sacked

his eyes wide in his face,
he blinked
like a deer
and attacked me with vigour.
all the sweetness
and the charm
absent from your aspect...
in your grasping.
hoisted me on the sink
smudged my makeup
and tore my dress.
holes in my stockings
like every pair.
thumb-marks littered my wrist
in bruises
and marker-pen.
well i stuffed your clothes in my bedroom bin,
littered
with toenail clippings
and an empty bottle of jim.
and swore,
i will never again give myself like that to him.

trade ya

When my eyes go blank,
The bomb likes to drop down
And sit in the middle of my forehead
-innocuously, as only a bomb can-
With a beep, a flash, a periscope
To seek any sense of motion--
Any mention of sound.
Sometimes, gods with censored faces,
With tinted windows, withheld smiles
Like to sing me lullabies
In the cool
cream
leather
sitting
shotgun.

They give me anything, anything, everything
With the promise of redemption,
with a promise to forget.

Hands holding
House-warming
Sweet, sweet gall
And musty smoking mistletoe
Apparent through transcendent souls
That separate from hollow shells
They vacate to forget.
Please tuck me tight in Bible paper
And birth me whole in phoenix fire
In smoke and ash and avocation
to sputter dancing, pirouetting,
paper-prophet ashes.
World spinning softly now,
Holding every breath in now,
Hand over mouth now,
Making love to my senses.

I told you to make me feel something-
Thank you for giving me everything.

Passing through the gate,
Paper-perfect dolls and fire that licks me
Like salt. Like ice. Like milk.
La Tierra starts to pulse and I can feel
Nothing but the start and stop of the
Firing circuit boards, the unplugged extension cords,
The racing current hitting every copper checkpoint.
bodies move in rhythm
While girls with lover’s eyes come dance beneath the stars,
Blending waltz and tribal manifest with sensual desire.

Watch: as they’re living we’re erasing
Slowly, smothering our babies
while every ounce of sanity
Each gasping, seething ounce of me
Is begging to let go.

I will cry for my brother, and my innocence, my control.
I want a face that isn’t vacant and a soul that’s goddamn whole,
And a fire that doesn’t burn and a heart that doesn’t freeze,
And a mouth that never lies and a child that never screams,
And a day that breaks before I wake
A stapled heart sans constant ache
A house, a home, advice to take
And silence in between.

I need words in my mouth; I’ve got blood in my mouth.
Can we trade?

nature

softly, the seasons change from spring,
trees shed their skin and bear
branches as bones.
the leafs start falling

the sun grows tired of its heat,
cools in an opaque sky
of red and gold

autumn's arrived,
spiders scurry to spin
webs over dead ground
to catch the fading flies

others scavenge,
like magpies,
treasures from the frost

it's cold,
but swans mate for life
and there is always warmth
in company

watching as the
seasons die...

beg me

Beg me, baby
it's sexy
I'm eighteen
I can still do
stupid things
to stupid
girls
younger than me
(that one protrusion
makes all the
difference)
taking the
barely legal's
just not me

Words on paper
are black and white
but words on mouths
can change
rearrange
I said no,
no, he said
who do you believe?

Shut up
it's better to remember
silence than screams
and showers just don't
run hot enough
soap just doesn't
clean deep enough
time just doesn't
move fast enough

Beg me, baby
it's what all the girls do

you and your...

good bone-structure,
and gaze
like a cornflower.

we breathed puffs of air
like cigarettes
and in my head
you loved me
over
and over
again.

glass menagerie

I'm wandering,
barefoot through a day
That’s never belonged to me.
A stream of consciousness,
Or lack of that which should be
In which I swore I would
Never spend night dreaming
In vivid installments of 32 bit color,
Never spend a day awake in sleep
Of dreamless dark to back of eyelids
And prevention of waking the day.

With one hour to midnight and
Less than half of that until the bottle
Is cracked, and empty on the pavement
Crushed by our infatuation and our laughter
Loud and mighty.

The tree is tall, but
We have crowned ourselves
Kings
Here tonight aloft
In its branches, alone in our glory
We proclaim our majesty to the flashing lights
Of the sheriff’s Ford as it
Flocks to the trunk to worship.
We are never shy, never weak.
We are the blasphemers of the new century,
Crowned in thorns, and leaves, and glacial wind
Admitting to every sin
We had ever been convicted of, in honor,
Our own crucifiers,
Sounding off on Good Friday’s eve.

She’s beautiful isn’t she?
Well, what about me?
I’ll look beautiful when I’m the only pallid color
You’ll find in some place,
But when I’m not under glass
You don’t see me do you?

I remember when we were little again
And you couldn’t tell the boys from the girls
By their hair, because it was all long and dirty
Or their chests, because they were all flat and bare
Or their mannerisms because they were all beautiful
And unplanned, and innocent, and jubilant
And free.
And we were all mommies’ children
Growing up in a world
That planned to slaughter us as soon as
We got fat enough to lick our own wounds.

We stayed out late every night
And mapped the stars on the back of our hands
So we could map them in a page in a book
Or engrave them on a desk in computer apps
Or on an inner-city wall in the dead of night
With open veins spewing spray paint
Like fire-hydrants through a hole in a wrist
And a plastic poncho to protect us from the rain
As well as a gas mask,
Because the bomb could drop any minute
And it could break you
In two
Like a wishbone
That wasn’t very lucky.

And where did the fresh air go?
Only recycled breaths left, and only so many years
Before the sun gives out and cries
“Fuck you, dirty heathens,
Won’t you let me sleep?”

It’s so cold here.
The rusty pages in the golden bough
Aren’t going to save me now;
And all those books on existentialism
And tarot readings, and philosophy, and childbirth,
And psychology, and sleep-disorders,
And Zen Buddhism, and how-to, have-to, where-now?
Were swept out yesterday
And left on the curb of Second and Cherry
In a box reading “Seeking Good Home”
And we’ve got nothing here worth fighting for.
So what do we need these guns for?

And why are the newborns weeping in Moscow?
And why have the lambs started screaming again?
And why are my teeth bleeding acid?
And why are the polar caps melting?
And why is there blood all over my shoes?
And why did you put me here?



Do you even know?






Have you ever known?

swallow me whole

There is something about operating on the fringe, even the fringe of your innermost self, that can be so conspicuous. Perhaps you want to hide from prying eyes and annoyances but you feel that you are displayed for others to gawk. The cutting judgements of people's stares and questioning glances are breaking your casual exterior. You run the scissors along the only seam that covers your nakedness. No one knows the reasons for their madness in the moment...

And when you are struggling and a close friend slights you, however innocently, it can feel like the witness of a thousand angel's torment.

swallow me whole. please.