to most you say
a day
24 hours
and it is that simple
24 perfect little steps
to lead the way
and guide humanity through
an astronomical phenomenon
day and night

to me
a day is not
24 hours
nor is it 1440 minutes
not even 86400 seconds
i watch the milliseconds
the femtoseconds
speed by faster than
the photons that drive
the herd inhabiting this pale blue dot

how could they sleep through
the darkest moment of night
when the cool that
you thought couldn't be
on that cornflower blue
summer day
lazily flows across your face
and you feel the longing
that the fingernail moon
must carry for the sun.

how could they appreciate
every single exact color
as the sky brightens
lilacs running like chariots
from the sun still submerged
give way to effervescent
pastel pinks
like a gift for every baby girl
born that moment
until finally the sun pushes its way
out of the grasp of the horizon
and bursts like a blonde from a cake
bathing the world in its
mourning song for
the moon who always
slips just out of his grasp.

and i struggle to find the words
when normally they grow
like weeds in fertile land
choking out the crops
the sustenance to feed the frenzied masses
calling for blood
and crucifixion of an idea
they don't understand.

and then the words are too much
they fall in torrents
raindrops bigger than beach *****
patter like needles onto my head
each one an explosion of liquid
courage to feed my disembodied mind.

and i fly.

how can you not see it?

when you envision the
bubblegum pink
rose petal future
whose softness you seem to
automatically expect
that i am certain is
a razor's edge dripping
with my inevitable blood
sanguinely falling in
pregnant dewdrops and
slicing my heart out of my chest.

cutting you out of me
snipping those meticulous stitches
weaving you into
my entire self and
consuming me with a
balmy warmth that i
fight against
balk at
because it cannot last when
i am an emotional
bull in a china shop
and destroy everything i touch.

i will eventually burn you

that fury and blinding pain
that lives in the pit of my stomach
and rises like refluxing acid
when i remember my own weakness
when i come back to reality
and realize the magnitude of my
inadequacy
the breadth of pain i inflict
a festering
oozing
wound red at the edges
neglected purposefully
for i welcome any pain
that reminds me
i deserve to hurt
suffering is not optional
when i am as disposable as
the receipt the cashier forces you to take
at the supermarket checkout
i bow to the wind
paper doll girl
waiting for a flame
my spontaneous combustion
seeing white
and then nothing.

i want to be better

for you

to somehow take myself
and mould the clay figurine
masquerading as
my authentic self
into a shape that fits
perfectly into the hole that
i sometimes see
when you let down the
veil concealing your
holy of holies
even just for a moment.

i want you to feel whole

to feel safe when you
wake in the night and find me
pressing myself ever closer
to you
even in my sleep
wanting you near me
the palpable reminder that
i am not alone
though i feel the inevitability
constantly.

i won't forget your precise smell
the feeling of
my bare skin against yours
or my head on your chest
even if you leave

which i know you will.

you say it like it's my fault
like i shook you
goddess of earthquakes
and my fault lines
etched into my face don't
give you the answer you're looking for?

you look upon me like an alien
like some creature who crawled forth
from a darkened alleyway to
burn in front of you
and pull you
a moth to the flame
Icarus flying too close to the sun
you melt
when you're in my arms
and i in yours i can see
the beeswax of your eyes
slowly turning to a viscous liquid
a rain-shower of that infernal desire
emotions that ***** like needles
piercing veins to slam home
a neon poison
higher than ******
to know my power
and hold that pulsing dripping
heart of yours
within my secret place
my holy of holies and
all i want is to tear the veil
and expose the bare truth
no more hiding in the shadows
a divine face you cannot look upon
i imagine god gets lonely

what is the meaning of a beauty
that cannot be seen?
that will consume every part of you
with a single glance
burn your eyes to charcoal
the only smoking remnants of
those bottomless brown cups of coffee
that swirl in your irises

i consume the world around me
more more more more more more
if left alone i would eat your heart
a feral animal
the pure incarnation of natural rage
thunderstorms in my eyes
and lightning bolt curls
blood-stained lips still dripping
with your 98.6 degrees
that same fluid which rushes
to your cheeks when
i shock you yet again
though you shouldn't really be surprised
anymore

if you know what's good for you

don't look at me

maybe you never intended to love me
and i yearn with all of my being
to ask whether i was simply
some science experiment for you
why you led me on
why you stay with me when
it is obvious that
i am not the one
not the one who will melt your heart
the crystalline lattice of ice
that beats within you
behind a barbed wire fence
but i would shred my hands
trying to scale it
i would amputate any limb
if it might prove to you
that i love you
and it's killing me to
not be loved in return

i want you
no
now i've transcended want
i need you
i need you more than oxygen
i'd starve myself and i
wouldn't even feel the pangs of hunger
or my muscles consuming themselves
because the pain of
not being loved by you
when i love you so fiercely
eclipses all else and i
didn't even realize i was
bleeding on the pavement
the butchered wound in my belly
self inflicted
because i want to turn myself
inside out
to rip out my internal organs
and hand them to you on a silver platter

i would give you all of me

i have given you all of me

and yet it's not enough
perhaps it never will be
if you predetermined that you
would never love again
and i'm simply some sort of test
of your capacity to love
which you are slowly realizing
has disappeared

i would rather be tortured
physically ripped apart
i would throw myself upon the rack
the hangman would have no work
i would place the noose around my own neck
snap

but i realize my pain means nothing to you

because you are my judge and executioner
though what pleasure
can you derive from a condemned
dead woman walking
who welcomes physical pain
as glorious distraction
vacation from the
internal pain that no
medicine could touch
that scar tissue that is continuously
pulled apart again
when i see your face and
am reminded of the depth of my love
and your shallow eyes betray your cover
telling me the truth
that you'll never love me
because i am incapable of being loved

it's called falling in love
but it's more like
the sudden stop
at the bottom

the *****-jarring
slam into
frigid water turned concrete
turned freeway
leading to the purest pain
and immaculate agony
of vulnerable viscera
and exhumed faith

and aren't i still a believer
when i spout blasphemy
like gagging bile
choking out your breath
erudite acidity of alacrity
from verbose confession

and didn't you warn me
of your limited vocabulary
when words have always
been my companion

how can you take their place
if you've never wrestled
an angel like Jacob
to steal a word from beyond
this holy of holies
grasping and groping
mute in darkness
still wet behind the ears

i still don't have the words
to quell your fear
of that one that lingers
on the tip of my tongue
threatening to jump out
and betray my cover

but you always see right through me

surgically slicing
to the heart of the matter
how is it not written
all over my face
when i've tattooed it across
the back of my eyelids
so i never can escape your face

who needs a sun
when in my core you've ignited
my own fission reactor
whose critical mass
is a capacity to love
and be loved
that you found splattered on
a highway
emotional roadkill
carrion long left to rot in
the baking sun

but who else would feed the raven?

the loneliness that gnaws
at me persistently

he'll never love you like that
like a three day weekend

and i'll never be like them
changing costumes more
than a washed up
Vegas showgirl
as used as my bones
and as looked at as my
naked body

people don't change
though you'll never admit it
until there is already
spaghetti on the wall
a broken dinner plate
and a shatter that reverberates
into my past and future
they're all the same
after all

but i think if i hadn't met you
if i hadn't loved you
i'd never know the weight
of four letters
to grind me to dust.

take me to the river
and let the water rush
in torrents from the
tear ducts of the source
the spring gurgling up
with a frigid message
ground water from
aquifers of secrets and the
memories that you swear to me
don't exist anymore
yet play in the crystal clear
blackness of your
eyes
when your pupils disappear
and blend into the river
of your mahogany irises.

walk me to the water
with the lead around me
and the bit of your attraction
burrowing between my teeth
as i bite down and
grind my molars to the
pollen that leaves a yellow green
sheen on the
surface of your watering hole
pull me as i fight
raging against the magnetic force
that shackles me to you
and leads me to the light
at the end of the tunnel
even though i'm lost.

you can lead a horse to water
just like you can tie me to you
sew me into the
secret place of your heart
and incorporate me into
the intricate web of your
ecosystem
fed by the endless supply of
that water which
digs its claws into the sides of my throat
and coats my stomach with
a poison
that i welcome.

you can lead a horse to water
but you can't make me drink
you can move the mountain
and dry up
snow drifts that drip and
melt into a
band of wild horses running
downhill to tread upon
my ticky-tacky heart
but if i drink then i'm surely lost
the sutures between us
cut out to reveal
the nascent pink scar
puckered at the edges
that represents our connection
how easily it can be
torn asunder
and leave me bleeding
on the banks of your shore
while you float away
one with the waves.

will you still think of me
when the winter’s snow
like ****** needles sticking
and pricking me
slamming your smack
mainlining your masochism
melts to pastel pink mornings
and pregnant dewdrops
gravity propelling them
down flower petal water slides?
will my taste loiter on your lips
will the memory of my touch
my ghost fingers
still leave erupting goose-bumps
your hair standing on end
my unalloyed current
sparking into the night of kerosene.
will the fire bring me to mind?
my face engraved on your memory
like a holy icon
to which you run when the flames
rage as far as you can see
the orange haze of ******
and the hoard of children running
blistered skin
and their screams piercing
gouging
each wearing your face.

you call me *****
label me with broad brushstrokes
to paint onto the tableau of
my life a permanent stain where
you think i don't already see one.

the joke's on you.

trying to sully an already *****
contaminated crime scene
you won't wipe away fingerprints
seared into my skin
by those who also
saw me as that *****
were you disappointed when you saw
i already had ruby red marks
of hands wrapped around my neck?
because your flying shrapnel
accusations make me wonder
if you wish you had
gotten there first.

*****.

though the declaration stings
it certainly doesn't take me
by surprise when i
see that word stamped across my
forehead any time i look in the mirror
the syllable lives between my legs
and bleeds my secret shame
but i can't let you see me cry
i can't let you know it hurts
i can't let on that i would do
anything to purge this stain.

how could you understand
that i see my reflection in
***** in the toilet so i
shove my fingers farther down
my throat to recreate
that feeling of drowning
the gags that created me.

*****.

i want to blame that
violation
or even my erratic neurotransmitters
for morphing that flaxen-haired
nice girl
into the gnarled old
shame-riddled creature who sits
silently before you
being named *****.

but it was no one else who
led myself to this place
who traversed dimly-lit rooms
of iniquity
and was reborn as this contemptible creature
i take up my cross
my new mantle
my ******* scarlet letter.

you make me want
to run through the streets screaming
to stand on a street corner
preaching the gospel
of my culpability
have you heard the news
of our ****** executioner
the *****
the label feels even more
familiar than my own name.

i don't deserve a name.

take my clothing and dress me
in rags
strip me of my name and address me
only as *****
my life will now be only
passive acceptance and
those hands will explore my hidden places
though they are as unknown
as Disneyland on a gilded
summer day
but you can watch my searing shame
in the invisible white hot tears
only i know.

don't touch the *****
or you might fall victim to
my contagious disease
of optics and opinion
myself the lowest caste of society
relegated to empty halls
and abandoned structures
where i am abandoned as well.

you seem surprised that
the *****
would be fiercely independent
would be accustomed to
being alone
but who stays with a *****?
who takes her home to
meet the family
my independence was merely
an adaptation
Darwinian evolution ensuring
i would survive
to suffer another day
another trial
another sentence.

i understand now why
criminals are handed
multiple life sentences
because i'm punished daily
deservedly so
i would **** myself and if
i came back i would
cry out for more
more pain
more lashes
lay me bare and cut the skin from
my bones and call me *****
never stop
never let me forget
what is burned into the back of
my eyelids
a memory connected to
that word
my name.

i was given that name
by violating vandals
who spray painted my guilt
all over myself
and i can't escape that night
whenever i close my eyes and
pray i won't wake up
or pray i'll wake up in some other body
uncontaminated
a form that was never touched
virginal purity i wish i could
somehow repackage and
re-insert into my ****
to purify the orifice of all
those who branded me
*****
the mantle i took on myself
and made manifest.

you say it to me all the time
so quotidian
it simply falls off your
carefree laugh
and do i see the remnants
of a fear
clouded by memories of another
woman you loved
who brandished knives on your bed
carving the evidence of her inadequacy
into the skin your fingers caressed
the body whose every crevice you had
explored for eight years

you must see some of me
in her
a peppering of her in me
like the seasoning that the creator added
as a dash of spice
to the primordial broth from which
we both crawled
spoon to his lips and a
contented smile turning all his features
up up up

you blow it off
but she must come to mind
every time you hear
the diagnosis
the label

"Oh, she's bipolar?"

the explanation for every
single
*******
aberration in our behavior

but you know it's not just
a "Hello, My Name is _" badge
it is days without sleep
paranoia-fueled delusions as we
diverge from your reality
and exist on a plane that
you cannot access

we go to Away.

but you know
that somehow we are eerily present
at least to you
from your perspective
when inky black voices
scream terrifying bile
and a bloodlust builds in the center in our chest
and we can smell the metallic whiff
of every single knife
each nectar-sweet blade
in the entire world
and you want to be there

you want me to call you
so you can see me
writhing on the floor
unable to rise from bed even fueled
by that insatiable hunger for
my blood
to die
to not die
to not be

can you live with a ghost again