poetry

instead of flying, wailing sparks of windshield and flashing lights littering the street, let me show you alcoholisms true face: a darkened vignette behind the eyes, encompassing only the faintest candle-light thought left, the crumbs of souls seeking the spirits they cant buy before the sun—i no longer sleep or wake—or listen to the echoes of your mother and coworkers, their inoculation, hallucinations while you kill time between days or while tightroping the hours, fogging up your own glasses, the humidity of another defeated day veiled within a trembling tomb of a body. know that the thoughts you do not think now will return with a vengeance, but only if you survive the seizure convulsing on grass instead of on the road—youre one of the lucky ones, you know. LOOK at my skin: im caught between self-digestion and putrefaction! see the bloating and the tearing and the decomposing—all while being alive (technically). and then calmly, on the day you decide you dont want to die, place your hand anywhere on my body and see that i do not feel human, because poison doesnt have a face.

pavement bird

first published in door is a jar

first, a incandescent barrage of cold knuckle into my eye with childhood-rivalry fervor from the man who also holds me when i cant sleep. if he shows me the snow, i will believe its a game. then comes the warmth, blood draining from my nose like spoiled syrup onto my breasts, my hands, the carpet, until he holds me, begging his apologies like jagged wind. in this moment, i forget love doesn’t bleed so dark.

freedom blows through me as i swing and kick at everything on this neighborhood street–wiffle balls and broken tags and soiled flyers–everything that reflects light. my toes numb and my skin cements and things explode: fracturing and rupturing and dancing. for a moment when i splash through the concrete, i forget he ever left a bruise.

until i feel the feathers, bursting beneath my feet, and the cracking, of small, small bones, as though whatever debris my foot creates is nothing more than twigs and dust and glue…i do not check the carnage under these flickering streetlights, but when i wash the blood from my shoe, i finally remember why doves and angels share wings.

gravity

first published in troublemaker firestarter

its warm again your clothes still bear no holes

always armored even in sleep

i can hear the gravity playing in your chest

buried sonnets hibernating

there are too many windows in my head

hole punched walls and unlocked doors

these early morning chances threaten

to disintegrate like sand

(did you know your windows were once ocean

is the light worth keeping in)

i search your skin for hiding saplings

something needs to grow inside

the echoes of this skull beyond the endless expanse

of kicking and scratching and heartbreak

i have nurtured you in these rooms of mine

since i learned your name

yet the cold air of where your words should be

cuts through my tongue like apples