sober days erupt into
nights of dragging screeches
***** tongues crave a paranoia filled daze
and the stars slice open our palms-
they're so close
heads become melting matter.
the universe cannot stitch our
gaping wounds.
we are
cold dead creatures
driven by the need to
be somewhere else.

you slithered
into my lungs
choked my voice
didn't let me run
you crushed my ribs
now you want back
back into my garden
but you see,
everything is growing, finally

i fell apart like egg shells
the whites of my eyes
hard boiled

i found a smile behind the clouds
i wanted to stay there
but i had to come back down

because broken things
cannot fly
and under water
i'm screaming goodbye

in darkness your shadow is thrown across
the graffiti walls, and beneath
the house foundation rats linger,
husks with needles in their arms.
the children see with their daisy white eyes
the bottom of mother's shoes as she's pitted
down stairwells-
and the popstars sing "it's all right, it's all right."

the house is quiet
bodies without hearts
but we can imagine the beating
and you're here

and it's still quiet
but a different kind

she had long hair
that fell like ragweeds
across skin of soil
measuring deep.
the water came and eroded her lips away
and the seaweed got stuck in her throat
so she looks on with wide owl eyes
silent as falling snow.

i am cracked ribs when it's
raining and the road
is slick
with car oil-
car crashes.
stinking rubble,
the bottle of oxycontin
that rests by your bed,
cold dead feet motionless in the morgue.
i am the graceless stroke of a violin
in unpracticed hands,
the rip rip ripping of a dress
torn off,
the chill in winter breath.
you are the sun that found me
fixable,
not hopeless
or yellow addiction.
you were the cast that healed my broken
bones
piecing back together my
fragmented whole.