they always said i was a pragmatist but you make my heart beat so lovingly...

i have a heart the size of oceans,
i have a heart that is fathoms deep.
all i wish for is to loosen these chains,
for you to set me free.

I am your (love) lush

I've rotted straight through, still gold enough to tell you how much I
love you. But you are the master of a sewn up heart and I'm unsteady on
my feet as it is.

A drunk, he said. "I cannot fall in love with a lush because they
betray you eventually, for men that don't convince."

So I swill the end of my wine glass and smile with a sinfully stained
complexion. "A lush lives life as if every moment is a medival
painting, a tapestry. Life is our tapestry, lover."

He was not convinced however, but still found it beneficial to carry me
up the grubby stairs to his cubbyhole of a room and let me seduce him.
Women know seduction because it breeds in their bones like a genetic
blueprint of destiny.

But the ending of this story is centuries of repetition and scorn.

the dull and rotten waiting seems to be my destiny...

i am sad and poor and rotten. your love brings me great grief. he said that my insides were like a rotten apple. god, so red and shiny on the outside, as new as a beautiful, shiny convertible. but my insides are black like the leather interior. not nearly as shiny, though. dull, dull... and they make fun, they tease and tease - thinking that every single word is nothing more than a little slap on the cheek. but they are barbs, and they bear the pain of all the rotten fruit that passed through your skin on contact. oh, i am rotten and sinful. sometimes my eyes get so wide that they seem as if they'll pop straight out of my head - sometimes you have to burn it down to rebuild it from the foundation. the worms crawl out of my rotten core, my heart - it is decayed and decomposed.

the only time i feel whole is when the music streams through my ears like a river of gold, and my nerves become tunnels for the thoughts to escape into friendly territory. we drove until we had no worries, and screamed and hollered, turned into savages. i want you to climb through the brush and rescue me from all my wrong desires. i want you to come save me, come claim me. i'm here. waiting, waiting... waiting.

i love it when you call me sunshine

i want to be the sunlight that streams across your bed and wakes you up. no one has ever made my soul smile this much. the peace you bring rots me like a dying tree and all i wish is for you to save me. this sinner is penitent, waiting to have your blessing. she would change it all (or maybe she would just change you) at the drop of a few cross words. i know that i am in love with all the imperfections that make us human, make us whole and unique. don't disregard me, i don't know if i can handle it since i'm willing to break my own heart before i let you get to it.

don't hold my hand while you drive, it makes for dangerous things.

i am strung out on the multitude of words in the english dictionary that could describe all the thoughts running through my head on a minute by minute play by play. i know you missed my colorful, nervous ramblings where i wrung my hands and chewed my nails and my voice quavered like i was about to cry with every word i spoke. every word was painful then. so much had been ripped from my throat, my vocal cords sore and sad. i was a damaged little bird, awkward and despondent. life was not something to live. life was a ticking bomb of when i was going to die. don't you miss this little ray of fucking sunshine?

i stopped calling when you stopped caring.

this is three months in the making.
you can't mend what doesn't want to be fixed.
but i sure did try and sew this back together
with my pretty fucking words that you loved so well.
"your attention to detail is superb."
you are the only person to date who found this little leather-bound enchanting.
i sat in that chair and meditated on my life or lack thereof.
i keep revisiting all the moments with you in them.
there was just something about you that made me break my own heart.
i pour these spirits down my throat and hope that they will breathe some life into me.
so much for that.
the slosh of the vodka in my flask is like a battle cry.
i can hear it warring against the sides, the cap - waiting to be unleashed upon my throat.
there are so many mistakes i made, i made my own bed and i understand.
i'm sure you're not blind, not dumb, not ignorant.
i'm sure.
but i'm a sinner, and if i could wash it all off my body...
in the blacklight you can still see all the handprints of my former lovers.
i am marked and marked well.
i am meant to be alone.
i am meant to grit my teeth and groan.
i am meant to pound my feet against the walls in surrender.
i am meant to leave beds in the middle of the night.
all that you need to remember me by is a note.
i am meant to slouch in the shadows of statues,
bleed all my woes at the base and
hope that my blood at His feet will be enough.

what a dance mix does to my brain

right now, i feel a little too fuzzy around the edges. i wonder if i'll just pixelate, dissolve back into the airwaves. i miss a lot of things, most of them being things i will never admit. insomnia's coming back full-fledged, like those days when i went for days bingeing on holiness, and by holiness i mean the nightlife that caught me in between its jaws and chewed me up. spit me out. i fell far down but someone caught me by the ankle before my head could hit the rocks at the bottom. but even if i'm caught, i shook out of that grasp pretty quickly, because i've got to stop "drinking the kool-aid." too debauched for this, genuineness doesn't agree with my stomach, but all the liquor you give me will calm me right back down. i prescribe to disposable pleasures, sometimes fancying myself to be a regular casanova, explicit and uncompromising. i believe that no one will ever love this, because there's a monster trapped inside of me just waiting to rear its ugly head out of my skin. it's late and i'm waiting for you to come back to me, just so i can turn you away in the next few seconds. i relish the power i have, bask in the loneliness that suits me. even if it might eat me alive soon enough...

one month until i'm not eighteen forever

there's something about
every poem i've written
and i think i've figured it out:

you strangle every word
of every line
of every stanza
with your microphone cord.

oh, how i wish that it was
feasible,
possible,
probable...

i need to keep writing.
you are nothing more
than feverish scribbles,
bolded terms in books.

they used to explain
everything
so goddamn simple.
what happened?

i remember when
i possessed so much
self control, poise.
now i'm raging.

this storm is never
quiet; just bleak,
wind and rain
whipping at your cheeks.

i am half out of my head,
half inside the ocean.
we got what we needed
from those glass bottles.

remind me again when
it settles.
when the sand is still,
the water dark.

i'll lie like the
vitruvian man
the water will
swallow me whole.

i'll be in the belly
of the ancient world,
floating peacefully,
drifting eternally.

whore of babylon

Don’t you want to know details?
It isn't surgery for the soul. 


I opened up from the neck down,
My torso cracked apart like a dead cow.
They want my meat still.

You could take out my heart, 

Dissect it.
I’m your favorite science project.

They say you only become beautiful

After the biggest tragedies;
Pieces litter the ground to form a red carpet.

The sorrow in your eyes catches on film,
And those cameras
Soak up your misery, a dirty rag.

The only use for these trash magazines, 

They mop up the blood when you get too obscene.
And now, what can you be?

Nothing more than a vintage Polaroid,
Quaint as the time from which it came;
We would shake it out,

Lay it down to dry.
Well, that time has passed.
I cut it in half.

I must preen my ruffled, bejeweled feathers,
Sit on my throne of demands,
Perch as stately as a peacock.

Humor you,
And your fucking complaints -
Grate on my skin like dirty nails.

Just like the Polaroids,
The sunlight catches you, 

Little points sprinkle over my skin,

Like gunshot wounds,
About seventy of them. 

I’m open, a watering can.

Pour my blood over your lilies -
They would appreciate my honesty.
Shoot a hole through my neat photography.

But not everyone can be like me.
All saintly and frayed at the edges,
I wear my pride like your coat.

You put me in a coma. 

I wish the IV would erase any trace
Of you tearing through my veins.

I want to wake up,
Feel the blood sluggishly pump,
Hear the rhythm beat a tattoo in my ears.

My heart is in my head, 

We’re starting to think in the same patterns.
Is this what it’s like to love rationally?

This is a spiritual meditation,
An exact question about anticipation,
Series of signals misinterpreted –

Then reinstated like a political official.
Creatures of habitual formality,
Prey on the institutions of nerve endings.

I am most sensitive at the fingertips,
Close my eyes, feel my way along
Your neck, spine and clavicle.

I don’t have to remind you
I’m still watering your lilies,
Feeding you some half-truth,

Wasting time among the living,
When I could be passing through.
But for tonight,

My malleable body spells out lust
In the nest of your cotton sheets.
Pray for midsummer like a martyr.

ageless poetry

I am ageless poetry,
So wave your hands like trees,
Battle against the wind:

Shout
Your art
Of love.

Drink a bottle of wine.
Have sex,
Sleep alone.

I bought depression,
Orange plastic bottle,
Suspension of real time.

I am
A junkie
For the morning after.

The early sun
Cuts through
Your industrial blinds.

I sit up, rigid.
Light focuses on my mouth,
Sets my words on fire.

I’m painless, fine spirits.
The muse of your songs.
The microphone in your hand.

For G.C.

la petit mort

Sunlight creaking through the blinds
Cuts you up into long rectangles.
If only I was in such a deep slumber.

I view this world clearly with one eye shut,
Finger poised on the trigger,
Scouting the next target in a field of ghosts.

In this zen state,
I feel the infinity of the universe,
Gray cotton sheets electrify skin.

Wake up, our eyes level,
But I’m looking through
A window.

This is new age.
I hear the soft jazz static
Sway lazily in my ears.

Dance with me.
Slow, revolving close,
Sweeping my mind.

Normally I would regret this
Within approximately the next
48 hours.

Humor me.
Something must be in the water.
Maybe I’ve been reborn.

During the night
I shed my old skin
Mapped with regrets.

The simplicity of spontaneity,
No focus on the premeditated act.
My advice -

It seeks me out.
Makes me the proof.
Cautious optimism –

Nothing but a euphemism.
This jazz static,
It started fading out.

“Do you miss me?”
Now it’s week two.
The 48-hour window passed.

How I regret you now,
Words broken, bent, splintered.
Barbs of you settled under my skin

je suis

A Zippo with no lighter fluid,
An empty pack of Marlboro Lights.
The ash under your shoes mixing with the snow,
Grey slush and cigarette butts.

A stack of empty Smirnoff bottles,
A flask full of troubles.
A notebook full of drunken scribbles -
A waste of ink.

The heart of Yeats,
The eyes of Diane Arbus.
The liver of Bukowski,
The chemical imbalances of Sylvia Plath.

Erratic dramatic hypertension,
Shakes and sweats at midnight.
The antithesis of kitsch,
The ultimate opus.

The aged oak of the bar,
Dirt and scratches overwhelm.
Burn marks from cigarettes,
Littering the oak -

Track marks on a junkie’s arms.
Dirty, empty pint glasses surround,
Drained like the Mojave-
They leave you endlessly unsatisfied.

Since when

Have you decided that your love is worthwhile?
I obliterated any verbal contract when my body writhed in his bed.
Not yours.
Even if it meant nothing...
"Well, I'm sort of attached."
"Then why are you doing...this?"
"Because I'm not attached in that way. This means nothing."
"There's something wrong if this doesn't mean anything."
"Well what do you want it to mean?"
It came out a little more flirtatious and porn than I meant.
Neon yellow tank top, stretched out on scratchy carpet.
Well, let me kiss you on the mouth.
I'm better at convincing than you give me credit for.
I threw a decent brand of condom at him and laughed.
But really my heart had been broken long before I led myself to ruin.
The greatest paradox of all:
I've done much worse than what you've condemned already.
I gave up on feeling anything awhile ago,
All those long walks from center crying dramatic makeup smeared tears
ensured that.
So if you want to fall in love, its 50 cents a minute to hear my quavery
voice speak falsehoods easier than the forked tongue of a snake.
It doesn't mean anything.

If only you knew the things I've done and said

You're sprinting through my head
Your mouth is a microphone
If only I was the audience you sought to reach
Your words, they head straight for me
I dodge them like a hail of glass
Break my window
Get my attention
Don't you miss when your bed was endless
My body was an ocean
We enveloped each other
But my heart will always be a quicksand mirage
How I want you to be trapped with me
For eternity
We could make this desert oasis of life all our own
No need to panic
We are the most beautiful dream
If only you got your act together and realized
How much you want to waste your time with me