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.)

exitus acta probat

onceuponatime.

You're afraid to fall asleep.

You are, you are, even if you try to tell Mum otherwise; you're afraid of the monsters and half-spider half-lion creatures twining around your legs and sinking fangs into your skin. You're afraid of the dark and you're afraid of the shadows and you're afraid of the way the sky goes green and blue and orange and purple in the shift between night and day -- terrified that the sun won't be able to chase the dark sky away, one day.

But, though you try and try and try, you fail each time.

And you sleep.

i.

You're awake -- or the dream equivalent of being awake -- the dregs of your consciousness and the fabric of your dreams ghosting around the edges of your body, like satin and silk and cobwebs. There is a boy -- there is always a boy, even in places that are yours and yours alone -- and he has the greenest eyes you ever did see; shining emeralds in a sea of disheartened greys.

"I am Adam."

"I am Eve."

He stares at the length of your neck, the swell of your bottom lip, the curve of your breast and sneers. Flushing with shame and disgust, you want to wrap the dream tighter around yourself -- keep this other out; chase him away with the sun. But he won't go, you know he won't, though how you know will always be a mystery to you.

Still, you can't help but stare at him from under your stupid girl-lashes, grey, cut-glass eyes reflecting his green perfectly.

...

You're awake.

ii.

"You are a very pretty girl," he says, demands, even as you shake your head. "You are." he insists.

Teeth sink into those girl-lips of yours, "well, you are a very pretty boy."

"Yes," he laughs, like gravel and dirt and whiskey, "yes, I am."

You shiver. He gives you his jacket.

You give him pink ribbons for his gold-spun hair.

iii.

"Your skin is soft and warm," he frowns, "mine is different."

He offers his arm to you, pulls your hand to run along the heated flesh from arm to shoulder to chest to hips, and over again. You frown, too, pulling your hand back.

"You're a boy," you argue, "you're not supposed to be like me."

"That's stupid. I want to be pretty, too."

Huffing, you pull off your white dress, press the bundle into his arms. "There. Now you'll look like the prettiest princess of them all."

He gives you his faded jeans, torn by the knees from overuse.

iv.

"Your hair is nice," you mourn, running impatient, jealous hands through the golden strands, "it's so very nice. A girl would want hair like yours."

He stares up at you from your lap, one hand fisted in the green grass, the blue sky catching his emerald eyes, sunlight beating down on you both. "Why would you want that? Your hair is lovely and long. I want hair like that."

You pull out silver scissors, and fear flashes through his eyes; like he's made a confession and you are to execute him for his crimes. But you simply bring the silver to your own hair, and snickt, snickt. Bring up the strands, press them close to his, and whisper by his ear, "you can, you can."

v.

"I want it," you demand, hands on his chest. He looks up at you in surprise, mouth falling open. "Kiss me. I only want a taste."

So he does, pressing his mouth against your own, sliding his tongue against your own, teeth catching on lips. Chests pressed together, skin burning, burning, burning--

--When he pulls away, you both laugh -- him like windchimes, and you like gravel and dirt and whiskey and the secret things people do in the dark places of a bar.

vi.

"I am Adam," you say, with gold-spun hair, frayed jeans, and an angular frame, voice low and drumming.

"I am Eve," she says, with ribbons in her hair, a white dress and whimsical voice.

happilyeverafter.

You're awake, finally.

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.

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.

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?

-

weight on my shoulders

you're scary and you know it but we both gotta admit

i can be pretty fucking terrifying too.

i can see the gratefulness in your eyes as i bite the

insides of my cheeks raw and my overbitten nails

cut into my palm and my teeth grind into nothingness.

i hold back my words because you don't need to

see this part of me, not ever and you know it, and

you're just sitting there, harsh words falling on my skin

uncommittedunfocusedundisciplinedlazyunrefinedclumsystupidstupidstupid

like a new brand of morse-code bruises.

and, maybe, that's what hurts;

you expect too much from me,

sometimes.

en avril

anger clings to my skin,
the way the humid air does,
in the fourth month.

it builds up, unbearable,
and grimy and dirty,
like a second layer of
thick, heavy scratchy
burning skin.

i tell you, i'm in april,
and it does mean more
than just the month that
makes us destined or just
my birthday.

slowly, spirals send
my temper away, as
water, cooling and
clear like diamonds,
wash everything 'till
it's all so so clean.


i surround myself
in water, hydrogen
and oxygen pouring
around me like my
own april shower.

i need to let out some steam.

this is a battle of wills,

and a battle of tongues,

in every way.

so, are you ready?

iris

green eyes,

like apples,

sweet

no, you say

green eyes,

like ivy,

poison

sorry, you say

green eyes,

like glass,

broken

viper

eyes, eyes, yellow eyes.
stop staring at me;
you lookin' for a fight?

teeth, teeth, long sharp teeth.
stop baring them at me.
can't you smile for once?

your words are like poison,
except there's no antidote,
not against you, anacondad
not against your special brand of poison,
the kind that burns and burns
like acrid acid in my blood;
hate.

but you know what?
i'll survive and i'll live and breathe and be
just fine without you.
what doesn't kill me, only makes me superfuckinghuman.

so come at me, viper.
i can do this.

["But no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."]

James 3:8

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.]

crossed your fingers

"I promise you, I'll be here when it all falls down."

"Really?"

Do you remember?

Your hair was long and the heat clung to our skin and there were tears streaming down your face when you told me you missed him. I knew - I always know, don't you know? - knew how that felt more than anyone. And then, came the secrets, spilling forth from my mouth as easily as the lies, choking and burning my throat with their intensity and coal-like taste (not everything has a happy ending, love).

Do you remember?

We sat, side by side, thighs pressed together as the corners of old tomes dug into our backs. You toss your lank, black locks back and shoot me a tentative smile. When I said I wouldn't tell anyone, I meant - mean - forever. And your own secrets burst out from pressed lips but they were light and airy and dissapeared into insignificance as soon as they were uttered. Mine settled on our shoulders, like soot on statues.

Do you remember?

One day, side by side the two of you. Your hair cut short and yours dyed brown. Matching clothes and voices and inside jokes. Arms around shoulders and secrets that shine. I'm not part of this anymore, surprise, surprise.

Do you remember?

Leaving me behind? Because I sure as hell fucking don't.

"Really."