Attempts
I
the first time i chased death
to ask him
why it was like this
it was a bottle of rubbing alcohol
a sip pulling against my lips
the cool burn on my taste buds
like vodka
if it was trying to kill you
and death told me to try again
i wasn't ready for the answer
II
the second time
i was in my backyard
and i thought of how judas
felt what he had done
i wondered if the knives
under my ribcage
would hurt
the monsters
if i pulled them out
i felt a lions claws on my hip
like three months prior
i felt the way my insides
were left empty
and the sharp marks across
hipbones
and thighs
i asked death again
in a message under
a bottle of hydrocodone
a few white pills that slipped
one by one
down my throat
11 total
after death left me alone to think
and the hospital dragged the life back in me
i told them it would never happen again
III
i was being pulled
in every direction
and no one was listening to the screams
plaguing my sleep
i screamed one last time and said
done
I was empty
of feeling
of hope
of care
Apathy handed me 40 pills
and down they went
every pill I could find
was filling the emptiness
i was made to tell
and damn did i fight and scream and sobb
i fussed until a needle was stuck in my arm for a week
and I still felt numb
this time i wasn't looking for death
but he found me
and told me
the truth
Waiting
The door shuts I do not want it too
I wait a second then move forward in front of the car
I wait and watch as the car backs up changes direction and finally starts to pull away.
I wait as the back lights of the car slowly pull up the drive dirt to pavement.
The car is gone now but still I wait tense, listening to the cars engine as it gets quieter
This wait it over now comes the next wait to hear back know she is safe
The last wait is the worse lasting anywhere between 10 hours to many days
This wait is the worst to be sure but it all is worth it at the end when I see her eyes again.
There’s familiarity in nothingness
There's just something about nothing
the hollowness feels like being complete;
like your mother never hit your sister,
or your boyfriend didn't pour insults down your throat lungs like cigarettes smoke,
or the bruises on your arms are from
something other than an ER room at 2 in the morning
it will turn your lungs inside out,
and make you crave frailty,
ivory bones,
and skin like sheer silk
You'll find
a body looks less like a battlefield
when there are hipbones peeking out
It feels more like your own
when the hips with handprint branding
shrink
and if you don't eat enough
they'll call you a bird
and never know how true it is
here's the thing about this bird,
under the soundproof skin,
diet coke thighs
and withering organs
there's a bluebird soaring
and the less you eat
the higher she flies
Emptiness feels like courage
when there's nothing inside you but yourself
you can be dangerous
with collarbones like iridescent switchblades
and a stomach that's been eating itself for 3 days straight
if you can stand that
what can they do to you;
nothing
A Thank You Note to the Monster in my Closet
Let me tell You a secret:
I do not know what I'm doing
I move like fog
and I aim to be a rumor,
I want their eyes to dart towards me,
see me
-without the skeleton, amnesia and gunpowder-
and be infatuated
Let me define myself if only through a cryptogram:
I want to disappear before I can disappoint you with the etched graffiti on my hipbones
I want them to see a great blue bird in the mist,
free-spirited like a breeze,
and fall in love with her before she leaves
But I am a northern fox
with hazel eyes and blackberries on my mind
And fur far too dark to be arctic
but eyes far too wary to be anything but
*****
she hunts alone,
on mountain tops with the taste of a cigarette on our tongues
and here is where she kills,
(or is it where I run away)
She dances around the timber in her constant analysis
(I've been trying so hard to avoid the city lights,
which burn grotesque figures from my nightmares onto my iris' every time I witness them,
that I'm not even sure what she's looking for anymore)
She's fighting to gain some insight into what occurred
(while I can only struggle against the monster with no eyes and so many teeth)
She tells me there is a race in my mind and I must always win
(if he catches me again I won't be strong enough to fight back)
so I will soar to catch the songbird
and I will sprint until her freedom is mine
Then the whispers can only gawk
They will want to qualify me, I'm sure
But there is no understanding how the fog and the moon
will take this cunning fox and turn it into a royal thrush
The only thing I can say for certain is the wartorn bone will still be there,
just more obscure
Because I only care what they think of my flesh
Underneath, the breathless girl
with crushed lungs, a bittersweet butterscotch voice,
and a body too large and too small
and everything at once
is not for them
(or for You)
she is cherished
and the only ones allowed to witness her
are the animals that are thrown out by the group of Trolls
that live under the water,
as she has been through the same treatment
*****
These Trolls will stop all travelers
because no one can leave their kin,
and if you do
You are the big bad wolf
and it doesn't matter what's growling for you in the woods,
because you mustn't leave something
that wants so badly
to devour you
But no matter, Trolls won't stop me any longer,
I will run and hide from all those things I do not trust
and I have no apologies,
I will bare my body to whoever I want
without remorse
and will not be told that it is wicked,
because I am an art museum
with a great big sign that says "no touching"
*****
Long ago a big bad lion
with ash speckled on his face
like snowflakes
pawed at the artwork without asking
and now it's torn
You can't even see it unless you get close
but the cracks grow every day
and although I seal them shut with gold
my paint is chipping
I try to hide it in the things you won't notice:
A glimpse into untamed hearts,
letters to the moon and her army of stars,
smoke slipping from my lips into the streaks sunlight
and the thrill of a chase.
But really,
all I want you to see
is the heart so big
it bursts inside this tiny bird body
but instead
I have an empty ribcage with a soul broken into bits and stored
I keep my only part in the pocket
always on me like that last bit of carmel
its there
but never where you'd think to look
The other parts have been gifted
to the few deer I know will swallow it
and keep it close to their lungs
*****
No one can ever get a complete piece
because if they stay too long
they'll see the hollowness that lives in my skin;
the ash falling from my eyelashes like tears
and the purple colored caves dug out under my coffee-colored lids
then again, the trickster is much better at hiding the cracks
but even if I could run home with my paws dirty from the pursuit,
if I could try to rinse them off
and fit into the cage built of my obligations,
she does not like to be stuck in a home like a jail cell,
even now, I can barely stand it some days
The animal will listen to few
(and I am usually not one of them),
her feral instincts do not like being confined
in floral bedsheets like the noose on my death sentence
****
So here's my confession:
The museum won't let you touch art because
as soon as you lay your polluted hands on it
it's less than before
Sometimes the thought of clean air frightens me
because without contamination
I do not know how my lungs should work,
How does my heart skip a beat
when there is no fear of You,
how do I find a vision beautiful
when there is no chiaroscuro of panic to darken it
*****
So darling,
all I can say is
I may love you
and promise you forever
but no matter how strong and warm the sun in my heart grows
every star has to die
and maybe this love will die with me,
but please remember dear:
I may not be a bird
but God can I run from You like I'm soaring in the clouds,
and terror was only a tether to keep me on the ground
Interpretation of Forever
My stitches fitted your scars,
perfectly.
Under the first full moon of May,
delusional,
you kissed me and told me
"My heart is yours!"
You promised me.
Then you ripped mine,
brutally,
leaving my face with blood,
effortlessly.
How wishful of me to think
your forever is
the same as mine.
While you kiss her now,
calmly,
speaking words of love,
certainly,
the scars you left on my soul
now fit to the stitches
on your past.
Now I'm watching you,
heartless,
only my shadow hunts you,
speachless.
You feel my soul
grabbing the parts of you
that you keep hiden.
Ripping every piece,
brutally,
dancing with your fears,
effortlessly.
How wishful of you to think
that I won't haunt you
till your last breath.
And she, she was just a bonus,
lucky me.
Pamplona
at dusk the mossy streets sing
as the soft drizzle leaves sopping irises to tell their tale
they sew a tale, fast and burning, like the hum embedded in my heartbeat,
thumping as their wet eyes refract into an iron Taurus constellation
during the night I run
I run from this whispered story,
its told in the soft lit streets
in the stars
and worst
in the fairy lights which hang above my bed
its told in the burn of the bile rising in my throat
and terror every time I see freckles which look like stars on hunched shoulders and hands
hands that touch under the moonlight
these memories chase me like the bulls in Pamploma
their hooves beat like heavy steel against my ribs
and the only thought in my head is
“please stop”
but he wont listen
Scheherazade
we met that night under hallowed star light
the cosmos flowing like a celestial river through the alluvial hymns and molten eternity
we took a leap at dusk,
exploring like Charon traveling in the river Styx in a golden timbered gondola which tunneled
through an orchestra of stars forged by heaven’s blacksmith,
conjoining as we do, twisting like snakes or tempered steel which has been baptized in fire
burning and distorting like smelted cosmos of Plexiglas
You whispered to me like the stars do,
mumbling the eternal melody, singing tales through thunder,
a story like that of Scheherazade
a hopeful ache like a stain glass halo illuminating Saturn
We joined like waves lapping at broken atoms
having finally finished following an amber string
which weaved through moonlit temples
still twisting on columns and fraying at the ancient maze to the alter
We found Elysium
through watercolor ballads
I Am A Coward
I love you.
Yet I am a coward.
I have loved you longer
Than I have ever loved myself.
But I can't tell you that.
I will love you from a distance
Silently.
Because I'm too scared to go up to you.
And I feel that
It could never work out between us.
Because you're you
Dazzling, Gorgeous, Perfect.
And I'm only plain old me.
And I'm afraid things'll go wrong.
So I'm left here to love the idea of you
What you symbolize in my mind
Love.
Because I don't want to suffer openly.
Since I am a coward.