i've decided to floss more
take long walks in the crisp air
do laundry
and stop wearing mismatched
socks.
i think i'll walk away
from my old heart
that liked to hold razors
when i cried
or walk under the moonlight
in bare feet letting the cold
color me blue.

the old heart that felt so many things,
too many things.

i've decided to organize my paint supplies in drawers,
and use a ruler when i draw.
through the motions,
i think,
i'll stop,
hurting.

you ride on rolling waves
always at sea
voyaging across cultures
weaving colorful words into a pattern
beneath my eyelids
i don't think anyone
understands a soul
   flickering
back and forth
between worlds.
when your hands can reach before your poems
and i can feel
  it all
contentment would flow
between us

i am filled with tombstones
and the heaviness of corpses,
my lungs decaying with the dust
of death.
just a body plagued with
old memories and empty
fingerprints

i want to take sleeping pills
and huddle under sheets
waiting for the cobalt blue
mouth of night to
swallow me
maybe then loneliness
would take on a new form
and the cavernous shadows
would
be
warm against
my arms

so it was like this...
so it was like when you convince yourself
you're in love
you tell yourself you're inlove
he tells you he's in-love
so anything that happens is out-of-love;
his body was a weight on mine
his body was a sunken ship on mine
my body wanted release
but it's okay, because he was in love with me?
his body slipped into mine,
it pushed
and it shoved
but it's okay because we were in love.
my body felt shut off
from the nerves that make up my
senses,
my mind escaped up into the ceiling,
i can picture those ceilings so well,
blank and textured
and the ***** light
leaving brown shadows
on the walls.
i watched the dust motes clumsily waltz
to a silent tune.
i wished i could hear that tune.
his body was a weight on mine
my body was empty
but it was okay
because we were in love.
it was okay because he loved me.
but i didn't feel anything

living inside a prism
that reflects the light
and breaks it into fragmented colors
that stain the white hallways,
your breath a sandstorm
my hands crave skin
any skin
my hands crave hands
and pumping bodies
to fill a void larger than the empty matter
that surrounds
our drooping heads.
my stomach is a green house
of sticky moisture
sickly green
the roots between my lungs
were ripped out with calloused fingers
and i don't think i've ever been held
with the intent to instill comfort.
no lips to kiss my bones and cloak
them in the idea
of having an existence that
isn't so
completely    alone

sunday bled down my legs
my petals bloomed
your bitten lips
and the smirks between my thighs
a burning kiss
the bathtub water turned murky
a  basin of sin
cutting up ******* lines
perfect symmetry
****** apartments with molded
carpets
kids with their hair bleached
love disillusions the mind  
   to me that's scarier
than a needle
puncturing veins
and
the long twist of train tracks
on lonely purple nights,
winter bitten cheeks