to ruin my body like
depression ruined my mind
maybe once the bags under my eyes match the holes in my eyes,
once the gaps between my thighs match the bones sticking out of my hips,
I can finally look god in the face and step backwards into hell
where I belong.

Honey, I
Both envy and
Hate
Your exes,
Though they may only be but
A letter to
You now.

I hate, hate, hate
Everyone who
Found you and had the
Chance
To explore you
Before I could have ever
Known.

Though you would not
Be who you are now,
and I know I am being
irrational,
but I never wanted to be
Christopher Columbus
“Discovering” your land.

Maybe, though,
For once in my life,
My lateness to the game
Is not actually a bout of
bad-timing
But actually the
Perfect point
To have entered,
For it seems I am
Winning
Whereat which I would
Usually
Strike out.

Oh, honey, I
Am still jealous and
Spiteful
Of all those boys;
They were pirates
For your
Innocence and
Your willingness to lend
A helping heart
Plunderers
Of your love
Thieves
Of your breath
Your kiss,
The vulnerability
Of your body which I
Now embrace,
They were waste bins
For your time
For your energy
For your senses

And even though you showed
Most of them
False emotion
Handed many
A replica of
A genuine smile,
Some still got through
Your breastplate
Dealt you plenty a blow
and painted your
organs black
with scars and tar
but yes, you do
Still
Have a heart,
and yes
it is red
and steadily pumping
somewhere in the pitch dark

Honey, I
Do not pity those fools
For I know what we are is
True
A delicate rarity for you

As well for myself, I can safely say
I will be
your alphabet
Starting with
“A”
Any number you can imagine
Stretching any direction from zero
In any combination,
All expressions and equations,
Your mathematic hero

Although I’m
Tardy to the party (if you’ll pardon the cliché)
It seems
It’s prime time
For us to trip and fall—
And that’s…that’s just A-Okay
(If you’ll pardon the cliché)!

I've been breathing in everything I hate
Such as the smoke from fire that bellows beneath my feet,
It burns and it scalds and yet,
I do not learn my lesson.
My lungs have become airbags- deflated, charred
It hurts me to breathe but yet,
I do not learn my lesson.

I have been shown the sweet smells from the valley,
The honeysuckle kisses against my dried lips
But nectar is far more vicious than tar.
For it sticks to you like a bad memory
It will coat you in a sweet sickness,
A birth from a joyous hospital room
Honeysuckle kisses upon dry lips,
While they pump you full of the tar.

So while my lungs cannot heave anymore,
And my organs coated with depression
The nectar does nothing but upset my stomach
It causes it to wretch like a screaming baby
Lack of honeysuckle kisses fuels the fire.
I will continue to burn and scald my feet-
But I will not succumb to the iridescence
That will one day leave you sick,
And sticky sweet.

Throw away your brooms and your mops

and all the tops to your good old canned goodies

and in fact throw your little cans of goody foods

with soups and little fruities away down

your flight of stairs and flight of windows down

those shining new linoleum walls



no need to worry about garbage here in these streets

so clean so clean so mean, and lean

and here everyone cries their child cries

and their bottles whistle that empty milk whistle

red wine milk drink drunk drank drinker



old clean city blues I see your dirt musings

can’t hide from me this great dirt

more dirt here than dirt itself has to offer

all things candy coated sticky nightlife

sticky affluence all your feet

stick to the black tar candy sucker floor



and I see you’ve been rat-free for thirty years

no bugs no slugs no moss

only late night sad sauce

always empty and wanting more

no rats no cats no dogs here

only cowboy hats

and all those old boys move
on down South anyway

it's been two years and i remember that night through
a drunken haze, but no one ever taught me that no matter who you are
(almost) every drunk person is friendly and that should not be confused
with friendship or even acquaintances

you always said, "drunk men tell no lies,"
but then you would slur, "i swear i'm sober"
i should have known not to believe you
i should know that drunk people are anything but truthful
you just say whatever comes to mind
and two years ago that happened to be, "i want to be burned"
which left me with a scar on the back of my hand
that reminds me of a boy i can't ******* stand

two years ago that happened to be, "i'd like a pack of belmonts, please."
and "yes," when the cashier asked if i wanted king size
i wasn't dumb enough to think i wouldn't get addicted
i never really expected black tar
coming out of my throat
or nicotine making most of the decisions for me
headaches stomach aches anger sadness and suicidal
are all synonyms for withdrawal
yellow stained fingers and an empty wallet
a drug worse than you

two years ago, i asked you to be mine and you said yes
two years ago i thought i had found true happiness and i was naive enough
to think i would be the one person whose first love would last forever
even though you lived miles away
two years later i'm still not sure who broke up with who first
i think you had already broken up with me in your mind
a place i used to go for comfort
two years later you are a complete stranger

two years later i am a complete stranger

two years later

-                             -                               -                          -         -                 -


two years ago
                  
         i went to a party and made some of the biggest

                                                        ­                            dumbest
                             ­                         
                                                                ­                                drunken
                         ­                                                                 ­                      
                                                                ­                                         decisions
                                          
            ­                        of my life
                           but then i have to ask
                              would you go back in time and change it all?
                                                            ­ would i?

Palaces of ****** souls
have green neon text frames
standing sideways like arches;

divine arrows, they guide
the paternal flunks, the tar-soaked offspring,
the lonely and the business bunch.

Here in these palaces, all sin is a freeze, all
lust is a spin.
Fairy lights are often flagged in a net,

to catch mischievous mares flinging
themselves against the glass displays
of overpriced clothing shops.

One finds when wondering the perpetual
lines of restaurants and cafes, the vastness of them
having a motherly touch, for

these palaces, they stretch like the sky and
they spread like the shepherded
fire ants of Gaia herself



And when ones welcome is overbid
they need only to follow  the
evenly laid out,  sorrow yellow street lamps

and bite their cheeks and bare the frost
for soon the polluted lux will lead them to
an overnight joint, a limbo of sorts,

where they can breathe anew.
On those red leather sofas- fast food
or the district kind- when the night seems

to crawl on its final limbs,
they'll lay and slip into sleep.
Some say they never do wake, that they

wither with the moon and then
haunt the attics of the dance halls
where they swirled and laughed and lived

in a previous life.

It was only the moon that revealed a pit of despair. An oxygen breath of no hope.
Lingered, murky the mist of solitude and deep cavern farewells.
The heart beats in tar blood.
Purist dark lips, sidekicked by eyes bullet coal black.
Piercing.
Chimes distant echoes of foot lite,
as present as the heavy still mist water.
A few strands, only a few...whistle lightly like amateur times.
It is not in this moment of Adrian Von Ziegler that she looks forward,
But in the precious dark seconds for why she looks back.

I toast to the spirits you've been counting, lying in that hammock with a stranger from Mars. Your muddy fingers, they creep like hairless spider arms between the ropey knots that bind together all its parts. There is a house inside the hilltop, where it peaks there is a church- there once was a man in shackles and handcuffs living there, he also had mud on the bottoms of his feet. Even the pennies you found get lost now and then. Even your white hair goes a shade of blonde. I can't sleep but I don't try, I never tried not to do something so much that the rest of me broke. I pushed so hard that sand fell into my socks. You only told me half of what will happen to you at 10am, the rest of it you told me that you'd prefer I didn't know, but if I am to survive on the secrets I know that you don't know about. Then tonight I will be sewing the wool over my eyes.------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- No one could ever have any idea what comes easy. The creaking heavy wood of your slop-room door, or the filth I cough up in green, mustard, and tar globules every hour. There is the was. Small hands in half pockets. Stitches supposedly dissolving into our skins. The yellow wall, the panda pillow, the Pink Sugar, your hair wax and heavy handed straight-ironing tilt my curved and bent feet Northward about 6 to 60º degrees. Late trains and no complaints. Stubs of hair and tender legs. I don't give but my elbows buckle. This frame wasn't built to take blow after blow. Some friends tell me they can see tomorrow before it comes. Lakeside, readied, silver-necklace I haven't seen. Gold flightless bird that's never walked but says it will. I am cornered, my cornea tinted my vexes and leftovers, black and white pearls, birthdays, earthworms, and vinegar. Family dinners that push me nearer to the hole in the donut. I'm just so afraid of falling overboard. It's just I can't go forever without being heard.-----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- In and the. How long do stories like this carry on for? Does my name come up in private? Does mom two even know whether I ever existed or if I was split? I am the answer to the secret 'ask' question? When do I become background photo one or two? I am the one that's grateful I had a chance to sleep toe to toe. That I uncovered the winter that woke up the bleach and incense in the frosted air. While school is in session, am I crazy to believe in mermaids and sparklers and stickers, I'll stick with the choice that I made a year ago Tuesday- September hasn't ended but November's nowhere near. The reason I smoke so much is because I am no good at waiting. For phone calls, tweets, texts, updates, or written mail. No one told us that this could end underwater without even half of a breath, if you'd of asked then I would have told you that's why I steal your underwear and your sweatpants. You can have all my money, I don't even want, I just need it for you. You can have every word that I write, wield, and speak with, every sentiment and sentence, each promise,and compromise, everything that I own.-------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------------- Four photographs later. Everything means something. I'm in knots. Spiderwebs from elbow to elbow. Fishing hooks from knee to knee. My neck feels very naked, bare. Nothing, not even traces of pink or cerise lipstick or lip marks. Smudge me, stop punishing me, please, prease, don't leave. This isn't very good for either of us. My story cannot tread so closely to an ending, to the ends of a night or a phone call or an eyebrow pencil or an eyelash curler, not the double-sided extra-soft blanket you keep on your bed, not the bottles and dollars and boxes and jewelry under your mattress, not the zip in your doorway or the zipper in my jeans, not the two holes in my belt loops or the caffeine in my morning coffee. I quit cigarettes, ended my sentences earlier, grew quiet, wore more band shirts and skinny jeans. Even the lines of lips, outlined by hips, white roses painted red, blonde hairs blanketed by the bleaching on your head. I'm wrestling hula hoops, I'm putting my pinkies in your gauges, and amazed how good it feels- and I'm happy you didn't....leaves of autumn shatter on concrete city streets, although you'd hate it I'm thinking of a tattoo sleeve, how about you make it? Darling please! Rice Krispie I'm on my Lee Dungaree's, begging you to meet me on our knees. And every candy that I spit out once I got to the middle, every lollipop that I ever bit into to find the gum, each Happy Meal toy I bought separately; you are the only girl I attended school to meet when I wasn't enrolled. I'm holding on. The bottoms of my jeans rolled up so I don't fade into use. I miss having your tongue in my mouth. I want to feel my hands in your pants. It's my tongue that gets curious as I begin to feel the heat off your *******. Tender touching. Dire romance. Throttle my face with your legs. I'll perch you up on a pillow, you can hold my head till I beg. Because if I go at this life thing alone, pretty soon I'll have a mouth full of lead.

I’ve been a cracked soul walking on whole concrete

tar black soles slappin rapidly under weary feet..
the slaps are getting old but still, they repeat, they repeat..
like energizer bunnies, beatin deep on the ground beneath..
the sounds drummin off the walls, comin back, an rattlin my teeth..
I added a couple curses and spit it back rattling the streets..

that day I became a shell of a man walkin on cracked concrete

Cerebellum in hand scratchin my head hopin for thoughts to leak..
caught me starin again, eyes open to the sky, posing like an artful greek..
had this eerie feeling inside, tellin me my soul is an authentic antique..
but I still got uncomfortable when my current eugenics got critiqued..
I’m awed and terrified at what’s to come in my last couple a hundred weeks..
but I knew someday I wanna see laughter passin over a couple of my childrens cheeks..

So that day I began to be a whole man, soul searchin and walkin on my own two feet..

I started off by scratchin words furiously on a tattered old blank sheet..
but I don’t do it purposely to get my name on a brightly lit, white, and gold marquis..
it’s just this is the only voice I’ve got to spit a Kodak picture of my soul for free..
so my hands dance out a thousand words on paper.. every moment, a snapshot of “me”..
I rush to gather the images before they drown in reality like hazy morning dreams..
they stand up as living proof of who I am so I frame em for this crazy world to see..

cause today I stand on solid ground with well planted feet, as the man my family always wanted me to be..

I am the conqueror of both whole, and cracked concrete!!

How do I explain

that sometimes, the night sky stops existing above my head and instead opens up like a gaping chasm in the bottom of my rib cage scraping my skin from the inside / i press my hand to my chest and for a flicker of a moment imagine ripping it open, watching inky black and Scarlett red pour out

that fear has found lodging in my larynx, trapping my words in a steel safe, my mind desperately works to puzzle out the code but it changes faster than I can input it / i raise my finger to my lips and imagine for a second what my words would look like if given physical form. blood blocks my airways and spills between the gaps of my teeth

that sadness circles around my wrists and fashions itself into a bracelet, locked and chafing, itching when the sadness grows and calling for relief/ i rub my wrists together and wear wristbands to distract the phantom feelings from the real ones.  It’s doesn’t take as much imagination as it should to picture how sadness looks when I pull it out of my skin

that exhaustion sits so heavily on my mind that it’s seeped down my spine and coated every vertibre with its tar-like embrace/ for a heartbeat i picture my gasoline-covered-bones burning like a sick science project

- How can I explain that oblivion lives in my chest and fear in my throat, sadness keeps me in cuffs and exhaustion cements my skeleton

Foul machines with fiery tails
blaze over land laid to rest.
Together they to flow like thick
blood through the clogged arteries of
tar lined cracks in crumbling rock.
Beating to the rhythm of the urban
environments manufactured soul.

Breath in to taste stale bursts of dead air burning.
Squeal to a stop that grinds out sharp shards of
metallic dust which slowly rise up towards the
clouds within the acidic green ooze that
evaporates from down in the depths of
mechanical guts.

Compulsive addicts on a distracted journey
drive these impatient beasts to flinch at
each other while they hunt.
Thirsty to ignite another
drink of life’s ancient remains.

Consume these fresh lands filled with life to
leave a heartless trail of twisted wreckage
laced with the rotting bodies of
anything caught in the wake.

my arms are static
my legs are rocky air
my torso dips into
the skyward of mattress

I brought yesterday in my hands to set out in the sun
it didn’t take long to burn right up
my eyes trail the flecking ash in the air

there’s nothing i wish to hide

yet i sit like one car
parking lot tar matches the sky
at 3 am

is the static channel on the tv
still there when you turn off the screen

i think i see it when i close my eyes

I can hear him,
Hear him long 'fore I sees him.
Can hear him stompin
Stompin 'cross the ceilin
Of the earth like he mad at the world.
Mad at us for just bein.
Rain Man stomp so hard
he send the wind runnin
runnin hard runnin mad
kickin up dust an' pickin up leaves
Screamin at the top of her lungs
Pull down ya garments
and shut up yo hatches.
Call in yo chillun's 'cause
Lawd I declare
The Rain Man comin'
 
I can see him now
sees him off in the distance.
Talltoweringhulk of man.
Skin real dark.
But not that ******-baby
kinda dark what look
like somethin dead been
drug through the mudndipped in tar
with fat uncooked sausages for lips
like they got in the picture shows
an shoppin books.
Nah this that pretty kinda dark
Night sky kinda dark
dark so deep
ya get lost in it and find God there too.
Yeah, he got that pretty dark.
But he got them eyes,
them pretty white eyes
sparkle so hard like God
plucked the North star and the Pointer star
right out the sky and stuckem
in his face.
His hair, thick black coils of hair,
grow like kudzu stretch down
his back and move in the wind like
snakes with minds of they own.
He turns his head backnforth
sendin them vines
flyin
stretchin stretchin to forever till
CRACK
they snap back,
snap back so hard they like to
split the air with fury
that shook me to my soul.
 
I can feel him now
feel him as he wraps me in his arms,
what seem to be made of steel, and
pull me into that chest made of
mountain stones firm
firm like the earth I ain't no
longer standin on 'cause he
picked me up clear off my feet
no connection to the ground but him.
I wrap my birdy lil arms round
his neck and bury my
bony lil fingers in the
layers of his hair.
I can feel the warmth
roll offa him in waves
waves like the ones cornfields
make when they kissed by wind,
or maybe even waves like them from
the sea as they reach out for land to
save them from drownin just 'fore
they fall back into the sea, I just
know that he feel good.
 
I can smell him,
smell every bit of him as I
bury my head deeper into his neck.
He smell warm like the earth,
like red clay smell after he and sun
done made out all day, warm like a
man smell after he done spent
all day hunch backed starin
at the earth tryna trick her to
give'm just a lil somethin to eat.
Even his clothes, holey rags they are,
smell like smoke but not that
cold angry smoke what come from the
factory, not that black stuff what
puff itself up to block out the sun
like he mad at her for shinin so pretty.
Nah, his smoke smell like that soft
gray smoke that drifts lazy-like from
daddy's shed after he done bled a
pig for us to eat during winter.
His smokeyness smell like earth.
 
I can taste him
taste every memory of him
as I kiss blindly startin at his
neck workin my way up
tryna find his mouth.
Every inch of his face taste sweet,
like the caramel candies them old
ladies at church carry round in they bags,
made even sweeter by the salty tang
of each bead of sweat as it tumbles
down his face and drips on my blouse
stainin the pretty lil flowers.
All I know is he taste good.

you have no right to my heart
nor my mind
nor my memories
you are dead to me
as dead as the lifeless rock underneath my foot
a mere stepping stone

your actions speak louder than your words
your words which won't resonate anymore for i am tuned to a different frequency
you may said you loved me and that i was your best friend
but your betrayal is the singularity that will survive in our history

i will deflect any broadcast, any call or plea
across oceans and space
through weather cells and asteroid belts
banishing it from my orbit
the space around me that serves as my protective barrier
preserving who i am, despite your deep desire to dent that

the distinct lack of brevity in my naivety has brought me here
but now i am emotionally stronger, i feel the strength in my heart
where once the thought of you would be like a poisoned dart
imparting a paralysis of body and soul

today though, and for ever more, my heart is impenetrable to your cardiac sorcery
for the key to my emotions is hidden from you, untouchable
as your attempts to emotionally infiltrate me turns my blood into tar
and to you, my heart merely becomes a heart-shaped avatar

the future is bright past the darkness of this night
one where i looked for stars at my feet and my next step behind me
where i cursed the moon for the light it shed that showed me that which i wasn't prepared to see
the sentiment in my head has been carried for far too long
i am not an *** that drags your burden across this sentimental desert
looking for an oasis which is only surrounded by hemlock and pools of brine

i will remove these shackles and chains and venture forth
enjoying those around me
instead of this glorified ghost in my head
instead of glorification, perhaps it is the time for a dash of damnation
that may be the key ingredient here to cook up an emotional sensation

Have your ever stood on the edge
And wondered?
What does the Black feel like?
Is it that soft brush against your skin?
Which raises the hackles?
Or would it cling like tar
Hot and sticky
Seeping into your pores and
Down to your very soul
Solidly encasing it in stone.
What does it taste like?
Does it brush against your lips
A whisper, a kiss?
Or does it flow down your throat
Choking, clogging, no air.
And what smell would it have?
Would it be a gentle reminder
Of a distant memory, buried deep
Or would it slam into your senses
Like a wind carrying the scent
Of Long Forgotten memories
That wound the heart.
If I took that step, from the edge
Would the Black softly receive me
Or burn forever, relentlessly?
Would it gently beckon me or
Would it reach out its long bony fingers and
Seize me
With no choice?
Have you ever wondered?

How do I continue to stand with such a hollow body?
mostly filled with black tar and green smoke

your last kisses still sting my lips
even from three months ago

I don't know if I want the fairytale stings to stay or to leave
I don't know if I want to stay or to leave

All I know is that  have indentions of where your arms used to be
burn holes where your eyes used to stare
and frozen hands from not being held

I thought my heart was left behind with you
but maybe you only took half

Because I still feel the sorrow flow through the holes in my heart
being pricked with pins and needles like a voodoo doll
your a black magic master

Fill my heart again with daisies
hold my hands and thaw them out

Patch up the holes in my skin with pieces of your band t-shirts
give a new meaning to "forever"