Mans's Environment Powertrip

In order to press stop
you have to let it play for a second
Clap your hands over your ears
Shake the image-
Clear your head
Determined not to let me invade the only private place you have left
I stumble a little and stoop to examine the dents in your alibi
(Let me sink my face into your sweater,
I need a drag of the way you smell)
Anything any dirtier than this would turn our fingers black
We shut our eyes and hold our breath and hope that nobody saw us leave
Because this is the part where you're bound to forget me and
I've got your only reason to stay in the pocket of my jeans
Let yourself go, let yourself go, let yourself go.
Body limp against the locked door
I want your lips all to myself for five minutes
So I can scar you with all the subtleties I want to say
I'm going to wash my face and let this song play and
Watch you from the shadows
Willing you to follow the trail of bread-crumbs that leads up the stairs
Past the window that overlooks the road ahead (your escape route)
And disappears into this room
Because something tells me once I trapped you between my trembling hands I could convince you to stick around for more
I lean against you and listen to the song playing in your head
Drum-solo pounding through my ribcage
Into my heart
Music making me tingle and your eyes aren't blinking
But I can guess what you're thinking by the lyrics that spill from your temples in waves
In order to press stop
you have to let it play for a second
I'll let you know when I'm ready and we can
Let the silence
Really last

Ashamed

I'm beginning to feel ashamed of my 'poetry'
Redundant and tarnished, like broken pottery burried halfway down
Digging myself deeper with each battered adjective
Faded noun, every tired verb
I'd stop if I could, really
But my fingers just keep moving with no consideration for my mind
So bear with me
We'll undertake the naked truth together
(United, in mutual respect)
Sure. Or at least
Mutual ignorance...
You can stare at these words a lifetime
For they may not dance for you as they once did in my mind

If I had the courage
(and the privacy)
I'd take a razor blade to my wrist and
Press it deep...
No
Scratch that...
If I did any damage it would be with a pen
An ink-leaking blade sharp enough to break the skin
Scrawling song lyrics
Words in uneven lines
More liquid than water
Twice as brilliant as I could hope
Mine would ever be
And when the tip pierces the place
Where my veins run blue
I'd lose a little blood, sure
But I'd gain a little, too
Slow-drip-transfusion of beauti
Blinding me back to life
And I'd lie limp in your arms
Fire raging inside
As you furrowed your brow and began dressing my wounds
Drained of the poison I've been longing to spill onto you
Looking into your eyes searching for tender lies to sever
Maybe kind of pale but feeling more alive
Than ever

Carved

"stop trying to find meaning in everything"
'stop trying to find me....in......everything'

**

I want to kiss you so badly I have to walk away to resist the temptation
And my skin is crawling
Every strand of hair electrified, standing on end
Because you called me a goddess before I was really even awake and
The snowflakes in this dream are like dry tears
Collecting in my eyelashes
I blink and the frame freezes
Your fingers red and raw and trembling
Holding a perfect sphere of crystal-clear ice
'I waited for you outside so it wouldn't melt...'
So cold your breath spills from between your lips in silver wisps
I tear my train ticket into a million pieces
And the shreds of paper flutter to the ground between us
Ink bleeding in rivers on the hard floor
I want to you to return every second I wasted falling in love with you
Return my calls and my letters and
Disappear into in distant memory
Because curled up on the floor at night
My stomach clenching and my lungs threatening to shatter
All that I can think about is the next way you're going to hurt me and
I will have to walk away
To resist the temptation
Of letting you.

So close and yet..

They told her she was gifted
And she accepted it
Because acceptance is tolerance
And both seem closer to dismissal
Than to belief.

Tranquility at its Finest

I grit my teeth and grind my knuckles in my lap, thinking about dessert though we haven't even started dinner... I balance the mirage of 'health' with the illusion of 'hunger', tracing the thin line between them and walking the wire between appetizers and salads...
My menu shakes as conversation continues, slowly trudging around the table while I'm shaking, about to vomit in disgust and confusion...

I test my limits. "Please! PLEASE stop talking, for three seconds... please..."

No response. Nothing. I jump up, and my chair falls backwards, hitting the floor with a bang, my hair swinging around my face, trying to hide me.

"Listen! LISTEN TO ME!!" I scream, panicking.

No eyes shift. The tone deafens me. I crawl down the center of the banquet platform, my combat boots dragging the tablecloth inches and inches, wine overflowing and pouring over
neckties... glass breaks but the talking holds fast as I scramble through the crowded room, with shaking shoulders and fists... Nobody hears me. Finally, shoulders slumped, I slink to the door,
because nobody ever has....

Swallow Your Pride

A series of clicks- you’re undoing your belt
Coins jingle as your jeans crumple to the floor
Pocket change
I have a blindfold on and you’re whispering something about
‘Art’
But I part my lips and hold my breath and wait for it to be over
Giving head to an image of pinched plastic perfection
And you make low noises in your throat while I clench my fists
Fingernails digging into my skin leaving
Tiny half-moons of blood across my palm...
But i’m going to take this with my head held at least waist-high
And you can bet your life
I’m going to swallow.

li(f)e

I used to lie in my bed and
Imagine my Future Husband
A Ken Doll with flexible legs and a fixed smile
And he'd enter my life at just the right time
Tall, dark and handsome
Complete with a bright pink convertible that promised
Never to break down.

I used to lie in the bathtub and
Imagine myself a Grown Woman
Laying a washcloth over my chest I'd press with frustrated palms
At the curves that weren't yet round and the spaces that weren't yet
Empty
Humming under my breath and climbing unsteadily onto the slippery edge
Standing as still as I could with water splashing at my feet
Staring in the mirror and
Trying to look
Sexy
At seven years old.

I used to lie on my stomach and
Frown into pages that held fantasies too big to fit inside me
I read about a girl who's first word was Octopus and had jet-black hair that hung down her back
A boy who could fly and always knew what the weather would be
I closed each book with wrinkles spider-webbing the covers
Like the lines that creased my forehead as I pondered
Why I was born so very
Un-magical…

I used to lie to myself and
Imagine my Future Husband
A Ken Doll with flexible legs
But a fixed smile
And he'd enter my life at just the right time
Tall, dark and handsome
Complete with a bright pink convertible that promised
Never
To break down.

I'll paint your eyes black with my tongue
And leave dark imprints on your skin when we touch
I'll become earthworm-like and weave myself into your hair
And then run down your back
Like rain
Or maybe spiders dancing on the wall with
Their legs barely touching your surface
Down to the tips of your fingers, stagnating
And letting go.
Then, l'll fall
Fall down down down
Fall down.

Pay per Play

I see something that wasn't there before
Between the crash of your island
And the hush of my shores
Reading like Sylvia drowning her fears
I'm caught between your cosmic smile and
my martyr tears burning holes through the floor
I tremble soul while you tremble notes
Conflicted dreams of
you
versus
me
(my reality caught in your
deafening crescendo)
lavished on infinity
Blood flows in your air
Tasting irony tales and vodka
Rust eating me dead
Sold your heart for a ghost
haunting love in your world of
pay-per-play games leaving me
gasping for dopamine waters and an
image of you placed in my head

Barriers

I smile broadly as I hand you my knife, your hand fighting your mind as your own jaw tightens with the imagination and realization about the harm you were prepared to inflict.

'Shit , I can't cut a girl... I could... I mean, I would, but...'

I understand. You'd be broken, because that is symbolic of the barriers you support yourself on.

And she doesn't feel like anything...

Her lips are cracked and her tongue is dry from licking rolling paper and forming careful words like 'I need to go now,' spoken softly and unsteadly to the man who calls her 'Love,' because he can't remember her name. And lying on her back she looks up through the skylight watching the black branches scrape the glass and imagining herself dangling like a dying leaf, balanced ambivalently on the edge of extinction, fragile and delicate and irreparably torn, stained red and oh-so-eager to fall. She clears her throat and reaches for and apple shake, while an internet ad urges her to shell out petty cash to 'Miracle net' and as night crawls up the window panes, she swallows her regrets and chases them down with a bitter cough of indifference. Biting a chunk of styrofoam out of the cup she's been crushing in her hand, she lays out a game of solitaire on the table and plays until she realizes that it doesn't feel like a n y t h i n g when she wins; and she curls up again on the floor that hurts so good against her feverish swollen skin. The cellphone rings and she freezes, her eyes scanning the room frantically, struggling to hear herself think over the silence between urgent outbursts that echo off the walls and haunt her vague and distracted headache. Sighs dripping between her fingers and melting into the floor, like sirens disappearing in the distance. She stumbles into the bathroom slamming the door, walking unsteadily to the mirror and staring hard at her reflection. A victim of misunderstandings represented in two-dimensions. She sucks her breath in and wipes the expression off her face, focusing for the first time in weeks on her pale hands, tangled hair, harsh scars, empty mouth and cold teeth. Outside the wind blows and she braces herself for disaster, her tongue dry and lips cracked....

Break the Skin

Pretend you're better than me
Exchange smug smiles with yourself in the mirror
I'll sneak up behind you and
Shatter the silence-
That's seven years bad luck

Feigning an apology I brace myself against the
Coffee machine
Fluorescent buzzing faintly
under the slow crush of our conversation
Littered with pauses and punctuation
Saying nothing
And repeating ourselves
The red light flickers slightly on my hand and
I check my watch
I've hated you now for
Nearly six hours.

We walk home together
Stopping occasionally so you can
Slit your wrists
Using a fragile twig from the nearby bush
Not hard enough to break the skin
Not determined enough to
Draw blood
Just deep enough to impress me
I shake my head and keep my gaze on the road
Instead of the spider-web-treasure-map of
Tire tracks on your skin
In uneven rows of five.

Warm, dry and caged
Inside
We wrap up in worn kashmiri blankets
on opposite sides of the room
Unspoken curses paralyze my throat
And I watch you flinch slightly as lightning strikes
We hold our breath and wait for the thunder
As if, when it comes
We can finally let go-
As if we can ever let go.
You lick your wounds
Like envelope glue
Sealing in unconquerable demons and
Coating your safety zone with a layer of silence
Four feet thick.

Your bored eyes paint my pride into shame
And my day dream turns our nightmare into drama
An authentic tragedy, complete with Hero and Sword
Simple with dragons and poisons and gold coins
Minted in your image but
Worth three times
As much.

Let's trade places, shall we?
Victim turns villain, enter stage left
Spotlight spills onto you and you're melting melting melting
Ding-dong
The bitch is dead and I'm
Laying slain on the floor beside your corpse.
Dressed in the costume of my mind I
Kiss the lipstick off your mouth and
Allow my mascara to run rivers of mock sorrow
That bleed scarlet ink across my face
Trickling through my fingers and streaking your cheeks
Like two artificial scars.

The curtain slides closed
Sweeping our preconceptions off the surface of the table
As though someone yanked the rug out from under our feet
Somehow our stares collide and I blink self-consciously
Because we're exactly the same
bathed in ironically polarized light
Subliminal and tender
I lay down next to the sliding doors
And watch the reflection of my eye in the glass
In revelation of clenched teeth and fists I murmur
'Fuck you.'
It's the first time I've spoken
All night.

On Drugs

That vacancy tugging omni-directional begging me to fill it...

Some delicacy with maggot lips and a shotgun tongue ruminating with neon delight, candyfloss brains shriveling in the cold of choked up clouds, dilapidated veins sucked dry blanketed with carrion, that vapid drained river of a vein, that Ganges of addiction squirming around like some dancing cartoon avoiding bullets, avoiding that needle prodding its lifeless tube of disaffection...

A charred volcano of cocaine infection reaches upwards from the ecstatic entrance of his peach forearm and the eyes sit back in the fleshless hollowness of a marble skull...

Give me that needle you despicable wretch!
Insufflations and then a resurrection of a dragon studded with emeralds and stars slithering across the cerulean firmament. He turns. He tosses me a parabolic smile but i can't seem to understand.

I will not understand.

Close Enough

We raise a respectful toast to our monster
The one we've been building for years now
In our mutual basement
Under that blanket, tubs shake, machines whir
Children spin legends and back away slowly
We tell them not to be afraid, though we're quaking
Ourselves
I hear your sobbing as I stand in the doorway
And I can't help but wonder if that began just as I entered the room
(Coincidentally)
Or if perhaps you've been crying all this time
And I just got close enough to hear

Art

I want to create a beautiful scar today.
Slice your skin with no remorse. I shall use a sharpened knife and that belongs to me and cherish it forever. I want to drink your rushing blood, swallow it mercilessly, throw my head back and smile at thunderstruck skies with closed eyes...
Ill consume the pain that escapes from your perfect skin and relish the look of fear on your face. Ill ruin your flesh and take pleasure in your almost undying pain due to this selfish cruelty that I've inflicted on you and every precious memory of it. I want to taste you and have the bitter liquid that runs through your heart become a part of a tongue that craves.
Yes, I want to create a beautiful scar today and feel proud of my art for a lifetime.

Finding Words Is The Easy Part.

Our argument is fierce and quiet
Poison-dart-whispers shot like daggers through the ice-laced tuesday night
The glass in your hand trembles as you squeeze so hard I'm afraid you're going to crush it
But something tells me you'd deny having such strength
In your fist.
'You never asked me what I wanted!' I hiss through clenched teeth
And you let it drop
shattering on the tile as your fingers leave skid-marks on my wind-kissed cheek
And the scene freezes
A sudden silence filling the dishes and the bottles on the windowsill and your open mouth.
Shell-shocked
Gaping
My eyes slide to the floor
Tracing the bloodstain
Of red-wine crawling in rivers between our bare feet
And I swallow
Trying to take a little of the cold with me
Because it's barely ten and it's gonna be a long way home.
And thinking about you alone in my room
Crying inside below the wail of racing thoughts and the scrape of traffic and
Gentle sips of my neighbours' harmonium
I will be helpless
Speechless and as close to useless as I've ever felt
My lines all instantly forgotten in that split-second when you
Stopped time.

Good little Mommy

Go on my dear
Be good, be nice
Don't do anything I wouldn't do
Remember to think twice
I've seen these things happen
They're worse than they seem
So go off to college
Then come back to me

Oh, hello Husband
Beautiful morning out there
Don't worry, I'm changing right out of this dress
And I'll do something about my hair
By the time you return in the evening
I'll have dinner prepared and on-time
And I'll surely have attented to all of your duties
After I've achieved all of mine

So my dear Family
How were our days?
Honey get your elbows off of the table
And put those toys away
Darling not to bother
But didn't you already smoke?
I'm sorry, I'd love to stay and chat for awhile
But I've got something else on the stove

Of course, my Lover
Everything's fine
I've just finished your chores
And I've just finished mine
Go play with our daughter
She loves you, you know
There's got to be some way
To let that show

Good morning Family
Did you all sleep well?
Oh, I tossed and turned
But I'd rather you not tell
Have a nice day at work dear
I love the shirt that you wore
If you need me I'll be in the kitchen
With my head in my hands on the floor..

Lost

I thought I could save you
By save I mean stop you
By stop I mean trap you
In a firefly jar

But I know every escape route, the way they twist
And evade you
It’s in the mess that I made, too
A black vein of ink
On the floor
The stain spread fast
Between the tiles

I dropped and watched it for awhile
Like a river
From an airplane window
I could see you waving at me
In the sky

I thought I could change you
By change I mean break you
By break I mean ground you
But you were lost
When I found you

It was supposed to be funny

It was only a joke-
You called me a bitch in front of everyone and
We laughed and clinked glasses
Coffee overflowing
Burning our lips
So now,
Every time we kiss
New wounds burst into bloom and
Wilt.

I collected lucky coins,
I collected four-leaf-clovers
And you accidentally
Cut me out of every photograph
In your house.

The monsoons crawled down flooded sidewalks
I spent my days staring out of windows
I searched your drawers when I was bored but
You never hid anything there
Everybody knew that
We had problems
We pressed them lovingly
To our chests
And as they throbbed in time with
Your heart and
Mine
We danced to the rhythm and
Got undressed.

We always fought to our deaths with our claws in
We always bit without using our teeth
So when you asked if you could
Tie me to the train-tracks, I agreed
But now I’m trembling and I’m freezing and I’m
Face down in the weeds
Letting splinters from the rough boards
Sink their needles into me.

I hear the whistle in the distance and
I realize this time
You’re going to win
You’ve got a tiny little smile
About to erupt into a grin
The iron groans
The pistons sigh and
You turn your back on the approaching train
I feel the metal hum under my rope-bound wrists
And watch you walk away
You walked out on me.

I can see the locomotive’s
Thick black smoke rise through the trees
And when the wind slides heavy across my back
I struggle to set myself free
I tense my muscles and thrash and cry and choke and gasp and
Grit my teeth
And above the deafening roar of the engine
I can’t help but think-
It was only a joke...
and it was supposed
to be funny.

Less than..

Misunderstood and suffocated by your understanding
I'm stumbling up the spiral staircase trying to rise above you
In any way that I can
and your hands are trembling and your lips spew
Threats so empty I can hear the echo
Of everything you didn't say when you had the chance
But now you're burning (distance makes the heart grow stronger)
And it's all I can do not to scream at the top of my lungs
So loud and shrill that the glass in the windows dissolves
Into razor-sharp splinters and
I finally bleed so red you'll fall all over yourself to escape
But my precious ego is pulsing
Throbbing with imagined injury
As you turn it over in your hands
And kiss every vein delicately back to life
If you only knew how sexy I felt there,
A spectacle on the sidewalk
As a car disappears around the corner
their eager stares still hanging in the air
Because I'm not a victim
Im victorious
Your jaws on the floor with every word
that slips from between my dry lips
I'm sputtering truth I assumed you'd be able to see
From where you're standing
And I'm saving your apologetic gushing for another day
When I'm feeling anything
Less
Than perfect…

Lovers Bite

Emblazoned across his ivory neck rising to an exquisite face of blushing veins and light mocha ponderings.

I was obliged to obey.

He moaned out at first contact, before the pressure truly began, he shuddered at the contact of bone on flesh, a shudder as my warm breath hit, smothering in circles of open lips, a shudder as my tongue tip pressed gently against his skin as if guiding my bite, as if to taste what might be beneath.

I noticed his eyes closed, muscles tense, his wrinkled forehead and nose and face.
I ignored.

I began to bite down, to truly bite down, slowly. I could feel my incisors slicing their way into his neck, puncturing the softness and inserting something too solid. I felt my jaws tighten at top and bottom, felt the applied pressure as his skin folded and moved and squirmed beneath my kiss. I felt his body begin to shake from the pain, shake from the shock, shake from the bone being driven through his skin.

It didn't take long to break through the ivory and draw blood. Nothing can compare to his blood, thick and dark red and not too sweet. I felt it flowing into my mouth, over my tongue, around my teeth, down my chin, down his arched neck. I followed the trail of sanguine with my tongue...The blood felt warm in me, my mouth, it felt good.

One can only be satisfied by a lovers blood and a lovers bite.

Mars-Venus

I've never really loved anyone before you who could
Play with my hair and my mind
The way that you do
Who could guess what I'm thinking and follow my gaze
Through walls and down halls until we're lost in some horizon together
Kissing softly, lips pausing and posing and parting and
Closing to the time of the clock that ticks four minutes Behind

I've never really loved anyone before you who could
Stun me and out-run me
The way that you do
Who could interpret my silences so accurately I only speak when my
Lips are full-swollen brimming with things to say and
Adjectives that forever fall-short of your beauty

I've never really loved anyone before you who could
Touch me and move me
The way that you do
Who could pass me a mental note and cut into my thoughts
Like a lightning bolt slicing through the rest of my day and
Pushing me pulling me dragging me away
Into a swirling smear of color more brilliant than the sun we
Trip and we slip and I come so undone...

I've never really loved anyone before you who could
Undress me and untie me
The way that you do
Who could break my stride so beautifully that I
Trace every crack and
See the others and pity them for being so goddamned
Intact

Who could distract me and impact me and surprise me and
Revive me
Who could surround me so completely I don't know
Which way is up...

I've never really loved anyone,
Before you.

xxx

You walked in on me turning the gun over silently in my hands.

'What do you think you're doing,?!' you hissed between clenched teeth and as I jumped it clattered to the floor in a flash of metal..

You pointed at the door and I lowered my eyes but didn't ask 'why not?'
Instead walked away with my fists shoved deep in my pockets.

I heard a smooth click and whipped around just as you caulked the gun and took your aim…

(I bet you're still kicking yourself for missing my heart)

Never

I loved a boy who gave me a necklace too soon in our relationship
Made of jade and he told me to hold my breath
Laying the cold stones against my skin and loving my shiver
As he explained the deep green would bring out my eyes and
Both were jewels so beautiful it stole his breath away

I loved a boy because I thought he had so much to teach me,
thought I had so much to learn
And he introduced me to his ex-girlfriend with pouty lips,
piercing silences and v-neck t-shirts
I stood there and felt my face flush as he squirmed under her stare
and didn't reach for my hand
Then when he left she asked me if he still talked about her
I hid behind a cage of my fingers
And she looked at me like I was the unappreciated answer
To his rhetorical addiction
I loved a boy who was everything I didn't need and never wanted
And I had far too many 'romantic' notions
that he attempted to live up to
Falling flat on his face,
tripping over poetry, guitars and
A soft touch
I loved a boy who spelt my name wrong
in the first letter he wrote me but
I forgave him, for the gentle desperation of being single
For longer than I thought I could bear
He eventually abandoned me after I convinced myself
I could drive him away and
Plotted to destroy whatever it was that we'd created

I loved a boy who gave me a necklace too soon in our relationship
Made of jade and he told me to hold my breath
Laying the cold stones against my skin and loving my shiver
As he explained the deep green would bring out my eyes but
When he called them jewels my soul clenched and
I didn't have the heart to tell him
My eyes
Were black...

Lifeline on a Page

I knew he was going to die-
The first three chapters had set the stage for disaster but
It wasn't long before her words drew me in before
His pulse crawled off the page and into my wrist and
I could practically taste the sting of his sweat
On my tongue
So around chapter fifteen my fail-proof denial kicked in and
I was suddenly convinced there had to be some kind of
Mistake
Reading each sentence twice, trying too hard
Not to cry
Because the back seat I was trapped in wasn't nearly big enough for my sorrow
And between gulps of emotion I looked up and
Straight out the window
Blinking carefully and trying to keep my place
In the plot…
Just when I thought I couldn't take any more
You said you had to run into the shop for a second and
I found myself lifting the lock and slipping outside
The sunshine soaking into my skin and
Rendering me
Momentarily
Blind
I let a steady stream of strangers wash around me on mute
Crouched in an unoccupied parking-space
Trying to swallow the jagged sobs I felt beginning to surface
Dripping tears through my fingers,
Making all the ink run
And through the blur of my vision
I saw you coming toward me
Plastic bags whispering as warm wind drifted between the folds
Your face wore an expression I didn't have the energy to define so
I stood up and
Dusted myself off
Indentations from the road like private scars on my palms and
I exhaled for the first time that morning
Closed the cover and started again,
From the beginning
Just to bring him back
To life

Without Permission

'it's very important you get the mood in the picture..'
as four o'clock rolled around the natural light began to fade
and you blamed me for all the new shadows
cursing under your breath
pawing through your bag muttering something about how I might pass for human
If you could get this one in black and white
And I curled up
My body contorted into a shape your camera may or may not mistake for real
As long as I kept my eyes my raw lips and chattering teeth carefully hidden
Wrapping my arms tightly around my cold skin trying to contain the shiver
Meanwhile concealing all the burns on my thighs and fingers
And what was left of my wings
Scars from all the times I ignored the warning blaze of your hot temper and
Touched you
Without permission

Rain

It's enough to let your complexities hang. A stillbirth. The unshared anticipation that blooms and begs to be disposed off like a bloodied tampon. And when you let them hide in their paperthin folds and sweatlaced crevices, all the world transforms into a spiral. An endless conundrum. A complex mathematical equation.

I long for dark reverbrations in the cerulean firmament. Swift zephyrs and a lack of seasparkled noonsun heatwaves. It is then that I will ease my way back home again to subliminal slumbers and festering nothingnesses.

Verbal fornication and calloused caresses seem to have left caffine bitter cuts upon my arm that love sprinkled anticeptics cannot heal.

I will find my clickety clacking cliche within plastic keys. And in time, an endless slumbered freefall with liquid angels dressed in song by my side.

Hah. You can almost hear the rain coming.

Release

When you have a thought, never forget its leash. Let it sniff around, explore and familiarize its ever evolving self with the winding conduits of your mind and other oh-so-brilliant thought processes and finally, let it urinate all over you until your consumed by the tenacious stench of this idea.

Then, when you've had enough of this vulgar repetition, bite your carcinogen tongue, close your nicotine eyes and let it go.
Yes, set it free. Disown it, for it will never be yours to keep.

Release from yourself, you see.

Say it out loud

The lights are blindning and I catch my breath
Just in time, as it was getting away and you trace my jaw as I fight my urge
Struggling softly on the pillow we share with your fingers in my hair and it smells like apple
A scent that doesn't belong in this room with dusty windows and a floor the colour of the
Smoked sky.
You're taller than me and twice as strong and I have to stand on my tiptoes to hug you
The kind of masculinity I tell myself I've been deprived of
As I whisper things to myself and wonder if I mean it…
You touch me gently
Playing with the shiver I give every time you pinch that mine-field that lies where I curve...
Your kisses are soft and slightly careless compared to the crimson I crave
And you hold me at arm's length in the glaring lights of this sanctuary to give my figure the once-over
while I wished you didnt make me feel so real
Pulling on my jacket and letting you kiss my neck I feel
My eyes gleam as if to say shame-on-you for lying through clenched teeth...
I've got brand new scars now and one more boy to add to the score card
So long it occupies shelves and shelves of tortured notebooks I
Write your name over and over again under mine I press so hard it breaks the lead
And draws blood from the page remind me to be more
Careful
Next time…
The stars are falling and you steal my breath-
Then again, I haven't been guarding it very carefully...

So near and yet

They told her she was gifted
And she accepted it
Because acceptance is tolerance
And both seem closer to dismissal
Than to belief.

Swallow it Down

I'm scratching at some graffiti with a stub of chalk
When you walk up behind me and whisper
'Art is dead, you know,'
Sending chills up my spine and distracting me from the
Four jagged lines of
Accidental rhyme I was trying to leave on the wall
Amid a battlefield of
Profanity and
Phone-numbers.
I turn to face you and
Take a deep breath
Filling my lungs with a rush of hot air and
The spark of the match that you're lighting with one hand and
The thin spiral of smoke that has started to drift
From the cigarette you're holding
Between your fingers.
Embers and ash float down in the breeze
As you flick your wrist and push up your sleeves
And I feel words I've never tasted
At the back of my throat
Dissolving into the memory of every pretty thing I
Ever wrote then
Pressing my lips to yours
I let a strange new poem crawl inside you
And it blooms like a morning glory
Heavy
On your tongue
You make a low noise and go limp and let your
Life-line drop into the dust
Touching my lower back and
Leaning against the rough wall
As we smear the sentence
I was trying to choke out in shaky script
When you walked up behind me and whispered
'Art is dead, you know…'
And I have a feeling
You'll think that I'm out of my mind
The kind of girl who stumbles
Into the arms of the first stranger she can find and
Wakes up in the middle of the night from a dream about
Kissing him
As though her life
Depended on it
But I know what I'm doing
And pulling away
My eyelashes graze your cheek for the last time
Then I'm down the road and
Half-way across town when you finally realize
I was only giving you
Mouth-to-mouth

xxx

Frigid fingers probe and rip apart, wearing down to the bone in this vain attempt to free herself of something more than this temporary release of parting skin around her hips, and scarlet lines shimmering down her legs: this is her accumulation of lies. She remembers a time when this was enough to bury emotion but the earth runs thin through her fingers and her ghosts make the most of the opportunity - whisper in her head the prayers to vanquish all cathartic murmurs - haunt her till she can barely stand.

Teeth scraping against her neck, she whispers in his ear 'fuck me and i wont make a sound' and he likes it more because she's so unresponsive. (almost.like.rape but with no chance of being charged) she bites her tongue. the bathroom tiles making x-o grids on her knees, she'll play with lighted matches and shards of glass, documenting this into forgiving skin. And when you come, she never makes a single sound because there's nothing left to say. Mechanical motions, tragic beauty. The waves of post-human desire crashing against her soul and she entreats herself to an island where the waves dont reach so high and the moon comes out sometimes beneath this broken sky, going quietly insane.

As long as theres physical contact and some resemblence of emotion,she'll fill in the blanks herself.