Enigma

I searched for you between the stars
and found myself in the darkest spaces
If the air is hard to breathe here
I have only myself to blame
I found you to be wrapped within a sphere of pure light
perfect, save for a jet black core.

Unfold Me

Be my pink champagne stunner shades
make me see the world in a rose tint
Unfold me like a love letter
and taste of every honey-dipped secret
Weigh me down with heavy lidded eyes
and a pair of soft lips
Teach me to fly with a single touch
be the guiding hands upon my hips

Flames

"Nice and cool out here,"
she drawled
It was still 90 out
the sun barely starting to set
its rays turning the hills the color of blood
I could see a fine sheen of sweat
on her upper lip
where a sardonic smile still lingered
She took a long pull on her cigarette
exhaled, said:
"Not so bad once you get used to it."

Where You Are

You reside within
the sunbeams I cup
against my skin
and the daydreams that blossom
before sleep creeps in
You are in the word
I dare not say
in the very first flight
of a bird
or a haunting melody
I hadn't heard

Weapons Drawn

Your side, my side:
definitive lines in the ground
Fingers crooked in eternal condemnation
every weapon drawn
What should be safe haven
is our own personal war zone
Who threw the first stone?

Flight

One day I will fly
My eyes touch the horizons
and soon, so will I
My wings, though clipped
will grow
And the sun, though eclipsed
still glows

My Own

My own moon
my scattered stars
the bright lights that
make the night less dark
A warmth that does not burn
but finds me
when the fog creeps in

Questions

No, I don't understand it any more than you:
why I turn from the things I want the most,
why I always long to find the source of the smoke,
why beauty inevitably makes me think of ugliness,
why the trusting seem like fools to me but liars even more so,
why I refuse to let certain pains fade away,
why my guilt is not an elephant in the room so much as it is a snake coiled in my lungs,
why I avoid thinking about my own happiness as much as possible,
why I hold so many names in my heart like glistening gemstones,
why I was so willing to fall in love until I began to,
why I have an anger that will not be quieted and cannot be stilled,
why I did not think of death when I was dying.

Hamartia

Ah, my Achille's heel
liquid gold
It goes down so smooth
leaves so little to remember
But there are ugly days
where I try to pull back
and I fall flat
Stale beer and one cigarette
rusty nails inside my head
Loud voices and bright lights
pounding headache
Can't recall my middle name
was it "trouble" or was it "useless"?
I settle on "fuckup" when they ask
Mugshot, moneyshot
It all feels the same
Humiliating
It lands you in the same place
a cold cell, within yourself
I can't blame it
I fall back into it
every day I think of it
and every night I dream of it
Yes, my fatal flaw
It will kill me

Bright Colors

If I've fallen now, at least I can say that my eyes can only
look upwards. But that isn't right. I constantly look down,
and I can perceive unplumbed depths that call to me in voices
sweetened by my own lack of hesitation. I am numb. No -- less
than that -- deadened to sensation to such an extent that I long
for the things that used to cut and bruise and turn my insides
black with their onslaught. I am perhaps a masochist. Or is it
that I simply long for bright bursts of color, and I do not
care if they are the reds of blood and the purples of
congealing sorrows? For happy things: the yellows, the pinks,
and the greens seem so distant, altogether garish
and brazen, that I fear they would disrupt the collage
I've built within myself.

It Is

Drown the
cupid's bow
almond eyes
dark curls
Forget the
one dimple
straight teeth
soft hands
Bury the
hazy night
bright morning
guilty memory

All of You

Slip into your shoes
and I try to
walk, walk, walk
Paint my lips the same
and I try to
talk, talk, talk
I look where you looked
and I try to
see, see, see
But where you are now
I can not
be, be, be

You

Yes, I see you
peeking through your lashes
Yes, I hear you
your lips move and I can
feel you
quiet laughter like
fingers on my spine
I watch you and I think:
I know you
The curve of your cheek
color of your hair
so much like mine
You have a look in your eye
that is hard to define
It says:
Yes, I see you
and
Yes, I hear you
and
I wish I did not know you

The Thought

Can't shake it --
thoughts anchored in my brain
taken refuge under the skin
swimming inside every blood vessel
toxic
Want to hide it --
words are all betrayal
voice dissolving into whispers
easing into soft consonants until
silent

Talk

The silence seems fragile and I don't want it to break
Words that used to tumble from my mouth
like so much steam and heat and necessary substance
are now things I have to search for
Talking seems weightless and empty and without meaning
something I do because the quiet is oppressive
to the world out there
All it does is fill the space around us at the table
or between us in the streets
Most of it is just small talk
and it's getting harder for me to find the right things to say
Half the words that filter in tend to ricochet
dull rocks that make my head ache
day after day after day after day
It's become a tiresome thing at best:
listening and being listened to
Silence would be bliss
and to be silent a thousand times better
I think it is too easily shattered
for me to really hope for

False Skin

The biggest star reflects off of
the most lonely car.
I am not alone.
I sit and watch the parking lot of the motel.
A man walks out
surveys his kingdom.
He is suspicious of me.
I could be fresh meat;
I could also be a bust.
Everyone here wears a false skin.
The trick is discovering the nature of it.
My mother is in a deep sleep
awake, but eyes blurred by
self-induced coma.
I smoke cigarette after cigarette.
The air teases my hair.
Asphalt glistens
and boys who act like men
ask me if I have someone in my life.
I wave them off like flies.
They hover not far off
their distant words like buzzing
in my ears.
Another sound intrudes:
my name.
I unfold myself and follow,
unresisting.
Later I will ask myself
which lies were too practiced
and which truths too forthcoming?
Even I wore a false skin
during the night that came
on the heels of that day.

Dream Catcher

The downward spiral is an easy one to march.
Recently I've been plummeting down as though propelled by wings,
darkly feathered ones that span greater than my desire for survival.
I've been lulling myself into this false sense of complacency.
I'll tell myself it doesn't matter how far I go,
as long as I can still function day to day,
still put out an outward appearance of being "there," of being "present."
They say that I'm destroying myself,
like I've just now passed the marker that separates
simple negligence from active obliteration
of self.
I don't want to tell them that I purposefully chose this path.
That the reason the downward spiral is so fast and so easy
is because every step is greased with the fat
of a thousand good, solid arguments.
At least, they sound good for a little while.
I'll admit that I have my days where I look back,
and remember where I've come from.
Days where I want to shed my guilt like a second skin,
and believe in the gift of dream-catchers,
that can pluck the nightmares from your mind.

Her Dream

Later you told me that you had seen me
through the treeline
Pale, like the moon in the sky
my limbs moving swiftly
You said you called out, caught my gaze
fleeting and furtive
Face quickly turning towards something
you could not see
Who were you then, you asked
that you would run from me?

Faces

It was quiet
until it made a noise
like a gunshot
It tore the air
like it might through
flesh and the
pounding
in so many ears
I watched and said
nothing
I was simply a
bystander
Nothing to say and
no words to add
A typical woman
and a
"stereotypical"
man
I felt the need to speak
but words felt
redundant or
overly simplified
It was your everyday funeral
of the unknown
I shed a tear for her
the woman whose face was
beyond my recollection
Goodbye
I will dream of you
of that I can promise
Hello
Goodbye
I miss you
and
you were loved

Doors

It is in so many ways like a flower that is afraid of the sun. What do the innards look like? Are the colors ugly? The risk is too great! I must hide myself, lest the world see the garish truth and the clashing petals. It is in this way that I become a frigid thing, locked away inside many rooms. I pace the floors and I know these tiles so well that my mind begins to believe that I have imagined the ones before them. I can still recall the scent of her perfume. I close that door.
Running, I find that I am lost among many memories, and that another has been stripped from me; no matter how many frames I beat upon, it is gone, gone, gone.

Tree

A single tree's pale fingers
stretch towards the light
I am with them
Leaves pierce and flourish
I grow for a time
But when buds begin to pinprick
my arms turn inward
The flowers spring forth and bear fruit
I shrivel and my eyes flash
My mouth begins to speak
and blackness pours out
My inner tree lies dormant
until the cycle begins again

Blood

Tonight I will trace the lines upon the ceiling. Perhaps they will lead me somewhere.
Answers could be hidden anywhere. Absolution is another thing entirely. It is a completely different animal, one that I don't want to dwell on for too long, for fear that my own sobs and sighs will
awaken things that are best left forgotten. Instead I consider adding another line to those I already possess: ones that remind me, day after day, that there is nothing in life that comes without a price. I wonder how hefty a bounty this mistake of mine will fetch. In my mind's eye, I can see bruises blooming, and my tongue remembers the taste of blood.
It does not seem like enough.

Yearning

I will call for you, but you will not hear me.
You will see my smile, but you will believe it to be a frown.
I have reached for you at night, but shadows have this
nagging way of warping things, don't you think?
And our shadows have grown so long over the years that they
are almost all that there is to what we see of each other
most days -- half-formed apologies
and already-forgotten pleas.
Have you ever wished that things were different?
Prayed to every god you could think of?
I've wished that I were a different person, one that you
could look at and believe to be beautiful.
Because I'd rather you be blinded by beauty
than be turned away by my ugliness.
But this is not a dream, and my life is
not another one of my fantasies.
Reality is crushing.
The things we hope for may never come to pass.
Are you content with our current standing?
Will you stand there, passive, as the years turn our desires
to dust and our wants become the air that we breathe,
until all that we are is simply
old yearnings, slowly dying needs?

Love

Love transforms us all.
From a slimy thing to something winged,
or perhaps something that flies
to something that is tethered.
It all depends on perspective.
Are you someone positive?
Or are you self-destructive?
All fair questions when you feel torn
between two selves.
When you can envision so many heavens
but you are caught within so many hells.
Pick a side:
is it easy? Is it fair?
What philosophy do you adhere to?
Do you love smashing the pretty things,
or would you prefer to plant seeds in tiny rows,
so far from yourself that you can believe
they might actually grow?

Voices

Laugh all you want; you won't find the cracks in my interior.
Watching from the black: you only see what you want to see.
I've got you wrapped in chains. You can't escape.
I know what you are, and you don't fool me.
Naked in the dark, we know each other intimately.
We are but two halves of the same coin. Yin and yang.
You push and I pull; we will tear the world apart.
Shattered glass and indecisive waters hide nothing.
You'd like to see it all in flames, but I am liquid nitrogen in your veins.
Reach for it now: the words you won't voice.
You can't live without me. I am the skin you wear.
Formless in the sun, I am the only eye that sees your outline.

The Hole

I keep digging deeper, feel the grit under my nails, the flecks of earth on my face. How wide must I make it, how many feet down? There's just so much that needs to be buried here, trapped beneath the surface of the world. Maybe the damp and the darkness will smother all these things that live inside me. I can't give them room to crawl back out, mustn't let the weight be too light, or they will find me again. Sneak under the covers and pool beneath the sheets, where the whispers become roars and silence is no longer alive but in the furthest corners of my mind. I feel mad, out here in the dark, a mock villain. There is no explanation that could be given but that there were too many secrets piling up. Far too many to simply dust beneath the carpet or hide under the bed. They had become like people, like false-friends, voices so loud they'd reverberate within the walls of this room over and over again, warping until they became new thoughts, new secrets.
"Dig deeper," I say to myself, "keep digging."

Burn It Down

The days blend into one another, dissolving like paper on the concrete after so much rain.
The burning echos of your words fade, and the dull bruises in all those dark places barely ache anymore. Who were we back then, that we fought so viciously? We sought purchase on one another's weaknesses like desperate people going to war, trying to gain ground when there was nothing of value to win. Did you see how cramped I felt, inside of my own skin? I was clawing, scratching my way out -- you were only in my way. It wasn't you I wanted to hurt; it was myself and my own foolishness that I was trying to destroy. I wanted to smash the mirror that reflected the sorry soul that avoided my eyes, day after day, but you stood in the way of my fist! You loved the crumpled being that I was, and I perversely, unconsciously, needed to prove to you that I was as despicable and undesirable as I knew myself to be. So I lit a match and I threw it upon us, deliberately destroyed something I knew could save me because I needed to burn a part of myself to the ground before I could begin again.

Her

Fingertips numb
wish that I could see you
pretend that I am
with you
Just kidding I am with
my friends
I'm having fun, this night
is great
This beer tastes great
I am forgetting all the
bad things
But I lose sight of you
I think for
a second...
this cigarette's width
might've taken up --
but wait!
What am I forgetting?
Myself?
Nah
Things are technicolored
I can't be
worth that much
I've lost
much more than
myself.
There's nothing left to lose.
I say,
fuck it all.
They say,
the world is my oyster.
But I have clammed up
I will not pose
for the camera
won't be their picture.
I feel too lit up
like a ghost
so let me
fade
fade
fade