make ends meet

we live our lives waiting to die
        they say
i'm living my life,
 waiting for you
                          (is that a kind of death, too?)

but isn't it morbid,
   to start with the end?

but what are you and me
  but a collection of loose moments
and words
    and touches

      and accidents? (i didn't mean to love you
                               you don't mean to let me.)

should i talk instead about how you
feel like
             sunlight
taste like
                the rain
                on my skin? does that make it easier for you?

(we have enough endings by now
                 to start something new.)

you will always be alone and then you will die

I breathe and live and want; they call me 'whore'. 'Prostitute'. 'Bitch'. But I've never gotten paid and I don't hate anyone for it. I get what I want, and that's more than most girls can say.

Your stupid trailer is freezing, or I am, and I'm hungry again. I'm not above begging you for something to fill me. It's been three days. Baby, your pity tastes disgusting, but beef jerky's all you've got, so I'll take whatever you let me take.

Whatever I want to take.

You're in a cage and there's the stink of testosterone and blood and fear as you tear into other men like tissue paper. Like Picasso, you paint the walls and floors with red and linoleum and intestines before you sigh. I don't want to be here, anymore, I whisper, lost to the jubilant screams of your crowd, but you hear it anyway. Amber eyes rise to my green, suddenly shifting into my own, like you're saying me too or I'm gonna eat you alive.


I can be content with that.

Innocent. You want to keep me innocent, but I've got voices in my head telling me that I'm a sinner, an insult to God, to take what I want because it's mine, I'm no good, I'm better than anyone. And maybe, baby, it would shock you to your bones to hear what I've got in mind. I want to crawl into your skin and take you from the inside out, claim your heart with my teeth and grind you into the floor with my hips. I want to run my hands through your hair and bite you 'til you bleed (for me, again; this is getting repetitive, isn't it?). Have you dreamt about it? I hear you in the night, low voices and hitching breaths -- do you think about me?


Do you?


I am you and you are me, and nobody is a victim here.



(There's this line to this poem, and it's the one that thrums under my skin whenever I'm with you--)


I'm in a car with a beautiful boy and I feel sick to my bones as they creak against my skin because he's not you, and I want you. When did I get into this? When did you love redheads and propriety and tameness and when did I let you? When did you push me into ice-cold arms and ice-cold smiles and expectant hands?

Is it because I can't tell you I break everything I touch? They shatter and wither and die in front of me, you know, and there's nothing I can do about it because I can't let go. Not ever. Because you can't just sink your claws into someone and wait for them to shove you off, not when everything hurts more on the way out than in. Not when I want your claws and your everything, to compress it with the depth of your voice and the heat of your naked skin and swallow it so it's mine. So I'm happy -- so what? There is no excuse for this.
    (--you wanted to be in love and he happened to get in the way or--)



The road to happiness is the most misleading thing, the cruelest kind of ideal because it makes you put up with so much shit, baby, all for the sake of happiness. Happiness, they all tell me, like it's some kind of state and not a thousand moments strung together, not the high you run and reach for in life, not little presents from life to you. As though it's just another goal, another thing on your to-do list as you sit there in a pinstripe suit and briefcase and affairs with a secretary.


You make me happy, whatever that means. For what it's worth.
(--a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river or was it--)

But you're always angry, you keep trapping these tornadoes under your flesh and it's not good for you, baby, to keep her from all these disasters. Sometimes, two people fall in love and it's tragic, it is, but sometimes, two people don't love enough and that's even worse. You've got tornadoes for her, hurricanes, blizzards and a dry, dry desert but she's a city of angels and sky-high towers and I'm gasoline and messed up wind patterns and the sun. You blame me and I take it, because you make me happy and I grew up in Kansas and I'm still stupid enough to believe in yellow-brick roads and evil, redheaded witches and a happy ending.



We're a terrifying, dysfunctional tricycle and I would have it any other way than this. Please.


And we're standing on the edge of a cliff, and we've both got choices to make, baby. But not really, right? I'd move mountains and cross oceans for you, but you'd die for me (and that's the worst part, it is, it is; it's not romantic like in the fairytales, having someone's life in your palm like that).

I am standing on the edge of a cliff and you're by my side, lingering in the peripheries, lingering in the darkness, until I kiss you, isn't it? I kiss you, mouth open and warm, and slide my hands across your chest, your back, and it's supposed to fix everything, isn't it? A kiss is supposed to wake you up, isn't it?


Isn't it?
   (--love, too, will ruin us.)

drive[her]

you're on the sidewalk
   waiting for a shiny red taxi
and you can hear the people
                                            talk
all around you, teksi, teksi, teksi

but none of them are for you.

    and you want one to be for you
so bad
           so
               so bad,
   you want to start anew
on the other                                   side of the street

but there are no taxis for you.

   there has to be, there has to be,
hands waving, white flags aplenty,

     take me a w a y, take me
and they all blur past until the streets echo e m   p t y
(

but there are
                 no taxis for        you)

instead, a black car pulls up
  next to you,
get in, he says, we could go somewhere, 
            if you want
and you want a lot and the windows are tinted
                                                                                 black
                                                                                                 ,
                                                                                                        so you do.

snow angels

i'm drawin' little snow angels
on your frosty windows

you've got the A/C on high
and the radio's nothing but static

each raindrop thuds against my fingers
and my pulse, in venn

your misty exhalation brushes across my bare legs
little ghost kisses as you switch the dial from FM to off

i burrow into my cocoon of cotton and candy and cutting words
and flowers and elegance and dior flood the air

your lips, as red as my eyes, press thin to stop a litany of my name,
and a little golden shackle, glares at me.

burnt opals

liquid sapphire drips away into
a blood red ruby
bevelled burning opal
(dips and furrows darkened
by the opaque night)
sneaking down to meet
jagged jutting topaz
rays tumbling over each other
to press fleeting, shy kisses
burning opals
illuminated.

and liquid sapphire drips away
                                              away
                                                      away
                                                                                                  away
as blood red ruby
floods the sky.

con[temporary] lucifer

                you are lucifer beneath my fingernails,
                all proud and sinful and seductive,
                all graceless and broken and wrecked.

silhouettes and shadows spill around us,

like great, sooty wings.

                your howls are in my throat,
                and my heart is on your sleeve,
                and if you squint hard enough,
                headlights can be stars, reflected
                in kaleidoscope eyes.

and cigarette smoke could be moonbeams,

like smoky gabriels to send (m)(y)our

damning thoughts to heaven,

charcoal voice keeping this spit-slicked fire

burning through the night.

                 and if i kiss you, like i could taste
                 your soul, feel it dancing on my
                 tongue, don't judge me.

because you are lucifer beneath my hands,

all spineless, and wrecked and wrecked.

string jupiter

do you know?
                      do you know where you are?


you're here:
                  in the breathy exhalations between my words,
                  in between each line of this novel i'm reading
                  in the little spaces between each electron and nucleus


the memory of your voice
                                        petals pressed on my cheeks


and if your hands fit against mine
                                                   like pieces from different puzzles,
then, well, baby,
                         i won't be the one to mention it.


it's all these names that spill from the column of my throat,
                                                                                       your personal fountain of youth,
keeping you young in this world after it all
                                                                c r a s h e s.
love, heart, mine, sweet, beautiful, angel, 
                                                                  tiger, rose, sayang, amore, more, more more.
no one
           else
i'd
    love


and you're my michael, the prince of all my heaven's,
                                                                                and i'm in rapture.
you're my lucifer, the prince of darkness,
                                                             and spill those slick, sweet secrets from your silver tongue onto mine.

shut up
           i'm almost done


you drive a shiny sleek car,
                                         and i couldn't be bothered to get a license because
there was something about roads,
                                                   and good intentions,
but i can't see past our emerald city,
                                                       we were never in kansas, dorothy.




how do i forget you,
                               when you're everything?


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               that's swallowing this sea up whole
that's drowning from the inside out.


tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's so in love it makes you sick
and it's blood and orange and useless little love poems,
                                                                                 curdled up on the blue floor.

tell me that i'm not the only one
                                               who's miserable


i'd string jupiter around my neck,
                                                 and it would kill me quicker than you.
a whole year,
                     what's your poison?


it's a sunny day out,
                             well, i'm watching through blue-tinted windows,
and yeah,
               yeah, baby,
i fucking miss you.

we're going round in circles

1.
    i tried to write you a letter once,
       and i felt like spiders crawled out my throat,
    leaving cobwebs where all those words should've been;

        i tried to pass them off as silk,
     and i've never seen you so terrified.

2.
   you told me you were a growing boy,
      and i could feel you under my skin,
   you bloom, flowers of blue and purple,
      spring time love and part-time lovers,

   it is winter again,
     and you're taller than ever.

3.
  i dreamt that i told you what each crack in my skin meant,
      and you flooded me with your liquid kisses and pacific eyes,
  and called me your sahara.

      your eyes are thirsty now,
  and i am still your sahara.

4.
      the sun leaked blood secrets into the sky,
  and i watched the dawn arrive.
      he told me he loved me,
  and all i could say was goodnight.

5.
  you think you're funny
      and sometimes i think i'm the joke,
  i bite your punchline and fall,

      hook, line and
                             sink her.


6.
      you can't draw and i can't sing,
  but i write you love songs with my lips,
      and you make me mona lisa-smiles with your hands,

  and maybe, we don't need to be perfect,
      just happy.

a/n: sorry for the hiatus. exams and personal issues have reduced my muse to a whimpering mess.

mannequin

when i think back to my childhood,
there is a doll.
                      no wait, that's not right;
                      i was more a mimicry of humanity
                      than something so easily different

so, daddy carved me arms and legs and
a mind of diamonds and rosewood and
sugar, and big glassy doe eyes complete
with a set of curled eyelashes as i wrapped
men around my fingers like a chinese finger
trap or a set of rings, three sizes too small,
                      but he was never really happy with me,
                      not really because there was always something too plastic
                                                                                                glassy
                                                                                                transparent about me,

this isn't a case of the bitch biting the hand of its owner,
not when the maker calls his child a whore
but you made me, goddamnit

and these are the words i will never be able to tell you,
because my mouth has been sewn shut by my web of lies;

-

i'm an unfinished work of art,

but i'm still art, right?

-

it's not healthy, being broken

there are some days where i'm sh a tt e r ed, completely wrecked,
but more often than not, i'm just                          t                                 e
                                       e
                                                                a                                                                   t
                                                                                     d
     c
                                                      s                                                                  
                                                                                                                        r

and it seems like i've been waiting ohso long for someone, anyonepleasepleasepleasehearmeseemeloveme
to [pickup] the pi e ce s
because god knows
i can't do it myself, anymore.

yellow brick road

sometimes, i think if i squint hard enough,

i'll be able to see a road from here to you

materialise out of the ground. 

but then, i squint

too hard and the world is dark as my eyes shut

and i get too scared to open them again, especially

when i can feel these dark, shadow-folded creatures,

baring teeth and claws and talons and hate, waiting for

me in the edges of my peripheries. 

my love is bright, brighter than the stars and they'll

lead you home. but i am endlessly lost in darkness,

forever wandering, afraid and without light;

you don't
      can't
      won't love me, no matter how much i want
                                                           need
                                                           plead you to.

shall i compare thee to a summer's night?

(for the earthgoddess. i love you and keep strong.)

this is easy, you think, and purse your lips.
pillows are deppilf to the cool side as you press your feverish skin,
and you're sure you can't sleep tonight.

it doesn't take much to forget, you reckon, as red strands caress your cheek.
push them away and huff some more, soles (souls) of your feet pad-padding against linoleum ground,
his voice and hands follow achingly in your steps, thick molasses stretching out along your shadows.

you still kind of love him, you admit, and drink freezing, condensing water,
it's not that which drips steadily onto the table in front of you and each droplet shows you a thousand moons;
the stars are dead, long before you see them.

brainstorm

i don't want to embarass you and i'm not out to impress but
       you're the kind of man cummings and bronte and austen and duffy are
       inspired by
                          you make my muse dance, with her flaxen
                          silver entwined hair and opal eyes containing
                          an aurora, she dances to your words as they
                          rain down on my psyche. featherlight touches
                          make her howl and laugh airily with glee, fingers
                          stretched as far as they can go with ink running
                          down her face as something rushes along my nerves
                          like liquid lightning lighting up her maelstrom sky

she whispers a thousand words into my ears and my hands can't keep up, words flying across my screen,
across my napkin
           my paper
           my skin,

and there's barely enough t i m e left in the world to write barely enough for you.

you will, you will, because

[hers-yours-our]

midnight snack

your skin swallows up the sun,

until you're fit to burst with sunrays leaking through your fingertips,

your tongue traces thought-ridden lips as your cloudy mind

sheds judgements like clothes for charity

precise and well-worn;

your silence says more than it should,

(

slithering up to my heart, [f ang s] sinking in,

the poison in my veins hums for your voice;

i'm w r i t h i n g                     gossamer skin,

  underneath

pulled [tight] over blood+bones,

fireworks filtered through fallen lids,

&& 

[there's a song written on the inside of my wrists]

seagreen lyrics singing lifebloods,

as the moon creeps out, child-like curiosity,

inky ghosting locks liplocking across the night,

milky moonbeams f

                                a

                                     l

                                         l

                                                        to earth, 

to kiss my buttermilk bones;

and now i'm always hungry,

for pale skin and luminous blue eyes,

[for that blue roadmap of amazonian rivers to to your liquid lusty love]

who else can cool my blood?

there's some kind of animal trapped in between the smooth muscle

and endothelial layers of my vocal chords,

pushing through like a thick vine to overtake my face;

{please, i'm howling for you}

you: carmine candy and home and real,

i need to be (wholer),

because my breathing w a n e s,

blueblueblue in the midnight air,

tendrils of heat s p r e a d i n g like wildfire;

and the moon . . . waxes, leaving the night sky,

ravenous for adventure and [p o  o   l    s] into the ocean;

even the sky feeds from my awe of you;

in the dark is the best way to hear your heartb e a t,

thick heartstrings like black powerlines p a s s i n g  t h r o u g h 

the core of every star from you to me,

.h.o.o.k. onto my diaphragm,

make my pace as they d r a g me to you,

over gravel, grit && grass,

bloody feet on the yellow brick road,

hansel and gretel follow me home;

)

i smile

-  k c a b -

 at you patiently&patiently,

serrated incisors glinting in sunlight;

and we're only human

-

[the autumn moon is bright, tonight]

slowly losing grip

i can't sleep and
i can't eat and
i can't love
anyone 
the way
i love you.

oh, these worthless words

i sing for you,
for you,
and you're always asleep.

i speak for you,
for you,
and you never hear me.

i look for you,
for you,
and you're never here.

i love only you,
only you,
and you'll never even


fucking know.

And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood

the day i met you, i was reborn,

and the day i met you, i died.

this is more than

never enough.