Never should I love,
For never will you love me.

Never will your deep, blue eyes
Look in mine and read my mind,
Like a psychic running her fingers along the lines of my palms.
Palms that belong to hands you’ll never hold,
And handle with care like you would antique china
And at the same time grip with a firmness that tells me you’ll never let go.
You’ll never let go because you’ll never wrap your soft,
warm arms around me in the first place.
Your soul will never entangle with mine and fill that void
Left by a **** sliced deep within me.

A **** left by my father’s youth,
And my mother’s faith,
Whose knife cut out their acceptance for me
And gouged out my trust in them.

Can’t you see that you are the antidote to my lifelong suffering?
The Accutane to my welted face,
The braces to my crooked teeth,
The nitro to my aching heart
The rhino to my bulging nose
The morphine to my broken mind,
The running to my fading health
Running, running, running away
Far away from this broken house
Where your dreams never do come true and
Where you come out to yourself alone in the bathroom and
Where they can’t ever know the truth because my house is
Where God resides in the attic and
Where Jesus is the only one you should let in your room at night and
Where The Holy Spirit has possessed us all to live a lie because my house is
Where lifelong love is dead at the delivery room
And who is there to blame but me?

Who is there to blame but me?

But none of that matters to you.
It can’t matter to you,
Because all you do is love
And love
And love
And love
And love.

But you never love me.

Each year I have known you
I have reached out farther than the last,
Yearning for something I could never obtain.
Fifteen pushes past Fourteen,
Both of whom fall short of Sixteen’s growing arms,
Which are narrowly outpaced by Seventeen’s spindly, wirey fingertips.

Every Year’s efforts have met the same fate;
Failing to reach their target they instead grasp fruitlessly
Into a dark, brewing storm,
Full of tears,
And of crackling sparks of hope
That are met with the resounding booms of fate
Telling me that I am doomed to be alone.

Telling me that never should I love,
For never will you love me.

But I never listen.
Because I know you too well.
And I know that someday,
Someday soon,
You’ll make the happy accident
Of stepping too close to my many straining hands,
And I’ll pull you near to me
And you’ll realize that you never loved her at all.

And that you always,
always have loved me.

-The Boy Who Loves You Too

You know that poem about your lips?
And the one about your soft caress?
Those doesn't apply to tonight
My thoughts are not slow, not gentle
The softness of your touch
Throw that out the window
I want it to be rough
Forget the foreplay
Lets just start the play
Tonight, I'll let you pick
Want the handcuffs, without the key
Or do you want the stiffness in a whip?
Forget the bed, take it to the floor
Give you a spank, and those headlights,
I'll get a grip untill they're sore.
If you must have a good kiss
Then I must ask you, girl
Which lips should I give this kiss?
Is it the control you crave?
Well then, cowgirl, load the gun
Grab the bearings and give them a roll
Tonight, let's let it out and have some fun
We can go on a mission, happy trails
Take it to the couch or even the table
Leave welted streaks with your nails
Turn up the radio to drown the moans
Back up and head down, we can mimic the dogs
Pillow, headfirst to muffle the groans
To the edge of the bed, make it wet
I don't want it easy, darling
All I really want is to get
That shirt off your chest
Those jeans off your ***
Those curves are the best
Lets not let this opportunity pass
I don't want it easy, baby
My thoughts are not gentle, not slow
So come on woman, lets go!

A dream once brought to me
Beautiful and sweet
Tender touches of love
Coexisting, together two bodies high above
Happiness and beauty wrapped around
We were tangle in it entirely bound
A dream once brought to me
Instead turned dark, how can this be?

A nightmare suddenly broke a tremendous light
A face above me now evil, causing much fright
Holding down my fight
Screams muffled by your hand so tight
Pressed against me without tender touches of light

Happiness and beauty no longer in sight
Instead held captive by chains of despair
I stare over my own body tortured, oh what fright
As demons grew around me laughing at my fear
Hard and unsettling with an ice cold heart
You pressed your hot skin to mine
It burned and welted, forever scarred
The nightmares end is lost without time

Shadows cast, screams stopped
Outside myself, scream inside, fight within
Nothing more to do, I laid still and watched
Done and gone, I think not
Replay upon replay, night after night
I dream of only what nightmares taught
And watch myself fight

Never winning over such despair
So sleep is my new found fear

Celia looked at her reflection
In the back of the spoon;
Her face was blown outward
As if captured on some balloon.
It almost made her laugh;
The memory of it;
How she and her sister Sassy
Would do that as kids,
Before the dark days,
Before her death in a bath.
That drowning, that sad death.
Sassy’s husband had beaten her
Black and blue and green
And she’d hide herself away
So as not to be seen.
But she’d seen her,
Seen the bruises
Like smudged tattoos,
The closed eyes,
The swollen lips,
The hardly able to talk words
Pushing through the mouth
To say: he says he loves me still.
Celia stared at her reflection,
The way her own mouth was distorted,
Her lips blown up, her eyes enlarged,
Out of proportion.
She almost laughed,
But something about Sassy’s sad death
Made her stifle any guffaw
That may have broken free
From her distorted reflected jaw.
There was the time she’d seen her
******* for bed when she stayed
Because Sassy’s husband (the weird freak)
Was off on business, some big deal,
Needing to be pulled off,
And she saw the black and blueness
With tinges of green
Along her naked flesh,
The buttocks welted
Where he had belted.
Sassy had said nothing,
Had not noticed Celia looking,
Had not thought it unusual
To be unclothed as such
Away from other’s peering eyes.
Now Sassy was dead;
Found in the bath;
Drugged out, wrists slit,
Having drowned recorded.
But he had driven her over the edge;
He had bullied and beaten
Like some spoilt cruel child
An unwanted toy.
Celia turned the spoon over
And put it down.
No more desire to laugh,
Just fond memories of Sassy
Before her death in the bath.

For Idil Ibrahim
In memory of Tim Hetherington - 1970 - 2011

I cannot stay and speak my truth while the front line has no voice.
The carpet doesn't share substance with the blood-clumped
dust of Liberia; Red wine doesn't stain nations and it hasn't
changed the world.

I cannot stay and walk these steps while the fragile youth stand.
Our Sunday morning route doesn't cover landscapes of wounds
and bodies; Central Park has never felt a thousand welted
feet march for death.

I cannot stay and see your face while molten plastic scars her world.
Your delicate eyes have never seen the darkness of a child's grief;
Our democracy cannot fathom the searing, slow drip after a family
massacred.

I cannot stay and feel worthy of your love while injustice goes unseen.
My lens has immortalised what we held dear, but is yet to capture
the human condition; I spoke to you like I spoke to them;
Through decades of mortar fire I spoke to them.

The rope,
it might be pulling a bit too tight,
red braided and cutting
into the white.
She is squirming and writhing
as I wish her to.
Want and scared are
deliciously dancing
in her eyes.

It's misleading.
Very!

I am the one bound and tied,
I am the one held captive.
It's her flesh welted and swollen but
the beating is mine.

I am the prisoner.

How ever convincing
that whimper may sound,
I am the ******* victim, here.

A little Jesus sort
Spaces between clout
Effort lost
Split the cost
Inconvenient doubt

A little Zorro like
Masquerading whip
Body welted
Disguise melted
Self prescribing quip

Risk and Pain
It's all the same
Self Imposed or Not

Let it go
Take it slow
Maybe then you'll have a shot

you are a transgression of insults
and you bruise me as easily as
a peach is welted in the fall from a counter top.

oh, and how i fell;
i lusted for your lies,
the way you looked at me,
the warm grasp of your hand,
your rough palm against my back.

looking back,
it is easy to see that i was your rebound girl.
and i just wish that you hadn't drawn me in so quickly,
because i would be there for you again
in a heartbeat.

The boy, with the dent in his chest, inhales so loudly
that his ribs pop with a resounding boom. They shatter and collapse,
sinking to his feet. His life is lived slumped over, never making eye
contact because he believes it is a spell. His spine grows twisted, broken,
bent. His heart is locked away in a bone prison. With his eyes to the ground,
he is running blindly forward into a sea of decisions and failure. His
confused feet charge him head first into the girl with the swollen skin. She
sees his spine and ribcage ankles as intriguing, and he doesn't mind her welts.

He touches her, feels her, learns her.
She holds him, feels him, learns him.
She is his, and he belongs to her.
They are each other.

He sees the world, sees everything he was never seeing. Her welts become
a foreign thing to him. She was different, less beautiful compared to the sights
he was now seeing. Her mind tried its hardest to forget his twisted nature. She
could only remember how he felt her skin and called it amazing, stunning.
Her skin welted in his memory; his spine curled in hers, but snapped back
straight when she called for him. She shouted a final plea for the future.
He whooped and hollered and yelled so loudly that his inhale broke his
ribs and sunk them back to his feet,
as his head slid back into its horizontal position.

You didn't love her.
You loved the substance of frail warm body.
Which meant not being alone.


You didn't love her.
You loved how she was swift in bed and touched ever nerve in your body.
Which meant *** every night, even if she didn't want it.


You didn't love her.
You loved the idea of her. The idea of someone to lift you up.
Which meant forgetting about all your faults by putting them on her.


You didn't love her.
God ****** you didn't


Because while you were wildly in love with your moonlit fantasy,
you made her think she actually mattered.
Because while you made her undress in shaking hands and tears welted in her eyes,
you made her think she actually mattered.
Because while you stared in her eyes whispering lies of the future when you were only thinking about what she was wearing under her dress,
you made her think she actually ******* mattered.


So no, my dear friend.
You didn't love her.
Because you do not break people that you love.

Whilst you nurse and tend your Vain, Swollen Foot
After hours of Practice did Hone your Length
You played the Player; By Mile's Minds re-boot
Merely welted your Soles from out of Strength
Of course, lonely were Rehearsals increment,
Much did the Egyptian wrap Portions complete
But knew your Pores; Thus applied Fortiment
That Stung-Itched Balm by Glossy Herbs replete
The Mobile rings. Of Double Versions heard
One by your chest and the Other near soul
Each held Respect-of-Confections your Word
Then sample enough to make your Man whole.
What else could I say? Save my Starling Greet
Your Long-Distance Call I would haply meet.

(Happy Birthday, WILLZY!)

Oh I think it was a Tuesday
You were sleeping
In almost the highest spot in the building
Your ghosts never disturbing
The seams of your dreams
Oh what a day to ignore the mourning

I awake since Monday
Stitch my jeans for they keep
Falling apart by the knees
I try to hide the pink and purples
Of each thing pretend I don’t need

Then out of something I can’t dream
I see this red all around me
maybe I should gather my things
But instead I throw them out on the street

I burn in the building
Just to slip out of sighting you
So I start to
Transform in my dorm
Catch the flame and let it
Cool me
Oh how I used to be boiling
Steaming I see the leaves and grass
Oh I think you would call this crass

Now you are just so worried
That all this ash might
Color your back
So you speak your to forest of agrees
Until you see the fire of me

I so welted so red
So sore so losing
So much breath
I think you cheated
But you just took the steps

So I let the piece of me be last
thing you feel of me
I make you choke
then you speak
About how I
Hurt you

But somewhere
maybe a kitchen maybe the stairs
There were pages written by you
Pilled up but there’s only one
You wrote it mostly for fun

See it was so late
So late
That I would calll it Mourning
you were writing
By the light of the candle
Because electricity is just so boring

So at 4:49am on Tuesday
Maybe morning
You
Left the stair
Left the light and the pages there
Then when to sleep
Without a single worry

A breath
of
stale air
wilts my welted
heart

With each step
it's like nails
driving between
my tender toes

With each word
a cuss
With each doing
a sin

Incredibly unworthy
am I
before your thrown
your precious hand
warm
gestures me
to step closer

It is I that turn
away from my
blessed
savior
Only to be hurt
once more

Only to slaughter
your name in vain
crying
in a preposterous manner
why it is you've rejected me
again

I am a fool
with
ideals of a faint heart
so tempted to slither
sleek
along rugged roads
and bare more than
my back can take

I consume
sin
eagerly
when you are
so generous
so perfect
so forgiving

whilst
I am
so naive

I pair my hands side by side
the servant that I am
I am nothing but that
and I give thanks in the most kind ways
that I did not brake the way I thought I would
after your stigmatic body passed through mine

your poise was perfect
and you walk with your hands trailing behind your back
pointer finger slightly extended
the orchid swan
holding in her tongue
holding in the poison

no architect could have built our castle
ancient ruins falling atop each other like
the moon falls into my scorned eyes in the midnight
when I sit with myself
when the ache hits the center of my black lungs
when the melancholy sighs to me
as if her pain is greater
when I know  that the true haunted king
sleeps in my stomach
arising and coming out of my throat
every so often

while I am sitting on the bench
while I am leaning on the wall inhaling those gray fumes
while I am reading my book
that is when that king comes to me
and wraps me in his hopeless melodies
of the days where we shared the same lips

and all I can do is give thanks
that I did not brake the way I thought I would
that the wound though alive
and breathing with its open sore of reds and pinks
pearls and hatred
did not slit me in half from head to toe

I know with my skin that you take pride in my pain
somewhere in your days you sulk in the compassion
that I hurt for you
it makes you feel wonderful and special
it makes you feel unique and beautiful

that me, who has had love conveyed to me in a thousand tongues
sits here alone like a cement column numb and baring nothing
receiving nothing, maybe simply existing
if that

you tread your eyes upon these poems
knowing in your darkest place that they belong to you
knowing in your darkest corners that you tore me
knowing in that part of your soul that stood naked in front of me
and how that part hid and wore a cloak of white
as to distract me from those short comings where you left me
with a welted heart here on my pillow
gasping for air
that would rather choke than be held by you again

Can you keep a secret?
I haven't told a soul,
You're the only one who'll
know
-
Stop thinking for a moment,
Imagine A grey, humid sky,
Dry, brown grass,
Welted, pale red roses,
Brown, lonely petals accompany
the dry dirt around the stem,
Leaves being blown softly by
the chilly wind,
Dry, cracked pecans fall
toward the browned grass.
-
No squirrels,
No rabbits,
No birds,
No signs of mammels,
Only me
-
Imagine a train,
But a train of thoughts
Rushing through my mind-
Engraving itself in fine
calligraphy across the darkness
of my mind,
My thoughts telling what
to do,
Never ending.
-
But she whispers,
"It doesn't matter, nobody can see
you, only me."
I turn to her,
My bestfriend,
Would you like to meet her?
Come-
This is Razor-
Razor Blade

I feel like the plastic cup
that held your water
in a soul-less waiting room

I feel like the joker
in your deck of cards

I feel like a notch
on your belt that welted
my newly softened heart

I feel like the cigarette
that dirtied your teeth
and was followed by another

I played love like Russian Roulette
I should have listened to my mother

I met this man named Jose
He lived in old San Juan.
He tried to get to know me.
However, I was already gone.
He tried to buy me flowers
I told him, there's no use
I felt as empty as that vase;
My petals welted from abuse.
He asked to take me dancing
I said I haven't got the time
He asked to buy me dinner
I said, I'm not worth a dime.
He claimed I was his angel
I sunk deeper into the abyss
My heart was breaking daily
As his heart became full of bliss
He didn't understand me
And I didn't understand him
I was slowly drowning
He was always ready to swim.
I pushed away his gifts
He only came back with more
I tried to hide away
He'd come knocking at my door.
He gushed of my amazement
I felt like a lead balloon
He showered me in compliments,
And promised me the moon.
I ran in such a circle that my head was in my rear
Everything was just too much,
He said, Mau Mau: we've known eachother a year.
That year has sent me low, and sent him high alike
But when it came down to it
I'm not sure who was right.
The book may have been the same
But the chapter and pages didn't align
I'm not sure why I came into his life
Or why he came into mine.
He always made me nervous
I always made him smile
He always was dramatic
I was spineless all the while.
He made my life confusing
I made his clear as day
When there are such differing views being held
There's not much more to say.
I wish him all the best
He wishes me the same
He'll never forget my light
I'll always remember his name.

Death strap
Hanging at the gallows
I feel like I'm in a death trap
Waiting for ghostly hallows

Brushing at my skin
Claustrophobia sets in
Always choking me
I just wanna be free

When I have to wear it
I wanna tear it
I throw a fit
This is bullsh*t

I always feel welted
Each time leaving a new scar
Every time I'm seat belted
Into this car

The moment you walk in my heart becomes weak. The lights down low. We begin to start off real slow. A gentle whimper followed by a kiss. A wondering thought. An endless bliss. You lay under the same sheets I myself lay. At first I ran, but now I stay. Your hand wonders up my hips. You softly invade my lips.  The once cold room is now scorching. The blankets are kicked off. There's no more forcing. Our bare skin touches. Our lips lock, Yours; Oh so Luscious. The pure child I once was now ruined. Lust fills my eyes, suddenly everything is real; disillusion. Your warmth is my everything, my first, my last, my forever fling. The ice that once froze me is now melted. The mark you leave on me now welted. Once I have finished you're still wanting more. Exhausted I am I show you the door. Until you kiss my lips again, you lead me back for more. Insatiable is what I envision never satisfied not even for a minute, never more.

One night when I was eighteen
I was drunk on beers and East end accents
in a Basildon garden lighting fireworks.

I seared my thumb
on the base of a sparked *******
which careened into the fence and dried grass,
igniting in deep welted pain
and a smallish fence fire.

Inside my skin sits once again the same ache
ignited by a spark you nurtured,
which burned us both down,
as beautiful and unruly as the rogue firework and the flames.

a capsule, narrowing tombstones
engraved upon fine misty grass blades
yawning sun, mellow yolk yellow
gleaming across the hurt inflicted on
see the scars, the rugged trenched dug into dirt
sheared guardrails where the car
missed the next right turn,
logged trees weeping silently
invisible to the tuning in the pearls of our ears
a brisk morning with melodies singing
sweet blossoming lilies sticking to the breeze
like saturation sung harmony
visually like honey woven on cream cloth threads,
these tombstones behold pasts of great tragedy
yet what once welted deep hurt
in the hearts of young minds
and delinquent lovers
remain far into the enriches of worth,
no matter the pain struck lightening and cursed
finer mornings will spread its succulent kisses
of mildew honeydew and crisp morning sunny breaths

The color of thick smoke, but feathery like haze.

The sound off its wings reminiscent
Of today’s technology, humming persistent,

Its snout a needle, searching for veins.

I avert my eyes from the unpleasant theft
As though recoiling from alcoholic breath;

Though, when it bites, its midriff inflames,

To the sweet red hue of indulgence...
But never without consequence...

A person’s skin, left welted and maimed.

“Don’t touch it!” they scold,
But resolve grows old...

Scratching is all that I crave…

where you could eat the walls. The roof
was made of royal icing. It dried on thick and
hard. And the tiles were sugar-coated gumdrops
that the birds pecked off before the fall. Candy

canes for doorways you could lick. But they’d stick
to your lips. And after that you couldn’t get
your mouth open a crack. It looked to all outside
a very pleasant place to reside. But no one knew

it was a cathouse, and that the field marshal
was a master of disguise who drew the curtains
over her candy-shop of horrors. And welted our bottoms
with hot molasses stuck to a long wooden spoon. Some

where even jealous of me. They thought I had chocolate
pudding drawn for my bath. And that my bed was made
in lemon meringue. I wouldn’t tell them the truth. I didn’t
want to break the spell they were under. Everyone needs to
believe in something.

the echo i chase sounds from the siren which bends my ear.
summer clouds in springtime plume while soft silt bunches on the riverbed.
the shadow in the mirror looks like what i once knew but
from around the bend and above the break,
i hear her without distance.
like a hornets kiss on the back of my neck,
throbbing like a geysers sulfur surface,
welted like a rolling hillside,
i cannot ignore such persistence.
beauty and the burden knowing;

knowing she is a burden.
knowing she will change,
become something i've not known for others,
and unfold her beauty
in ways i'll not be blessed to know.

she remains that echo of thunder deep in the ravine,
she remains the shadows in the mirror i cannot shine upon.

Running the faucet hot you need to feel the string
Physical, real, catching your breath, something to make you scream
You want to feel the pain
You want to cry in a form
Because your emotional state is numb
You do not notice that strain anymore
No more sensation in those chambers anymore
So look at that welting, those blisters on your skin
For your heart has already welted away
As a rose blown gone in the wind

They are leaving.
for we were not the
keepers of the Earth
with our unsustainable ways.
We were at best very
bad neighbors or
thieves really
war mongers perhaps
but greedy nonetheless
We were just too ****
obnoxious to hear them wailing
to catch them
to mend their welted wings
too **** arrogant
for this Earth
for kindness
for compassion
or empathy
They have left.
For we were too
engrossed in our
selves to see their songs
warnings written on the sky