solitude

i am inundated
with silence. blank pages
scream their accusations, beg
for a passion it seems i've
somehow buried, stifling myself
in order to tamp down the riot
in my mind.
i've
bombed to resume peace
and order, and so i kick,
scuffing through the ash.
the rain has come, & i crunch
through yellow leaves each morning shrugging
my hood closer
to my face.
drops scatter against my glasses.
nothing moves early in
the morning but
cars slushing through the street,
the winds blow and
trees shake water into the air.
the early hours grow bitterly colder.

alone,
i pull on chilly layers
and stand pebbled
and plucked in front of my mirror,
relearning my face.
it is hollow-eyed
and rarely moves.
i leave in, and return to,
darkness
to a place where silence remains.

for andre

what i want to do is call:
say
you have no idea how badly
i still want you, even
though it's been years.
i still
want to lie in bed with you
while you blow smoke out of
the cracked window, deliciously
naked, pressed thigh to thigh.

you say i would not recognize
your current condition, too skinny
and strung out on love
but
if that's true, i'm unrecognizeable too

you wouldn't know me either.
perhaps
we both are different people now
than who we were,
who
had delirious sex after nights and nights
of touching.
now i don't bite off
my desire for you. it bubbles inside
i know
how badly i want it. it's
crossed my mind more than once
that you and i might have made it,
if we'd manage to live
in the same state
might have turned out differently,
in some alternate place
and all these foreshortened maybes
don't get me anything but
a bit regretful

sometimes
i wish i'd stuck out that town
and seen where it would go,
you and i,
the misfit couple sent
straight from hell
and it's been
two, three years but now
i want you more than ever
i still
want to be pressed to your side,
thinking about old possibilities
and the ridiculousness
of figuring everything out
a bit too late.

lock

i've slowly locked
myself away, through the years
behind layers of armor until
no one is left knocking
on the doors to get through.
tonight
i'm realizing
that no one's through - i
don't know a single person who
is past my bullshit,
my straight-on i-don't-care, not
family or blood
or girls whom with i shared my head
and i'm sick of it

sick of wanting to peel out
waiting for someone
to tap
on the knocker, look, ask
if you can use it
chip a little
at my layers of paint

i
am not invincible, just
put on a good show.
i wish you would know.
look at me,
ask me
what i'm made of, and maybe
this time i won't
throw up my persona,
maybe
i'd put it down,
build
a bridge of it, let you come
picnic at the edge
of it,
really
want to know.
ask me who i am
and maybe,
maybe
i'd tell you
the truth.

and yes

yes
i am disappointed/indifferent/crushed/stoic /lonely
i am not who you'd think i'd be, although your
face feels smug in its worry and i hug myself

remodeling

blank, i feel:
canvas prepared
but abandoned, still white

i am letting the lack of color
remain.
it doesn't seem to matter
what the other hues could be.
me, renovated:
freshly prepared
for the next person i
won't let in,
stilled and repainted

enough paint will disguise
almost any flaw
the cracks become invisible
lines of glue begin
to smooth.
holes
are harder to fix,
maybe
a little plaster
but give it
a thin layer.
soon the dent
will go unnoticed.

get your hands off of me

you still touch.
drumming beats onto my knee,
pressing your thigh to mine
the oh-so-casual lean
against my shoulder as you listen
to me.
you bump my side as we walk.
i shy away
touch
has become too much. when
you press against me
i move away
i want to
but will not
touch you.

but your easy reach for my body
has not disappeared
you hug tightly and
won't let go.
i cringe.
squeeze back, and run.
closeness is only pain.

you left, staring
through the windows on the train,
hands pressed against the glass
as you gazed at me.

i return your stare
but do not wave
i run
as soon as the train has passed.
i try
to forget the look
on your face.

whatever your dark desires

know this.

light piercing down
will flay them,
penetrate
until the darkness
has washed away
and you will only be left with
the cold, naked,
quivering
truth

wish list

what i want
is something thick enough to do the job
not too long, but
not so short it can't
hit the back of me
don't care about the denomination,
paper, plastic, animated biped,
give me a hand[or two]
just
make me drift out, and then into
my body -
make me remember
what it's like to scream and sweat

one or the other, or both, of the sexes
as if there's enough change to
make a difference, as if
any person or thing could possibly
alter the thrumming solitude of
this bed
say rubber, or latex,
let's
go for hard and indifferent,
so it
won't care when i don't
want to cuddle
don't want to let it settle in my bed
long enough to get comfortable
and stay

foxwoman

look -
white snow speckled by flung
droplets of blood
the red fur of the fox
clamped into the trap, steel
teeth in its foot
to the bone.

and i, i am that pitiful animal,
duly gnawing
through my leg,

look -
i'd rather limp away
under my own power, bleeding
missing a limb
than be caught in your trap.

frost

this winter seems suitable for saying
all those words that never
came out before:
i'm sorry,
i love you, i'm sorry for loving you
really fucking sorry.
yes
winter devolving into a soggy mess,
as we all hide in our layers

who can even see us
underneath it all.
who
can really tell what we hide
underneath.

gaps

in the spaces we conscientiously place between us
unspoken longing lingers still.

i
do not believe in hope, so
say nothing.
you've heard it before.

what i do is disengage
a little more every time i see you
i wrench my body away
in degrees.

soon i'll be separately self-contained,
restrained
from acting as if
my desires
in any way
coincide with reality.

to ash, to bone

i walked you home, you
asked me in. i
said, "i'd rather be set on fire,"
your face fell

but this is why: it's memories
that rage in my head
and
stepping foot into your warehouse
of them
would be akin
to setting plates of food
in front of my starving girl, saying,
touch, savor, smell
envelop, hold it
in your arms, snuggle close
but do not give in.
DO NOT want.
do not taste,
open your lips, do not
inhale and let your mouth water
do not want do not do not
do not cry
do not desire what
you cannot have

do not
pretend as if
none of this matters
to you.

i would rather be burned alive.

election

the fireworks, explosions
in the rain,
flashes of light
as the neighbors run by screaming
honking their car horns,
it's late
election night
i listen
and look forward
to picking up the paper
tomorrow morning,
finally see it
in ink,
irrevocable.
change,
blowing in
on the wind.

if there were a saint for shitty timing, i'd pray to her

when you said it at first
i thought you were lying,
i mean
what a way to admit,
years after the fact
you'd wanted most
what you would not do -
ask me to be more yours,
than simple fucking

and i, unknowing
the frail hold you had on fraying nerves,
a snake lying in wait
for the next sudden movement,
which i got all wrong,
so i got bit

which is fair,
i suppose -
after all
i knew i was handling something
skittish,
and wild

spilling

i dyed today -
myself, i mean
spilling ink all over my knuckles,
which now as if i've engaged
in gloveless boxing
and it won't wash off,
but settles into the lines
of my wrist so i can
see the tiny creases
we normally don't notice
all over our skin

i look like a law
office suicide
pants&sweater set
off-set by my
blood-like spatter pattern
that clashes with the decor,
and my shirt
should've used black,
i suppose
better to look
a fool with an inkpot
than someone who might
bleed on your files

liquid parts of life

the shock and suddenness of
unexpected bleeding
as your lower lip blossoms and
all you can taste is iron, dull
and lifeless
or the smell of it, as you crouch
behind your desk and hope
a handkerchief is enough
blood caking inside your nose
or the vividly visceral watching
a razor part the skin and peel,
in layers, the truth from
whyever you are doing it, even
while knowing how
maladaptive and unnecessary
and useless the action is
and knowing you do it because,
not in spite of these things -
always a conscious choice,
for you - the need
to show something,
and knowing
exactly how
to do so

if we still love

eventually,
i answered
my own questions,
as i often,
accidentally do:

yes, no; maybe
[indifferent, i believe you are
but i am livid with it]

yes, the relationship remained
and no, it devolved
into tears, fears, and
other excrement
and maybe in a few years
this won't seem so urgent, or desolate
indifference may one day remain
for more than mere moments

in the meantime i bide time
dulling myself whichever way works well enough
and i hope
that in enough time
the answer will be yes
and i won't be using
your name
in the same sentence as
the phrase,
"stupid fucking man"

fall

instead of hiding inside
the sickness that lives in my head,
i bide my time
biting my lips.
they eventually crack
and bleed
and it's painful when i smile, so
i rarely do
especially when thinking of you -
i just chew harder
when wanting your face,
so
now you evoke for me
the iron taste of blood,
a clenched jaw,
a nosebleed
i can't stop

police get called

sirens swirling through the still dark street,
who knows
where or what or whether
the cop just felt like running
a red light
or whether the red is blood
reflected in the blue and white
night light
on the pavement

the time has come to say these things

ad infinitum
until the brain stops responding
when you drift back to the subject
and i hear
what you're saying, but
i just can't care
anymore
about what you have to say.
talking like, what if
i have kids &how will my
fucked-up mental case
of a mind handle
that scenario?

all the while saying, i
don't quite fit into your picture

but you're the one who started bringing
up potential offspring

and maybe it's lodged
in your mind, because
however briefly,
i did carry for you
unintentionally,
unknowingly, until
it was at an end

and i suppose i'm not
the only one still wondering
what would
that have been like,
you and me

i mean, really