continued. (old)

Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to continue?
That I’ve been able to pick right back up,
to keep your void filled with plenty of other pieces of hair, lips, and eyelashes,
all connected to fingertips that stroke and scratch and pull and twist better and worse than you ever did.
Mouths, full of disease and words with no meaning;
full of liquid, saliva and alcohol;
full of strong tongues that push in and out,
up and down,
twirling in sick little circles like a goddamn circus act.
I am this goddamn circus act.

Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to get it together?
Thank goodness for paper plans,
for letter grades that distract and solve it all:
all the problems,
all the regret,
all the thoughts and anxiety.
Thank goodness that these plans and classrooms and you and I walk such a close,
tightrope line,
otherwise I might be able to forget you.
Every time I enter that building
(that circus tent)
I know some part of it has touched you.
I know you’ve pounded the same floors with your soles.
I know you’ve touched the same doors with your elbow,
forearm,
and hand.
Every second I spend breathing that recycled air,
I know some part of it massaged your tongue,
deceived your teeth,
and jumped your lips.
Some part of it has swept under your skirt,
through your shoes,
and carried itself down into my body,
just to prove I can’t escape you.
This building is filled with you.
You are this goddamn circus act.

My greatest delusion,
your greatest illusion,
they are one and the same;
they have you to blame.
Sweep your hair, and the crowd follows.
Show your skin, and my pride shatters,
and finds itself torn to match that rip on your shirt where the nail caught,
in the space just below the last rib and above the defined hipbone that my fingers pressed enough times to bruise.
You don’t remember my touch, I can’t remember your words.
If I could see your breath,
if I could see through the paper confetti covering your face,
if I could pick out a single word,
I would trap it and tame it and keep it like those electrocuted elephants.
But all I can see is your costume on every pair of legs,
and my fingers turn to fists when I think of us,
dressed up in our goddamn circus act.

Isn’t it strange:
eight months,
hundreds of places,
hundreds of faces,
and the sun still will not touch me.
Diluted through my layers of cannonball smoke and freakshow fog machine,
light tends to lose its strength;
it tends to wallow in self-pity,
in the knowledge of its own inadequacy.
The haze that is created in its absence is thicker than any cloud,
this thing that surrounds me,
blacker than any midnight room in a basement.
It is the bastard child of light,
diluted through layer upon layer of apathy and self-deprecation;
layer upon layer of loathing,
of ignorance,
of arrogance.
I am digging deeper into this dressing room filled with hairy legs attached to spidery bodies attached to glistening fangs attached to deep,
red eyes that consume without moving.
They know my fear and they rub their thick,
sticky hair across my cheek.
I’m reminded of yours.
I’m reminded we are still running this goddamn circus act.

disorder

i can't keep thinking of this
disorder, this
sickness, my weakness,
obsession is thick.

you were silent and sweet
as your feet followed suit
as you walked in the room
and close locked the door.

the pushpin in my lips
pushed its way to your hips
and swallowed it all,
all the things i'd been holding.

the pushpin through my lips
found its way to your hips,
stayed silent and wishing.

this was all calculated,
a gameplan created
from knowing the knowledge
you'd read there before.

it's a book i should never have shown you
should have left its spine uncreased
and your spine unarched
and your page untouched

let someone else break you,
so i wouldn't be broken.

tuesday.

i will force your arm down,
so i can plunge inside you.
i'll be the chemical that stops your heart.

i'll watch your chest rise,
your breathing slow
as your eyes turn sweet
with soiled, virgin innocence

if i could just slip these slivers
under your fingernails
the means, the end, the scene in my head

you knew exactly what to do,
played the player
on her flat fucking field.

and it was just to prove you could,
so i'll be the chemical that stays inside
i'll take my time
to dull the senses you've not already destroyed

you fucked to prove you could,
so i'll ruin you till i've run my course
coursing, carving through vessels

you'd never have known
if my poison weren't screaming
down your hallways
leaving the salty spots behind

a reminder of the pain you won't feel
as i push closer to your heart
digging dirty daggers
into your barely beating machine

screaming with each twist,
till the bolts loose from the rib cage
and i'm heaving

and screaming
and pulling and

your eyes begin to fade,
like these sugar sweet salt spots
fossilizing the first innocent feeling
to wetly cascade

across my terrain
petrifying, preserving
the hate that makes me shake.

all of my overused words in one place

Push me away.
I’ve got your lips on a string, your face on a leash, your life in the grip of my fist.
Pull me close.
I’ve got your hips feeling brave, your breath coming clean, your eyes in the dark of my kiss.
Strip them away.
I’ve got your clothes on the ground, your face to the sky, your life in this shadowy place.
Finish your ghost.
I’ll have you screaming for less, crying for more, shaking and breaking and spilling to me
When you’re flooding my sheets, with the sweat that turns sweet, eating us till we decay.

relevant

I know what it does, I know what it feels like, I know what it sounds, what it smells, what it looks like.
I know who you are.
You know you should hate me, I know that you will.
You know I’m everything you want, so give me everything and I’ll fuck it all up.
I’ll spin you around till you don’t know the way down,
till the dark and the light come crashing without sound,
and it’s there you’ll find I’m nowhere to be found.
Lost and confused, broken and used, both sides left abused:
broken in two.
I’m only returning the favor, I’m only hurting you as you know you could hurt me too.
I am the first, and the few.
I am the blue of your beautiful bruise.

smile.

I can see that same smile of satisfaction when they play right into you,
just the way I do.
When you pull up, they go down
and it’s just to prove you can.
they want you
and they have you.

I can see that fabric friction starting fires when they push right into you,
pushing nails through my palms.
When they go up, you go down
and it’s just to prove you’re in control
looking for a challenge.

I can feel their hands
I can feel the seams
I can see your mouth in its devil curve,
and the holes in my palms
are splitting with the knuckle count,
the concrete census

I can feel that bloody breaking bone when you play right into
just the way you’re not.
When you light the shitty stage in my skull ablaze
and it’s just to prove you can.
and it’s just to prove you’re in control.
and they play and push right into you,
and I can see your smile.

reach

let me reach down,
find that god-fearing bone
and rip it out of my body.

this rift, this time shift
has bended and changed my shape
of mind

and whatever ends up inside
is sure to be ruined
in no time.

east

this is the art i want to create
i need to create
that fills me

with ghost replacements
of the pieces i leave behind
pieces that turn my shades

more and more grey
more and more transparent
less and less me

more and more ghost
replacements of pieces
that were never really mine.

it is interesting

the way my perspective changes
when i begin to pry your fingers away
from this dear, safe cliff i've built

wouldn't anyone see
that i am only
trying to watch you collide with the rocks

it is innocent, enough
the way i tickle your knuckles
and kiss your wrists

and mention how cold the draft is
and how warm the water must be
and how those rocks, well,

they aren't rocks at all
they are smooth mattresses,
soaked in love

and tender weight to catch
a falling desperate
such as yourself

it is interesting
the way my perspective changes
when i stand above you

instead of nearly level ground
and your fingers nail themselves down
with stubborn hope

that they could pull,
dig,
scratch and lift you higher

and it is mostly innocent,
the way my eyes hold steady
with my spade ready

to chip, scrape and
remove the cliff
around your fingers

all the while mentioning
how cold this time of year gets
especially at such a height

and all the while motioning
to the clear and lovely light below
like foil in the oven

to the warm, the water
you must be tired from the stress
of gripping, digging,

scratching cliffs
that everyone can see
and i am only

chipping round your fingernails
digging beneath your palms
tugging at your cuticles

and i wonder how much longer
you will hold
the guilt in me, controlled

to crush those bones
where knuckles bend
twist fingernails
with metal grips

and mention words i said
i warned you, i told you

where you would end
and doesn't swimming
sound so nice in warmer waters

far away from this draft
and the cold
and the cliff

and my uneven ground
that continues to split
new cuts, new rifts

this is not innocence,
and all the while i think
that the water on your cheeks

ends up down in the waves
colder now than when made
and far away from this edge

but some fingers break
and loosen, and bleed
as the others release

and i wonder
if you'd still be clutching this cliff
if mine were not the first you'd seen.

full circle.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up. The room was not quite dark enough to obliterate the shapeless shapes and the shades of black that seemed to crawl with the spots that appeared from straining my eyes.
If there were a mother nearby, she certainly would have heard my unrest in the night. But that room is empty.
If there were a father nearby, he certainly would have noticed my sweat-stained bed. But that room is empty.
If there were parents, sleeping in a bed, pushing down pillows with their refined, developed heads,
And a wife’s hair pressed into the husband’s shoulder,
And a shifting, midnight kiss,
They surely would have come, come rushing in the room at the sound of the only son, the only child, screaming.
But those rooms are separate, and one is always empty.
So I sewed my eyelids shut with a thread from the doll somewhere near my bed,
the dolls that gave no comfort when lit with devil darkness, black blood in scarlet shades down their stitched faces.
So I sewed my eyelids shut, and hoped for morning.
Morning came, and brought with it sight, but no change.
Mother, those bottles are always empty. Father, those filters are always lit.

So I grew, pushing down pillows with my refined, developing head,
and sewing my eyelids whenever the night would call, and spots would crawl, until I left that house,
Leaving the impression of depressions in the carpet in the hall, I closed the door hard and I was gone.
For good, I said, and married her, and carried her through poverty and pregnancy,
And mid-west-east-coast residency, and now I had a counterpart who could see the spots, and sweep them away.
And I never needed threaded needles again.

Then 1989, the third in line, arrived as our first boy,
And I woke up. I was dreaming. The room was not quite dark enough to obliterate the forming shapes and shades of gray that dragged their claws across my eyes.
Their mother is nearby; she certainly should have heard my unrest in the night.
But that side is empty.
If we were parents, sleeping in a bed, pushing down pillows with our refined, life-giving heads,
And her lips, pressing to my shoulder,
Meeting my shifting, midnight kiss,
Then surely we would wait at the edge of the covers, for any stir, murmur, or breath held too long, and rush to their heads, and keep their eyes closed.
Not sewing them shut, but relaxed, and reposed.
Morning came, and brought with it light, but no color.
Mother, your phrases are always empty. Father, your sleepless nights never quit.

So I tried gluing them shut, with some glue made from Atlantic sea salt and a pearl from the street, and the three younger children, that brought us to six.
I tried gluing them shut, but those shapeless shapes and growing grays dragged claws across my eyes, and tore them apart, and forced me to stare at the room that was not quite dark enough to go back to sleep, not quite dark enough to pretend I wasn’t there, not quite dark enough to hide the threaded needle I had kept for years, unused.
So I sewed my eyes shut.
And while my children grew, pushing down pillows with their developing heads, I was sleepless again.
So I sewed my eyes shut.

I was dreaming, and then I woke up. The room is bright, a sickening, perfect afternoon that reminds me I’m alone.
If there were a mother nearby, she would scold me for wasting my day.
But her room is empty. She waits out the rest of her life with others too hard to take care of.
If there were a father nearby, he would be smoking behind this window.
But his room is empty. His grave is full.
I feel the pressure of my aging, grey-scale head, pressing into the pillow on my aging bed, and I think of the family I do not have.
I think of how I lost my mind trying to be everything, to everyone.
So I sewed my eyes shut.