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."

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?

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

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.

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.

Bitterness

My shame gnaws at me like a famished thing. I've felt it swallowing me throughout the years: consuming me and eroding me. How to run from a bitterness turned from others and thus unto myself? How to forgive amid the loathing and despair? Weak, I was. Always weak, and much like a famished thing myself. I didn't have the strength  to tell the truth, blinded as I was by fear and confusion.
Ah, I hated them; I hated them for the way they looked at me, when I knew the things that I did at the time. I despised the injustice sealed away -- this filthy little secret-- behind closed doors.
But wasn't I the one who truly faltered? Throat closing up rapidly, tears running rampant down my despairing face; I ran from those eyes with a false confession on my lips. Perhaps the truth wouldn't have been so hard to believe if I had actually told it. I simply hadn't been strong enough. And at night, I cried over my own failure. I was only a child, but I prayed that I could die in my sleep and be reborn. I wanted to be anyone, anything, other than myself. I prayed that the person that I was would die.
I never wanted to feel those eyes that smoldered with rebuke saying, "Tell the truth!"
The truth was always first on my tongue, only to be twisted and vomited back out as the lie.
THE LIE.
Why did I lie to them? Why did I let them conquer me and manipulate me into telling them the lie that they so wanted to hear? How could I betray myself so horribly?
Ah, I may be far, far from perfect now, but I was very close to it then. I only wanted them to love me, to keep me. But I was too weak, and in my weakness I destroyed my chance to be loved, and I am close to being cast away and forgotten by them, with relief on their part.
I am so bitter. How could I have been so weak?