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.)

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.

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.

mindclipse

everything is eclipsed,

by the brilliant blue of your eyes

and the symmetric smirk of your mouth.

so i wander the world in greys,
monochrome memories and,
ashen aspirations.

we're all just coloured chalk,

particles and atoms and shades of rainbows,

and a freeze-frame of the bright bursting bubble,

and the head-tilt capturing the precise angle of refraction in sunrays,

we crumble into dust,

at the smallest bit of pressure.

growing up and moving on

your poison seeps through each cell of my skin and mutates me into a ball of suspicions and fear and jealousy. each of your words play over and over in my mind and all i can think is why am i not good enough for anyone ever. i'm so tired of keeping everyone else's pain and misery in mind. i'm so tired of looking after you and watching your back only to have myself stomped to vicious pieces just because you felt like it. i'm tired of being shattered by people that i actually care about. i have a heart too. i get hurt too. i cry too.

grow up and take responsibility for your actions; it's not like i haven't told you what the fuck the problem is.

and that's when it hits me.

i am good enough; i've always been good enough. it's you who's lacking, it's you that's the problem.

if you want to leave, just fucking leave already.

(stop putting on fake tears and smiles and love yous.

you're tainting the word love, and making me taint it too 

[love you, love you, fuck you, fuck you.]

and that's not fair to everyone else i really, really love.)

i won't stop you.

and i won't cry for you.

ever

ever

again.

[the circle is finally broken.]