Poetry

an addict, they'd call me

if they saw the way i craved

begged 

yearned 

your love was my medication 

your love was my peace

your voice was a symphony 

and your words lit me with glee 

but now the withdrawal is hitting

now im suffocating 

your love consumed me

it filled my lungs

and engulfed me

the heart that was once mine

belongs to someone else

you and your chains

trapping me in place 

i just wanted you

but you wanted more

so what was once the thing that brought me life

is the very thing that kills me

and what once made me whole

has now consumed me

Beehive on the second tree I’ve seen tonight 

Good morning unified bird 

slam the evidence on the table

clam chowder clam chowder clam chowder 

and the scourge devours

what a fool i was

to believe i had crossed paths with love

so deprived of it 

i mistook kindness for something more

i am left defenseless 

and senseless

disoriented 

deciding

never to love again

My favorite feeling is sitting in the 

Dark room off the side of the kitchen listening to the

Laughter and glass clicks echo of the walls

As the swords of light

Sheath themselves in the fray of the carpeting,

Toggling the buttons of a plastic remote control pointed like a 

Beacon straight out in front - 

Or lying

Facedown in the bedspread as the party rages - the party

Of one;

Cooking, cleaning, all the while plucking the strings of the lamplight

To strike the soles of my feet,

Dangling from the edges-

I used to be scared they might fall - so would I -

Or knowing 

that I am small and tightly wound around the three rooms

That hold my own life,

Stuck with tears like spiderwebs and dreams caught in rafters.

Maybe the earth is like the homeward-bound little girl 

Occupied by the dark,

Fascinated by the tapping of heels and slivers of music escaping

Through the double doors - 

Knowing that when the night ends so starts the day - 

Falling asleep in the care ride home -

Resting her head on the sweat-stained, grass-woven, hole-bitten 

T-shirts of another morning’s promise.

A globe that spins just out of reach

Of the sun’s gaze

Grazed

the hybridity of two angry adults to make theater

she stands across a mirror covered in gold leaf and dripping wet with the female blood of a girl who’s reflection once fit this frame

she is quick to accept how big she gets without giving her sadness a name 

she assumes her mother thinks more of her when she’s happy and present so whatever it takes she gets it and she stays there for as long as the sun allows

the ornate box of shame holds her first name on the brink of tears 

she gets awards for listening to the body she was born with accepting the praise with hating hands of anguish in an unbreakable cast

she will always get caught by her own eyes she will never be too old for that

the sickness reforms itself in stages of grandeur 

the stage is waiting darling 

one foot out the door and the other in her mouth she is unable to leave she is too young to say goodbye and there is a tall wide man from a dream she has 

who coaxes her into the office

he sits across from her petting her face until she knows it isn’t what she wants

and then it’s too late

he decides which numbers are low enough to be naivety

and he takes them 

of course the doctor smiles at his patient 

without her he would be a part of this reflection too

of course you love her 

                               without her so would you

she steps forward towards the center of human attention and grins with the happiest remorse a sad boys ever seen

she couldn’t even address this in the first person

but they clap and clap and clap for me

my warrior my lover my sun 

please know that i am your rest

and we are shining voices in this night.

I am holy-

wholly unable contain my love for you.

It's 3am 

I have not slept in 24 hours 

and I lay in bed 

waiting for the numb dark to rush in 

and between the lights behind my eyes 

your name feels like coming home.

l am a fickle person - 

i don't want to give my soul  

for something or someone that will  

not take it with earnest.

But you,

You my love 

Are someone.

We cannot stay here forever though, 

this moment will pass 

like talons through your flesh

Still, nothing is worth more service

than the light in your eyes, 

the electric spark of our hands intertwined, 

the way your hug feels within my bones, 

how your presence tastes like nectar and ambrosia. 

Your love open, outpouring 

and unable to be contained.

swans neck

every movie is so muted where are the explosions and hearts pouring out of mouths prove your love by sacrifice not singing 

i 

  don’t want                                          ignore

          to hear that 

subdued under that reflective plastic i found wrapped in an origami boy sitting in tall grass 

                                               scratching 

me                                       a scab 

                     someone left on him until it’s off

swimming in shallow mud with the sun scorching my disappoint into my pores wordless and sore i remember that time someone called me a whore but i didn’t believe them im perfect i swore

    bleeding now                                 if you can

        bandaid busted 

               the memory of a produce aisle  

      and the body of a girl 

completely happy and still     if you want to        

                               then  you will 

 the swans neck grew so long it twisted into a figure eight and he smiled 

  now i can see you forever     infinitely and forever 

tear your eyes out when you walk in the studio!

the mirror on the wall is an evil thing that contorts and twists reality

be blissfully ignorant 

try to forget that what the mirror sees is what everyone else does too 

i have a hole in my shoes

it is 6:00am in syracuse and 

someone along the way is very passionate

about his ricotta

in his ricotta van

he will wake you up

if the repair man doesn't

my dreams involve the ricotta man

and revolve around the ricotta man

king of the summer and my heart

gladness and sadness 

at the end of a big hope there is another guarded bridge 

so i begin all my meanings with endings in hopes to let the right ones stick

there was once a dip and fall below my brow and above my pupils 

but now my eyes sit flat on the surface of my skin

waiting for no one to pop them in

slits and divets to carve out the emptiness into an even more hollow museum of lackluster

i wake up blank and i go to sleep covered in a strangers handwriting 

when i reach the next cross i will pray but the first three are a few too late 

that is the only reason i am scared to say i’m not a good daughter

even though my mom would disagree 

i have always been waiting for a reason to make the meanings about something other than me 

the town of suicide is still a home for some

so i will sleep in this bed tonight 

and wake up alone 

isolation kills

as it slowly knaws away 

til my body rots

there's a stillness in the air

that can't be explained

the street lamp is right above my head

my shadow stands out more than ever before

the park is filled with stragglers

going home to end their night 

or leaving their home to begin it

the empty bench im sitting on is oddly comfortable 

peace is easy to find and hard to keep

but i have found it now

and i will try not to let go

Fuck the ceiling and how it scalds me 

Black and red tiles stand for “Pigs”

Grunt and scream your beige words at me and make net zero difference but at least the costumed cows are happy 

Clamoring with their mouths wide open and I won’t pretend I’m better but at least I’m aware of the butterflies 

Snakes slither around those words and poison them with impartiality 

What is your interpretation?

The grasshopper children use them to fall in love 

All while knowing the letters to spell completely different phonographs

You make love to maybes and exceptions and someday it’ll kill you but for know you’ll draw the line at capital and the state 

You know better than all of us 

And the letters you spit stand for “Pigs”

penance for the unlucky side of the penny 

blinded by the fame and fortune says the old brat manning the firework stand

never enough good love to go around when you eat women like stray cats 

like i’ll never see another one

and i’ll never be let in

who put the praying mantis by the door like that again 

why is it always a new form of the same treacherous thing 

says the honeysuckle stewardess on a crashing plane 

straight down to the deep blue is where i’ll put whatever’s leftover of you

when the loving is done 

and you go your way

                                     even if it’s not away

land deprived and sweating for days in this over hill heat

but just under the surface is a polymer kid

with just enough left in him to be able to give

and he’s been keeping me standing

shoveling sugar coated rocks down my american throat 

this is how another language tastes he says

don’t go

                don’t go

   don’t                        go

human evilution 

a perversion of gods natural order ignoring dads talks about the prostitution of the music industry 

taking drugs as self preservation 

nobody can answer the questions and if they do they’ll hit the empty cities that follow unwanted knowledge and then the graves that follow those 

it is more than you think to make a choice like that while drinking and driving and eyeing the end

absolutely clean like a mormon missionary 

so many people love and die and become idiots because of that turning wheel

it feels like a party, I see the allure with a slowing heart of gold

there are no good ones left in the arena that do it properly so obliterate me for the heroin addicts to bleed over 

trying to keep up with it trying to keep up with it but I’m so tired it becomes a performance 

start taking other things 

they make the first time feel like infinite manipulation into the firework store

I think they sell guns here too but I’m not quite sure 

anything for America 

anything to protect the real act 

portions of the summer fed to the anorexic masses 

open wider

wider 

no wider

what if that girl you hate was the other guys girlfriend 

it’s not just us anymore 

a willingness to judge the love I force upon you

hey look I’m almost famous for this nonsense

the girl who was the bitch the whole time tried to kill herself for it

but hey look she’s still alive 

even now it’s not enough to just try

rippling, stones lay beneath 

a static fly through their feet

past rivers of paved concrete,

lining the trees,

there is the place i feed

inflections, echoes read

feel fast, cant be

incessant was the need 

blocking, it cant be seen

open doesn’t fleet, trust and be free

i need me

Someone doesn't have to die to disappear

People can hide in shadows

A soul can die while a body lives

a brain can function with a heart that barely beats

When poison runs through my veins 

And maggots eat at my thoughts

What is left but a body beginning to rot

Tell me 

Can a bomb have a plan?

And if it did could you withstand the hot hot heat of the moment 

When we get down to future matters maybe we won’t get far along along

Because you think some faux-professed startler of yours will make for a lively father 

It’s good for the posture she said she said she said

What’s on your mind baby is it last weeks bearded words or today’s radio champion 

Abolish sounds a little like the chorus of your chanteuse mom

She always was a fan of me and my     communique 

She was always a fan of my clique my clique my clique 

The kids have had their share of enough and it’s sixty eight it’s sixty eight it’s 68

Except this time the butter will churn like culture-like-mincemeat