these eyes that salute you.
with songs like, death and her
young, guillontined wings that hang between the poem's fermented tear drops..
trying to break noose.
it won't spark their mundane interest.
you bargain collectives to make fading into the numbness less of a catch all.
with the lump in your throat, and the introverts summoning fears under the table..
pills in hand.
you wave like bits of paper abandoned by trashcans.
you wave, calling all stakes off your crowd.
there's this kind of defiantness that comes over me when i watch you.
where's always that first joy, and then the alledged source but then she is scaling herself into my peripheal.
can't you just let it go.
you were, who you'll be.
who are you trying to impress?
when you're standing on the brink of death and no one's blowing either eay.
get up and decide this.
piece by piece you wither.
while they all sit around eating yogurt.
you wish you could sift down,
somewhere beneath the empty bedrooms.
somewhere safe, where you can't love him.

The roses you fear drape themselves like autumn shrugs.
They run up and down every gate within this town.
Every row around it,
Every bed beneath it.
They dart up around paper crosses.
They hang as uneasy reminders.
Traded and received, as symbols for the precious.
Locked lips retrieve this bitter collective.
And me, well I'd like to pour salt on your pallid ashes.
I'd like to press my lips to yours until blood vessels burst.
The thorns stay there as respected admonitions of this bittersweet parody.
A conjunction of the petal and the pricking seeves.
These roses you fear,
Attend ever right of passage.
Observe every sickle cell transplant.
Rehearse the night the car flipped.
Rewind the way the time slid.
Dragging the life from your bare body.
Smearing cake on the faces of the soon to be forever.
Never to be forgotten.
Every row around it,
Every bed beneath it.
Roses flood, like kudzu.

/close./

"glow"

the claims you keep
laying beneath shattered bathroom windows
gladly accepting
all fails and tactics.
you whisper doves into the lips of more
pleasant girls;
i stand from below, screaming up from wells.
dodging stares and memories..
this reaching out.
has me bruising livers.
has me brushing medicated mindsets.
the truth is, i am retracting.
withdrawing..
this symbol.
cremated resin.
you wade thru split cheeks and difficult
circumstances.
i'm having trouble relating to anything in
this world that isn't a lyric.
throw the bows to who we were.
not who we can be.
the things we say when liquid warms us..
sweet possibilites..
the only time the foreboding sadness does not
enthrall us.
i am not weaker but something more of
stone.
these pulses errupting from my capillaries,
wants to touch your face.
but this hole i keep in my chest,
wants to take something and wait for the
wash.
synonyms for things like, love.


/close./

non.

silent and expediant
these feelings collapse beneath us.
as stars wash above the salt, failing into boiling water.
as feathers dance and molest the sky.
trials of security evade our protection.
nullifying our existence.
as we lick our lips and call to the night.
looking for shoulders to latch onto.
sturdy walls to rest against.
the bulbs float, one by one.
down the winding banks of the rhine, down the knives of architects and child prodigies alike.
i found myself nestled to a cold cup.
broken but fluent,
in the languages of your expat brother.
in the tolerances of your chap lipped sister.
you kick thru the pavement.
you brandish licensure and legislation for other liar's approval.
but who will forgive your face tonight.
the whispers drip down your sullen cheeks.
these diseased, calloused fortunes that corrode your optimism.
silent and expedient.
your cup is replaced.
the last drops of self wash beneath your chair.
and you are once again an empty cavity,
painted and dressed for compliments.
an open tab of anonymity.

/close./

bury us not beneath it.

the day the earth fell
we stood kicking our way thru your ashes.
the day the earth fell
we ripped our lungs crying out to forgotten tyrants,
and beings that reside in the sky.
i put blood under my tongue.
i left my heart with who i was.
the day the earth fell
our hearts stopped beating,
and we stayed living out of force of habit.
we washed our eyes with tiny vessels of crimson
we tried to fill our hallowed faces with tasteless morsels.
we tried to paint our placid skin so the questions would cease.
but there was nothing left to occupy us,
except the continuation of existing.
the day the earth fell
my knees became permanently attached to my chest
i started sleeping just to experience something
the sun defied gravity, plunged out of the sky..
we became a variety defined by the purple coves holding our eyes.
defined by the numbness your loss intensified.
when you went away,
the day the earth fell,
we all succumbed to living.
skin keeps us safe in this tomb.
they pray to twilight to keep your image alive.
we surround ourselves with sadness,
the sole comfort to the survivor..
the pain reminds us you weren't just a dream.

/close./

5 hrs till sunlight.

and so there it is
you are as alone as you were in the beginning
peacefully rejected.. this numbing priority
feels somewhat instantaneous
don't we all just want understanding.
compassion to take our eyes
to dress the wounds we keep inside our cheeks.
these lies are persuasive.
but they are not idle.
you lay riddled with anxious movements.
reciting themselves from conversations past.
you see his face in the back of your mind, and wonder if this was all for a reason.
sleepless and stagnant, you write.
you write for a new tomorrow.
you write for someone to hold you.
you write for the sun and its forgiveness.
these pills force what socialization couldn't.
you look out your pillow into a world where people notice you.
into a world where isolation isn't your prisoner.
you practice and rehearse what you would do in that world.
if you could only continue,
your place there thru your real day.
5 hours till sunlight.. and you can't sleep a bite.



/close./

et

You watch as like waves, the feelings swell around your cheeks. Nothing more excites you. Numb isn't just your agent. Its your lover, your trainer, your best friend, your closest confident. You glide thru age, waiting to happen onto some golden rudder to latch onto. But to grasp, your will is gone..

/close./