Walking down the avenue,
admiring how my cigarette smoke
mingles with the snow.
Gentle wisps rising,
quiet kisses falling,
but they meet midair
to dance.
I could watch this silent beauty
for days, until

a wrinkled old man closing up shop
scowls at me.
"Those things will **** you, lady."

I pause.
Shocked at the sound.

"That's the plan," I mumble,
and clumsily stride away.

The snow keeps falling
but nothing sticks.

Tonight I will dream
that I am
falling.
I will clutch for safety
and grab nothing.
It will dawn on me
that I am
twelve stories high,
and the unforgiving ground
is quickly approaching.
My face to the sky,
I will accept my fate
and brace for impact.
A moment before
I am no more than
a starburst on the pavement–
I will wake.

Gasping for air, strangely
metallic in taste,
I will take a moment
to realize I am still alive.
My eyes will be open, but I will see
nothing but darkness.
My ears will be alert
to nothing but
my dry sobs.
Still paralyzed from the dream,
I will take inventory
of my legs, my arms, my spine,
and only when they are all found in tact
will the air stop tasting
like blood.

Shaking, I will turn blindly
to my left, wanting only
to murmur into your sleepy ear,
"I had a bad dream."
My fingertips will reach
for your shoulder, your back,
eager to trace your warmth
under my palm.
I will know
that the only way to calm my breathing
will be to tell my bones
that you are lying tangent to me,
wrapping yourself around my curves,
so close that if I am
silent, I might be able
to hear your heart beat–
and this will bring me back to life,
for my bones know
that you would never let me
fall.

Tonight, I will dream
that I am
falling.
I will prepare myself
to meet Death.
And I will whisper to you
in the dark, until I remember
my voice cannot carry
a thousand miles in the wind
to where you are sleeping.
So I will close my eyes,
force my chest still,
and wait for the nightmare
to strike again,
knowing it is better
than being awake.

My poetry's only
poetry
because
I can understand it
drunk.

My fingers flit across
ivory keys
like irate flies, landing
for a moment before
restlessly taking off
again – this is not
where I should be,
they say, and
continue searching,
until finally the flies
and I
find a chord, but it
won't come out right, and
I can't yell at any
one fly in particular
because I don't know who
it is that's
******* things up, so
I just keep banging on
this **** monster
of an instrument and there's
anger in the middle
of Debussy, and he never
wrote me anger, it's just
a moment of unrestrained emotion
where it shouldn't be –
I kind of like it
a little – I like all
emotion, because truly,
it's so ******* hard
to come by, but –
it shouldn't be
there, I shout,
in the middle of ******* Debussy,
and now my fingers
are bleeding a bit,
leaving behind pretty little
droplets of a scarlet
me, and Plath called them
redcoats, and I think
that's so much nicer
than what they actually
are – a bright red
trail of mistakes – and
Bukowski said
I should be doing this
drunk, and I
listened, but I'm
no ******* Chuck,
so all I'm left with is
a mess – I ruined
this baby grand piano –
but I can feel my
heartbeat in the tips
of my fingers, the
flies, and maybe someday,
I think, I can put myself
in the music and not have to
bleed all over
the keys just to
see myself in something – maybe
have some restraint,
just enough so that
a meager audience
can't see my blood, just
hear my heartbeat –
the flies' collective
heartbeat – so
I push out my bench and
stand up and stretch
before I walk away from
the piano, leaving
the blood to clean up
tomorrow, and
this is poetry.

I made myself throw up tonight.

It was pretty
satisfying.

A lot of clear, chewed up
liquid
spewed out of my mouth.
I saw it after it
poured into the porcelain toilet

(I closed my eyes
for the feature)

and it was
pleasant, yet fulfilling.

There was a bit of
color to it;
I couldn't tell if it was
the oatmeal cookie
I gave in to, or
the cranberry
I forced upon the *****.
Either way, I liked it.

I've never shoved my finger
down my throat
before.
The results were
gratifying.
Like,
I could control my body.
Beauty.

Beauty,
I said.

Beauty.

(You wouldn't understand
unless you've blessed your
gag reflexes
with a polished fingernail
and received
a purging of
absolute sin
in response.)

death sauntered up to
the bar, a few drinks deep.

what's a pretty little
thing like you
doing in an ugly little
place like this?

i laughed
like it was funny.

i make poor decisions
i said.

why not make
better ones
he asked.

i'm having too much
fun
i lied.

his lips stretched across
his teeth
in a semblance of
a smile. he thought i meant
i'd be a good night's
****.

let's get out of here
he said.

i drained the last of
my empty glass,
slipped my hand into
my empty pocket,
fruitlessly shook
my empty pack of smokes.

they were all full
an hour ago. or
maybe a year ago. you
lose track of time in
an ugly little
place like this.

that's not what i meant
i thought.

okay
i said.

we grabbed our coats and
walked out into
the cold.

Not a display of
sexuality–

a display of
emotional
response.