i rather like the taste of men

on the brink of something.

mere seconds away.

i like the brininess of their belly.

the dead drop to their pelvis

and i so like it when

my gaze is in grease dollops

sly and

cut, by morning, onto their thighs.

this is no accident, because god creates

for worship and i am meant to be.

god creates me right now and tomorrow

and if you ask him, he will tell you that

i am no light touch, no wind-chime

brush in the mississippi november.

i am a rollicking thing.

i lean on you like truants on brick walls

chew up all the toothpicks

of all the diners from here to oakland.

i drum the earth with a flex as

tense as a cymbal and recline

in the suddenness of peeping eyes.

hourly,

i will cut my teeth on you,

romp to the city of men,

and feed.

It must be a crush
yet I feel crushed by you
by this tidal wave of infatuation
crippled by the thought of your lips
You crush me
when you don’t look my way
metaphysically I suppose
I barely know you
I’ve mostly invented you
in my head
like a character in a fable
creating expectations
that you could never live up to
because everything is better
inside my mind

I stay up at night
wondering if you’re as lonely as me
You must be
We’re alone in our acumen
No one gets me like you
the way I see art
the way you drink to escape the hell in your head
I wonder what you’re trying to forget
With every sip
every intellectual prose
Our minds slow dance
to Sam Cooke in the moonlight

The truth is
you could be anyone
I just need someone
to think about
to obsess over
to distract me from myself
so that I don’t realize who I am
and fall back into the abyss

In my head you like
néo-noirs
Dorothy Parker
and ***** martinis
like me
We talk and talk
about decades we never lived through
romanticizing the music and fashion
neglecting the oppression
You help people all day
and slay dragons at night

Something about that cocky smirk
reminds me of him
It makes me nostalgic
of all the words left unsaid
that I can whisper to you instead

You lull me to sleep every night
with mellifluous nothings
and I sink into a slumber
and dream of your ocean blue eyes
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead

Then I wake up
and you’re not there
you never were
you’re not real
just my own imagination
playing cruel tricks on me

We would never work
I’m too grounded in my hopes for the future
to fly to the moon with you
Your glasses are too tinted with rose
to see me in the light
And I’m too cold of a person
to start a fire with you

Your face changes
from time to time
but you’re always here
radiating in perfection and fabrication
I wonder what you will look like
next time
I don’t know who you will be
but I know that you will
crush me
all over again
I think I made you up inside my head

- A Mad Girl’s Love Song

it was
     a dastardly decision
         deeming fated
         to deny a future

filled with dismay
     furtive deeds     designed to forget

the futility of dark days

I once dreamt that there were nails in my forearms,

from the soft inside of my elbow to the thin skin around my wrist,

and someone pulled them out one by one.

my blood was deep crimson and thicker than honey, but there was no pain.

I wonder if I’m really living when I’m not enduring excessive hurt;

I wonder at how so many lights don’t seem to lift the blackness.

beckoned by fire and sadness,

even Syl broke trying to be her own. how can I make it?

it gets difficult exactly when it needs to be easier.

more dissatisfied with the silence than I’ve ever been before

but the words I say don’t rustle the quiet either.

I know my epitaph would read:

“I was nothing more than this.”

I even know exactly what my hell would look like,

a brimful and just a little more, sensory rapture of the silliest kind.

why don’t I change? why is the same sky above me and the same gloom in my throat?

there’s so much I wish I was but will never be.

only I remain, always –

an outcome unpleasant and undesired, but the only outcome that has ever been.

only I remain.

a word doesn't have to be real for it to have meaning
nothing has to be real for it to grip your stomach and throat and force butterflies into every part of your anatomy
the emotion crawls under your skin and all you can do is feel it

a woman rises in the dawn with her fiery red hair, eating men like air
you become that smiling woman, only 17 and not even a lady
dying becomes your art, and you are indeed very good at it

a man frowned like thunder and went away, the stars not needed today
you begin to pack up your very own sky, melancholy filling your entire world until it all comes to a standstill
wind does not blow and not even streetlights shine
your very own lover is still in tact, a phone call away even
but he frowned like thunder and went away

a raven, a remorse, a rapping at the chamber door
a madness, a mania, a man whose mind is gripped by loss
a horror that now belongs to you, the pigeons on the street start to quoth "nevermore,"
every crow is an omen, every bird is wandering through purgatory just to torment you,
and you have no loss to speak of

I dreamt I wrote that feeling, I dreamt I put it into words
I dreamt I transcended humanity, I dreamt I became the art
I dreamt about the feeling, I dreamt you felt it too

please tell my heart to simmer down
i can’t hear myself think
over all of this noice it’s making.
it bubbles and boils and makes my skin itch with the urge to **** it.
please take my heart away.
i can’t bear the burden of it again.
it feels so heavy, like someone buried it six feet under, but i can still feel it.
it’s like it’s calling out to me from underneath. it wants me to help it
but i can’t. i put it under there myself
and i lost the map