I don't really know where to begin.
This living in sin is heavy on a heart
that can't possibly bear the weight

of counter-clauses and
(you know this line)
countless figure eights.

Maybe if I repeat myself
it'll be more than just letters.

But who am I to judge?

fishie

There's this feeling I get when you're falling asleep,
your body slowly giving more of its weight to my shoulder.
Some distant, ancient part of me
that has broken
begins to mend again.

Something about you feels right.
I have never found it
anywhere else,
and I hope to find it again.

Do you know
that I have compared
every fish I've met in the ocean
to the way you made me feel?

I miss you.

prose will bend you over a desk and fuck the shit out of you

I take my time jumping to the thickest parts of the ice, because if I don't then I'll fall right through and drown. The only problem is that there are only two chunks thick enough to stand on, but they're on opposite sides of the goddamn lake. I don't think I can jump that far. And where the hell did I leave my coat?

I wanted to hug you so bad. I don't think I can jump that far.

cervical displacement? (edits)

I am alone today
and it hurts.
Being alone

is not [like] a slow and crooked smile
as I had once observed
in a moment of clarity.
My stomach is telling me
that it fears cervical displacement
and nine hundred and thirty two baby chickens agree.
She says they're happy.
I hope she's right.
At least they're not alone.
Being alone

is not [like] a slow and crooked smile
as I had once observed
in a moment of clarity.
Aren't you supposed
to write about the things
that bother you?
This bothers me.

Receiver

"Do you feel that?"
she asked the hair behind
his ear with
her breath.

"Feel what?"
the other end
of the receiver
crackled in response.

"Distance,"
her tongue answered,
sliding
over cartilage to take
the lobe
between her teeth.

"I don't know what you mean,"
the receiver said,
inflecting its crackle like
its statement was more
of a question than any
statement could be.

I hate you.

You should have left me,
broken and undercover.
Maybe I could have saved this,
restored a martyred lover.

Instead you came back crying
for a shoulder and a kiss.
You goddamn fool I loved you
before you walked away like this.

Now I break before the dawn
under the weight of words so grey,
and I'll pull on my plastic smile
that lies so easily to your face.

For when I curl up next to you,
burying my face upon your chest,
and fall asleep to door number three-
which option- Not the best.

Now I know reality
and the truth that it foretells.
You should have walked away that day
and left me to my hells.

Purgatory, a quiet hearth,
and Hell a sauna steamed.
Because having all of you,
yet none of this,
is a nightmare, not a dream.

If Only

If only she were dressed in white
and held her mother's hand too tight.
And smiled at the bumblebees,
and asked for, "A cookie please."

Now she wears her skinny jeans
and falls in love with piercings.
Ink just below an olive tone
shows mother where the years have gone.

"I'm not a baby, mama,"
she smiles at the phone.
"I need to live my life now,
I promise I'll come home."

She liked his shoes
when he left the laces in her car.

She hates the soles now
as they walk him away.

ugh

I hate the way you breathe
when you're on top of me.
The way your teeth shake,
and you hiss between their gaps.
Brush them.
You smell like beer and weed.

I hate the way I get bored
when you resort to carnal pleasure
and call me and come over
and breathe that rancid breath
down my neck and across my hips.

I hate the way you smile at me,
and I smile back, as though
I actually enjoyed that.
In all honesty I did
when I closed my eyes.

I hate the way you voice it,
with petty moans and
whines of more, harder, deeper.
I hate how this is what we are.

Get out. Don't call me ever again.
Go fuck the other six, or seven.

Or better yet, why don't you go fuck yourself?

She is aware of the way things are, and still she hides the truth from herself.



Sometimes, late at night when the AC is giving her gooseflesh and she can't sleep, she reads all the text messages you sent her. Some of them make her smile. The rest pull at the corners of her zinfandel lips.



She wishes that you knew everything about her, like you think you do. She has her secrets, and she often lies to you. It's nothing bad. It's just something she doesn't know how to put into words. She can put it in writing, though. Somehow it works better when it rhymes and she can lie again and tell you it's easier to write about things you've never experienced.



The sad part is you believe her.



But you could be lying too.



She smiles at your pictures on her wall, and honestly does want you to be happy. So she inquires about your latest interests. Her name, where you met, if she smokes. That's always been a big deal. She does smoke. And it's the same brand you do.

She splashes in rain puddles, only after removing her shoes. They were too slippery anyway. She smiles to herself, doesn't watch the janitor staring from the overhang. She just hops, skips, and jumps to class.

She waits for the green light, fighting not to catch anyone's eye. The little white man flashes and she walks just outside the edge of the crosswalk. Does it make her feel dangerous? Or something closer to the surface?

She jumps off every curb like it's a leap of faith, and glances always at the man behind her while pretending to look at cars. Her music softens her smile, and she looks sad, but she's just thinking.

She talks to people at the bus stop, but they leave their headphones in and stare with the corners of their eyes. No one is nice anymore. No one expects kindness.

She'll leave the same song on repeat for a week and a half, until she knows every word and every chord, until she almost hates it.

She'll smile at everyone, and nod her head. She says thank you to anyone who holds a door, excuses herself from being in anyone's way, and always tells cashiers to have a good day. She's an open heart.

And she goes home alone every night to write about it.

sdfghjk

[wip]

She walks with a blind man,
her fingers his cane.
He smiles and kisses her
again and again.

But he'd kiss the next woman,
or the man or the child.
He can't see her

Scabs to Scar

There's a scab on her knee,
just like her heart.
She's said when she's broken
she's like a work of art:
From every angle there
is a new perspective,
a catacomb of reasoning,
the chosen elective.

She pokes at the wound
and it will bleed fresh.
But she knows underneath,
there is fresh, new flesh.

But she doesn't want feeling,
not for this cut.
He called her a cunt,
and he called her a slut.

She wants it to scar,
and never bleed again.
So she can move on,
without the need to pretend
that anything less is
more than acceptable
when she herself tries
to be something respectable.

So she picks at her wounds,
until they are scars with no nerves.
To lose feeling for that one
is what she deserves.

1.8 years

Over two years ago,
on a day in November,
she tripped and fell
straight into December.

Christmas did well,
bringing things that she wanted,
but New Year's brought trouble
and for solace she hunted.

She searched through the rubble
to find a safe haven.
She found it in words
and an artistic craving.

Jealous of birds
she raced through a year,
and then her anniversary
was almost too near.

Suddenly she was hungry
for more than a meal
and September brought something
with a lip-locked appeal.

Heartbroken, she'd sing
a song of the truth
and live out two years
as a troubled youth.

And now one hears
from her words hidden well,
that this child has a story
to sing, cry, and sell.

She'd given her glory,
stood tall like a martyr,
pushed back her shoulders,
and marched that much harder

To move the big boulders
blocking her every step.
Now with such freedom,
She doesn't struggle to forget.

untitled

[wip]

She listens as he plays the chords
while she writes the verses
and fights over words.

She feels it now, when the lyrics bend
and she breaks down

She almost gets it now,
when the words are longer still,
maybe the other one was right,
and a sad song cannot kill.

She turns to him now,
where else to go?
A lonely cry
that needs a home.
She just breaks down
when she's on her own.

No one answers,
and that's ok,
because this trainwreck
swears to make it today.
She's been beaten
and she's been bruised
but bloodloss doesn't matter
because she'll never lose.

Not with a bird that
flutters in her chest,
"You should catch one,"
he says, to display with the rest-

of the pieces of a glass heart
she once thought was whole,
but now she sees the broken pieces,

and the half she bleeds to hold.

She smiles and its bittersweet
the way her eyes and lashes meet

She's pretty when she cries like this
telling him all the things she'll miss
And how he broke her down one day
a misplaced quote, the edges frayed.
She's broken now but feels it mending
when this whole catastrophe reaches its ending
and she sits and she hugs herself,
ribs and self-loathing.
She stares at her makeup,
face, wrinkled clothing.

Who is she really?
A dot on the map.
A speck of denial
to put up with this crap.

She's made her choices,
and you've made your retort.
One last phone call.
One last report.

She means it when she says goodbye,
and spins on busted, bleeding heel.
She's at her prettiest in this light,
walking away and building a shield.

She leans in close before she goes,
and whispers with ash-ed breath,
"Now you get to watch me walk away,
I'm as serious as death."

She calls him rockstar one last time,
and he calls her gorgeous too,
she instantly reaches for a comfort zone,
and swears to "find another you."

She needs a shower.
She feels a film
of hurt and hate
that tastes like ashes.

She needs sleep.
She feels her head
and it's so heavy
on her swollen shoulders.

She needs to breathe.
She feels stifled,
in a room that reeks
of nag champa.

She needs to wake up tomorrow,
ready for a new week
and new faces
and new smiles.

I miss you like I miss needles.

It's easy to get lost here,
amongst letters and punctuation
where fluctuation gives way
to rhymes and schemes
and bigger things
than what we study on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

She walks and doesn't remember how she got here.
So she turns around
looking for someone,
perhaps the man with his beard.
The one she clutches her knife for.

Wasn't this supposed to rhyme? Or to flow?
Her portfolio scratches
against cold pavement--
a rat trap.
What if she steps on it?
This isn't really where she wants to be.

She wants to be here
and she wears the pages
like a petticoat,
gathering them around her
like-- Erasing lines,
when she knows
she should not
erase what comes naturally.

God's gifts.

Maybe hers isn't to get what she wishes for.
But instead slave over
the words and the
format, until the affair...
Until she has was she wants,
when she closes her eyes
and chews on a purple pencap
and waits for him to text her.

Chlorinated

She breathes out
and memories of summer
blur the sidewalk.

She likes the burn,
like accidentally
swallowing chlorine.

She's in the lazy river
looking back,
bobbing among tubes.

She doesn't like to taste this
spitting ashes on the grass
and feeling his eyes, once hers.

"Will it hurt?" she asked,
laying herself open.

"It might," he kissed,
bringing himself forward.

It didn't hurt.
Not when you compared it
to the day he left.

( i hate this one)

[wip]

You held me as I drifted
through foreign land and sea.
Sweat poured down my forehead
and the color drained from me.
My breaths were short and shallow,
my heart not a steady throb.
And through all of this you held my hand,
staying true to your self-assigned job.
The sickness overtook me,
but my mind was elsewhere, lover.
And until my one last breath was drawn,
you seemed intent to hover.

writing to remember

I remember the way your room smelled,
the way I pulled tiny feathers out of your pillow
when you snored too loud for me to sleep,
the way the light off the water came in through the blinds.

I remember our afternoons, and how
they pretended to be early mornings,
with beer-soaked oranges on the porch.

I remember when you came home
and I rushed over. You had an oyster.
The oyster had a pearl. I had a chain.
And thus an artifact of us was born.

I remember burning boxes, books, and beer cans.
I remember solo cups and cinderblocks.
I remember flames.

I remember my back, pinned against the car,
with you telling me what I wanted to hear,
but holding back just the same.
I'm falling, too.
I remember how fun it was to be scared.
How fresh, how new.

I remember hot sand and hot lips and jellyfish.
You were the first, and I think you thought
you'd be the last. I guess we both lied.
I remember lying, all too well.

I remember the way you screamed at me,
the awful things you hissed with venom
in the voice that used to sing me to sleep.

Now I remember the hurt.
I remember that you're all I knew
for a long time. Almost.

Now I remember what it was like
to have you. And what it was like
to lose you. And what it's like to miss you.

Most of all I remember
hot wings, tea, and Pepsi.
Loud laughter and small smiles.
White hoodies and black tights.
I remember contrast.

Shocking, the things we remember.
The things that won't stop flooding the senses.
Like SoCal and weed.
Like liqour like licorice.

I wish I could remember your hands,
your favorite color, your crooked smile
that wasn't sarcastic, your favorite band.

I remember rough fingertips,
sometimes blue, barely there,
and red hot chili peppers.

I remember crying on your shoulder,
thinking it's a shame you wore white,
and wound up in Jersey at a coke party.
You should probably wash that out.

I remember wanting to remember
and trying to forget and losing
a battle within myself.

I remember the one naked picture
of me in existence, wearing your jeans,
and rushing to pull on your shirt
as your mother came up the stairs.

I remember the night we almost
crashed and burned, but had to pick
her up from jail, and it ruined the moment.
I remember being glad you answered the phone.

I remember Wilson, its opossum army against me,
and nearly wrecking my car.
Shaking on the side of the road,
calling you to calm myself until I had
the nerve to move the car again.
I remember the smell of my tires and the skidmarks they made.

I remember my vacations
and how you never came
because my mother didn't approve of us.
She thought we'd be better friends.
We can't be friends. You told me that.
I remember it always being more or less.

I remember leaving work and crying on the phone,

breaking down and telling you what I never should have said.

What I honestly don't regret now.

I remember running to you,
telling you I loved you and begging you to take me back,
and catching you before you went to her,
which I remember you confessed to later.

I remember playing Phantasy Star,
selling things in your room full of mushrooms.
I remember you wanting to try them.
I remember telling you no.

I remember the way I almost failed a semester
because of everything that happened between us.

I remember that every time I was lonely
I would call you, trying to hold onto the only
real love I've ever had.

I remember deciding I didn't ever love you.

I want to remember the little things.
Not the bad things.

Like how you almost called me a cunt.
Like how I would shake if I ever saw a silver contour on rt4.
Like how I heard things and names and almost threw up.
Like how every goddamn song by a certain band works for us.
Like how you've ruined
Applebee's, hotwings, Jager,
'It's Not Over,' the backseat of my car,
connecting the dots, jambi by tool,
and the anonymity of my deviantart.
As well as Australia.

And so, I write.
I write a tribute,
a memoir,
a tall tale of truth.
An indecipherable code
from which to read
truth and an apology.

I did love you,
just not the way that you needed me to.
I do love you,
just not the way that changes anything.

I don't know where to start
I fear I feel I fall apart
and with this almost broken heart
I turn on the light.

I don't know what words to write
I fear I feel I wouldn't fight
and with this fear I'll sit all night
and leave the door open.

I don't know for what to grope
I fear I feel I have no hope
and with this heavy written note
I'll ignore a lover's trist.

I don't know what I have missed
I fear I feel we should have kissed
and with this...
I will break.

baby i've been here
and i'm mad as a hatter
i can breathe better today
for the cling and the clatter

i'm breathing my way
through a thousand yesterdays
and you just keep making this better

i'm dreaming again
of the things i could have
and the things that have been
taken away

i'm losing my sights
within all of my rights
but none of it goes away

i wish i was a doll
so porcelain and smooth
i'd dip so low
and fall into the groove
of being in love
and my hair brushed
bone straight
glass eyes never leaking
after the very first date

i am precious
mildly infectious
a disease that tastes like sugar

breathe me at night
when the feeling's right
and you don't know where to kiss first

a virus within you
weaved into the sinews
of the muscles in your heart

breaking down
the post-op clown
and all the ice cream you want

scream at me
but you'll see
that you can't cure it

i'm infectious honey
a bit of your money
won't get rid of my presence

i'll leave you with scars
and terrible mars
just to prove that baby i've been here

nanana na nana

Skin remembers the way it feels
when cold and touch combine
when fireflies and dark night skies
bring memories to rewind.

I breathe the moon
and evermore, relax
under the weight
of counter-clauses
html, and countless figure eights.

leopard print and camouflauge
will dance under the stars
and we'll hold back when we get the call
from behind iron bars

masking nervous options
with a rocket pop or eight
and seventeen of us will crash
until the hours count too late

driving home was never smart
but we make it all the same
and in the morning
we'll pretend
we don't remember names

smoke and sand

I am done trying,
done surviving
on words alone
and colored prints
of late night stays
and weekend stints.

Within the sand
and smoke to rise
pulls and drags
will red our eyes.

I'm done trying
to piece it all together
and see if it withstands
this uneven july weather.

Cheating a little bit now,
and pulling at the seams
I write the things of magic
and the silhouettes of dreams.

Outlines with confusion
masked with better skill,
to hearts and cards
and spades and will
and drinking up your fill.

Masking with the words I weave,
and better with a tongue,
I sing a song of solitude
that has only just begun.