The sun spins in heavy loops.
Curling my fingers through your dark hair,
I taste the blue whispers on your lips.
Tell me I’m beautiful, because I need to hear it.
Brave boy,
Break my skin, because I need to feel it.
Behind sheets of silver smoke,
Put your hands on me.
Sing to me with strange monsters in your eyes.
But don’t let me see their teeth.
Dear God,
Don’t let me see their teeth.
Worms
The window glass is stained with frost.
My nails are the same chipped, cherried red as the ink in my tired pen.
A flame is flickering somewhere- I think.
And I’m too high to fill out these job applications.
But the knots in my shoes are getting tighter, hair on my head, heavier.
They’re cleaning my room and packing my bags while I sit with a zombie glaze over my eyes, staring at a screen that speaks to me in shards of light.
Where am I?
And when my feet hit the curb and tossled hair breathes wind, my knuckles will ring tightly over the leather handles of my underpacked suitcases.
I will blink now.
And my madeup eyeslashes will swoop to the earth on the tops of my cheekbones. Behind my eyelids my closed eyes will surge with tides of diamonds and sadness. Splitting through the candy coated crust of my brain and I will be sitting at a plastic table with small hands and small feet. My mother’s lips will be warm on my hair as she hands me a small box of raisins.
And when I open my eyes, the core of me will crumble.
I will want to fall to my knees and curse, open-armed at the sky. I will want to bleed on the ground until my heart is a shallow, throbbing orangepeel. I will want to kiss the sour skin of your palms and forgive you
But instead
I will clench my teeth and breathe the arctic taste of being alone.
Because the rainsins had worms in them.
Smells Like Sunlight
Olive handprints on my thighs
The taste of aluminum coats my mouth
A cold shower for a colder body-
Dawn cracks like an eggshell
Bleeding its yolk into my hair
I hate getting tangled in your limbs
My skin still reeks of you
Even when I drink my coffee black
Your shadow presses against my bones
Like heavy charcole
Thickening
Suffocating
Pink, green, blue capsules
But your touch still haunts me
Smells like sunlight
Wretched
My mind is a wretched place to be
It’s covered in dry glue and sadness
They say if you press your ears to its orbiting moons
You can hear the mice nibbling on their insides
What foolish mice- to kill themselves for hunger
My mind is a wretched place to be
But if i knew where it was, I’d surely tell you
I’d wrap the secret up in parchment
And stick it in an empty bottle of liquor
I’m sure it would find its way to you- you filthy magnet
Good lord! My mind is a wretched place to be
The people are ugly and the ceilings taste like salt
If i had a walkie-talkie i’d call you from my pantry
Where I sit and stack cans of beans all day
You’d like these beans- if only you still had your tongue
My wretched is a mindful place to be
The fruit is dying without you, my dear
The fruit is dying.
Dancing in the Street
The car fumes roar against the backs of my thighs, as your hands grope sticky leather.
The summer sky is stitched in blue and silver stars.
I can hear the music now- muffled as it sprays through the speakers.
You leave the car door open and step into the headlights
My sandals shuffle against the pavement; the sweating air sweetens.
You won’t be here for long, and I can see it in your eyes.
So I press your bones closer to mine, and count the freckles on your face.
You whisper you love me- i feel the words boiling up my veins.
I kiss your knuckles and step onto your feet.
The static from the car radio fills the small space between our lips.
You are such a good dancer.
And when you kiss me, my seams begin to glow.
Your soul falls into mine and they swim, entangled, beneath our skins.
Starlight bleeding from our eyes, I love you until it hurts.
Your heart is heavy in my hands and I know
Wherever you go, whoever you become, you will always be my home.
And as we sway beneath the shadows, my cheek on your chest,
The stars are raining on our heads.
Your eyes, a temporary blue, have never looked so beautiful.
But I can taste the sadness in your sighs.
God, you are such a good dancer.
China Cup
Once more dusk creeps,
Through the blistered fist of night.
Once more I’m tangled,
And tattered from this plight.
Every day is heavy,
Just weight on top of weight.
There’s so much to destroy,
But nothing to create.
I’m weak, you see,
And sick of faceless men.
Telling me to speak,
And when to use my pen.
A plate of tasteless eggwhites,
And nothing to be proved.
Just marks to be re-marked,
And parts to be removed.
You’re sitting on a carousel,
A spacious china cup.
Do you now accept your fate,
Or blow the whole place up?
Souls
I have a safety net.
With oceans in his eyes.
He smiles like the stars,
They flicker when he cries.
And on a midnight hour
When his hand slips into mine
I’ll give him all my life
And leave my bones behind.
And when my skies collapse
I know he’ll bind my breaks
Kiss glass salted tears
Hold body as it shakes
I’m his, he’s mine;
My blood, my bone,my flesh.
And even when the moon implodes,
Our souls will burn and mesh.
September
Stale jeans and cigarette smoke
Cold September pavement has left me uninspired.
Your broken eyes never leave my mind
On days like these.
I can feel you twisting through my veins
Heating my cold blood
Until it runs thick like ink
Sometimes,
If I close my eyes tight enough,
The sky peels away.
And I’m beneath you again
Beneath your skin, your gaze, your breath.
I’m crashing into you.
There is no pain here.
There is no pavement; no empty bottles.
Beneath your weight
I don’t feel scared anymore.
I only feel you.
I’m drowning in you
And I love it.
You’re tearing me apart from the inside out.
And all I want is more.
I want to cup my hands
And drink from the glassy puddles of light in your eyes.
I want to sleep beneath the soft milk of your skin.
Breathe me into your lungs
Make me part of you
I promise I’ll stop hurting myself
I promise you won’t forget me.
But ribbons of your chestnut hair
Spill from my fingers like silk
An I’m falling into myself,
A place where you hardly exist.
My hands are cold now.
And the smoke still lingers on my clothes;
The smoke still lingers.
September will destroy me.
Breathe
My fingers trace the skyline
Silken ribbons of wind slip through my hair
I feel the earth beneath my feet
Solid and warm, like flesh
The tree tops dance below me
Their olive hearts pulse hot behind their bark
As they sing me a song
The tune is quiet, but carries me far
My feet leave the ground
And every nerve inside of me is breathing
I’m in the clouds
Soaring through the buttery red sunset
And my problems slip from my skin
And dribble away in a crumbling, glassy rain
The sand swallows them whole.
I am lighter
Like a flake of gold caught in the breeze
Drifting, shining, chasing the stars
And they catch me and smile
And splatter me like color across the sky
I sparkle with them
Whispering softly to the sleepy world below me
Finally, I can breathe.
Notes
