Nighttime Riots.

Blue eyes across a table covered in yellowed pools of shitty beer
Condensed with flecks of dirt and mud from ping pong balls that ice skate the snowy floor
Hands shoot them across tables,
Aiming for the highest merit
As teammates collapse in euphoric cheers
As the last red solo cup meets its end

Up the spiraling staircase, barefoot and feeling friendly
Hands reaching out for familiar strangers
Pulling me into you, slowly twisting my desires
Pinning me against wooden walls and keeping my heart on its feet but not above its heels
Alcohol corrodes my inhibitions as your tongue slips slowly through my pearl gates
A sheet of sandpaper embracing a bed of satin,
My mouth fills with pools of blood
And you drink it up

I'm not the first.

So lay me on your bed
And make me feel like a caterpillar within my fleshy cocoon
It feels so good to be someone else tonight
Make me believe that your embrace is something that
I will never know again.

Potted Paperweights.

Not all who wander are lost

but not all who are lost wander

How do we determine

Where we're going

When we all end in the ground anyway?

Is anyone found?

Found is what? --

a self perception

a security blanket

a whispered lie.

A lullaby that lulls to sleep

the pesky thoughts

corroding the pearl walls

that mask troubled minds.

Words are only words.

But what of the ones in our heads?

The ones mitigated

by lack of synapse between

the brain and tongue

as the strongest muscle in the body

flops violently against its own pearl walls.

Walls of choice.

An abstinence of speech.

Do they weigh more?

Those are the words that crush

like paperweights on our hearts

and multiply the steam

like covers on pots

of food left neglected on the counter

due to lack of appetite.

Warm Hands, Cold Heart

Figures filling door frames,
Shadow of an old flame
Cursing at the wind when it begins.
A howl, a heart beat, a tear drops,
The door squeaks,
You're leaving again.

Try to leave without a sound
But creak go the floor boards
Squeak goes the hinges
A cacophony of sound embraces your passing
And I, in the silence
Succumb to these noises
These breaths
I can hear a tear hit the floor
I wish it would burn right through
A permanent reminder
That nothing's permanent.
Your feet scuffing my floors,
You never left your shoes tied.

Your presence perpetrates my pores
As hairs extend from single sockets of skin
And I can feel the heat of your green eyes
Casting glances and emanating sin

Your voyeuristic tendencies have reached their breaking point
The glass ceiling shatters and everyone is caught in its debris
Piercing skin with transparent matter
Scars reopen to reveal the past
And extends them towards the future
Marred and battered,
I am born again.

Flat Feet.

Words are flowing freely

Out of lips chapped

Due to nervous licking
When they used to be stunted

Without grasping meaning as
Pupils dilate and digress
Hands are reaching --

Emptiness.
Impulses vanishing before they touch.
Vacant as they grasp for
Something greater than the air,

Something warm with human blood.

Could you share with me

The speech you mitigate?

I want to feel your thoughts --
I want reach into your skull
And read the cortex of your brain
Like scaly walls marked with braille
To decipher.

Your morse code lips overwhelm me
As your olive eyes are emitting

bitter glimpses of ambivalence.
Your omnipresence haunts me
As I try to refrain from
Letting cinematic images
Of unadulterated happiness
Play reruns behind the

Gently closing lids of my eyes.

The color is running from the ink of the picture
Because of the salty creeks descending
from the two orifices that grant me sight
But what is it do I see?
I see a walking question mark
And its two feet are turned toward the door.

Leaning heavy on my bedpost
Looking at you through kaleidoscopes
I try to understand

what it is that you don't.
I make meaning out of nothing
And vernacular vomit spews

From lips that used to crease up

In euphoric passion.

Binging and purging you --
Devouring you slowly
Spitting you back out.

The marks my teeth have made

Have left holes that leave you wondering

Over unanswered questions

And unfulfilled requests.

Your tongue wraps knots

Around incoherent statements

That lead to more uncertainty.

Yet certain am I,

that all of me is yours.

Can your tongue wrap knots

Around my own

Instead of fumbled words?

As arms reach for

Human flesh

And contentment is

Once again attained.

Everything Ends and Everyone Leaves When the Curtain Inevitably Falls.

A melted candy rests on the radiator,

sweltering in its own fumes of nectarine,

try to move it and it hardens,

turns from tickle-me-pink

to a noxious tangerine

its sweetness has decayed,

you never wanted it anyway.

A light bulb flickers on the nightstand,

while two lovers sleep restlessly,

you try to twist it but you squeeze too hard -

its fragile glassy walls crumble

and blood trickles down through

the laugh lines of your hand,

light was never in demand.

Fish Swim Fervently through Tendrils of Desolate Nostalgia.

Can you imagine what it's like
To have your innards knotted so tightly
That you vehemently want to throw them up
'Til there's nothing inside of you
And your hollow waste of a body
Can live on without care?

Your vernacular pools
Succulent in piss-poor attempts
To hide the incredulous amount of
Interest you mask with disdain
Haunt me as I listen in the corner

Your cotton candy tongue
Spewing melodies to those who aren't me
As I dread every word I overhear

I want to be the muscle synapse that brings you to your knees.
I long to be the drink that courses through your veins, too strong for you to stand.
I ache to be a bird outside your window, singing songs that won't leave your head.

I wish to impact you.

My skin is burnt,
Marked by every single touch
Of your fingers
As they warmly slide over me
In the puddle of sweat
That our skin is spitting.
We fall together.
We rise together.
Every moment is a new beginning
New, white pages, crisp with creative opportunity -
Let's write our lives away.
Seal them in a notebook in a code only we understood
And pseudonyms made just for us.

Let's share our souls alone.
Let's bare our souls alone.

-

Drilling, spinning, burning
Numbing sets in, turning
Over my
Spacious mind corroding
To a narrow path that's
Dwindling into neuropathic suffering
My ligaments descending
Slowly disappearing
Feeling quickly going
'Til they no longer exist
Pines and needles coming
Stomach churning
Eyes are yearning
To cut off the oxygen caressing their wet surface
My eyes are full of sunlight
Yet they're aching for the night sky
Body wants to fall through
The confines of my bed
Disconnecting from my head
Brain continues melting
Take another pill
Shut up, you're okay.
You've always been this way.

Veins like City Grids in Summer Heat.

Water runs thicker than my blood

or maybe my blood just runs thick with water

I remain calm, cool, and collected

as my body attempts to sink into the cold kitchen floor

imagining it sinking into the ocean

with seaweed to hold me

and the water to rock me to sleep.

chest rising slowly, a heavy weight

accompanying

each and every fall

it gets harder to rise

my blood-water creeps into my head

blocks my sight

I try to stand but just fall down

a gentle hand, a kind hand

salvages my body from the plummet it just took

like a crane lifting the rubble

of a building held together

by false hopes and sheet-rock

instead of cognizance and steel

a body, a vacant hotel room

a light left on when you're not home

to make everyone think

that the house is not alone

well, it's alone.

we rise together, breath together

lay down, chests rising in rhythm

he is the water in my blood

he is what makes my blood run.

He keeps the air inside my lungs.

A tourniquet, a body brace,

life support.

He is medicine coursing through my veins.

What's Projected Versus What Is.

"Is it still making love if it's rape?"
She asked, her mouth twitching as her throat swells with every trace of saliva she tries to swallow
Her veins full of frozen mud
Her body drifting away from her
It's not her. She's not her anymore.

"Is it still making love if it's rape?"
She asked, clenching her fists with rage
As great as the bull towards the colour of the numbers on her digital alarm
Time doesn't matter anymore.

"Is it still making love if it's rape?"
She asked, as salt stained waters condense on her pale cheeks
Quivering and shaking, she seeks a new identity
Clutching the cross she wears around her neck
Remember the God she thought had loved her.

"Is it still making love if it's rape?"
She asked, as sweat perspirates on her brow
The thought of what just happened
Turns the butterflies to knives
As she seeks an answer to the question

"Is it still making love if it's rape?"
I asked myself,
With no one there to listen
To answer
To care.

Photophobic Acoustic Neuromas

It's 3:24 in the morning.
Thoughts of sleep creep into my head like animals trying to make a nest
They flutter quickly out my ears as the screwdriver continues to twist into my skull
These are the nights that kill.
My eyes swell like helium balloons
I wish my body would rise
I wish the sun wouldn't.

Darling, can't we keep the light off?
There's enough to see, isn't that enough?
You want to see every bit of me.
I just want to sleep.
My irises absorb the rays
Swelling in increasing increments
It gets worse with the passing of days
Bloodshot, I give in.
A little pill to quell the pain
Shame.
I have failed.
A little alcohol
That substance
That cure-all
Stomachache reliever
Stomachache causer.

How would it feel to have the consequences of partaking in its poisonous demeaner without swallowing one drop?
Don't talk so loud.
It hurts.
My ears are on fire, they burn with each word
A vernacular flood pounding on the inside of my skull like a pre-teen punk rocker who thinks he can play drums.
He's got no rhythm.

Darling? Can't you speak a little softer?
I understand that it's important but the lesser the volume the lesser the pain.
Don't stress each syllable like a Shakespearean sonnet
I'm not deaf, I'm sick.

I'm sick.

Does anyone see?
Oh no, you can't. It lives inside of me.
It's like a baby kangaroo.
Or a knot in a stomach.
Or guilt.

Or alcohol.
Seaping through my bloodstream.
Causing casualties.

My body aches.
I refrain

A little pill to take it all away.

The Willing and Suited Should All Be Saluted.

Do I intrigue you?
I see you staring from your seat
I see you hope our eyes would meet
But when they do, yours meet your feet
And every few days this sequence repeats
Our cheeks swell up with burning red heat
Because we know there's something in the air.

I bet you want to know what my tongue tastes like.
I bet you want to sliver your saliva down the pale horizons of my torso
I bet you want to rip me apart between the sheets of your small twin bed
I bet you want to dig your nails into my blushing red skin
Covered in passion and bathing in sin

I bet you've imagined every outline of my conservatively clothed body
Pressed up against yours with a force like the magnetic poles that signify the beginning and end of the world
Infinity. An infinite amount of space between our desks and our bodies but a lack of inhibition on the paths of our thoughts

I can feel you inside me, though you are a stranger.
The unfamiliar tingle of such familiar scruff along the delicacies of my frame
You maim, you maim
Man, you are tame
I want to scalp you and drill down to your brain
Your corpus collosam collapsing into my hand
Swivels and drivels of thoughts and desires
That you have kept secret
You liar, you liar
On fire. This floor is on fire
We've got to move.
We've got to dance to be free.


Keep your desk in the classroom
And your thoughts in your head
Where she can never find us
Or else we'd be dead
Keep your hand in plain sight
And me far out of reach
For such tender covenants
We never can breach

Cut the strings
Burn the fringe
Break me down
Turn me out
And out...and out.

I commend you for listening to this broadcast
Prepare to self destruct in three...two...now.

An Anesthesiologist Who Likes Aphrodisiacs.

Your hand, coarse and callous
like kindling that needs sanding
brushes me as you say "don't go"
in hushed tones of course,
no one else can know.
You always look away
as you beg me to stay
because the kinesthesiology
that eye contact brings
between us is too overpowering
for you to withstand.
With blanketed stares
and touching of hair
you melt me every time.
A pool am I,
collapsing to your floor
a fragment of what I was.
I gather in the middle
and you scoop me up -
suddenly your hands are
warm and soft.
They are now a reflection
of yourself.
You hide from those you love
with superfluous language
and outlandish ideas
you claim to be creative
yet you spew out your New York Times
while sipping your coffee
while smoking your pipe
while playing your music
Oh, original.
Do you even process
all the knowledge you absorb?
Or does it stay there just long enough
to be thrown into the wind
before you forget your statistics
and facts
and someone else's idea.
Oh, urban masterpiece,
your paint is running thin
The graffiti that masks you
is being covered with paint
the smell of which burns your nostrils
much unlike the drugs you intake
Oh, alcohol - a means of honesty
a means of shielding truth
a means of being you
unsheathed, uninhibited, pure
and loud.
You never shut up.
Just shut up.

The Morning After

Oh, flighty bedfellow,
How will we awake this morning?
Did we fight the night before?
I never know until the sun raises its sleepy head
And out from my plaid coccoon I emerge.
First steps out of bed.
The pressure of the cool wood floor fusing with my swollen feet
I'm sore.
The muscle and sinew on my back play tug of war
Little soldiers fighting for a brighter day
Crack! go my bones, a sound I've come to ignore
Just like the mundane hum of the fan that keeps me cool
Another flash. I'm warm.
An unexpected fever.
Vision escapes me as I seek out a chair
Dizzy. A feeling I've come to accept
Sometimes my head seems to disconnect from my neck
My whole body is bruised a fleshy pink
Absent to all eyes but my own
Unknown. I look like you.

A Prose for an Unsuspecting Soul.

God took the brown of the soil and displaced it in your eyes
Rich and fertile, full of promise and potential.
The crooked angle of your thin lips uprising into that childish smile
as your eyes beam with golden hits of warm sunlight.
The youth in you shimmers and masks your wise facade;
You are barren with years that are yet to come.
An eternal thirst for knowledge, your lips are parched -
there's an aching for more though, you're empty of the heart.
And so you touch and you love and you hide behind closed eyes,
a twitch of the eyebrows, a blush of the cheek,
the blood invades your unsuspecting veins and you try not to show
that you're scared.
A synapse in your brain triggers your muscle and sinew to linger in -
to draw in closer to that which you desire, but you back away,
a reflex of the nerves. Your heart races and your meager expression
shelters your mitigated speech. You refrain from letting volumes spill
from a tongue that loves to speak but not say much at all.