Tucked away like boxes under a bed

2011-01-24T20:39:00.001-08:00

I was almost born on the highway
when the streets get hungry
they ask for more than blood

2011-01-23T02:04:00.001-08:00

I'm not the way I wanted to be.
needles falling from the sky and my skin is paper
don't you dance anymore? to the music inside your head
does it move you like i do
does it shake your bones like i did
the feel of the music once it moves behind your ears
and you feel the warmth at the base of your skull
is it your soul, is it just the deepest part of your self
when the tears come and you do not have to say a word
like a light off in the distance
when you trapped me under sheets
for days
I was never hungry
you never believed me, my love

i opened you up and nothing bright came out
it just poured out black and nothing could be done
it stained my sheets but not my skin
even though we soaked in it for days

then with your tears
the music came out of our mouths
have you sung like that again
you your moved your fingers with such delicate urgency
when bones melded there was no turning back
and the bathtub draining
all of it spun around and around
making us dizzy in our hearts
I wrote a poem for you today
shall I o this ever year
until my legs have left me
I meant it when I said that I hated you
with every part of my heart that loves you
we danced alone in the streets
every foot on the wrong ground
and when the dark grabbed at our ankles
all was right in the world
because love, we were dancin'
the hours and hours
we had spent alone since that day
breaks something deeper than bone
will I find your

can she make you dance like I did
can you breathe as deep as I did
does the music come out of you like before
have you fallen asleep with me again

2011-01-18T07:55:00.000-08:00

My sister is in that place with the walls that I know so well.
I never would wish this upon my worst enemy.
those walls that have memories like elephants
if those walls could talk it would be my nightmare

2010-11-20T02:44:00.000-08:00

Your eyes were dandelions
sprouting from the sockets
make a wish and blow

One night and I am nowhere. Your ghost is always waiting for me outside that bus station.
I read your ribs like poetry, you are my muse.
But there is gravel in my voice now.
my body lies limb, the sun is rising. the light angles in.
you know that there is nothing here without you.
I am hollow. I know nothing at all.

were you madly in love like I was? unable to convince yourself otherwise.

Once when we were close you said that I was your redemption.
My bed is a grave these days. I seem to sleep for days.
Let me speak to you again. I hear your voice in my head but the memory has faded.
Your eyes always seemed to find me.

Do you remember how our bodies melted together.
I want to learn you all over again.
I want to turn you inside out.
love every inch of you. grabbing and holding onto flesh.
build something new

Missing you is inescapable

I weep up in the trees and they loosen up their roots and walk with me.
I remember the way you would hold your cigarettes.
The boniness of your knuckles and the curve of your thumb.
How those hands touched me so exactly, like fingers on keys.
That melody repeated itself in my head whenever you were around.

you haunt me as if I have forgotten my own name. not one more word you say.
I’ve been hesitating for six months to send this to you. Not another day.

I know nothing at all. This means nothing. This never happened.
I was never anywhere, and you always were my home.

2010-11-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

burn me with the rest of the witches
these fiends want young meat
eat me alive
drain my blood
paint your bedroom walls

the killing jar
has captured my heart
it collects lint in his pocket

i can't find my way
between the bodies you left here
it's armageddon
baby, the sky is falling
but i have nowhere to sleep
and all their faces are mine.

2010-11-16T12:40:00.000-08:00

I bury you in the wall, in the floor
and listen for your call
it keeps me awake at night
but i can't give it up
to someone else's touch

I found my rib cage in the earth
and my skull in the sky
but i can't find footprints to follow

I weep up in the trees
and they weep with me
their leaves falling like tears

I carved you into a new animal
and you walked away without looking back

2010-10-17T20:57:00.000-07:00

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis
If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it. We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there. There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in (guitar stroke). And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places. And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation. Start simple. Things you may have previously (electric guitar plucking) based on your avoid being alone principals. The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone. Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone. When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were. Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community. And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings. Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there're always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. but lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it. You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Cuz if you're happy in your head than solitude is blessed and alone is okay. It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be releived, keeps things interesting lifes magic things in reach. And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that communitie's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. take silence and respect it. if you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it. you could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it If your heart is bleeding make the best of it There is heat in freezing, be a testament.

2010-10-02T23:18:00.000-07:00

I get so scared when I think of you. Trembling. Afraid that I'm right, that my memories are being eaten away. My disease, that one that seeped through everything we had. It consumes without hunger but with instinct.
I weep up in the trees and they loosen up their roots and walk with me. Slivering along the sand where my footsteps used to be and the roots are tentacles grabbing onto the memories.
I remember the way you would hold your cigarettes. The boniness of your knuckles and the curve of your thumb. How those hands touched me so exactly, like fingers on piano keys. That melody repeated itself in my head whenever you were around. But since you left I can't seem to remember perfectly.
I can't remember your scent. and it breaks my heart. My life was poetry with you, and now every word that comes out is misshapen and grotesque.

2010-07-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

My lips are cracked and bleeding
nicotine burns
i've forgotten my spine
on your doorstep
i forget to breathe
because i'm deep deep
underground

2010-07-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

We won't wake up from this
I am an interrupted heartbeat
press the keys black and white
your skin is super slippery
my fingers are bone
clicking and cracking
i'll bury you in my backyard
your hair will grow with the brambles
a little taste of you I'll pick in the summer
and watch die all over again

Bloody Lies

2010-05-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

I waited in the rain for three days trying to get to the city. My thumb stuck out as I walked slowly on the shoulder. My tongue hurt. I’d been telling lies all day. Lies to the red haired women who picked me up before the sun even rose. Her and her pink Cadillac tried to save my soul. A plastic Jesus bobbed his head on the dash board, nothing holding it there but a wad of discarded gum. She told me the story of how she had found the Lord after she overdosed on a bad batch of coke. She had seen His face and He had held His hands out to her, beckoning. When she woke up from a week long coma, she asked to be baptized a Christian. Devout and sad really. No other man would be in her life again. Her lipstick outside the lines of her lips and her fake nails tapping on the steering wheel.
More lies to the lesbian couple around lunch time. They held hands the whole time I rode with them in their candy apple red SUV. Three and a half hours and all they talked about was their rather elaborate plan to adopt a baby and the weekends up at their cabin. They offered me little blue pills. I took a few to save for later. I wish them luck at the gas station where they drop me off, and they drive off into the sun. More lies to the old trucker with braided hair and the teenage kid running away from home. I had a family once. I had a home then and now I envied this boy for his escape plan and the money in his pocket. I had never had anything like that.
My sleazy uncle had been right about one thing at least, that I would be a street kid by the age of sixteen. When I was twelve, he told me that I was closer to forty. I would always catch him staring at me and touching himself when no one else was looking. He said that he liked my heart shaped lips and my insightful glare. I never told my mother, but he was the reason I left home. I never hated him for it though, he taught me that you never need anyone except yourself. The last time I saw him was three years ago, on my sixteenth birthday. That day I left home. He was never my blood and always my lover. But he never touched me anywhere bad. Not once. He loved the spot on my neck right under my hair. He said it was the softest skin on the body. I had always been a woman to him.
I was wide eyes and I had never known anything else. And somehow this boy that picked me up reminded me of the man. He said he could get me to the city, he was heading there too. So he told me his name was Patrick. He talked to me about his parents and how they didn’t understand him, they didn’t understand his music either. And as he drove through the night, I felt tempted to tell him something truthful about myself. I had never told any of my rides a truthful word. This rule kept me safe. I could be who ever I wanted to be, whoever they wanted me to be. I could be strong even if I didn’t feel that way. Imagine having a past that didn’t haunt me. I don’t think any of them minded. I doubt any of them believed my elaborate stories anyways. And that’s just what they were, stories.
We drove until the stars came out, not finding any kind of pit stop for hours. At one point we had to pull over because I had to pee so badly. I felt like I would burst. The only option was to squat behind a bush just off the highway. Things like that never really bothered me. But I don’t think Patrick had ever met a girl like me before. A hitchhiking, pee squatting and drug taking girl who was so much older than her age. He was sweet and kind, and I was safe for a night. He rummaged for a book in the back of his station wagon and gave it to me. A book of surrealist love poems I tucked in my pack. I couldn’t wait to read it when I was traveling again. Leaning forward in his seat as he drove, he holding the steering wheel tight. His hair was long and messy. We ate stale donuts and warm pop from a broken vending machine. Little blue pills under our tongues and the night became alive. Stars danced above us, the road danced below and everything made sense. His eyes were swollen with exhaustion but he refused to let me drive. I counted seven Red Bulls, one after the other. We listened to classical music on the radio and talked about time travel. He said nothing was able to survive it. That whatever it was would be crushed by the intangible worms that lived in the folds of time. I just shut my eyes and let him talk with the music. It was like being in a warm river. The piano notes stroked my skin, his words flowed out for hours. Swollen in the sky, the moon was bright with a kind of aura around it.
Then he was complaining about things standing in the street.
He began swerving slowly back and forth, into the left lane and then back into the right. But when I opened my eyes and looked, there was nothing there. I placed my hand on his arm and told him to pull over. He was shivering and gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles but we were moving rather slowly. Chest heaving, he pressed himself up against the horn, but it was silent. The night was full of fog creatures and jumping shadows, he said. They’re out to get me. I began to rub his back gently to try to calm him. His skin felt like his insides were boiling underneath. With my help we pulled over, he made his way out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s. I told him he would feel better in the morning.
Within minutes, he was out cold and mumbling in his sleep. I drove the last stretch with the strange smile that had emerged, watching the sun rise around me. Phillip Glass came out low from the speakers and I decided to tell Patrick’s sleeping figure a story. I told him that when I was a child my father had been an alcoholic. My mother had taken care of him, although she hated him for it. None of the pictures frames had any glass in them, it had all been broken and removed. I told him of when I used to run out of the house when they fought, which was a lot. Of how I would run to the small ravine by our house and hide until the lights went off in all the windows. How I called it the place where terrified girls become pine trees. I used to pretend to be a tree and just stand still, breathing slowing, moving in the wind, roots deep in the ground. I didn’t tell him that I still did it sometimes.
The changing colours and the brightness growing, the road stretched out. An arm outreached, but never coming back to hold on. The sunlight danced and for the first time I felt guilty about not sharing myself with this boy when he was awake. Something like this had not bothered me since I was a child. The truth had never mattered to any one around me and so I had just started to tell what people wanted to hear. Whatever I had to do to get what I needed. There was nothing easier than a lie, especially when you gained something from it. And that’s how it had been for me. But today, as I drove into the city I felt full of regret.
I parked the car in a gas station parking lot and left Patrick sleeping in the passenger seat. The sun had barely risen and he was no where near conscious. Before I opened the door, I picked up the pack of cigarettes that sat on the dashboard. A layer of dust and ashes, tucking the pack and a green lighter in my pocket. He looked so peaceful like he hadn’t slept so sweet for months. I couldn’t bear to wake him. A rumbling sound came from deep in his throat as he shifted his weight, leaning as far back as the seat allowed. I lifted the woven blanket he had offered me earlier and placed it over top of him.
He was one of those boys that a girl always hoped to meet. But he was much too young, too naïve to the world. And I was too far gone.
I took a piece of scrap paper and left him a note on the dashboard. Thanks for the ride, I wrote. Please keep in touch. My cell number is 519-265-4893. –Lily. The phone number was fake. The name was real. I’ve never done that before. I was always someone who I wasn’t and never who I was. Only I knew who that really was.

The city was just like I remembered it. It was bone and bare of all things that a city needed to survive. But the people were gathered at the city hall for the planned protest. September 22nd, Alex Brighton, Human Rights activist, one of three victims of police brutality at a late night drag show on University campus. Batons from all directions. Strip searches and held overnight because of so called lewd behaviour. I heard it from a friend and I had to get there. Alex had helped me survive the streets when I was a kid but I hadn’t seen him in a year. I could hear them crying out blocks away. I arrived late into the crowd and immersed myself quickly in it.
There was nothing like being a part of a group of people gathered for a cause. For an outsider it might be frightening but for me it was like many bodies breathing at once. They began to sway back and forth, standing with their banners and their signs. They assembled in front of the Victorian style building, the cops formed a line between the protestors and the doors. Black uniforms, sunglasses, hands on their batons. Five cop cars sat in various points along the street. For a moment there was nothing but the voice that spoke above all the others. Police say that they serve and protect us! How can we feel safe to raise our children in a world where a group of queer people cannot gather without police brutality! They need to pay for what they did! Blurred into one, the people around me spoke with the voice, We want safe streets! We want them now! They pushed from all directions and the yelling became so confused. I couldn’t see anything over the people around me, and then I was down, struggling over fallen bodies. Then the gas came and there was nothing else for people to do but scatter. One part of the gas stings yours eyes and one stings your throat, so you can’t scream.

I tried to run. I heard his heavy boots pounding on the pavement behind me. He was so far away and then he was right up against me, pushing my face into the wall. Once, twice, three times and my nose was flooding, an eye hidden beneath swollen flesh. One of my teeth is loose in my mouth. I swallow blood and it makes me gag.
I try to scream but I am just choking on blood and my voice is broken. He snakes one hand around my neck and I feel my wind pipe collapsing. His other hand holds my wrists. I couldn’t see his face, but his hand was red with cold and callused, stained yellow where he held his cigarette. Larger than any I had ever seen, a wedding ring on his hand. There’s only a pulsating in my head, the pain slowed down my mind. As I try to twist myself free from his grasp, he squeezed tighter. My lungs were empty. All that’s there are those weird patterns that you see when you rub your eyes too hard. Spirals and black spots, and a moment of freedom as the pain brought me back to nothing. The moment when you slip and start falling. But I wasn’t falling, my body was flat against brick.
He leaned his clean shaven face in close to my bloody cheek. Old coffee and stale cigarettes. He laughed quietly in my ear. It was like a sound I had heard only once before in my life. It resonated in my mind from the time I had caught my brother torturing a small lizard. He was ten years old and I was five. He had been laughing, stabbing it over and over as I watched. He threatened to kill me if I told mother. But I told her when she found me crying, and she didn’t believe me. She called me a lying little bitch and dislocated my shoulder when she tried to drag me back to the house.
I imagined that the cop had the same look in his eye as he fumbled with his belt. Enough room to breathe, but not to scream. How do you like that, darlin’? The best thing you ever had! At that moment, I knew he was going to rape me if nothing stopped him. I became rigid and tried to get my teeth into his arm. Stay still you fucking little cunt! His tongue curled against the back of his front teeth. He clicked his jaws together twice, making the sound before licking my cheek. I twist my body from right to left with all my strength. I couldn’t let this happen again. My mouth was full of blood. It’s all inside me.
Someone yelled at him the end of the alleyway, distracting him for a moment and I was able to get myself free enough to turn myself around to face him. His arm was still around me, but my teeth were in his cheek, biting down hard. And then there was more blood and it wasn’t mine. I let go and pushed him with all I had, and he’s on the ground, holding his own dick in his bloody hands. He screamed for his partner, who was still at the opening of the alley. Looking into his fierce dark eyes for a moment, I hear my brother’s perverse laughter again in my head. Struggling on the sidewalk, he’s screaming and swearing at me. I take my foot and I kick him hard in the ribs, ripping his badge off his shirt. He is crumpled and I am running.
There is no sound. Cold wind rushing past my ears. I feel the blood crust on my skin as it freezes and cakes away. I had never really been a child. I had always been a woman.

The wedding band on his finger left its mark. I’ll never be able to take it off.
I can’t get it out of my head. The image of his hand open, pressed up against the brick wall. They were the biggest hands I had ever seen. He was behind me. His breath on my neck, on my cheek, the acrid scent of him. His hard body pressed up against me. Nothing would ever get that image out of my head.
I awaken to screaming sounding far off in the distance. But as my eyes open, I see the banshee standing in the bedroom. She is me and I have no face. The blankets hold me tightly and slither around me – I’m waist deep, struggling through a swamp, and then I’m falling down. Gasping, with a mouthful of mud. My arms fight to find solid ground and suddenly, I am flat on my back, soaked in acrid sweat. They carved me out, inside out.

The bloody badge was brought to the police station. The cop was in the hospital with minor injuries and he would never work again, or so they told me. Court date set for months from that day, and I would be there as long as it took. They took pictures of all my wounds, my bruised rib cage as I held my breasts in my hands. They documented ever bruise and every cut and I asked for copies of it all. And as I put my clothes back on, they told me how he would pay for what he did. But I wasn’t sure if I believed them. Lies are easy, I told the woman who helped me get dressed.
And then there I was, sticking my thumb out again. This time there was a heaviness that was weighing me down, something suffocating. It was breaking my bones. This time I told no lies. When the shitty Buick pulled up beside me and the window rolled down to reveal a middle aged man hiding behind yellow lenses. He asked where I was headed and I told him I was going home. He asked where that was, and I told him that I still had to find it. He shook his head and stared at my black eye as I hopped in the passenger side. There was not another word for the three hour trip.
I stared at the cover of the book that Patrick had given me. The picture confused me but made me want to open the cover. Lines of the body opening to lines on the page. Following them, I felt something was rocking me back and forth. I could feel the man’s eyes on my knees, and then my thighs, sweating in the heat. He kept the air off but the windows open.
His eyes didn’t matter. All that mattered was the words in this book and the pictures I had in my pack. Any newspaper would not hesitate to print my story. I would write it, because now, there was nothing that could hurt me.

2009-11-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

Last night I dreamt a child grew inside of me. It was that perfect time. That perfect time that had to be this time. It couldn't be next time or 5 years from now. It couldn't be at this exact time. When two things can come together so perfectly. Why couldn't it be never? My mind can only handle keeping one together.
And yet, it somehow had been made in this dream, and it grew ever so slowly. It was a thing growing inside, a living thing that if let survive would grow into something very similar to myself. It was made and it grew. It grew despite everything i did.
There were events that happened before and after these minutes of the dream. They were unremarkable and unmemorable. The part that is the most vivid was this thing growing inside me and all that it made me feel was the feeling you get when you click into a panic attack. That moment where your grip slips and you start falling. That moment when you know that if you didn't want to fall then you had to throw your other arm up and grab the edge. That moment when you realize that if you don't reach high enough, or if you aren't strong enough, then you will fall and you may never get back up. It is also when your mind settles itself in that moment when you realize that it might just be easier to let go. Asking yourself 'would it really be so bad?'
It was growing inside of me and no on knew. I knew. I knew even despite how early it was. It was growing and I wanted it out. I wanted to claw at myself, pound every muscle, every inch of myself to get it out of me. And there was fire inside me and I took herbs that said they would kill it. They carved me out, inside out. They dug every hole and cut every vein. breaking every bone as their roots spread from the bottom of my stomach. roots spreading, and my stomach was sliced open with a butcher knife. Every sensation that my body felt was pain.
It took so much that my throat was full of them. I swallowed handfuls, and I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, praying to a god that I knew never really existed to me in the first place. But somehow on this day, I prayed. I prayed harder than I had ever prayed before in my life. And I was paying to end a life. Some people would consider that wrong, I suppose. Or that that choice should never be placed in a woman's hands. And yet, I told no one. No one, not even him.
I asked no one what I should do, or what I shouldn't. I asked no one because I never even had to think about the answer. I knew as soon as I knew. I told no one, because I did not want anyone to feel responsible but myself. This was my action, and it would be my guilt if I ever felt it.
I had motherwort and black cohosh growing out from under my fingernails. My veins showed green under my translucent skin. And even more than before, I swallowed handfuls. I swallowed until I couldn't swallow anymore. My whole body felt dead. I felt like at any moment my body would turn to ash or soil, and that the only thing that would be left of me was a hybrid herbal abortive growing through the linoleum floor in my bathroom. Maybe in the kitchen. I brewed tea and steeped it for hours. I ground up the pills and snorted it. I cut up the herbs and smoked it.
The herbs were coming out of my very pores, and yet I did not bleed. I cried ginger tears. But I did not bleed. And there was that moment of panic that stretched the length of this dream, seeming to last forever. And it built up and grew taller, and it was all around me, and I still did not bleed. It was everywhere, it was choking me. Then I wake in my bed to darkness and cold sweat.
After laying in bed for a long while, trying to calm myself down, I finally give up and walk to the downstairs bathroom remembering that I have an extra pregnancy test under the sink from that last time.
There is silence despite the pounding in my ears as I pee on that simple white stick. How is it that a dream can affect the physical world so much? It couldn't shake the panic off. It gripped to my leg like a ravenous zombie wanting blood. Stripping off my clothes in almost a ceremonially fashion, I watch the panels turn purple and only show one line. I laugh to myself as it finally sinks in that it was all a dream. It was really a dream.
As I turn my back on the rather expensive piece of plastic, I reach for the plastic showed door and step in, closing it behind me. Then waters heating and all that there is left is steam rising and my mind asking, 'what the hell was that!?'

2009-10-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

My fingers move through the trees
they dance so quietly
on their strong soil feet
The air is damp out here
like sex
my chest heaving
Mist trickles my skin as his hands do
The porch looms over this ominous place
Tall strangers hang their heads
and shine down like halos
but behind this door and between sheets
beauty waits for me

the cars in the distance
pump through
the veins of this town
The city of heartbeats.

2009-08-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

we follow at his feet
girls offer up their arms to you
to be broken
their jaws dislocated
lips sewn shut and blinded eyes
you tie them down and stretch them out
a machine pulling each limb at once
eating bones for breakfast
building thrones out of skulls
each closet holds a cage
and he'll never let you out
shooting up on tears
addicted to the salt of our bodies
we follow at his feet

2009-07-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

There's something in the way your words come out at me. They dance and twist and shout, all the time shouting even while you're whispering.

2009-07-18T21:07:00.001-07:00

I feel the teeth again. They're gnawing and imminent. Scraping against each other and wetting their appetite. Ready for the blood to cover them, they scream for it.
Are you the beast again? Crawling inside in the emptiness that was left. Is it the way you like it? Filled with soaked and heavy thoughts, weighted down and tethered.
I need to cut it out. Cut it in self-defense. Cancerous. There's no room inside but it finds a way to slither in and
Are you the best again? I won't survive this time. My bones are so hollow and my blood is thin. the red is faded. A machine to breathe and bleed. This is the city of spare parts. Piled up, overflowing. But they never fit and they never cover the dead patches.

2009-05-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

I am crumpled
wrinkled like paper

2009-05-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

A Night’s Story

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Story took a drag from her cigarette. She had rolled it herself in the dark, so it was close to burned faster than it should have in her hands. Still, she inhaled the poison fiercely, holding its body as softly as she could not to crush it.
She sat there naked, wearing only the sweat of the girl sleeping under the sheets behind her. Story tried to avoid moving, the last thing she wanted was to wake her. She avoided looking over her shoulder towards the skin that shone slightly in the red light from the alarm clock on the nightstand.
Instead, she examined the flesh on her arms, her palms, the length of her fingers and of her legs, and the goose bumps that had risen all over her body from the breeze that crawled in through the open window. How similar it felt to cold fingers caressing her skin, writing poetry on her limbs, leaving their mark.
She thought about how her feet felt against the hard wood floor, how the skin of her thighs felt against the cool satin sheets. How the smoke rose like snakes from the end of her cigarette, how the paper of it felt against her dry lips, how the smoke slowly filled her mouth, then travelled down her throat and into her lungs, strangely soothing her. How different it felt when she inhaled it slowly, how much more satisfying it felt.
She listened to the muted music that drifted in from the street below. She wondered which of the many bars and strip clubs along the street it was coming from. Usually, she could tell by the direction it came from, but couldn’t tonight. If she knew what time it was then she could probably figure it out. She knew these places well. It was very late or maybe really early, and many of them had different closing times. But, she resisted looking towards the clock. That would mean looking behind her towards the sleeping body on her bed.
She wanted to escape but her apartment was only one small room that held merely her bed, a bookshelf overflowing with books of poetry and prose, and notebooks full of babbling, a beat-up desk under the one window and a sink in one corner. If she wanted to use a toilet or to shower, she had to use the communal bathroom down the hall. Her kitchen was nothing more than a small table with a hotplate and old dented kettle.
She tried to keep looking at her feet, tried to concentrate on extending her long toes and curling them back up again. She watched the veins pulse, disappear and then pulse again, on the sensation of the tendons tightening and letting go on her demand. Her cigarette had smoldered down to the end and had burned her fingers slightly, but she barely noticed.
All she wanted to do right now was keep her mind off that body in her bed. All it had been was another drunken night where she had thought that this girl was someone that she could love and that would love her back. But as soon as they lay together in exhaustion afterwards, as soon as this girl started to fall asleep next to her, Story knew she had been wrong. This was a feeling that had become as familiar as breathing.
She didn’t want to think about how long this cycle had lasted for her, how long it seemed to tease her with a pretty face and pretty words. She didn’t want to think about how many times she had thought this would all be over with and that she had finally found someone that she could wake up next too every day and stay.
She had really thought this girl was the one that would end this, or else she would not have brought her back to her apartment. Usually, she went back to their place, just in case it turned sour. Then she could just get up and leave if she needed to. But tonight had been different. Tonight, she had seen this girl dancing above her, and she could barely breathe.
She had looked up at this beauty and watched her dance for hours. Watched her hips move like the ocean, and her eyes shine like pearls. How she craved to dance all night under the sheets with this girl. So, Story brought her back to her apartment and undressed her slowly, taking her time with this one. Oh, this girl had been beautiful. Definitely the prettiest thing Story had ever seen. She must have been new at the club, she was still unbroken by the job and still had hope in her eyes.
But this beauty that had made Story scream in pleasure a few hours ago, now looked like a hideous monster curled up in her sheets, overtaking her bed. And she didn’t want to wake the slumbering beast. This is how it always happened. She would meet a beautiful man or woman, and then she would become drunk on infatuation. And after they spent the night together, she only then saw what was beneath the surface. She saw the ugliness that was within them, the horrible people they were or would become. The lies they had told and the people they had betrayed. She would see every sin that they had committed or had yet to commit, written on their skin like novels.
This scared her to death and the more she tried to fight it, the more afraid she became. It had forced her to pack up and leave places that she had grown to love, forced her to run, forcing her into a life alone.
She had been doing this for almost a year. A year without anyone, without anything more than acquaintances and coworkers. A year without love, but also free of any heartbreak. It had been hard but she had gotten used to it. She had become used to the nights alone, either engulfed in the folds of a book or streaming out lines of poetry. Everything she felt, she wrote it out on paper. It was as if it all wasn’t even real until she got it out onto the page. That’s really the only thing she had to show for her life, notebooks and notebooks of writing stacked on bookshelves. And she never left a place without them.
The year alone had been worth it. It was a year without seeing that ugliness, but only seeing the masks that people put on when they wake up in the morning. It was lonely but she had been doing fine, until last night when she met this girl. She wouldn’t give Story her name, and that had bothered her earlier, but not now. Now, she only wanted this beast to sleep quietly and not have to face her in the morning.
A year had passed since that day where she had turned and walked away from that life of endless searching. She had grown too tired to search anymore and all that mattered to her now was living day to day.
Her fingers ached for her guitar as they always did late at night. But she hadn’t touched those strings once in that long year. Although, she did still travel with it when she moved place to place, but once she had settled somewhere it always just sat in its case quietly. She loved that guitar. She hated that guitar.
Because it was those strings and the songs she sang on them that often brought false lovers to her. They always turned out the same. They kneeled at her feet and praised her fingers and her voice. Then they praised her lips and her body. They claimed to love her, but that never lasted until morning. Sometimes, Story thought it was magic that she weaved with her strings. Love spells and guitar strings.
She tried to stop her mind from rambling along that path, it just made her feel more exhausted with everything. So she tuned herself back into the feeling of her toes curling, the arches of her feet, how the skin changes slightly as you continue up the leg. That shift at the end of her foot and beginning of her leg. The shimmer of the soft blonde hair in the moonlight coming in from the window. Legs stretching out, knees tightening, thigh muscles tensing; the relief of it after hours in bed. She followed the curves of her legs upwards. She had never noticed how long they actually were, but sitting here now, having them stretched out in front of her, the rest of her body felt very small. She imagined that her legs were tree trunks, sprouting roots and breaking into the floor boards, searching for soil to plant themselves in. She imagined them working themselves down through the floor and through the levels below her, trapping people and furniture in their grasps, working until they found the center of the earth. This made Story smile slightly, but in a moment the image was gone and her legs were pale skin again.
So she continued following the curves of her body up. She traced her hips with her fingers; she didn’t remember them being so obtrusive. Her concave stomach, the paleness of it, the soft fine hair of it, the movement of it in and out with the movement of her breathing. She had always wondered why the stomach moved when someone breathed. What did it gain from the motion? Her hands ran themselves over her ribs. Wondering how they contracted and expended like they did, how they could be broken open and pulled apart, just to be folded back together again. Her breasts were small still, nipples hard in the chill of the room. It was strange how they had never felt like a part of her body, only like something hanging on for the ride. The bones showing slightly in between that had only begun to show themselves recently. Story took a deep breathe, inhaling as much air as she could hold in her lungs, holding it for a moment and then exhaling slowly, almost dizzy from the oxygen. The movement of her shoulders forward and back. It felt good to stretch the muscles. Her shoulders were always so tense. Scrunching them up and pushing them down, rolling them in circles. Then the length of her arms, shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist, wrist to knuckles, the length of her fingers. She still had scars from that time when she used to carve her anger into her skin. But they had faded to barely nothing now. Only she knew where to find them. She finally stood from the bed and placed herself in the middle of the floor. Her body looked different this way. She closed her eyes for a moment, simply breathing in and out.
The body on the bed behind her shifted and made a quiet groaning sound. Story barely noticed when it got up out of bed and made an excuse that it had to leave. It scrambled in the darkness to find its clothes, getting dressed quickly and walking past Story. She bumped into her shoulder and walked out the door without even looking back at her. Story inhaled deeply and sat down at her desk. Turning the lamp on, she opened her notebook and began to write.

2009-03-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

The red walls sweat with our heat
and my hands tremble as I brush the hair out of your eyes
the ceiling is moving with us
there is teeth behind those lips
those lips I love to kiss
so you hide them tightly
until they are sharpened and ready to bite

Oh my lover, don't you know its alright
give me your troubles and I'll keep them with mine
there's no time for this
we've been stuck here for a thousand years
under sheets and between skin
I'm not running, I'm not scared
take me with you

2009-03-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

I want to be a gun held to your head
and the bullet in the barrel
I want to be a gun held to your head
and not be in love with you.
I want to feel strong and unbreakable
I want to be a gun that holds you hostage
the thing that makes you pray to god
the kind that never knew a lie
pregnant and swelling, with bullets bursting
and never failing
hold me close and I might protect you
leave me behind and I'll hunt you down

I want to be a gun held to your head,
nothing fancy,
something small, black and sleek
tucked in a holster under the arm
or a rifle, two shots, that's all you got
cocked right up against the shoulder
maybe polished silver, something western
like right out of a movie
held close on the belt
a gun whose barrels dance and will make your mouth overflow
with truth and cries like lullabies
your tears will wash away the dirt on your face
and the blood on your hands
and the cold metal pressed against your forehead
right between those blue eyes of yours
and they will have nothing more to hide

People have so many languages and so many words
This gun I want to be has only one
She doesn't speak in like your tongue
She doesn't falter
She doesn't let people walk all over her
Safe in her holster and warm in her sock drawer
this weapon will be my voice
my poetry will be written in your blood
and she is always loved by
only these -
the fingers that pull her trigger

2009-03-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

We've been trapped here for a thousand years
in these walls and behind these doors

2009-03-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

I want to be a gun held to your head
and the bullet in the barrel
I want to be a gun held to your head
and not be in love with you.
I want to feel strong and unbreakable
I want to be a gun that holds you hostage
the thing that makes you pray to god
the kind that never knew a lie
pregnant and swelling, with bullets bursting
and never failing
hold me close and I might protect you
leave me behind and I'll hunt you down

I want to be a gun held to your head,
nothing fancy,
something small, black and sleek
tucked in a holster under the arm
or a rifle, two shots, that's all you got
cocked right up against the shoulder
maybe polished silver, something western
like right out of a movie
held close on the belt
a gun whose barrels dance and will make your mouth overflow
with truth and cries like lullabies
your tears will wash away the dirt on your face
and the blood on your hands
and the cold metal pressed against your forehead
right between those blue eyes of yours
and they will have nothing more to hide

People have so many languages and so many words
This gun I want to be has only one
She doesn't speak in your language
She doesn't falter
She doesn't let people walk all over her
Safe in her holster and warm in her sock drawer
this weapon will be my voice
my poetry will be written in your blood
and she is always loved by
only these -
the fingers that pull her trigger

2009-02-21T23:42:00.000-08:00

At what point in life does an identity form itself in the mind?
When does a child develop and acknowledge its gender apart from its sex

Too young and already growing old, though, barely lived
while fighting to survive and struggling to be seen

Being born inside someone else's body, like a stranger in her skin
she always knew what she was made to be

A baby trapped in the colour blue and under the title of 'boy'
A child wearing dresses and playing with barbies

taunted by those who couldn't understand
so many doctors and too little believing

Age 12 - faced puberty as a boy but began to take hormones
little pills swallowed each day, a small amount of boy taken away

Youngest person to ever undergo hormone treatment
but still unable to do things many girls do without a second thought

wearing short skirts, bathing suits or tight pants
Born Tim but was always Kim

Age 16 - sexual reassignment surgery performed in secret
and covered by the German Health Services

At last in a body that's hers
her inside matching her outside

But will she ever be able to bury her past
like so many of us wish we can.

Being seen for who she is
and never for what she should have been.

2009-02-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

The mirror on top of my dresser
stares at me with disapproving eyes
angry eyes and I can't hide
they see it all and yet stay strangely silent
photographic memory,
creasing my corners
and judging me swiftly

age spots and brightness fading
vision failing, reflections distorted
but still standing strong

always stronger than me
with its wooden stage and armour
I am it's main player
searching deep for something I'll never find in its eyes
finding only myself staring back at me

covered in love
and reflecting truth in two dimensions
like watching a movie without sound
its ear's never hear, only listen

I speak to it sometimes
but nothing answers
it is deeper than I could ever imagine
but only as thick as my finger
would it falter if I reached into this pool
would I find lost memories
and pieces of myself that have been lost
would it finally speak to me
and tell me the purpose of it all

instead I want to break its every bone
and scatter the pieces
I don't like what it shows me

how it watches me and taunts me

with never opening its lips
maybe I should dig through it
with my bloody hands
maybe there I'll find my answers

2009-02-10T17:24:00.001-08:00

You have crawled your way out of my chest
and now you just sit there staring at me
with those lovely eyes

2009-02-08T21:25:00.000-08:00

When I stop caring what you think I shall be gloriously happy
I will wear leg warmers all year round, even when the weather's hot
I shall never look in a mirror again and even forget what I look like
or at least what I look like through your eyes
I shall live in a van with a mattress in the back
and books stacked to the ceiling
traveling wherever I have the urge to go
with my heart tattooed on my sleeve
coloured vibrantly and ironically whole
with my skin covered in beautiful verses
that remind me of my strength

I can stop caring what you think and I shall be free
of expectations perched on my shoulders like vultures
and the knots in my stomach left over from you tying me up tightly
be free from your grip felt in every muscle

But now we must have clothes that keep us warm
and hold our tears in until we are behind closed doors
and appear to be fully together even while falling apart
We must not mask our emotions and push them down deep

But maybe I ought to express these things instead of ignoring them?
So people who know me can see my strength and not be too surprised
when I break down and cry

________________________________

Pass me that pencil you have in your hand
let me write of your beauty between these lines
of the butterflies that escape my mouth
every time I try to speak to you
I will write praise to you over there by the window
as I try to gather courage like boulders in my stomach
Praise to these paths that have brought us to this place simultaneously
of the broken heart I know you'll give me and the
teeth marks on my fragile frame. Of that slowly stretching smile
that melts me quickly. Of those lovely eyes of yours that pull me in deep
and of your voice whispering sweet lies into the curve of my neck

Of the plane you caught to be with her again
of the months you went without speaking to me and the drunken messages
sent in the middle of the night while words flowed freely like bricks
forcing them up and out onto the pages
clearing out space for more to grow and fester
Of the day you came back to me and made your way
under my skin again. Of this naive girl with an abandonment complex
wanting to believe every beautiful word you spoke
and trusting you too quickly
of the broken hearts that are hard to find under your feet
and that follow you like the trail from your cigarette

_____________________________________________

Pass the microphone, let me speak out the praises
to George Bush and his love for kittens, guns and meaningless war,
to the God of Americans that doesn't believe
in gay marriage or in allowing women to have freedom
over their own bodies, that anyone who has alternative beliefs will go
straight to hell, to the ones who support the war in Iraq and send their sons and daughters
to fight for peace when really they are killing over something called oil.
To those that live in their million dollar mansions and drive million dollar cars,
when people are freezing in the street, starving and dying. To the ones that walk past
and don't even take a second glance at the homeless youth outside your office building.

to the President of the United States, the first African American president,
To those that stand against what is dictated to them, to those who stand above

2009-02-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

That night, slowly,
heated, sweat
very quietly

He walked away
from me that morning
and I never saw his face again

I am coated thickly
this film stinks of him
its deep down in every pore

My hands scrubbing
skin raw and sore
each new layer

reminds me of him
even more than the last
so I scrub even harder

No one even notices
hiding under layers
black and heavy like shadows

I am blind
to every sight but him
and can speak no other name

Starving to be clean
washing my insides delicate
I skrink myself to be free

He haunts me and taunts me
Hard fists try to beat him out
we are never strong enough

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible

Broken and Chewed up
In spite of ourselves
we are left to mend

the eyelids of the blind you leave behind
I broke my first breathe
even before I touched you

2009-02-06T23:04:00.001-08:00

the world is full of savage dogs that eat the bodies in the streets
and fires that never go out

2009-02-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

Your words come tumbling across the bedsheets
caressing me like they were your hands
they taste sweet in my mouth
and warm on my skin
are they tools trickery
or honest like walking

my womb feels rotten still
from the last time you left me
the patience is daunting
when you are waiting for someone you love
to come back to you
shackles for bones
trying to escape you
but still falling asleep every night
and crying tears the never dried

A Heartbreak unlike the others

2009-01-23T23:33:00.001-08:00

I am falling apart and I'm falling into pieces They come off like skin peeling after a sun burn, like teeth falling out into the sink and down the drain.
I am walking in a sand storm, and the wind is sand paper and the ground is sinking. My eyes have been out of my head for so long that they've got a mind of their own and say I should follow them. But all they do is lead me into brick walls and down alleyways They tell me that they will lead me somewhere safe, but all they do is trick me with their visions and laugh.
Everything is hanging on nooses around me, swinging like the china dolls I hated when I was a kid. They all stare at me with their glassy eyes and smile with those frozen lips. I am scratching at the memory of you on my skin but the blood rising just makes me feel warm, like I was in your arms again. Your words hit me like bullets and break me down again even after all this time. I let you in again and you'll be the death of me. I can see my heart laid out in front of me, and it beats and beats and beats, but it is strange to me. More like a ticking clock like a ticking bomb it cries out to me still and calls out for me to take it up in my arms and hold it like a child, and hold it tight until it stops ticking and weeping ticking and weeping. My insides are hanging out of my body and no matter how hard I try to gather them up, they keep slipping through my fingers and falling onto the dirty floor that's covered in bugs that want to eat me inside out and leave me empty They want to take all of me and put it into themselves and then dig holes into the ground where they can curl up and die. You told me about love, and I want to shove it back in your face you told me to trust you and i want to cut your heart out You don't seem real at all I want you here and I want you now but you are never here and you are never now You are scum and I just want to hit you as hard as I can FUCK YOU AND YOUR BEAUTIFUL FACE I want to smash your face and make you less beautiful for the next girl you break I want to see the pavement painted with you with you with all of you You told me to let you love me and I did and now I am broken and you are silent and I am crying and you will never leave me alone and I am falling apart and you are silent still and I am broken down onto my knees
I opened my chest for you and let you touch me but now you have filled my world with lies and tears that never dry You left me with nothing and I'm staring at the ceiling You left me with nothing and I wish you were nothing I wish I could make you not matter and I wish that my skin would scrap clean of you and (my heart would burn away every last fragment of you) and I wish you were here next to me and I wish I will never see you again I can't keep you down in me anymore You are like a drug something rotten something sweet like drinking draino with a glass of wine Tell me you love me and maybe I will be able to sleep tonight Tell me you love me and maybe I won't swallow those pills Tell me you love me and where the fuck are you Tell me you love me and go to hell Tell me you love me and then I can finally kill you and bury you in my backyard Tell me you love me and everything will be alright

2009-01-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

It's in there deep
and holding tight
you swallow it hard
and push it down
But the truth
always finds a way
out of your mouth

I am broken again
broken down unto my knees
you loved me then left me
then came back again
and now the silence is killing me
I scream and scream
but your ears are closed
your mouth is too
you've sewn it shut and
cut off your ears
but not before you whispered
those beautiful lies again and again

2009-01-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

Now lift your head
from that page
and see my broken walls
built so high and so thick
with bricks and blood

I stand here
naked before you
striped of strength
I have been skinned many times
by cruel and wicked hands
that whispered beautiful lies
and grabbed my strings
like they aimed to be my masters

My body is nothing but scars
and bloody gashes
but blood grows cold quickly
and scars carve out their places
and mean to stay
even after they are healed

Tears stain like tattoos
and I can't wash them off
I wonder if people can see my scars
through the layers
can they read it on my face

My bare hands bleed
while I rebuild my walls
so quietly
you won't even hear
____________________________

You tell me that I am strong
and so that is what I am
My bones have grown to be like steel
welded together by fire
sand paper for skin
don't touch me or you'll bleed

I sit here before you
only to mend my wounds
stitches and alcohol
stitches pulling together wounds
alcohol to disinfect
alcohol to numb
blood dries quickly
and washes away
Bruises raise the skin
changing colour
these are the colours of my rainbow
these are the colours of my world
broken bones
bruised knuckles
My closet is full or spare parts
special order
but nothing to special
I keep the place in business

Wounded hearts encaged like a bird
say a prayer for this heart
while I put myself back together
I don't have the time

Baby, don't worry about me
I can take care of myself

2009-01-12T22:40:00.000-08:00

Fuck you and you're beautiful face
you had my heart before
but cut it out
like from a piece of paper
your scissors were dull and jagged
you tore off my arms
one at a time
and tossed them onto the curb with the rest of the garbage
my eyes you plucked out of the sockets
like cherries from a tree
did they taste good to you
were they sweet like spring
my lips you sliced neatly
like a piece of steak
raw and still bloody
you carved away my face
with precision
but with no anaesthetic
and now I am lost
in a world
where broken hearts
hang from tree branches
and grow out of the ground like flowers
but new ones can never be found

2009-01-10T21:40:00.001-08:00

I think of you smiling
and staring right though me
empty eyes through transparent skin
empty souls and transparent hearts

I let you through my door
and place your hands in the wet cement of my skin
this was my chance to start over
brush off my clothes
and walk on with my head reattached to my shoulders
and my eyes clear of blindness
but I am down on my knees again
begging you not to break my heart

Your hands touch me
and your kisses burn holes in my skin
Every morning that I wake up beside you
makes my heart sink deeper in my chest
and then fall out of my body
and fly around in the air
chasing a heart is harder than it looks

My mother once told me
that if I wanted something
I should fight for it
but I am so tried of fighting
why can't things just fall back into place

My skin is slippery and wet
could you grab hold of me
even if you tried
here there is an aching in my chest
you have broken me all the way down
all the way down on my knees

I wish I could tuck you away under the bed
in a nice little box with your picture on the top
like all those other boys
_____________________________________________

My hands are tied behind my back with something that will never break and never loosen.
All I'm doing is trying to stay warm and someone keeps opening the door. The door I hide all those things behind that I don't want to face. But someone keeps opening the door and all those things keep seeping out. Skeletons with flesh still rotting, with the wind blowing furiously through their lungs and their hearts beating on nothing but dust. Some of the bodies still bloody and some not bloody at all, but covered in dirt. The dirt that I threw on top of them after I buried them in too shallow graves. I should have dug deeper. I should have dug deeper and I should have cut off their heads to make sure they were dead. All there is is dirt between us and I can't make us clean. Dirt and our bodies moving and trying to keep warm but you're arms are cold. Then you leave me here lying here and you speak to me with whispers and with knives. You speak to me without words. Somewhere there is a camera that keeps taking pictures of us, of me, it's flash blinding me in this dark place, leaving spots on my eyes. That noise it makes is so much louder than your voice and I want to scream. Let me scream. The door keeps opening with the wind and creaking and creaking. My voice doesn't work, my mouth is full of dust and I can't breathe. Somehow the ones from behind that door find me in he dark. They feel around the floor with their bone hands until they touch my skin, then they grab hold of me. I struggle with no strength and scream with no voice until they drag me away and bury me deeper than I ever buried them, deeper than I could ever dig myself out of.

2009-01-09T12:58:00.001-08:00

I hope you find what you're looking for,
in that world you've never known before

2008-12-26T22:54:00.000-08:00

Words are something lost in the fire
collected weekly like trash
cursed like the constant rain
this word's for you
but will you listen
show me your ears
and open them wide

lovers forgotten
feathers float and brush your skin
stones are always loud
this word's for you
but do you even see me
we are strangers to our bodies
they are mere vessels
mechanical monopoly
we are not made of stone
but made of skin and bone

You have wings on your back
but do you remember how to fly
the city has made you grow cold
this jailhouse is sinking deeper
our hearts are devising plans
to escape this prison
and go back home
with or without us

These words are for you
but they fade like photographs
you are blindfolded, colorblind
the pages of my mind are falling out
you found me but forgotten where I came from
I have scissor arms
a dampened smile
your ears are dead
but my voice lives on

You said you found me
noose around my neck
what a mess I've made
the more I leave the less I lose
How can I lose you if I never let you in at all
You have wings on your back
and so do I
but we are as different
as feathers and stones

These words are for you
entangled with soft music
I hum as I watch you sleep
and you dream of a world without war
these words are for you
I will write them all over the walls
You found me
now don't let go

2008-12-10T00:13:00.001-08:00

Seams ripping bursting tearing
can't hold it in like before
flash flood I'm drowning in something like water
blood red open wound stinging skin broken
glass shattering into a million pieces
feet full of glass grass turns red
I will never fit back together
gunfire without a sound
everything in slow motion
bones breaking underneath me
skin crawling off of me
no matter how tight I hold it
it won't stay on
my head is hidden in so many places
screaming cars running over me
people beating me with baseball bats
I'm broken and bloody
Panicked like there's a knife to my throat
Hold Steady or it might cut you
is that my hand holding the blade
Russian Roulette like putting on makeup
like brushing my teeth
it been here so long
I can't remember what its like without it

I can see it all in front of me
just out of reach
but my hands are gnarled and can't grab hold
No matter how many hours I try to gather all the pieces,
I can never find them all
I try to stick them together with my tears
I cut myself and use the blood
but then everything is red and wet
my life all over the pavement
my heart under someone's heel
my mind under the wheel of a car
its all falling apart
I try to gather the red in my hands
and put it back inside
its no use at all

the skeletons broke down the closet door
and are clawing their way to the surface
their graves were so deep but more shallow than I thought
hearts still beating in their chests
beating on nothing but bone
I rip their hearts from their chests
they turn to soil in my hands
where has all the blood gone
not in me, not in them
yet they keep crawling and clawing
but somehow its me with the bloody hands and the dirt under my nails
the dust in my lungs and the aching for air
the cold is killing me
like fire but something so much worse

Seams that have spent years in the making
ripping like blood soaked paper
tell me I will get through this
tell me that it will be okay
words are like stones
they always fall to the bottom of the pond
I have stones in my stomach
stones instead of eyes
stones up inside
hoping they'll make me sink

2008-12-09T19:37:00.001-08:00

Slow and way too fast
quiet and so fucking loud
I want to grab you and kiss you
slowly
and harder than ever before
the clock is ticking away
and only stops when I hold you

You say go slow,
I tell you to trust me
shut up and sit back for the ride
take my hand and follow

hearts beat faster than seconds
we're wasting more time now
shut up and let me kiss you
lean back and let me guide you

I'm moving too slow and you can't see me
speed it up and catch me
keep on going
we'll die if we stop kissing
the blood will stop pumping
the drug slows
the cold will get us

Don't tell me to be quiet
I'll scream and moan
just let me lead you
you won't lose your way
not while I've got your hand

2008-12-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

I feel like I am stuck here and that everyone is leaving me behind. No matter how hard I try to walk forward, my feet are still stuck in the earth and will not budge.
Something is holding me here, but I don't know what it is. I think I might be waiting for him to come back to me, or maybe I am waiting for someone else to find me. But I know no one can find me here, I have to move. I have to move.

2008-11-15T23:53:00.000-08:00

A night under the sheets is never enough
sleep comes and washes all the dreams away
beneath the sheets is a whole other world
full of sweat and sighs
never ending skin
What is wrong with this thing between my legs
she never can decide
she never knows

I must never look the same in the morning
I write such pretty words
but they are never enough
to make me love myself
you tell me I'm beautiful
and not to let anyone tell me different
they're never enough
to make me love myself

I'm too sad to see what's right in front of me

My sheets smell of you for days
but I can't tell you what I want
I wish you made me shutter
made me shiver
and scream
made me feel clean again
like you used to
I don't think I am who you want me to be
and I want to cry
but I don't know what you are to me

I just write my words
but they never speak the truth
escaping into the page
the only one I'll let inside
are those words that never even tell me what I want to know
Is it you or is it me?
or is it nothing at all?

I don't know when
but I hope a day will come
that the wanting will be something closer
to holding

_____________________________________

I wish I could take my heart out of my chest
and read it like I do my words
hold it close and whisper to it
what is it that you want
what is it that you need
pleading please please
don't hide from me anymore

return, return to how you were before
you used to speak to me like music
and whisper softly in my ear
telling me what road to travel
and who's hand to take

But I shake you and shake you
yelling at the top of my lungs
what is wrong with you!
what is wrong with you!
this numbness is like torture
I am blinded by this silence
it is so loud that I am deaf to the world
walking with my head down
hanging from a noose
that tightens a little every day

I walk in circles around the room
there is no moon, and there are no stars
everything is grey and blurry
like an old silent movie

I told myself that I had mended
that the wounds on you had healed
but now I realize
that the feeling in scar tissue
is really very different
tell me please
how can I fix you
the stitches never seem to hold

Without you my voice is hollow
my wounds are gaping
they won't stop bleeding
I am a wasteland
without a heart in my chest
that believes in me
and tells me to never give up

And now I weep
without you with me
my chest is a cage
for a bird that used to sing
that now is silent and doesn't fly
and each night I say a prayer
for all those birds kept in cages
that they might mend their wings
and find their voices again

2008-11-12T22:05:00.000-08:00

I am frozen in place
amongst trees I do not know
and below a sky
that is unfamiliar

I am lost and stuck here
my heart is aching from too much breaking
my arms cry because they are empty
sometimes I think my arms are not really arms at all
but something closer to razors
or swords
I cannot hold you with my dangerous arms
and my heart has turned to stone
you will never get inside
I scare people away before I even speak
maybe my words are just as sharp
maybe they are disgusting and grotesque
ridiculous and worthless
these are the same as I am

when I look in the mirror
my skin is pale and smooth
but it must be something closer to sandpaper
or maybe there are thousands of pins sticking out from every pore
does it hurt you when I hold you close?
my eyes are not eyes at all
but deep boxes that you can never find your way out of
my lips are like wire cages
they will trap you and keep you hostage
my breasts must look like mountains
growing out from my ribs
treacherous mountains that you will never be able to climb
and that hole between these legs
is a deep volcano
erupting and killing all in its path

My legs must be like gnarled branches
curving and sprouting in every direction
like something from another world
what do I look like to you
am I something that makes you run in fear
or something that never even catches your eye
I must be something like a plague
that if you get too close you'll catch it

Keep your distance
here lies a weapon of mass destruction

2008-11-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

I reinvent myself with my pen
with brutal honestly
and beautiful lies
with fun house mirrors
and a magnifying glass

My arm is an extension of my heart
a limb growing out like a root
out of the broken pieces
my fingers pulse with every beat
my words flowing like blood
out my fingertips onto the page
and back up into my veins
for safe keeping

I reinvent myself with my pen
through foggy windows
searching in the dark
blurred vision
masks and disguises

I gouged my eyes out
and they'll never grow back
like they told me they would
all clean and new
I tried to rip out my heart
and show it to you on a page
but my ribs got in the way
they are strong like steel
from the last time I broke them apart
and they are sharp like knives

I am just a blank page
nothing will come
I can barely speak
and I can't say
come back please
You are gone
and now I'm lost

I cut my skin
to try to force the words to come
smear my blood all over
the empty page
and all over the walls
But before it came out as words
and now it is just red
stained and lying there

I try to open up my skull
to see what's wrong and fix it
I think it's something there
and not my heart
maybe they are broken together
which was broken first
It's just more blood all over the walls
and still no words
My darling, you must come save me
I will be yours forever
But I have no voice
and you have no hands to hold me

So just put my body in the ground
maybe then I will feel safe
with the earth all around me
and no more blood at all
So when we are parted
My darling, put my body in the ground
and there I will wait for you
come back to me

2008-11-04T17:09:00.000-08:00

You tell me what I should desire
cookie cut out boys
they all look the same
rock hard abs and steroid muscles
barbie doll bodies
that in real life can not stand
anorexic hips, body fat 0%
hawaii tans and blonde dye jobs

You tell me what I should desire
define to me
the strict definition
of what is beauty
You try to sell me this beauty in a bottle
what a woman should smell like
like flowers down there
what a woman should wear
to attract the opposite sex
fuller lips
thinner thighs
larger eyes
smaller stomachs
You would cut me with a razor if you could
to shape me the way you wanted me

Years of dehypnotizing
to develop my own desire
my own sense of beauty in the world
I will not let you have hold of me again
______________________________________

The mirror always shows her what she doesn't want to see
blemishes, redness, under-eye bags
she closes her eyes as she shakes her foundation
layers and layers of love me, love me, love me
The mirror shows a grey hair here, a grey hair there
she plucks ages out of her body
with creams and gels
Outline her eyes in kohl
black to hide the sadness
mascara to lengthen
Lips fuller, fuller, fuller
can never be full enough
more pouty, like Angelina's
Cheekbones sharp like razors
highlighted just right
to make them not so terrifying
Pale skin turned bronze
brown hair turned blond
Pink lips turned red
small breasts lifted and enhanced
stomach tucked and thighs thinned
high heels like dungeons
When she leaves her house
no one would ever guess
as to her face underneath
and the shame she hides it under
masks and masks that cover whole bodies
girls never being told that they are beautiful for who they are
never feel sexy in their own skin
who defines what beauty is
it should be you
it should be you
it should be you

2008-11-01T03:29:00.000-07:00

You hurt me so much without even saying a word
I feel unworthy. Desecrated. Insignificant.
I feel so unclean and shriveled. I feel drained.
I feel like an empty vessel, always cold. I feel dried out.
I feel bent and broken, starving and yearning.
I feel flat and hollow. I feel ugly. I feel worthless.
I feel spread thin and hard like metal.
I feel like my skin is peeling off my bones
and my blood is turning to sand in my veins
My insides are nothing more than machines
my heart an engine that keeps stalling
I am a car that won't start.
I am garbage sitting on the curb
I am a discarded lover, crying tears that never change anything.
I am never enough. I am never enough. I am never enough.
I am a cancer that invades everything.
A book that no one ever picks up to read.
A painting that no one ever buys.
The lonely girl sitting at the bar night after night
sleeping in an empty bed
living in an empty house
I am always the one looking in from far away
and never the one being held
I am nothing like I want to be
I am nothing that would make you love me
I am eyes that burn from the constant flow of tears
I am the lungs that cannot breathe
The heart that doesn't understand
The legs that do not walk
the arms that cannot hold you
the hands that never do anything right
I am the lips that cry out for you
trying so hard to not forget your taste
My voice is never the one that you want to hear
My skin is never soft enough
my kisses never sweet enough
My body is never like hers
I am always the one left behind
I am never the one.
I am never enough

2008-10-28T20:07:00.001-07:00

The blood on the walls doesn't look like mine
it's all over my hands
they will not come clean
I can taste it in my mouth
and down into my throat

It is the blood of those who have died for their country
believing that they could create change
It is the blood soaked in the soil
of those who came before us
and lost claim to their land
it is the blood of those sacrificed
the blood of the innocent who have died in the crossfire
those who have died in the name of peacekeeping
those who have been shot down
for fighting for their rights
those that die cold and hungry
without any place to lay their heads
The blood of those who have not had the voices to speak
out against injustice
oppressed and violated

The blood tastes bitter
but it gives me a voice
to speak for those who have been silenced
and to join together
with those voices
that aren't loud enough on their own

____________________________________

My skin is shattered
by your broken promises
and your beautiful lies

My roots are homeless
My arms are empty

2008-10-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

You broke down my walls
with kisses and whispers
with the heat of our bodies
and the sweet melody they made
together
It's alright, Love
you're in good hands

I'm between those walls again
they tower over me
as I call out your name
your ears are deaf to me
they open only for her
And I am left screaming
Hands bloodied
body starved
heart on the floor

2008-10-26T20:20:00.000-07:00

The young standing cold
standing up for their rights
huddling together
chanting another broken promise
making people see what they don't want to see
something that is right in front of their eyes
that they ignore

The uniforms shout
give us your women
give us your children
give us your dead
you will not come out of this alive

An army holding hands
lovers holding up their fists
children grown up too quickly
just asking for a place to lay their heads

Liars and cowards like you
you hold your weapons high
and ask for peace
don't you dare profess our cause to be futile
because when we stand together
we are stronger then you
we are strong
our voices matter
and you need to listen

2008-10-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

My head is flying around above me
the cage door has been opened
and may never be shut again
thoughts smashing against my skull
they shatter and are born again
breeding like rabid animals
they are hungry for flesh
spreading themselves throughout
eating what they can
digesting nothing
regurgitating and consuming again

I am left in pieces
shaking and shuttering
my heart lies in the corner
bloodied and surrendered
I am in pieces
but the laughter still feeds me
don't cry you fool
I'll smack you across the face
soak up the blood lost
and pull yourself back together

My head is bowed
chin stapled to chest
naive and questioning
don't cry you fool
you're holding your own shovel
the dirt is on your hands
Pick up your heart from the corner
it still has a place in your chest
just there
see it still fits

2008-10-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

My words in a jar
Protruding hips, skull and bones
ribs as sharp as blades
that cut my words into pieces

Lips and teeth
like death sentences
things you always remember in the morning
sucked into oblivion

Faces sculpted out of stone
those eyes that you'll never forget
that burn down deep into you
poetry carved into flesh

Children not yet born
floating in jars
grasping at my words
that aren't even there

I wish I could capture them
inside the glass and under the lip
but without paper they disappear into the air
fading like the smoke from your cigarette
merely echoes of voices
you're never sure you even heard

2008-08-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Your hands are like pitchforks, your thumbs skewers
They have gotten a hold of me and I cannot get free
they have scarred me, those hands of yours
and the wounds swell up and do not heal

I am alone in this love I have for you
it is like an empty room
and the light is burnt out
I am naked on the cold dirty floor
and you knock on the door every now and again
and screw in a new light-bulb.
but you always take it when you leave

So I am left to fester
and dwell in my delusions
waiting for the day when you'll come back to me
But what I need is to find the door
and escape out into the world
away from this prison
I will not be free until I am free of you

2008-08-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

His voice is like a lover
it slips quietly into bed with you, crawling under the covers
that warmth next to you, that solid body
His voice is like a caress
that gentle touch that stirs the insides and prickles the senses
His voice is like soft breath on your neck
warm and comforting, and quickens the heart
His voice is like a lover
speaking in whispers, licking its lips

2008-08-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Something is stirring inside me
a storm brewing
disease spreading
a warmth like fire
point of pleasure found
this banshee inside of me
will not let me sleep
screaming and screaming
your name in my ear

But my eyes are blind
and my lips cannot speak
they have been sewed and sealed
I have not known peace
since the day I saw your face
since the day you kissed my lips

I am Prometheus
except it is my heart
that is eaten
by vultures
every time you turn and walk away
growing back each night
that you whisper my name
How can you torment me so?

When I dreamed of love as a girl
I never imagined it would hurt so much
It is agony to be near you
I am in purgatory without you
knives and nails
gas poured on my skin
and cast aflame
Then it is like morphine
every time you touch me
with those hands
The withdrawal is killing me
like a drug you are
and you're killing me

2008-07-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

The warm water hits her like bullets
The steam caresses her skin until it grows rosy under their touch
The porcelain tub she sits in is the only place she has ever felt safe
She grips her legs closer to her body, leaning her head on her knees
The sound of the shower doesn't even phase her anymore
She imagines it's a thunderstorm all around her
and she loses track of her tears in the stream.

2008-07-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

I want to pack away my love for you
in a little box
and tuck it under the bed

All I remember is lips and kisses
I'm so tired of being chained to you like this

2008-07-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

I am naked like skin
and vulnerable like a child
Boy, you have made me sheer
Those eyes of yours are so haunting
they burn deep and smolder

The earth shifts and crashes around me
the ice is breaking apart and the sky is opening up
my feet are like sinking ships and they can't find solid ground
swords keep growing out of my bones
piercing through my skin and into the air
Be careful or I'll cut you
they are stained red with our blood
and will not wash clean
stained again and again

I wish my blood was acid
I wish it could eat away at the blades and let me hold you
I wish my skin was steel
and yours stone
to protect us from this pain

But it rains red like wine
and it burns my eyes and I cannot see
Buildings are collapsing and trees are bursting
out of the ground and up into the clouds
roads crumbling and floods of crimson
The world is falling apart and I can't even hold you

The dead come up out of their graves
climbing as the the earth shifts
laughing as they watch me
fumbling for a way out of this mess
I wish my skin was made of steel and yours of stone

2008-07-11T12:04:00.000-07:00

My bones grow out of this earth,
and you tell me it is not my home
With every step I take
my feet sink deeper into this soil
your eyes try to pull me back to you
your hands are greedy and look like knives

This ground beneath my feet is my past
it is stained into my soul
it calls to me loudly
and I cannot resist
This ground beneath my feet is my skin
green growing and flowers blooming
so damp with tears from the sky
that it feels like I will never dry out
This ground beneath my feet is my heart
if you dig deep enough you might find me there
Those trees that grow, they are mine
a part of me that was lost until now
like a limb that left me long ago
and is now trying to reattach itself

You smoke your cigarette
and smile at me that way you do
Maybe this place will help me
stop loving you
Maybe your voice will no longer stir me
This earth beneath my feet holds me
but you hang around
like a shadow on the wall
_________________________________
I want to leave this place
but I don't want to crawl
out of here
on my hands and knees

2008-06-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

How much do we lose when we lose someone?
Can it be weighed? Can it be measured?
How much do we gain when we meet someone?
Can it be categorized? Can it be labeled?
What is it that is lost? What is gained?
Is it something physical or something immaterial
What do I recieve when I look deep into your eyes
and feel that warmth in my stomach
What do I waste when I let you walk away from me
and don't call out your name
What do I achieve when I finally have enough courage to kiss you
and you kiss me back
What do I surrender when I cry over you for hours
and still have no answers
What is it that I gain from loving you, what do I lose
is one more than the other
who can say
only me
maybe me
never me

2008-06-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

There is nothing as free as these words
and nothing as confining as these lines
I was born with a pen in my hand
and you were born hiding behind a mask
But still, there is no one or nothing
as beautiful as you
My wings have become broken with loving you
and my fingers ache from all the words that pour out of me instead of tears
I am afraid you will never let me in
I am banging my fists against your chest
I am tearing my hair out
I speak with a ruined tongue
and you sit there with your shell hard and impenetrable
I have said all I can say
but you don't even raise your head
I fear I will drag you around with me
because I know you will hide under that armor
until I drag you out into the light

2008-06-07T23:04:00.000-07:00

I am broken by whispers
but you are like a brick wall
I speak my words and they hit you hard like bullets
you brush them away like an eyelash on my cheek
They hit you with truth that I have held in too long
but my words fall to the floor at your feet like bombs dropping
and every word I say is unbelievable
I tell you how beautiful you are
how I deeply I feel for you
and you look so sad
like that is not even possible
I wish you knew how beautiful you are

2008-05-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

I am naked as I stand before you
I am no more than blood and bone
no more than skin and smiles
I hold nothing back from you eyes
and I show you all there is to see
But will you accept what I am
or will you turn away from me
I am so afraid that you will walk away
but I'm not sure if you were every really here
______________________________________

I want to stretch my roots deep down into the earth and feel it shift around me. I want to feel the rain falling down against me and the wind blowing me gently this way and that. I want to reach my branches high and grow the most beautiful blossoms.
But I am nothing more than a seed sitting upon barren sand of a desert. The rain never falls to help me grow and the sun beats hard and shrivels my skin. My insides are dried out and they will not do what they are meant to do. Vultures circle round above me in the sky and the stale, humid air carries their cries like echoes.
And all I can think about is that maybe tomorrow it will rain. Maybe tomorrow I will be given a chance to grow.
_________________________________________

Boy, you have made me sheer. You have bound me with a chain and I am a slave to the sensation of your skin against mine. No matter how hard I scream, all you hear is silence and my pleading eyes. And to you they say, "Kiss me," "Touch me," "Love me." But inside they say why won't this love let me go.
_________________________________

I want to raise the dead to walk with me down these foreign streets
these streets that are haunted with the mistakes that I have made
and the things that I should have done
The store windows are arranged ever so carefully
with the skeletons of my past
and the moments I wish I could go back to
But the dead will hold my hands and walk with me
their head held high and smiles on their lips
they will show me that there is nothing to be afraid of
the past cannot hurt me anymore
They will help me walk past these windows and never look back
Only the dead beside me seem to realize that life is to be lived
it is too short and too narrow
to be always filled with regret
they show me this, that they do so easily
but for me it is like changing who I am inside

2008-05-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

Can you feel this? This feeling I have for you
that doesn't yet have a name.
Can you feel it as it melts off my bones?
As it falls down my cheeks,
as it leaves my pores
as it fills your lungs like nothing ever could
Can you feel this thing I cannot name?
Can you feel it as it closes the distance between us
and locks our eyes together in the dark
as it electrifies the air
Can you feel it? Can you feel it in your knees?
Can you feel it in your stomach,
like swallowed snakes
in your chest wrapped around your lungs
and in your mouth can you taste me?
Can you feel me on your skin in your mouth all over you
Can you feel me Can you feel this Can you really deny this

2008-05-13T21:43:00.000-07:00

Every morning I look at myself in the mirror and I don't like what I see. Empty eyes filled with rotten tears. Lips stitched shut, they've given up on words. A face so strange to me that nothing I do will ever make it familiar again.
So I smash the mirror every morning with my fist. Breaking it apart with blood and bone until I can find some fragment of myself in its pieces. But it always pulls itself back together and shows me a side of myself that I wish would stay buried.
____________________________________________

A melody repeats itself in my head but I can never remember the words. All I can see is you singing silence, dancing around in your nightgown. But no matter how hard I try I can't hear your words.
___________________________________________

I know what they want from me. They want me to tie it all up in a little box with a little bow on top and pretend it never happened. How can I pretend that I never stood at the gates of Hades, checking my watch, waiting for the gates to open. Pretend that I never forgot how to open my eyes, forgot how to use the muscles in my face, the ones you use to smile. How can I forget that I was six feet under on the inside for so long it felt like I had been born that way. How can I forget how it felt to claw myself out of that grave; soil in my throat, in my eyes, so deep it was in my heart. Clawing, digging and screaming dirt. My voice was worms crawling and my words were worms. And then one day, after digging in circles, I reached the surface again. And then my words were flowers again and my eyes were more than marbles, they saw colour and light. And the rain beat down on me so hard it felt like needles, but it scrapped my skin so clean that it was pure again. Do they really want me to forget about this, act like none of it ever happened because it makes people uncomfortable. Well fuck you, I dragged myself out of the earth and took breath again, opened my eyes and fought to stand on solid ground. And I will not forget that, because I want to be ready when it comes back to claim me.

2008-05-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

I would sacrifice my legs to stop feeling this pull that draws me to you like a vacuum - all there is is me and you and your eyes - and I can't force myself to look away
I would cut off my arms to hold you close again under sweaty sheets - nothing but candlelight, sighs and soft silence.
I would carve your name into my arm if it could work as a love spell that would bring you back to me and bind you to me so that you needed me as much as I need you - like a child needs its blanket
I would gouge out my eyes to have you look at me like you used to - your eyes blue like bruises and deep like I want you inside of me
I would punch walls if it would make you love me again - if the pain would make me forget you - I would do anything
__________________________________________________________

This is the last time I will let anyone under my skin
or into my head
No more chances, never again
my heart is going to shrivel up and decompose
I have ripped it out of my chest.
and placed something less trusting in it's place (inside)
No more chances, no more love
Never again will I let anyone have that kind of control over me,
like a remote control to my heart
____________________________________________________

I remember when I used to gaze at the stars and wonder what was behind them. I would think about something greater governing this whole thing we call a home. But now, for me, I feel like I know all that is behind those stars. I feel like I know every one of those lights that shine brightly for so long, and then die suddenly, without any warning. I know that you can't depend on those stars, because right when you need them, right when you need a constant in your life, they are nowhere in the sky. And the moon, sometimes she is full of love and ready to light your path through the dark, and then she is smirking down at you and laughing as you trip and fall, and lose your way.
And I feel like I know all that is to be found in this earth beneath my feet. I feel like I know every deep and dark hole that I could possibly fall into, and every grave I could be buried in. I know every ocean I could drown myself in and every ditch I could find myself stuck in. I know every road like the veins in my arm, and they all lead me back to a place I never want to be in again.
As I breathe deep and gaze up at the stars like I used to, I realize that I need to pave new roads for myself and find new stars. I need to make sure I have a shovel with me at all times, in case I need to dig myself out of my own grave again. I need to find a light more constant and a guide more willing. And I realize that there is nothing more dependable then myself.

2008-04-06T12:58:00.000-07:00

Everyone's watching while you cry your tears
and they all see a glimpse of your soul behind those eyes
reaching out as each on falls down you smooth cheek
Be careful not to show too much
or it might escape

2008-04-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

One night
eternity in an hour
I can still feel your hands on me
sweat and sweet senses
a memory but almost a dream
you're eyes haunt me and I don't know how to see
no matter how hard I fight for you
my fingers can't grasp you anymore

Woke up with beauty in my bed

2008-03-15T23:25:00.001-07:00

1.
Lying here in our world of satin sheets,
there is nothing outside of our door, only this.
I want to water your dreams like a field of flowers
but I am withering in the bone dry soil of this place without you.
Every breath I take of you, somehow reminds me of the scars carved deep in my skin.
Every time I touch you, I fear that maybe it was love that broke my heart before.
But every time I feel that quiver in my stomach, it is like I am finally waking up.

2.
You tell me the stories of your past
with your eyes downcast and your voice low.
Stories of your father coming to your bedroom at night
and shutting the door behind him.
You say that sometimes you feel his breath on your neck
and the pressure of his weight on you.
He says, "I love you so much son."
But I say let me shut your eyes to this mess.
Your body's broken and mine is bent.
Our histories have already been carved in the stone beneath our feet,
but tomorrow is a poem waiting to be written.

Your tears fall heavy and I tell you, that is what they are for.
Brush the diamonds from your eyes and place them gently under your pillow.
We will name them in the morning and give each a place on your wall.
We will sew them together and hang them like Christmas lights over our bed.

The blanket of sweat and smoke lies heavy over us
Speak to me of the dreams you never remember in the morning
I will mend your wings with my hair
working until my fingers bleed
so that you can fly again

3.
Tonight something inside of me is breaking
and I know it is the wall I have built up around me.
It is my heart expanding and letting you under my skin.
My heart is no longer glass, but something starving - craving you
I never thought the world would be this beautiful again,
after the darkness that was my armor.

I want to build you a fairy tale,
where the world is nothing like this one;
where our tears were never rivers
and our voices were always heard.
A world where you will never feel alone.
But that place is only in our dreams
and all we can do is here is fight to live these lives
that are often too hard to bear.
But if you let me, I'll make the long nights a little shorter,
and those moments under the sheets a little warmer.

Once we were both empty.
Our hearts had abandoned our flesh
but then you let me dance with you
and we woke something inside;
something that thought the world had turned to dust
and that our bodies had turned to stone.
And it awoke like a slumbering angel
and wrapped its wings around us.
It reminded us what it was like to burn,
what it was like to be born again.

Maybe we were each holding a part of the other, safe in our pockets.
Have you had that piece of me all this time?
I want to drown in you
I want to stain our mouths with love
I want to wake the music in our bones
Hold onto me tight, Love, or I might drift away.
The currents are strong around us and the water is cold.

4.
You can never cage a river, the dams can't hold forever.
We know these walls because it is we who built them and we who tore them down.
We know these roads because it was we who paved them and we who walked them.
I know your face because it has been in my mind since the first time I saw you,
and you know mine because I never let you forget it.

I wake up with beauty in my bed
and I am breathless for a moment
until I remember that you are real.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.
Mine used to be fear and it used to hurt like hell,
but now my reason is you and it feels like floating.
I see you perched on the edge of dreaming and awake;
a place where nothing can harm you,
and it makes me love you even more.
Then I realize that I am there with you.
I am there holding you hand.

5.
We collapse at once
as we let each other in
and our skin melts together like nothing I've ever felt before

The nicotine rises from your lips like halos
and you sing to me softly in your raspy tone
You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

2008-03-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

I want to bring the warmth back to your skin
to start your heart beating again
to give you the breath you've lost
I want to make you sweat under these sheets
make you whisper my name like before
help you remember what it is to burn

2008-03-03T18:48:00.000-08:00

It's the stone that you never know what's underneath until you lift it up
It's the flower that grows up between the cracks in the sidewalk
It's the bus that speeds down the road and never lets anyone get off
It's the sponge that absorbs everything but then is squeezed dry again and again
It's the streetlight that keeps flickering but never gives up
It's the old Volkswagen beetle that keeps breaking down but you love it too much to sell
It's your favourite song that you listen to on repeat for hours, that you know every word to
It's the tow truck that never comes and leaving you stranded on a deserted country road in the middle of the night
The road that leads you right back to where you started
The river that runs through it, over it, and in spite of it
It's the roof that leaks every time it rains
The book that's cover is falling off because you've read it a hundred times and still love it
The candle that you depend on when you lights get turned off
The rose you hope will never die
The photograph that captures the happiness, that one feeling you want to last forever
It's the bomb in your stomach when you get too close
the poison in your lungs from the anticipation
your stomach knotted like a noose
the hunger when you haven't eaten in days
the feeling you can't describe in words when you know you have found where you belong.

2008-02-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

I am somewhere between yesterday and today,
somewhere between hope and regret.
Am I lying while I confess myself to you?
Every time I start to smile, my mind remembers the pain.
I am somewhere between living and a photograph,
somewhere between my birth and my grave.
And no matter how hard I fight, I can't get myself out.
I just keep bleeding.

2008-02-20T22:12:00.001-08:00

She sits, legs crossed on her bed.
Her tears reflecting on the computer screen.
She is tired of feeling so much and having no where to release it.
It feels like too much for such a small machine.
Building up like a brick wall around a fire.
Silent words on a glowing screen don't help as much as they used to.

2008-02-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

It's your footsteps that I've followed here
to this place so far from where I began
Has it been to far? Has it been too long?
The colours seem so different, not red or blue
but sharing different heartbeats
four hands have become two
our lips have become mine

I feel like I should push and scream
make a promise to you
not to believe you when you tell me no
I will not turn away
this is what I want
is it really
is it truth or is it some delusion
some apparition of what stands in front of me
a mirage of my own creation

I wish I could look into the future and know what I am supposed to do.
I am barely here
fading like a mirage when you get up close
or is it you who is not enough
this hunger has never been satisfied by you
I need to cry inside myself
but I will not show you a single tear
Tell me that you are the one I want
because I'm not so sure anymore

2008-02-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I can barely breathe
choking on my own heartbeat
And you, you're all around me
the ghost of what I hope to be
Drown these words and hear me scream
Take my thoughts, my dreams, my everything
Take the broken laughter and the stolen voices
Take the mistakes that hang like fog around our feet
Take me and make me new
____________________________________

Your skin is paper thin and I can read your veins like poetry.
Your blood tells me the stories of your heart,
which stays silent, hiding behind its cage.
I see every memory plastered like wallpaper on you bones,
and every dream written just beneath your skin,
fighting their way out into the light.
_________________________________

Constructed faces hanging from the telephone lines
Manufactured smiles sitting on doorsteps
They are so simple to obtain
Look out the window and open your eyes
walking billboards and moving advertisements
Amongst the barbies,
I am nothing more than a paper doll.
They dangle their long legs at me
they shine their teeth, they are blinding
their words fall like bricks from their mouths
weighed down by plastic and makeup
doppelgangers everywhere
they all look like the last
but that one is locked away safe
gone mad from botox and laughing gas
her body, a canvas of professional scars
from the battle to be beautiful
she fights it everyday with her creams and her pills
but her skin still wrinkles and her breasts still fall
the battle to conceal is the hardest part
she paints her face and dyes her hair
asks the doctors for a cure
He says, "We have found one"
"Tell me, please. Please. What do I have to do?"
He whispers quietly, grinning
"All you have to do is sign here"
And she cries "I'll do whatever it takes, doctor"
And little does she know,
she just signed away her soul
while the devil smiles and says,
"Now you will be beautiful forever."

2008-02-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

My shadow isn't big enough to hide behind
and it whispers to me
and tells me that if I'm not strong enough
I won't beat it this time.
_____________________________

It was like waking up from a horrible nightmare that you can't remember or a year in a coma. You have to learn how to work my body all over again, and wait impatiently for your senses to come back to full strength. Like just digging yourself our of your own grave.
________________________________________________________

He is beautiful and quiet
and when his mouth opens
and the words pour out
they are like oleanders blooming
in the darkness
dare I touch them
or should I just sit
and watch them die
_________________________________________

Is it easy living life with your eyes closed
what is it like to see the way you do
do you see in black and white
tunnel vision
do you bleed gray
can you wash the blood out of your clothes so easily

the television tells me that the revolution is coming
we all want to change the world
but some of us can only change ourselves
I like to believe that it will be alright
the people who can really make a difference
are gunned down like animals on a hunting ground
this world is afraid of the change we could create
instead they drill for oil and drop bombs and destroy the future
but still the world keeps turning and the sun keeps rising
while the children gently weep and the bullets fire

your skin is like warm velvet
can what we do between these sheets really change the world
will letting you under my skin make anything better
the world is so heavy upon my shoulders
and I am getting so tired

2008-01-02T17:12:00.000-08:00

The invitation comes in the mail and the world is oh so tempting. But what bus do I take to get there? What train will take me to that place? How do I know when I have arrived there? Will it look different, will I feel it? How will I know?
Is that world so different than the one I have known for so long? Is it a real thing or just a feeling?
Who decides what it takes to be there? Who decides what is happiness and what is not? Who are you to tell me that I don't belong in that world?

2007-12-22T14:56:00.000-08:00

That's my body lying there,
the dust of bones.
Eyes stitched shut.
His mouth was full of knives.
Stay with me until I'm stronger.
Voices cracking. This is it.
Right here, right now.
I am a solider waiting for orders to attack.
Like lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
Be still my beating heart.

2007-11-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

The clock keeps on ticking,
telling me that time is passing
and I can't do anything to stop it
I shut my eyes and wish for it to pause
just for a little while.
I want this moment to last forever
I want to remember every shaking breath,
every hushed sigh and every whisper into skin
Every slowed motion and every quickened heartbeat
I want this moment to last forever
I want it carved into my skin,
stained so I'll never forget.
I want my sheets to never lose your scent
and my body to never forget your warmth

2007-11-02T20:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I dream of a world that is nothing but black sand for as far as the eye can see. And in this world of sand, my lungs are full of it and my stomach hungers for it. My throat is dry with it and my words are nothing without it. Vultures circle above my head, waiting patiently. I have to keep moving, never sleeping, never resting or they will ambush me. But there is nowhere to hide. The sun is fire on my skin, boiling and burning. It falls off of my bones leaving only veins and blood. The sand makes its way deep into the wounds and it's not long before I have to amputate my body and leave it behind. But where do I go? Where do I go when there is only hell in front of my eyes?
And sometimes I dream of a world that is nothing but dark, surging water and I don't remember how to swim. Sometimes its a world frozen over, dead with ice. Sometimes I'm lying in the middle of the road and I can't move. I try with all my strength but all I can do is wait until the next car hits me and leaves me lying there, wounded and alone.
_________________________________________________

I'm lying in the street
you kissed me and left me all alone
wounded and without.
I'm wandering blind,
with nothing but your scent stained into my skin
Nothing but the memory of your warmth

Spread like an open book
bleeding and exposed
Shovels and lovers
digging deep into the earth
searching for something they will never find
they don't know where to look

Just shut your eyes
and try to sleep
I'll stay and hold you close
and scare away your nightmares
Your breath will be my heartbeat
and your bed will be my world.
but will you love me tomorrow?
Will the promise made in the dark disappear with the stars?
______________________________________________

He beats her harder every time
rapes her like a open wound
pushes her deeper into that world
a world where she is nothing
but a silent wife
Nothing but flesh with legs spread
He punishes her tears,
satisfaction from her screams.
She imagines his fists leave lipstick traces on her skin
If only she knew that she mattered
that she was not alone
that she had the strength to fight back.
Maybe then she would see the bruises.

Heartbreak Heaven

2007-10-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

My words have eaten their way out
but I see the light in your eyes
I see the battle behind them
everywhere you touch
me with your eyes
and then you hold me close

Please just stay for a while
I see you hesitate
Your lips are warm like wine
tasting of fire and heaven
you walked out the door

I imagine the sheets still remember
I remember what you whispered in my ear.

2007-10-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

When you wake in the morning,
what do you open your eyes for?
When you lie awake at night,
do you wish someone was in the sheets beside you?
When you fall asleep and dream,
what is it that makes you smile?

What the hell are you fighting for?
Are you fighting for broken promises
and shattered mirrors?
Or are you fighting for something pure
For lipstick traces on white skin
and sheets damp with love?
What the hell are you fighting for?
Are you fighting for second chances
or for memories already faded?
What are you afraid of?
Are you fighting for today and tomorrow
or are you fighting for the forgotten past?
What do you live for?
What makes you feel alive?

2007-10-12T23:31:00.001-07:00

The ice is thin under my feet. Cracking more with each breath. The cold burns my skin and my bones and my blood. I feel the blood slowing in my veins, like acid pumping through. I scream until my voice disappears but no one answers. Looking down , I am not sure whether or not I want it to break. If I fall into that frozen water, that will be the end of me. I will not be able to save myself this time. But it may be better than this feeling. Feeling like I've lost something I need, something crucial. Maybe once the ice breaks I will be free of this emptiness, this cold loneliness.

2007-10-10T14:45:00.001-07:00

I inject fire into my veins and snort star dust. I swallow glass and carve novels into my skin. I will do anything if it means I can see you again. I stick needles in my eyes and starve my body until it is pure. I stay awake for weeks until the world blends together with my dreams. I will do whatever it takes to deserve you again.
I lie and watch the bones rise under my white skin. I stop bleeding until nothing can grow inside me. I don't know what I will do without you. I forget about the outside world until all there is is the faded memories. I stay silent and try to hear your voice. I listen for your footsteps but they never come. I don't know what else to do to bring you back to me.
But maybe all I need to do is learn how to turn back time, how to raise the dead.

2007-10-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm watching a foreign movie. Like I am sitting chained behind my eyes, forced to watch these pictures I don't comprehend and words I don't understand. Like I have strings attached to my limbs, oh so subtly controlling ever movement. Like someone has their hand stuck up a hole inside me. I feel like a puppet that once knew freedom.
____________________________________________
I want something that will overtake anything. Something that will be everything. I want someone that will set my skin on fire and make my insides explode like fireworks. Someone that will stay up and watch me sleep, just to scare away the demons that haunt me. Someone that will not be afraid of my scars that riddle the skin, but embrace them as a part of me. I want someone that finds every part of me beautiful, even the things I try to hide. Someone that can look into my eyes and see past the tears, and see what I cannot say. Someone who I can lay naked beside and feel like I have found my home. Someone who can chase away my fears and stop them from coming back. Someone who can put the pieces of my heart back together.

2007-10-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

I miss the time when memories were more than snow melting in my hands. I miss the time when laughter was more than dying echoes in the distance. The time when these pages were lined with kisses , not with bruises. The time when the music in my head comforted me more than anything. The time when I was more than a stranger in my own world. The time when a fire burned inside of me, one that nothing and nobody could put out. The time when I felt you beside me, inside me, all around me. The time when my eyes were not jaded with scars and broken promises.

2007-10-10T14:09:00.000-07:00

I want to paint your bedroom walls with my blood. I want to cut your skin to see you bleed, to prove to myself that you are no god. I want to watch you sleep so I can destroy your dreams. I want to follow every step you make so I can invade your world. I want to sew your lips together so you can never utter the words "I don't love you" ever again. I want to take pictures of your naked body so I can memorize every flaw and remind you of them again and again. I want to shove you down and hold you there, so you can feel how insignificant you made me feel. I want to spend the night in your bed and show you ever pleasure imaginable, just so I can leave you lying there, shivering with betrayal. I want you to need me like I needed you, just so I can turn my back on you and walk out the door. I want to turn back time so I can tell you No. I want to nail you to the wall so I can see you rot. I want to cut open your chest and break your heart into pieces. I want to take away your hands so they can never lie to me again. I want to look into the future to prove to you that I can survive without you

2007-10-10T14:05:00.002-07:00

For every word edged in and every door slammed shut, there are a thousand angry critics that scream crucifixion. For every second wasted and every scar traced, there are a thousand mistakes masked as choices. The daily movements are an over-exaggerated charade with pop-out eyes and hearts on their sleeves. I'm transparent like paper and honest like blood. You are just bad timing and too perfect. I never asked for this but you're a disease I can't get rid of. A steady decline into self-loathing, melodramatics and panic. With every page you tore out, you tore further into me and all I'm left with are red-eyes and whispered promises that fade with every breathe.

2007-10-10T14:05:00.001-07:00

Smoke and ash danced around her like pagans around a pyre as the blood seeped from the slit on her wrist. Her skin burned from the strength of the fire licking at the walls, biting at the stars through the window, teasing the ceiling with its sweet caresses. But inside, the touch of death grabbed and pawed at her, desperate for her taste. The smoke clouded her vision like a veil as her world darkened. Ash coated her lungs and lips like slick metal.
As the blood drained and she laid there, the smoke formed into figures, horrible and decaying. They laughed and taunted her with their ash bodies, their ash skin falling off their ash bones. Their ash sexes throbbing and heated. Singing their songs of death, they grew and became tangible ash creatures that laughed like mad hyenas. She tried to imagine beautiful winged creatures like the ones she saw when she was a child. She called them to come and take her away from these grotesque things that left trails of ash on her skin, away from this world of rape and love. But the harder she tried to imagine them into being, the more malignant the ash creatures became. Biting and tearing at her greying skin. As they tore and ravaged her limp body, she screamed and cried the blood of her pain. The last drop of blood seeped from her body and she stepped aside and watched as the ash creatures took the lifeless carcass into their arms so lovingly and gentle. The creatures seemed to shift and blur, becoming one and slowly, smoke and ash rose into the dark air, leaving nothing but blood soaked into the carpet.
With a sigh and a chill down her spine, she closed her eyes and let go of all the toxic tears and mortal thoughts. She let go of it all and closed her eyes. Then she went to whatever awaited her after this savage world of self-harm and self-love.

2007-10-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

No one bites back their heart,
but some quiver and cower in the light of something as ageless as time, something pure and untainted by this toxic greed of humanity
I cry silently in my meaningless devotion
memorizing motions of flesh I once devoured
tastefully imagining lies and a glimpse of what it means to be alive.
growing thoughts slowly empower and consume
tainted eyes send shivers through my core
words spoken without sound suffocate the air between us
seasons change as my eyes turn time and turn my heart
your eyes take you in your own direction
leaving me naked and alone.

2007-10-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Your arms are like cold machinery. The sharp steel stings as it pierces through my pastel skin. The blood rises to the torment and bubbles until it overflows, spilling crimson onto alabaster marble. Bruised and beaten but still pure and smooth.
All around us, the world is upside down and turned around. Trees like waterfalls growing from the clouds, catching fire and turning to ash as the lightening hits. The flames overcome every thing but the water, smashing and consuming. The rain falls from the sky that used to be the ground, the oceans collapsing on themselves and falling down to the heavens. The waters gather and shatter around our feet; the rains beating us and knocking us down. The winds eat at our flesh and rip at our souls.
Hold me closer, I scream. Hold me tighter!
You grip me closer, but the closer you hold me, the more your body stabs and cuts me. Your unshakable bones break through your frozen skin like paper and stick into me. The cold numbs the pain, but still the heat gathers as the blood pools and spills and makes the water black. I whimper and you grip me harder. Your fingers bore into my back, snaking between my ribs and puncturing the life within me. My blood betrays me, leaving me hollow and desolate.
Your jagged jaw cuts into my neck and the vein bursts with scarlet life.
Your hips stab through my womb as you hold me closer and closer still. You enter me as I lay empty and I still feel it all even after the last drop has fallen from my heart. I feel a warmth and yet a betrayal. What have you done to me, I scream with all my strength but with no words.
I know you're scared, but look what you've done to me.
You've consumed me and let me with nothing.

2007-10-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

I look at my life through hollow eyes and I'll tell you what I see. I am falling into that void that everyone fears to go, and I can see the bottom so clearly. It doesn't seem so bad. It feels like release. But no, I have to tell myself NO! My mind is rabid and raging, My body feels contorted and strange, numb and paralyzed. Everything is broken mirrors and smudged lipstick, melted candles and hallucinations. Everyone is blurred strangers from another world, horrible figures from your worst nightmares. Everywhere are the rabid beasts and consuming eyes, laughing and devouring. No matter what I do, there is still the butterflies with razor-blade wings inside me, the drugged drink that I'm waiting for to make me pass out, the idea of what ifs and why nots. My blood like morphine making me crazy but never dulling the pain, my heart like the things we think will cure us but only kill us faster. The permanent staples that hold my eyes closed and my lips in a frown. The VCR in my head that keeps rewinding and rewinding to things I just want to forget. The terrified and sobbing child inside of me that just needs to have her stuffed unicorn. The furious and hateful part that wants to rip the unicorn's head off just to make the child cry even harder. The caring and selfless part that just needs to sew that head back on and comfort the child. The selfish and resentful part that will just leave that child with it's decapitated toy. Then there's the one that will just sit in a corner and decide that physical pain is better than emotional pain. Who am I? Am I one of these or all of them? How can I be myself without one? How can I be a ghastly porcelain doll with broken limbs and missing parts? A double amputee with her heart missing and her mind in shattered pieces. Maybe I can find those missing parts. Sew on a leg here, a hand there with bubblegum flavoured dental floss. Paint my skin with flowers and stars to cover-up the scars and the stitches. Wear a mask to hide the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. Snorting broken glass and shooting up rotten ash to be like the other girls. Spreading my legs for switchblade fucks and kissing razor-toothed mouths. Carving his name into my skin and drinking the blood. Eating nothing but sour milk and mouldy bread to keep my figure. Sacrificing everything and nothing just to fall into the void. Where would I be then? better off than I am now? I guess no one really knows....

2007-10-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

Her hands were tightly clasped like knots in her lap as she stared down at them with confusion, as if they weren't hers at all. Her limbs were like great gnarled branches, ugly and rooted into the earth. Her skin shone with an artificial brilliance like a blanket of glass, nothing of her own shining through. Her hair felt like poisonous snakes wrapping themselves around her neck. Her tongue was sand paper and made her lips bleed every time she licked them nervously. Her eyes felt like camera lenses, seeing everything but nothing. Her insides felt like thorn bushes on fire, scratching to get out and burning everything to do it. And that thing between her legs felt dirty and pulsing. She wanted to rip it out, to gouge out every last sensation and every last memory.
Her body, this vessel seemed so foreign to her. So strange these moving parts, these pumping veins, this aching in her chest. An emptiness ate away at her like a rabid dog with a dead animal. Her entire being felt consumed and alone.
Glancing around her she saw the others. Laughing, kissing, flirting. And it made it all seem so much further away and it made the gnawing inside of her worsen. She held

her hands tighter and tried to make the glass of her face form a smile so that no one would see the pain in her hollow eyes.
She swallowed the brick in her throat and forced herself to stand. She made her way to the bathroom with those branches and roots dragging behind her and the glass breaking as she moved. She locked the door behind her and looked at herself in the mirror, and did not recognixe the thing looking back at her? It was dying as she stared and the glass shattered and fell into the sink with a sound that hurt her ears and echoed through her skull.
The glass broke away and from underneath light shone through. The light heated her skin and melted away some of the glass and for the first time in a long time she saw what was underneath it. And then she remembered that this was her body and these were her eyes she was looking through at this stranger. And she remembered that the stranger came sometimes and sometimes stayed for what felt like an eternity but that the stranger always left her. Left her feeling wiser than she had been before.
She breathed deeply and released more than her breath with the exhale, and she smiled slightly to herself as she remembered that she was strong enough to get through it.

2007-10-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I don't know who is staring back at me. These eyes are dead, only reflecting what strikes them, nothing shining from within. What have these eyes done but watched beautiful people walking out the door? These lips are a curse. They snarl and part with no more than a word. They run off on their own, leading me through the dark. What have these ears done but listened to broken promises? These arms have held nothing but ash. And when I wrap them around me at night, they feel like bone, like blades. This chest, it moves slowly up and down, in and out, but what does it do? What does it really do but keep me in this world? What are these hands but horrible memories of bodies once held? What do they do but grab on to the closest still thing to stop from spinning, the closest material body and take hold, not letting go until someone peels my dead fingers away? These legs have done nothing but run when I don't want them to, but lay down and die right when I need them the most. And that thing between my legs. What has it done but heat up and moisten and open, right when it should shrivel up and close itself off. What have these feet done but walk into the desert sands and lose their tracks in the wind?

And sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and I see everything but the bad memories. Sometimes I can smile at myself and see the light in those eyes. Sometimes I can smile despite the fear and the scars that always remind me of that time when I was so close to the edge. Sometimes I can sleep through the night without nightmares, sweat and panic. Sometimes I can breathe without every ounce of my being wanting it to stop. Sometimes I can just breathe. Sometimes these lips speak of dreams. Sometimes they kiss the sky. Sometimes these ears hear beautiful music and laughter. Sometimes these arms bring comfort in the dark of my night. Sometimes they feel like wings. Sometimes this chest breathes in strength and holds it tight. Sometimes these hands remind me to take hold of someone's loving hand to steady myself a little. Sometimes these legs show me the way I need to go. And that female thing, sometimes it reminds me that I am alive.Sometimes these feet leave the tracks that can show me the way home. Sometimes I can get through the day without tears and pain. Sometimes I can wake up and throw off my covers and look forward to the day ahead of me. Sometimes I can survive.

At times, all I can see is yesterday and yesterday's mistakes and all of them pile up around me and grow around my legs, up my arms, covering my face; trapping me, suffocating me. And at other times, all I can is today and the here and the now. All that matters is today. And at other times, all I can see is tomorrow. Hopes and dreams, and the possibilities. What I might become. And that is what gets me through.

2007-09-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

I have come here to dress your wounds,

to heal your disease with my warm touch,

to let you drain the blood from my body to gain back your strength,

to mend your broken heart and hold it gently in my hands.

I have come here to open the door you hide behind and reveal the light to you,

to sew the pieces of you back together with my hair and my veins,

to calm your mangled mind with my soft voice,

to quiet those screaming voices in your head that terrorize you endlessly.

I have come here to make you feel alive again,

to show you a world that no one else sees,

a world full of flowers and glass, skin and spirits, stars and wings.

to create a new life for us, to forget the past that is infected with mistakes and betrayal.

I have come here to become a part of you like an unborm child,

to bind our souls to each other with pleasure and beauty,

to melt our bodies together with skin, bone and blood.

I have come here to share everything with you,

to see you dance freely under the stars again,

to feel you deep inside of me like a fire spreading.

I have come here to protect you from all harm,

to shield you with my body,

to take the bullets aimed at your heart,

to sacrifice myself for you on the altar of second chances.

I have come here to love you like never before.

I have come here to save you.

2007-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt of death. Sickness ravaged empty vessels that were mere shadows of humanity. Plagues consumed memories and futures, leaving nothing but spoiled flesh and rotten souls. And the meaning of life was nothing more than pain and disease.
Last night I dreamt of life. Moments tucked away like boxes under the bed. Photographs fading as the candles burn down. Beauty and vanity worshipped like the sun. Children's laughter withering in the wind.
Last night I dreamt of you. Heated tangled bodies beating as one. Tears soaking my soul, staining my skin.The sheets hold the scent of our dance. I hope the scent never fades. I try to capture it in a bottle, but it disappears with you.
Last night I dreamt of myself. Young and scarred by too many broken hearts. Regret pressing in and moulding a new shell of something like skin. Locked up and hidden away with the shameful memories and lost in the darkness once you shut the door.

2007-09-12T18:16:00.000-07:00

I took the time and saw you through a mirror. And in that moment of naked truth, the most beautiful existence was the grave below me and the shovel in my hand. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, heart to heart. And when I looked again, the only reflection I saw was myself.

I took the time and saw you through a doorway but when you turned to me all we became were sweaty bodies and shivering skin and filthy souls. You were never there and the glass was always cracked, refracting beauty, distorting love, reflecting life into a thousand pieces of what we once were.
Each little shard and each little blade of glass and each little drop of blood told our story over and over. We tasted eternity on the tips of our tongues like words we thought we knew. And when I woke up, the light had faded and the earth was coated in metal and engraved with the novels that filled our heads. And it was only then that I could finally let go of your hand and lay my heart to rest.

2007-09-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

First it was heaven. There was this light everywhere, so bright, but it didn't hurt our eyes. There was nothing but this warm light. It was like being to breathe underwater. This strong sense of security all around us. Like we would never be let to fall. We had wings.
Then came solid ground. Like waking up from a dream. Night and day. Good and evil. Reality. And in this reality came mortality. On this earth, time passes and people grow old and then die. Here on earth, we dream at night and then wake to reality. We wake only to wonder what the day will bring. We wake only to find that our wings have been taken away. But we can still hold each other.
And then the light disappeared. We sank down into the cold ground. Under the earth, it was darkness without colour or light. It was the coldest of winters but it burned like fire. And your warmth that I knew so well was gone. Your arms that held me tight were only bone. And the cold and that dirt and the pain would not let me go. They were everywhere. In my throat, in my heart, in my soul. This is Hell.
And then came the day after so many countless days in my grave. I woke up. I fought and I crawled my way to the surface. Through death and flames, through ice and bone, I found my way back to you. I opened my lungs and air overcame the dirt. I opened my eyes and saw the sun again. I crawled out of my grave to find you waiting for me, patiently, devotedly. And after so much time of waiting for me, you smiled and washed the dirt from my skin, from my hair; and you took me in your arms and held me. Sending the warmth back to my heart, back to my very bones. You held me and told me that everything was going to be alright.
I will love you, you said. And we will live forever. There will be darkness but we will always find our way back to each other, and our love will never die. And then, you gave me back my wings.