i am
pebble.

i lay
here
at the foot
of a rockface.

i've one
streak
of misty rose hue
that runs through
my otherwise
speckled gray body,

but which
saturates and
deepens
when the angling sun
glances off it.

i have
known
nothing else

other than

this.

consequence
comes around
to visit me
every once in a while.

but i am
in my
own,

mostly.

once upon
a time
it would
seem
i was
hewn

from my
source,

lithos onyx rainbow
shimmer grin
from ear
to ear.

i am
now,

however,

rent, insulate, here -
but also
over there,
still,
somehow,

remembering
a lost memory
that must have
been once

i think.

you had made this bed too quickly,
not realizing the sheets weren't fitted
and the blankets were tangled around our limbs.
you were so used to lying in it,
you didn't know how to be honest.

don't reach for me with hands
stained from the ink you used to rewrite your stories.
don't speak to me with words
that should have rotted out your teeth.
don't look at me with eyes
that I once saw my happiness in.

I will not play nice.
I will not worship
the storm that destroyed my home.

in the future,
my life will be so full of love,
you won't be able to look beyond it.
I hope it leaves you blind,
so you will never see the person I'll become
without you.

1997
the roots of my family tree
are shallow and malnourished,
breaking through the Earth's skin as a reminder
that it cannot always keep the ugly
hidden underneath.
my DNA is a life sentence for a crime
I never wanted to commit.

1999
my father called my brother a king
before he even left the womb.
a solar eclipse that has lasted years
because of my inability to escape his shadow;
though, I'm not sure I ever will.
the world will always be his stage,
and I, just a poorly constructed backdrop.

2005
my skin has turned
black and blue back into flesh.
I hope, one day,
my mind takes a lesson from my body
and learns how to forget you.

2011
they call him the all merciful god,
and I can't help but to laugh,
because the only thing he promised
to those who hurt me was forgiveness.
I prayed up until the day
god changed his phone number.
atheism is a learned behavior;
I only wonder when god stopped
believing in me.

2015
I live my life in reverse.
I drink coffee at midnight,
read the epilogues first,
go to bed in the morning.
I spent my childhood in this grave,
now it is time to dig myself out.

butterknife seppuku
is my fav way to go

lottsa little deaths
to spread thin

till the last edit
of these things
swims
upstream

away from me

light magenta vertical;
gaurdian of the margin.

light blue horizontal;
conveyer of the ledger.

the space
between -
white teeth gleam,

refracting
lunarlit scribbles

across one loose leaf,
fell by some god
awful idiot,

all for
you
to space

out
on.

i will be
written
down
yesteday

in elegant
recursive
flicks
of the

wrist -

a has-been
fate.

so, i am not supposed to be here.
not anymore, anyway.

i know that.
i am three-hole
punch drunker.
awkwarder.

but those potential
whatif's glyph bright
behind closed eyelids,

and
it

makes
me wonder
just a little longer.

indigo
cursor
blink.
blink. blink.

blink.

i think about all the insurmountable times i have
watched myself shave off the bark of my skin
to watch others thrive and blossom violently like
wildflowers and chrysanthemums. i think of how
you have always been a tree – tall, mighty, powerful
- with roots that don't seem to make mine feel like
weeds. teach me, for i aspire to be luminous, tree.
i dream of worlds made of jasmine and honeysuckle,
of utopias devoid of the bark i've shaved off my back.
i dream of sap that feels a little less like magma and
a lot more like maple syrup. i dream of roots that
doesn't feel like granite and completely calcified.
teach me, for i aspire to be luminous, tree.

I can’t tell if
it’s my mind or my
cigarette stained
t-shirts, both can
make a woman run,
the trail dust stirring
is starting to make my
skin burn, I’m starting
to learn that maybe
love isn’t for everyone,
it has an acquired taste,
sometimes it takes
a plague to kindle
a sense of realization
but I’ve solely realized
that one can only die
so many times before
love settles with the dust,
I thought only my lungs were
black but I guess when
you’re that close to the heart
the pain is bound to rub off,
my chest is wet eraser
scribbling over a dry pencil-written past,
falling in love seems to be a falsity,
everything ends,
lit like a small city
but you can see the smog
from a mile away,
stop coming to visit
you’re not welcome