ask how that colorblush dark heartmelt looks

when i punched the wall
so fiercely my fist dented the hardwood, i
didn't feel it
only the tingling that presages
pain
that will come only later, when
you are alone.
nor did i bear the ache
of you,
drugs spreading through my limbs
i was finally detached
in my own head with the wraiths
i tried to forget while i was
with you,
love

my roommate looked at my
swollen knuckles, my
ashen face, said
i think you've finally snapped,
& now i know
what you mean
when you say you're crazy
and i believed it
holding ice to a fist
twice its size,
wanting still
to bruise everything in my path
until the bones of my hand cracked
and split,
staring off
to the side at the electrified air
around me and waiting
for my cracking wall of glass
to shatter down

looking later at the oval mark
my flesh embedded into the
wall, i ran my hand
with the fist i couldn't close
down the boards, stroking
lightly, trying to see
a pattern in the grain.

if it can't find you, it can't hurt you

all those hours
drinking shitty beer to rid my mouth
of the taste of you
i never got drunk,
simply ill
then lurching about the house, fingers
clenched in my hair,
tugging tightly to stop thinking
i stumbled the staircase,
holding the phone to my chest
with its messages that wouldn't come
at least not when i needed them,
tripping upwards
to lie on a bed that wasn't mine,
mouthing a silent plea
for better reception
some blind line to put some
trust in.
toes throbbing, hand
fisting belly, mouth slack
breathing through a choking nose
with no sympathy
i clutched the hole of you
and the neck of the bottle
and it rose, washing you
down into the bitter pit
of stomach
the cavern of the toilet
as i knelt, preying
upon my roiling mind,
and washing my mouth out
with a swig from the brown glass
i stood,
holding the counter,
met my eyes
which couldn't quite face me
in the cold, predawn
light of the mirror

hope

it's what makes you hurt
a little harder, every time
it fails to come through





why are the ones
that stain you
always the ones
you can't leave behind?

deathlike

i felt cheated,
i mean
when were their eyes on me
any time that i just
fixed something,
or chopped wood
hauled tree limbs, hacked
at your garden beds, when
did they even notice me
unless i was laughing and smiling
in that certain way,
wearing something
cut tight and low
i felt cheated, i mean -
always in the spotlight for the wrong thing,
never for any skill
or even a bit of personality
oh they loved me,
but not
because i opened my mouth
and told the truth
it's all to do
with a certain cock
of the head,
flick of the hair,
the tightness of my jeans

creation is key

this is how it begins:
a twist
of stomach when we speak
over the phone, and a tingle,
a tightening that descends on my
entire body as i begin the trip
that brings me slowly to you
and to us

my anticipation sick, almost queasy
and you are impatient, always

wanting to know where, how far,
how long?

i sit outside waiting for the train,
wind flipping my pages
and blowing my hair wild
and i'm switching on slowly,
surfacing to awareness, the
resemblance of our bodies
and i know
there is something in this
connection of ours that is
not simple, that will not
flame into ashes
no matter how we burn.
there is more to this, despite
our denials.

you call
and i respond bodily,
so deeply
i have no way of putting this
kind of desire in words.
the need to not leave this behind
and disappear, although
when i plan out my days,
they tend towards running
the want to wander, to
assuage the restless mind.
but i have time
to decide.
and while
i wait, i come to you
when you decide you want me, right now

and damn the consequences
we are intertwined, our lives
mixed and messy and full of life
and anguish
and you roll it around on the planes of your mind

i sit stiffer, straighter when you're
around until you pull me onto
your body and we meld

and the world, for moments, molds
itself around us

so when i'm on the move, heading
your way, this is what i think
about -
the seconds where, when
you touch me
and everything disappears,
time
and all the other shit
we worry in our teeth
is wholly irrelevant.

keeping score

i feel empty,
flesh hollowed within my frame,
the peculiar sink of belly
familiar, and intimate
the jaw i clench when no one is
looking,
locking my teeth together
for the sake of silence
my tongue tripping and turbid
with the lack
in the cold pre-dawn light
that barely escapes the covered sky
i have solitude.
it holds no solace.

the small rustlings of a house
starting from slumber, jerking
a hand through its hair
and stumbling sleepily
towards the sun, muffled
as it is in its blankets
of cloud
nestling in the sky,
as if
it hides from us
and maybe it does

i hide from it all, don't
step off my porch to
confront the world

not until the softness is
wiped away, and replaced
with unfeeling armor,
until the cracks are soldered
shut.
i'll be waiting
for the one who will pull me
from the grave my bed
has become

museum

he looked at me
expectantly
i said
what
the fuck
are you staring at
i'm not an exhibit,
not yours to gawk at, anymore.
i want to know what you want from me

waiting patiently with the look
that's more intense than you
let on but really
what do you need from me
that i have not already
tried to give, and failed
my delivery
i can't help you
stop
waiting by my side staring
wanting something i can't
fathom, much less define

what do you see
what do you see. what you see
is weary, washed out and barely
transparent, too proud
to speak, too tired
to lie

you see
what i will not bother to
guard of me

the story of you

obsessively chronicling you
on the plane,
i only stopped
to eat their fucking pretzels
and order a vodka,
which i loathe, a
continuance of the earlier mistake
of a drink
wondering, god, wondering where
i was for you,
all this time,
because it wasn't by your side at all

off, too absorbed in the trauma
of my own skin to even see you
but i'm seeing now,
far too late
32,000 feet above
your home,
under the level of the sea
and god, i hope not thinking of me
useless as i am
with the words i never shared
and yours,
that i never read
for years, not until now
flying over the heartland,
trying
to absorb home, the raw concept
of it,
if i could just figure out
who or what or where
it might be, what the definition is

tail ending winter

a freezing wind
blowing off the river so hard
it bites through jackets
& layers of clothing & i,
dressed for the warm
sunshine,
am huddled behind a pillar
after two hours of riding
a bus, stamping my feet
trying to bring life
to my toes
& thinking
of you, warm as you must be
in the enclosed car you're taking
to where i need to be,

but you
would not ask if there was
room for me,
and i think
maybe
that is the only room
i have in your life now -

a
lunch hour and no space in the
car you're riding in,
to party with
the friends who used to be mine
but no longer invite me -
maybe tiptoeing around
your new girlfriend,
as if
i fucking cared, when all i wanted
was a warm ride
that would not even take half the time
i spent shivering beside a bus stop,
hoping if i paced
and ran
i might warm up

the opportunity

i just left a note behind, and
disappeared

if i'm not back in a week, send
a search party

early morning sunshine filtering
through the clouds,
silver and dull
muted, like my own flesh when i
rise, chilled and pebbled in
the cool air, and step in no
particular direction
just gone,
elsewhere
as if i could escape my head
by climbing
a trail to nowhere
clouds overhead dampening the light

don't go crazy... you're already there

go ahead, don't
look back
just examine the moment
you are in.
do not
look forward. exist.
waiting it out
screaming rock through
your headphones
cultivate blank and smooth
maybe willing to change, but
expecting nothing
barring randomness.
just wait it out
cultivate the face
that shows you nothing but a face, staring
right back at whatever
you let your face,
unguarded,
show

schweingrippe

the nasty sort of flu
is setting claws of panic into
the country, and naturally
i'm rooting for it
thinking of the fat fucks who
block my way while waddling
down the sidewalk,
the brainless public driving
Hummers
and buying names
to plaster across their bodies
to fit in, to make sure
there is no deviation
from the norm

i sit in my living room room,
sewing my life together
with my hands,
with
every thread the needle binds.
i have the time.
i patch scraps to make the whole,
and wait
for something to take down
this ridiculous life
the pre-packaged kind,
that will only stop waddling
in the direction of the nearest food
that's fried,
when the world is altered
radically
so i'm rooting for the microbes,
and
a healthy bit of mayhem
and destruction,
i mean
it's all bound to crumble,
and all we need
is patience enough
to live it out
until we find a fiddler
to play
when it all goes up in flames

the divide

i know it,
the taste of blood
the metal tang
of it, the heaviness
on my lips.
i burned for it,
staring
blankly at the sky
gone the dull color of iron
and poised to pour its
own blood upon us,
cloud
to woman, woman to soil
the inscrutable look of those
who haven't had the ample
opportunity
to taste themselves
bleed.
to lick crimson
from their flesh as if they, too
are cognizant enough to understand
that bleeding is only
a sign that your heart
still beats, that you
are [barely]
alive

attention

i shouldn't have to tell you i don't
feel like talking,
it is obvious
enough - my headphones loud
to drown your voice,
slouched
over my book and glaring out
the window at the rain-soaked
countryside -
i have no mind
for your idle chatter, only time for
myself and the thoughts i tumble
in the early morning hours
where i'm so tired it's almost
as if i haven't yet gone to bed
on a train full of business attire,
highlighted in purple
flaming hair
and layers of hippie skirts and beads braided
in my hair - and i don't care
that they stare,
i'm still wishing
myself back in your bed, warm
against your body.
the rain
pours on. it's finally dawn
even if the sun won't come through
the clouds and all the people
toting umbrellas watch me
hunched under my hood and
shrugging my shawl closer to
my shoulders.
and soon, this time
when i'm let off the crowded
conveyance i will disappear
into the crowds, so much as i
am able,
trying to melt into this city
until there is no one left
to see
what has become of me

if, yes and i mean

when you touched me, i
flinched
just instinct cowering
from hurt,
pain

this is what you represent
to me
now.

i am wondering
if, yes and i mean if you even notice,
if it hurts you
to watch me shrink away
from you

as the mouse fears
the cat, as i fear
the empty night sky
with the moon hung full
and high

dark

he always waits until
i can't stand it anymore,
and move on my own
something i am comfortable with
as i move with anyone else
but then, the others never
change their minds
halfway through they're on me, eager
like me on you, like
our connect when the hesitance
finally leaks away.
we're not, then, so shy and reserved, we
breathe in what comes.

what comes now is the rain, my
morning-after slog to the city
to starve like a proper artist should,
while you teach high school, act properly
and count down the days to summer
more avidly than the kids.

i want you to teach me, or maybe yourself,
more about this - what it boils
down to, our bond
our lack
of letting go, even though
you say we are apart.
i know your
life is insular
and i combine the
aspects of my life in ever-changing
patterns, this person meet this
one,
watch my lovers stumble
through the conversations they
never dreamed of having

and i'm wondering
about you, thinking
when will
you finally come to take your
place in the calm center of my
chaotic storm
and settle the
winds down far enough so i
can see through to the horizon?

as if a ghost

my body stationary
flying on the highway but my head
is making a to-do list that
morphs, warps as i wrap a
solution around the edges of it,
i'm tightened
quivering and waiting for the chance
to go and change things,
implement
my will.
we run 75, skipping
lines and weaving, waiting,
inside our minds twitching away
as if the concentration might
make idea take form.
i soak it
in, the milling possibilities

still eulogizing you, as little as i want to

going at it in a
stranger's bed, head
smashed against the wall,
still comparing you
to the situation
at hand,
even
while throwing our clothing
to the floor,
in our rise
and fall,
examining you
in my mind
wondering how much time,
how many pills & drunken nights,
what will release my mind?