she was a wash of milky moonlight
with purple iris veins
her fingernails glimmered like
the insides of shells as she laid
a delicate palm on the sleeping boy's
brow.
"i am your winter, i am your heartbreak"
she whispered into his dreams
and a shadow passed over his slumbering frame,
and it was nothing but night and rain
inside his subconscious.
she left with the scars of past regrets
and frosted jars filled with all the tragedies of
first love
the springs that turned rotten and foul
into a sticky heat  when flower buds die before they bloom.
with slow blinking eyes
the boy awoke
with his chest opened wide.
he clutched at his dilapidated heart
and wished for the icy caress of sleep
to pull him back under.

the moon's pale hair
dusted the top of the water tower
spattered in graffiti rust.
i want so much to flick the dirt
from under my nails
and the dried blood smeared on lips.
i took a seminar on how to give back
and we learned to cut up plastic cup holders
and draw crosses on our hands.
i hung your painting in the room with the ink stains.
i feel nothing while i pass through this life,
paper mache carnations
king of clubs
missing buttons
all collect under my nails.
i just want to scrub
until it's fleshy pink
and i can write poetry again

you screamed into the highway
tunnel
streets lined
with cracked glass
and broken people
without homes
said you wanted the dark
filled shame
in unwashed sheets-type-days
with dingy motel rooms
and coin laundry.
i don't want
the clean clipped sunday school
smiles
and the sunshine should be
a cold,
phosphorescent,
so i know
that i'm not
being lied to.

antique grit
he screamed at her in the passenger
seat
slammed the doors
four wheel drive
four fist punches
floral bruises
blooming on skin
color like milk bottles when they're shaken
in white gloved hands,
buttons on wrists.
church pamphlets
printed with jesus love
the man in the jeep screamed
through his lungs
and religion was scheduled on his sundays;
but today wasn't holy
  and abuse looked nice on her oil painted skin

i just wanted to  pick your bones
white daisies in a field
and weave them together
a halo to float over my head
so wherever i'd go a part of you hung in the air
a soft constant breeze.

and maybe you'll let me.
maybe you'll string your veins like lights to light my journey
when the cobbled streets are black
and your back in rink-a-**** town
and i'm off getting my wings.

you like to breath air into my dreams,
lifting my balloons, and even though  you'll be here in this gray
town you never
made me feel sorry.

sorry that i've got to leave.
and maybe you'll give me your hands too,

so when it's colder than a winter month, i can wrap my fingers in them
and i'll be warm on the inside
too

she clutches her body
a frayed rag
and she remembers his
ragweed teeth
the bobbles in his ears-
skin stretching like fabric on a loom.
there are no tears anymore
    just a quiet knowing
like the sad eyes of a cow
off to the slaughter house
and carcasses hang in strips
   a ****** mouth
torn open in a grin
and the hard glinting metal of a knife flaying open skin.
her skin,
her legs like wishbones,
cracking apart,
thrusted in obtuse angles
   a conveyor belt life of sludge
and consumption

our skin is washed in the rivers of youth
stained yellow from tea leaves
the subtle scent of mint green accumulates between
nostril and lip
freshly awakened.
your soul,
my soul,
is clean