battle

i'm studying the war cultures right now
and i begin to understand the rage
felt by all these ancient men
stirred to march and die for causes
they deemed necessary for bloodshed
i could take up my sword right now
i could lose myself in the death throes
of the people i hack down in blood-rage
and come out on the other side of battle,
filthy and worn, but whole as i could be
having hacked my heart to bits in war-mongering
i could walk on, and try to never feel again.

identity

you know it's on the line
trembling between past present
former and future
you wait
grasping for both sides,
terrified
of letting go
but you know that
forward is the only way,
there is nothing for you
in the past.
begin to throw away
your old life,
tearing a new spot for yourself
in the fabric of the world,
while the past digs its claws
into tender places.

leave everything behind

try not to mind when
they cry when you leave.
it is only a few moments,
their eyes will dry.
do not compulsively
clench your throat,
do not look back
as you drive away.
the road promises new
beginnings, and people
who have not lived
your middle school failures
and small high school triumphs.
you will be anonymous, alone.
do not cry when you realize
you have run away
to a new set of problems.
your status isn't changing,
you are still the same.
they are still the same.
it is all the same.
do not call your old best friends
and watch even the most familiar
melt away into strangeness.
most of all, do not admit
your failings, when home for the holidays -
no, it's good, really -
i'm fine.

patiently

pale green lampbeams shine
from the black fur of face.
short glints and she looks away,
tail twitching, waiting
staring at rough bark.
i hear the cheerful chirping
she is so enamored of,
and i really hope
(although i rather like birds)
that her fur will hide
from glints of sunlight.
twitch,
a tensing of body and limbs.
birds shoot from branches
and she flicks her tail
once, twice,
and curls underneath
the tree's shade, waiting.

worn through with you

why, whisper,
do you long for death so?
surely you know
it will not stop your longings,
fears and heresies. deeply inside
where your heart rots from misuse
in your chest, you can feel
that death is not the escape
you'd love it to be.
no, you will find
yourself again, over and over
you cannot expect the mortal coil
to change you.
death is nothing.
it will not kill your forbidden desires, or
help you run away.
death will bring you back here, over and over;
you cannot escape
from yourself.

mania

hold my throat i can't breathe i can't feel
my arms i can't feel the bleeding again
it's nothing it's nothing
fuck pretending forget i'm useless again let's
start the cycle over again why won't
you Talk To Me why won't you recognize
that all i want is to erase the
feeling of a whore is all i'm good for
i help you forget the ones you really loved
i've been everything but the one you
Would Have Died For how do you think
that makes me feel? how do you think
that makes me feel? Stupid girl you thought he
loved you. you thought She loved you
You Keep Dreaming Fairy Tales nobody
loves you nobody wants you
Stop Pretending you're anything
but a Stupid Playtoy nothing
nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing

hurricane aftermath

leaves on bushes and trees
glint their startling green into the sunlight.
as i walk, my shoes
crunch the dead and dying leaves
blown down by the winds.
it is an early illusion of fall.
if i close my eyes and
forget the heat of a southern september,
the sounds my feet make
bring me home
to a place where, in fall,
foliage turns bright autumn colors
and you can find leaf piles
under trees
the sounds small children make
running to jump into a pile
of the beautiful fiery colors

she died

not from violence, but
silently
each time her girlfriend
forgot to call
every glare from her mother
when her girl
walked in the door
and she knew she
wasn't wanted
a plague of humanity
a diseased brain,
never mind love.
forget the feeling like
everything would be
wonderful -
when girlfriend walks out
the door,
all you are left with
is an angry silence
the words dyke and sin

rehearsal

it takes more than just your clothes
to be a dancer.
try on the shoes, fit your toes
into the confines of pointe
your slicked back hair,
and the weariness
of knowing the steps by heart
and failing anyway

hammer

at first when we were new
you took that necklace and
you tied its cord around my throat
i wore it constantly, it was
always on my body to remind me
of you.
i wasn't yet yours,
just something quite profitable
to hold on to.
now that you claim me
i have my own necklace
to swing around my neck
yours stays firmly tied to you.
i am not sure if this
is a better arrangement.

friend/foe

the way when you turn to face me
you don't know whether to smile
or stare, aloof, away from me
and the emotion plays in the
lines of your face and
you don't understand when i walk away -
when i touch your face and
you duck your head, attempting
to avoid my touch -
these things.
i wish i knew you like i used to
the days i could count on my
fingertips
and i could have drawn you
from memory alone
with my heart

he

he says i'm too intense
for people to deal with,
and i understand
i burn with a ferocity
that scares even me,
sometimes
the way i'll be high
days after a smoke
the ways i see things
that aren't there, quite.
fucking crazy
like maybe they shouldn't have let
me go
but it doesn't matter.
i am here.
and i scare away
everyone i love
with my intensity.

on purpose

you'd think
that if we were as
goddamned happy as we
claim to be
then we wouldn't
drown ourselves in liquor,
smoke until
our tongues are raw
lie to the hallucinogens
(i am not as fucked up as you think i am)
the uncomfortable stares you get
when they've found out something about you
they didn't want to know
the smile falters
the brusque manner,
the hasty retreat.

the curse of memory

try as i may
she will not leave.

this latest incarnation
splashes the ceiling in the bathtub,
laughing and comfortable
legs entwined within mine
chaperoned only by the rubber ducky.

i know her legs, the scarred ankles
the way her hands felt in mine
it's not over, but it is

he says i want a girl
but that's not it, precisely
what i want is her
i want to move on
and to stop looking back

over-exposed

the glint of blonde made the camera glare
and the otherwise pristine picture was
washed in brilliance
that obscured the details of the faces

she was kissing his cheek
his abashed grin
her peaceful ambrosial bliss, eyes closed
steadying herself on his shoulder
a moment captured, yet obscured
simultaneously

$3.76 is

the price of a ticket
to buy solitude
music in the background like
a trance -
the words don't matter, or
the chords
just the feeling of being alone
when i want nothing more
than to run away from everyone,
i would pay any price to fade
into the obscure crowds
so you'll forgive me if
i don't think the price
of a big coffee is too much
to become nobody.

sometimes you ache
for another's touch
on your flesh but
sometimes, nobody
is not a bad person to be.
when lost in the crowd,
when walking alone on the street
thinking how nice it would be
to be somebody

i don't regret knowing, just feeling.

he doesn't know what to tell me
how immature
how sad my smile
how trouble seems to follow me
in waves
when i say how i'm doing fine.
and i am
when i've stamped the
suicidal screams to
faint whispers,
when i cease to mutilate
my arms
you're beautiful,
he says, why you date
the guys you date...

and i'm thinking how i'd
much rather date
no guys at all

you wanted to know who i am.

one who once knew your every curve
who would lie beside you and
try not to breathe
for fear of waking you
who would hold your lithe body against mine
who loved you.

now i am cut by your words
instead of a blade
i am the one who stares at you, numbly
when you look into my face
and you don't say a goddamn thing
when we once talked in the language of blood,
pain and tears.
your pictures, i stare at
out of the corners of my eyes
memories i did not make, merely borrowed
from the photograph albums of friends i perused,
hoping to see your beautiful face,
and averting my eyes in sorrow
when i saw your smile.

disappear

imagine the ease of her leaving
hugs her family,
boards the behemoth
alone, not grieved.
it is a breath let out
a weight removed.
imagine you never have to spot
her in the grocery store,
or at your favorite coffeehouse
her poetry no longer glaring
from the pages
imagine
you have no more links to her words,
her anguish falls on deaf ears
in the town she has abandoned.
imagine taking your hand
and deleting her presence
as if she has never lived for you.

everyone walks straighter,
as if a burden
is lifted from their shoulders.

which drugs, how many, how often, how soon?

i can feel the concentric circles
around my body
can feel the walls pulse and sway
contracting around my outflung arms.

i do not remember the reasons.