She left Reno
in a satin slip
the color of hot coins
pouring from slots,
wearing chewed-up tennis shoes,
mirrors multiplying her,
the marquee burning out
letter by letter,
a hush pressed between her teeth
as if saving the last note.

I followed,
a gangly shadow,
mother’s voice in my ear:
life is not a freeway exit.
But she was the exit.
She drove west
through a glittering throat.

In Tonopah she was a waitress
with red stains on her wrists,
the sleeves tugged low,
coffee pouring thin as blood.
In Barstow she was a sun-bleached Madonna,
halo blistered, mouth lit in stained glass.
At a gas station in Needles
she shimmered into a coyote’s shadow
and slipped behind the pumps.
Everywhere,
a new disguise,
a flicker at the edge of vision.
Not the whole leap,
just rehearsal.

Casinos blinked like electric relics.
Truckers called her sugar,
greedy hands counting her ribs
as if she were a paycheck
sweating in their fist,
but she slipped away each time,
her silhouette already moulting-
a serpent skin, a smoke-trail,
a saint’s shadow burning off the wall.

By Malibu the night
had softened to velvet.
The pier at Zuma
leaned into the Pacific
like a broken rib.

She sang once-
low, cracked, unfinished-
and the slip fell from her
like the last lie.
Her body cut into the dark tide,
this time there was no disguise.

I waded in after her,
ankles bruised by rock.
The sea lit with jellyfish,
not lanterns but wires,
each pulse a warning,
each glow a wound.

Standing at the highway’s end-
no exit left,
just the Pacific’s mouth
closing around her.

sweet little hearts
let me bake some cookies filled with tar.
chunky little pieces of choco chips—
they’ll be muddy, unlike anything you’ve ever tasted.

                                                        ­        "said you aimed for violence"

i’ve been told i get my hands in gravel,
push boundaries, lead to lovers’ quarrel.
but he who doesn’t know—
it’s easy to blame it.
right behind you, coming for you,
i’ll make sure you get a piece
of the cookie’s unlucky unravel.

                                  "complained you're just a game to begin with"

oh, and by the way,
i’d be sure of saying things
when the situation’s like you,
and in your place, i can be blamed.
look around and about all whom you tame.
sometimes it’s in the skin that the snake sheds;
reality can be misleading
when you’ve got ghosts as friends.

                                  "mentioned keeping distance to protect peace"

so yeah, a sweet little bakery by the townside.
walk by or walk in—
you’ll see something in the light.
it burns a pretty hue;
you will barely notice it coming towards you.

                                           "murmured a silent jinx in your passing"

put me to shame.
i’ve heard the tiny little mishappenings.
off the chart goes your game—
you’re bound to stay committed,
but it’s slipping, and i’m leading.

                                   "fulfilling the attachment leading to isolation"

i’ll just say: look out.
the tar cookies are aiming.
perhaps a bite, a chew—
cement in your mouth.
you wouldn’t think of spitting ****,
except only if you really knew,
either way, nothing worthy is going to come out.

                                                           ­      is a ***** little liar in finding

would you like a drink to go with?
i’ll add the special kind of sweet—
salted gasoline, fits like you trying to give birth to fire.
if it’s really my habits, presence, or everything i desire,
then try to set it up in flames, all that i have—
and i’ll come to use your name.

                                                          ­                seeking attention, who?

would you like me to add the foam that fills up the ears,
and a flavor that can sharpen and cut through the tongue,
just so all the words you pick out
won’t **** with my gears?

                                                         ­                              caught in the act

i’d be careful if i were you.
*******’s alright—you think you’re pulling it through.
assuming i seem to be enjoying,
you wouldn’t have any charcoal by any chance,
considering that heart is absolutely rotting anew?




                                                       ­  a few cookies burnt, care for one?

Love, if unmet, has many lives
it returns as a limbless reptile,
shrouding your chest, closer,
a chain of loops that hurt,
hissing like a snake,
where blood becomes a nectar
and heat, a desire,
until everything
is reduced to skin.

The storm washes the syllables away,
crashing against the walls we built,
until only what we carry within remains.
My hands close around the bars.
I cannot be closer.
I cannot be farther.
That is the essence of restraint:
it separates.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked.
Am I the keeper of your prison? I ask.

Keeper—
a beautiful word.
To keep someone:
is it to watch them through bars,
to toss them a little mercy,
or to ask instead: why bars at all?
If I were the Keeper,
I would tear down your prison,
refuse to accept that you are captive—
even if the whole world were nothing
but a prison.
The role given to me
would not change what I am.
I would ask nothing in return,
not because of you,
but because of me.

It’s something you won’t find
in lexicons or lessons.
It is either there, or it is not.
Where it comes from—
soul, blood, or memory—
I cannot say.
But it feels as if I swallowed a star
I once was,
and now it burns inside me.
Every word I speak
passes through it—
along a starry path, like Nimród.
I do not walk in the light.
The light walks in me.
Every contradiction holds a truth.
I carry them all.

I blindfold myself.
I place you on the scales.
If you weigh more than a feather,
I let you go—
to rise as you will.
I am not your judge,
not your executioner.
I am the Keeper
of truth, of freedom, of myth.
There is a silent verdict.

But you—
you would watch me
through the bars.
You would keep me,
instead of being my Keeper.
You love freedom,
if it’s yours to have.
You love control,
the sweetness of vulnerability.
You would not lift me up
to where you stand.
If I found a little light in my cell,
you would come at once
and claim it as yours.
But what if I carve the walls
with ink—only of you?
If every brick were a fragment of you—
would you tear the walls down then,
just to keep it for yourself?
So I could show you
how it feels
to choose to stay.
And we build the altar of ruin,
again.

recurring chances of the night,
cherry skies and moonlit hides.
i’ve written in red,
stolen the ink off my veins,
and the page is a murky black
from all the soot you’ve blown
and all that you’ve turned to ash.
                                                            ­       sweet little lies

don’t see what i write,
an idea for treacherous minds.
set fire to the edge of what covers us this time,
let the boundaries catch flames and rise alike.
what lies outside is old, forgotten, beyond—
i’ll take back the rose-tinted glasses.
mind the spirits, spare the forgiven.
                                                       ­          berry spiked ice

don’t return, even if you see the ghosts.
for the protection only lasts so long;
step out of this circle, blow out the candles,
grip the bouquet too tight,
slip a little of that letter to the side—

ouch, you’re long gone.

                                                                venom dusted in rose

oh, i forgot—
i brought a flower for you.
can you ***** yourself
with the thorn?


                                                        ­                   ingredients:
                                                               love in disguise,  
                                                     ­ cherry champagne,  
                                                    ­         black roses,
                                                          ­                turn them grey!  
                                                         ­            do baby’s breath,  
                                                       ­           a couple orchids,  
                                                      ­      a pretty violet-y mess,  
                                                         ­      lily of the valley—have you?  
                                                     a little bit of glitter, as moonlight.



drink up!

born winged.
                                                         ­    but why’d you skip the reality?

          who spoke for me?
                   i exist as you do.

you know,
they stripped me of my wings
back when i could fly so high.
innocently enough, i complied.

they said the procedure helped,
claimed it’d grow out my wings—
and they could change colors!
i wanted black ones.
who knew they were ripping off the existing
just so i could be termed the fallen?

                                         how did you believe so quick, so dumbly?

              who's ever too quick?
                      how do you see through the adulterated?

childish, barely with the brains,
aching to prove,
i went through the burning—
watched them set each feather to flame.
tragically enough, this became a dire tale.
who would’ve thought
they’d take away the truth’s escapade?

                                                      ­            did it hurt? even the falling?

     does it ever really stop hurting?

i wonder that too.
don’t remember much from the process and after,
but i remember fearing how it came down to—
was it so wrong?
having wings, using them—never to show off though.

they said it took way too much attention,
made me look like i’d become a seeker.
but shallow, surface-level,
they were such viewers.
no wings worked,
as long as i could escape their disgusting sewers.

i fell, and i fell.
for a long time there were no holdings for me to attach.
but then it shone—
like someone blowing out the candle
to light up the moon.
and then i realized
i sat upon the tomb.

                                                         ­     your own? how could that be?

       have you never visited the grave of who you were,
              a long time ago?

of the wings, of what they came down to—
mere bones in the structure.
i’ll take you someday,
they’re the prettiest rupture.

                                                       ­                   why do you hide now?

       can you really ever hide for too long?

they’re back once more,
this time after the halo.
i’d kept it safe, hidden.
they now claim it’s too bright, too golden.

there’s barely any glitter
over the remains,
and i’ve got wounds that spasm
during the nights when the urges drain.
so i stitch the halo to myself.
won’t give it out—
no matter what worth it sells.

was mine to begin with,
my own company to rest in.
if they’ve got problems,
they could very well seek the curse of the fallen.

                                                        ­             you mean from the fallen?

     i couldn’t really curse,  
             but might as well bring them to my tombstone.

at rest, phantom winged.

my town
where wild flowers grow
between tram tracks.
there was a time when
it was hardly morning,
no bridge into daylight.

walls had ears,
neighbors had eyes
whispering behind the curtains
there was an emptiness in the guts
of the city
and poetry locked in the drawers,
Borges was read under the blankets
while Dostoievski was  a comforter:
demons were embedded.

yeah, people were clapping and smiling
watching the nub of history, numb
they had a life to live,
what can you say?

one day the radio
burst on in the streets
some were shivering in the attic
"we are free", they said
"we are free",
came the echo in trance

"shhhhh"! said others,
let us wipe the blood
don't disturb the sacrificed
so we can sleep
without dreams

it's Thursday in my town
streets are weary
and our souls are
slowly expanding

Once there were three girls
Who fell for the same guy
He didn't care about any of them
Only himself

The first girl was a vibrant soul
She was beautiful and kind
They were off and on again
For two years
And then she was broken
With no hopes of becoming stitched up again

The second wrote beautiful poetry,
and she had a kind loving soul
She thought there was another in his life
He said she was crazy
She was right, and broke her soberarity

The third girl was kind and smart
And the other girl in the seconds suspicions
She didn't know he had a different lover
But things got a little messy in her life,
So he left her
She broke six months of being clean

We did all this for a boy
Who we thought he loved
In two weeks, he claimed three beautiful souls.