peering in

the image is fuzzy, revealing
smiling faces - flushed and dazzling
one solitary moment
anticipation
and it has been so many years
the grinning people changed and
worn by time
worn into caricatures of the
portraits they once were.
like so many ancient photographs
you peer in, trying to make out
that pivotal moment, what
were they thinking?
were they as happy
as they seemed?
who are they?
searching the backs and corners
for a date, a name, a clue -
wishing you could dive into
the paper and experience
the moment,
become a smiling face
inside a photograph.

timing

10:19iamthinking
about a house, around a mile
away, with a comfortable bed,
(butmostimportantly) you
sleeping, blissfully ignoring
the rest of the world.
10:20ithoughtabout
skipping today, coming
to see you but i knew
i'd get caught so
10:21i'mwatchingnumbers
on a wall
glowing red death
ticking away the hours in
10:22hell.andthis
whole day has been one
giant trip
the entire school's on drugs
and i'm caught in the middle
10:23listeningto
Pink Floyd
what a mindfuck in these grey cinder block walls
the carpet filthy, ancient
depressing settings
10:24i'vemanaged
to create something
in five minutes.
voices laughing in the background,
yet no one speaks.

capture

your face stares
out of the 4X6 page
speaking foreign languages,
your face
is a riddle.
a year
after the moment, i can see
what you were feeling,
that exact moment you faced
an empty camera lens
my face, eager with anticipation
of capturing the photograph
of a lifetime.
you knew our future,
you turned
never bothering to hide
the pain you felt.
you knew it was inevitable.

that morning

and i am simply a fool
to be here; i'll regret morning
when it comes. but your fingertips
trail shapes in the darkness
pierced only by candles
and i feel your touch on my skin.

and yes; my skin
has missed you, i have missed you. i was a fool
to stay away so long. the candles
burn tiny flames into the morning
trying to stave away the darkness
but in the meantime - your fingertips

as the song sings, "your fingertips,
- anyone will do..." but not for my skin -
i need you - your face in the darkness
smiling, and my own smile in return; i'm not a fool
to be here after all, and the morning
is a brighter aspect lit by the flames of candles.

the candles
drip wax onto your fingertips
as you pinch the flames in the morning
leaving charcoal on your skin
but you don't mind; you're a fool
still smiling at the thought of the darkness.

i lay entangled in you. the darkness
encroached, and the candles
didn't help at all. "was i a fool
to think at all?" your fingertips
traced the beat of the song into my skin
and i hated to leave in the morning.

and this morning
is not a welcome change from the darkness
we so enjoyed, your skin
and mine together under the light of candles
as you trailed words with your fingertips
and the song is wrong, i'm not a fool

not in the morning, with the candles
mere nubs; the darkness and your beautiful fingertips
caressing my skin; oh no, i am no fool.

guilt

she still loved him
waking up in the night
to ache for his touch
and he was long gone
but she refuses to live with regret, vaguely
hoping to one day never need the tears
she says she will be happy
for the time she received,
but she cries at night,
soaking her pillow in bitter salt.
she pores over his pictures,
trying to interpret
the look in his eyes,
in her own.
was i happy, did he
know that one day,
i would leave?
she wonders,
tracing the line
of his jaw
was it meant to end this way,
was the entire thing
simply a mistake?

we have changed so much

how bitter it is
to watch our smiling faces
three years ago,
caught on tape
with our hope
etched into the negatives

commitment[problem]

please
do not doubt
the depth of my feeling
for you.
know instead it
is my scared heart,
running like mad,
so afraid of being
ruined
that it never begins
to live.
know that i hope i never run.
why do you think
i hold on so tightly?
in the middle of the night,
i am just as scared of me
foolishly leaving you,
as you, leaving me

apathy amounts to

i used to keep journals,
jotting my days until they seemed
to bleed into the paper.
you never realize that you
are dead
until someone tells you -
and you go back,
poring over the entries
one by one - i swear
i am alive...
when did it change?
when was i finally pronounced
DOA
when walking these halls...

numb

is it bad
when you can't feel yourself
at all?
i am beginning
to believe
i don't exist.

pear scent

here, these days
a touch is too much
my skin crumbles at the sight of you.
i can still see the scars
thin white lines we share.
you mean too much to me -
one Whisper and nothing else matters.
cold fingers pryed you away
they were mine, they were yours
anybody could have taken this.
our bond - too precious to last,
too painfully eloquent
with nothing but wistful smiles.
i wished and waited for time enough -
one long night to say goodbye.

while you were trying to mold me into someone else

and what a blasphemous
prophet am i
tripping out my destruction
in softly rounded letters
bitter regret for future
circumstances
and what was i thinking
who was i kidding
the dysfunction, tears
and angry silences
could never have constructed
a marriage.
i never could have played a
housewife right,
no.
you always knew who i
was, and i'm angry
yes,
so goddamned angry
that you never accepted
what you saw.

home

you were beautiful, leaning
against the barre - your
old home - how could you
ever have left?
and i suppose we all
wish we could be you -
to have a second shot
among the stage lights -
for it not to be too late,
for the injuries to
disappear...
to go home again.

Aphrodite Mourning

if it matters how many
years it has been, i care not
years are mere minutes, it
only happened minutes ago
his dark head bowing to the ground
blood pooling to create the windflowers -
and they are everywhere this season,
like cheerful reminders of my pain
beautiful stabbing heartache.
i am no more what once i was
my beauty lost and torn
among his final bloody breaths
in his death rattle and descent
into the underworld.
my tears have poured, trying vainly
to heal the eternal open wound.
ay, Adonis, lovely creature
you did not even hear me in
those final moments, you were
too far gone
to feel my lips caress you
for the final time.

self-reflection

i don't bother
looking in the mirror much
anymore;
i know
what i'll find.

tell me dear

tell me
pull me
pushing fingers
into my belt loops, hands
guiding my hips to look
straight into your eyes,
"i love you,"
the way we play
with grownup words
and infatuated glances
lips insistent
and oh-so-gratifying
we'll make love,
we'll lie together
and say "don't leave,
just stay for a while."
we'll be perfectly content
to be discontent
with the small amount of time
we have -
we'll gasp our goodbyes
with laughing eyes
and flushed faces.

escaping

it's a drowsy freedom
the early a.m. hours
low lights low on gas
low on everything else
low on life
we escape temporarily
stretching the hours
to fit our needs
wasting ourselves in
drunken bars
for meaningless hours
we drive to leave -
we should just keep
driving, we'd forge
something out of
the nothing we left behind -
but we return every morning,
sorrows half-drowned
in the night.

self-fulfulling prophecy

i seem
incapable
of becoming
anything other than
the jaded bitch
i've always
claimed to be.

you know it's over when

coming to the park,
searching vainly for the graffiti
that held your names, promising forever
only, you can't find it -
it's covered by more years of love, loss, and
cock jokes
you no longer remember the precise spot he carved it;
the blade is a distant memory,
the split a recent one.
you only want the evidence
to remain, you want everyone
to remember:
once, you were deliriously
happy together

is this it?

close my eyes...
my whole body shakes
dried blood morning,
broad daylight dried blood
on my arm. i didn't
bother washing it off.
my whole body
shakes i can feel it
close my eyes lie down
i can feel it, like drug
withdrawal, can't stop trembling.
as i'm curled here
on the couch thinking,
how sad would it be
for him to find me
here on his couch in
broad daylight,
i didn't take the pills with
food, i took too many.
give me an hour
i'll be...fine.

i'm okay, then.

"are you okay?" she asks me.
"define okay," i say.
"breathing."




what does it say about me,
that i live through being
close to death?
that sickness, pale flesh
is welcome?
death is becoming an
answer to the problem
that is posed by you?
go on, tell me what a SICK FUCK
i've become.