From the innocence
That she portrays
You'd never guess
She'd seen such days
Of drugs and *****
And easy lays

You'd never guess
Upon her cheeks
Once lived the tears
That always wreaked
With self disgust
At its highest peak

You'd never know
Upon her thighs
Is where shes written
All her lies
And in those scars
Her hatred hides

-ARI

i keep thinking about the way
your fingers don't leave bruises on
my hips the way they used do

when did you stop trying to hold
on so tight? when did you stop
trying?

"That's the problem with relationships. You change the other person."

Oh sometimes in the snowy
mist of my dreams.
I see you mom.
I know way back then.
You were unhappy.
The clean house
The perfect smile.
The pearls on your neck.
The imperfect marriage.
I know you had to leave him.
Your heart was too empty
Too vacant to carry on.
But what did I do mom?.
All I wanted was your
Kiss  goodnight.
Your soft lips
cooling my fevers.
I miss you mom.
But I hope you found
Your place of sweetness.
I know I am still looking
For mine.

"My life has been the poem I would have writ"
But I could not both live and utter it.
The words- of Henry David Thoreau
echo in the woods outside my childhood home
but I can see a younger me with rolled up sleeves
diligently grinding graphite against loose-leaf,
I watch as he tries to capture snippets of life  
like fireflies in mason jars on summer nights.
He squandered the sands of the hour glass,
recluse in his room obsessing over a moments pass
but has he not breathed life into soon forgotten memories,
striking alive these Frankenstein ideas with electricity?

I might've been an only
child but I was never the
favourite. you trailed behind us at every
social event, pulling on my
hair and stepping on the backs of my
shoes. the bottoms of them were so
worn out from years of me trying to run
away that I could feel every footstep in my
lungs. at christmas none of my presents could be
wrapped, because we'd learned the first
year that it wasn't a good
idea. she made me spend hours tearing it off in a straight
line, using a ruler as
guidance. I was too young to read the
numbers on it. this year, I bought her a
necklace. I knew I had to give her something even though I wanted to
take. she never mentioned it on our Christmas cards, but it was
there, it was
there in the spacing of our
names and the negative space between our warm
bodies; we weren't allowed to
touch. she hates you so
much that she could never bear
leaving you. vacuums became my
lullaby and my father quickly grew
used to never getting kissed on the
mouth. I hate you. you were a thorn
stuck into the centrepiece of our perfect
family, and my psychotherapist says you're the
reason I still let myself
bleed.

rubbing my rummy red eyes
against the harsh hard light of morning
last nights laughs and loves gone cold and bitter
staining the satin sheets we shared.

i woke up alone
wondering

if you were really ever there
if anything really happened
or if the drink finally seeped into my head
and conjured up a wild night
leaving me
laughing alone in the dark
naming the shadows and whispering sweet
garbled nothings
to no one.

i would like to believe my own
imagination would be kinder
but i know differently.
straining the grindings out of day old coffee
i wonder where you have gone to
what your doing and
where you are....

but i know the danger and the
foolishness of such thoughts
so i toss them away along with the
dead soldiers
of last nights wild war
sweeping up the leavings
helping along the hobbling thoughts
that last night was a dream
and you were never there at all.

they slide my shirt up over my head
and i hide my body against them.
praying
that their eyes,
which hold such capacity for judgement,
are fooled by the touch of my skin.

the honest fear
stands clear in my heart.
unwavering in the face of its own impossibility.

in that second,
i feel as if i am being stripped
of the feeble illusion that has granted me access
to thier desires and passions.

i'm truly ashamed in that moment
for having tricked them
into thinking
i am so much more
then i truly am.