poison

poison was let in.
somehow, this seeping death found a way into their hearts and then trickled down into our just forming baby limbs, so young and fragile in there. we were young then and didn't have a care in the world. none of this hate and not at all the despair that echoes in the chambers of our hearts instead of where compassion would've been.
someone must have left the trapped door of happiness open. enough to slowly let what was left inside them flow out like their judgment does upon paradise. so free and unrestricted, flowing hate. they can fill all the oceans ever made.
when we came out from inside them, they slapped us so that we'd know everything that was wrong in the world in one painful moment of confusion. this is life, slap, enjoy the hell of it. this is our love, we will give you nothing of it but red and black until you are so far away from what could be beautiful that you can't see what love is anymore and all you can do is want more and more because it's all you know.
poison was let in.
and now it's too late to recreate what paradise could've been.

in between

i've forced you upon me like a slap offends the space between my hand and the stench or your words.
shattering the red from above and below the blue dotted-line taking me back, way back to when i was singing instead of licking my wounds like a shattered dream vanishing. burying bruised baby grapes like they were tiny bodies of the most beautiful creatures staking out photographs of perfect things creating heaven.
i don't know what that means. maybe in between slaps i was supposed to find myself.

intaglio

when the HAND is introduced to a compatible BODY ink and water mixture, the MEMORY will adhere to the positive image and the water will clean the negative image. This allows a flat print ETCHING to be made on MY HEART, enabling A much longer and more PERMANENT REMINDER OF the older UNIMAGINED methods of LOVE.

COMPASSION works because of the mutual repulsion of oil and TEARS. YOUR BROKEN image is drawn on the surface of MY SKIN RELECTING ONTO MY SOUL, which may be pigmented to make the drawing visible AND NEVER FORGOTTEN.

YOUR MARK penetrates into the pores of MY stone, completely surrounding the original image with a hydrophilic layer that will not accept WHAT WE'VE BECOME.
an aquatint.

unknown beauty unknown by you

i'm a bit of trash flapping in the unkind wind. any moment now i'm certain to spring off in some unknown direction, happy to get moving, or at least get out of your hair.
i'm ok with that. i want to be anywhere but here.
call me paper or something thrown out to eat. i was cast aside and tossed with the simplest care. no one to share my beauty or see what i was. just someone who didn't see. didn't see me for me.

paradise

on the steps of paradise, where we both know sin,
can we be forgiven for this malignant tendency toward silence breeding bombs of catastrophe over buckets of tears we don't have?
it's not my fault that i can only get two words in before i walk away from the same in you.
we both suffer.

can this pain be taken away by laughter ever again?
take my hand, now. tell me we'll be ok on a train going our separate ways.
maybe stay with me and play with curls for a little while longer.
we don't have to go in yet.

how long till i regain consciousness in the numb?
i was never meant to know the real you,
under the blankets caking emotional attachment onto my body like warpaint.

snickering and sometimes giggles distract me from where we've been.
to heaven and hell and back again.
i'm carsick now, and don't want any more of it.
just want it all to end.

thick gobs of memories cling to me like mollusks trying to grasp at feet for wings to fly away,
holding on for dear life, instead finding a rock to make home.
i'm thrown back into the sea, in between sharks and angels screaming for the attention of silent gods.

i've seen your eyes long enough to know when you're done.
enough to say goodbye and not cry about it.
enough to mean the pain you inflict, callously.

we went right up to the edge of the world and held each other as if there was nothing more.
we've birthed too many memories together,
but now, i don't know why,
i can breathe quietly on my own.

on the inside

inside, i'm going inside the belly of an overgrown,
whale...
and it's over told,
beyond the bloated underscore
of my memories.

i tried to follow you in,
instead you only swallowed me whole,
whole on the outside, but never on the in,
just some pale skin and a bleeding heart, crying
and tearing me apart,
bleeding my memories
on the inside.

inside me is this temperamental need to start,
over, but i'm back where i begin,
over and over,
is this temperamental sin...
eating my soul.

i tried to heal the past,
i tried to make you it and make the feelings last,
wanted to take the pain away and make forever last,
together in your arms each and every day.

but each time i swam away,
you found me floating up at the break of day,
only brought me back to see me swim away,
again only to draw me in someday,
on the inside.

brainy

i need a brain.
at some point i think i swapped mine for some kind of mushy, goo.
grainy and gross.
it's up there doing nothing.
at least, nothing it's supposed to.

just taking up space, horribly degrading and unkind,
my brain is falling behind the worst of the last.
the never-ending race of the blind leading the blind.

sometimes, i need to smack it back to life.
ready, clear. shocking it with a pair of cold metal paddles.
it's not working, mostly just flat-lining.

great, here it goes again.
leave a message as i'm dying.

songs of life

you came into my life and gave breath to a dying soul. you fed me spoonfuls of your heart almost in order to jump-start this abused scrap of metal i had used for so long to take me to her. traveling endless hours hoping one day she'd become the one.
without you, the whole of my heart would have remained in a state of rapidly decaying swiss cheese. dead and full of holes. i resemble a bullet-ridden corpse falling into giant potholes, one after the other, fumbling around aimlessly, carelessly stepping over the delicately placed landmines time appropriately spits out for the already condemned. i'm wearing the sign of my hypocrisy over my head, resting just above my neck where my vein was connected directly into her waning love for me.
i move like a zombie amongst the living. i'm awkward and nimble in weird ways.
the holes in my body would have gotten to me. crept up and swallowed me into nothing if you hadn't reached out and touched me in the places i had forgotten were still alive.
i belong to no one. i hold onto my pain. insufferable, obnoxious, uncontrollable, inconsolable.
only myself, and still it's not enough life to live.
not enough to give of yourself to someone so clear and transparent.
i found you just in time to collapse in your arms and begin again.
your eyes were the last stars i wished on before taking death in.
but you came to me just in time, and sang to me the songs of life that i had to hear in order to breathe on my own.

beautiful liar

one day you woke up to find that your mind was missing.

it was more than that. you misplaced your heart as well.
before all this.

just enough to keep me addicted to the hope that one day, my dreams will come true.

morrison

this is the end
beautiful friend

her conviction

"i think you're beautiful," she said with conviction. "thanks?" i said, with a certain sort of friendly hesitation that meant to imply, "please stop, you're making me blush," but only seemed to fuel her friendly flirtation instead. "fuck, i want to kiss your beautiful lips," she whispered as she moved my bangs off the corners of my right eye. "there you are," she said with a sigh. "can i?" what? what does she mean? it was as if she knew what she was looking for before she found it in me. as if she knew what was behind my hidden door before she pried it open and found everything she could ever want and more, in me. "i don't know what you mean by touching me like that. you know i can't." i can see that she doesn't care. she's going to go there anyway. "where could there be?" i think to myself, as curiosity takes a bite out of my stale reality, and for a moment, she releases me. i take in a breath of fresh air as i start to walk away. i need to get out of there.
i walk away not knowing the right and wrong of what just happened.
i walk away because i am not ready to bury you under the memories i could have.
i walk away because it's the only thing i can bring myself to do that wouldn't hurt you.