i hate you,
i think, as you try to shoot me to death.

standing above me with a gun in my face

you feel
rage like undissolved sugar in
warm milk -
and
there’s blood on the floor and
then there’s me
,
                          
                          dying and almost dead,
but
you left my eyes open ,
and i know
you forgot the ****** weapon:

so i’m going to take it with me.

one day ,

i’m going to heal ,
and i’m going to remember —

you took my gun ,
took all my bullets
                                too .

and i still won’t ever shoot back.

I went against the grain
by tightening the blinds
turning off the lights
the bedroom then became
a bottle of ink
filled with ink either black
or blue
lying in my bed
like an undissolved bit
the world is jet black
i close my eyes and mouth
so as not to choke on the darkness
at this point the yearning
becomes light and thin
pale and faint
and finally it faded
like daylight
the stranger I've come to be like.

congratulations,
you are unloved;
undissolved in a world you
watch through glass.

and once again,
you are nine; in the bathroom,
on that floor, as
the blue tiled walls reflect,
and replay
over and over and
over,

and
you wish that
you never truly woke up, from
the strange mix of dream
and reality you
succumbed to long ago,

like a princess, at
rest;
wrapped in thorns

maybe
you'd never have had to pack
that sleepover bag every time
he made you cry,
.
leak

even as the tv still played
cartoons, snot still
ran, and you still
bled (and left).

even now, there are days I spend floating
in unfamiliar skin that never stops
aching to crawl away from me,
plagued with thoughts that sit
like clumps of undissolved sugar  
in tea that tastes different this morning

outside, I can hear the love song
of snowflakes caressing my windowpane

and it is strange to think that
somewhere, someone is
holding their newborn child,
tiny hands and dark hair, with eyelashes
fluttering like trees in blizzard wind,
and someone else is hearing the ancient voice
of the father they never got to meet
at the end of a static telephone call

my heart leaps for the little girl
with pink dimpled cheeks,
her favorite polka-dotted dress
spinning in unpredictable circles, eyes up
at the kites dancing against the baby blue sky
somewhere warm, whimsical, and
dreamed of

today, there is joy
but it cannot find me

The reflection that peers back at me,
In my jo-black coffee,
Is taunting and eerie.

With every sip my face ripples and grows old.
The steam that was my youth is no more,
I have grown cold.
Like the remittence of the coffee that once was,
All that is left is grindings and sugar,
Undissolved.

To be drunk, regardless.
Coarse, as it runs down and grazes my throat.
The person who was staring back at me is gone,
And with every coffee that follows,
an unknown reflection, it will host.

Like the empty cup,
I have been rendered useless, by my own nihilistic judgement.

~



The morphine undissolved upon his dry and cracked tongue
Mother frantically grabbing and sobbing
asking 'why' even though cancer
had been devouring him for years

I slid a silver ring off his cold finger
feeling the thin and frail culture
I thought back to massive hands holding wide leather belts
who would be able to discipline me now

More pills swirled around the toilet bowl
everything that wouldn’t get mom or I high
sank and disappeared
I think I flushed my feelings that day too

Fading images play in my mind
his braided hemp cord necklace woven around a tiger’s eye
the black heart earing that I lost almost the same moment
they wheeled his body out into the day
mom collapsed like a dying balloon
in dad’s chair
her red watery eyes looking up at me
still holding the same questions   /

There is a plummeting within me
I reckon not unlike tumble ****
in a lone, stranded desert

That of violence
so long silenced
That of anger, and hail storms
upon freshly blossomed hyacinths

a smothered baby bird
or a tree towed down
Repressed,
the twigs and shrivelled seedlings
cry out
and dry gusts hear
One upon other lunges

And I, them weeds—
them weeds— and more,
a deafening brawl

Rolled, as wool, into an orb
That laughs an unkept,
dimming painting
Jumps over rocks
this wicked, rotten child,
And descends under still

Perhaps—
A brick that stumbles out the wall of my skull
and down my depths,
it begins to explore

The den
where an injured bird
snores bleeding
And ceramic bars that surround
Down still—

A churning, twisting furnace
Burning all menace to gold
And labyrinths
beneath
Restless as they warp
upon themselves—
Them groaning snakes

It plummets down still
past the stars
past the battered moon

On, on ’til the cracked rocks
Pull it under, under, under

and my steps feel heavy
A fat brick kiln burping within
And steam and smoke
strangely slither

Then one more brick breaks loose
then one more, then—

and there is a plummeting within me
Like that of beads from a broken necklace
They lurk
from flesh to flesh
Climb up my bare white trees
filled with mud

This faded landscape painting
claws down my spine
And ***** its stollen hues out
Like those

of battles
or slaughtered moths
Of old, crinkled terrors etched
with foolery
Hymns of fury undissolved
and those of naked, shivering sheep

a kitten’s skull
stuck down the drain

There’s a plummeting within me
terrifying, and disgusting; angry and
beautiful— all hyped up to scream
I fear the landslides will
carry me along
and I will let them.