There's a monster
    
           that's made my dreams
          
                               into her haunt.  

She's spilling into days where I wonder;

                                     How does a creature like you exist?

You are

              unreal.

I mean, the way you toss your head to the side

                                                     whenever you say something contrary

                                                       ­                                                   plagues me.

Following me like some gorgeous features that wont let me go

and a smile

that fills me with holes

opening me up

in ways I'm terrified to show

but what tugs at me worse

are all the ways this ghost could be known

I knew thunder that rolled off

                          electric lips
                                                
                                                every time
                                                                ­      
                                    pink
                                            
                   ­   lighting
                                      
                                      bolts
                                               
                                               mo
                                                  
                                                   ve

Speaking unafraid                                    she's free in that way
                                                             ­       
a kind of free that                                      makes liberty ashamed

and me calmly sm                                    ile while my insides are

gawking wide open                                down the middle with                              

clucking of a single coo                        coo clock keeping time

in this game of chicken I've           made out of looking  

                                                you  
                                           in the eyes.

                  Shaky hands swerve yet hope to collide
                                    
                                                                ­      sweet demon
                                            
                                                      rattle me no more
                                        
                   ­                        come closer

                               hold me still

                   show me how

a ghost can be felt.

i want to get it out
to spill my thoughts onto the pavement
watch the traffic tires splash my minds mess

i want to crack open my craziness
and watch the birds peck at it
fly away with the pieces

i want to cut away my memories
drown them in the river
let the current carry them down

i want to be good
be fine
be happy
be well

all i want is to be a better version of me

I want to conquer love.
I want to take it down.
Down to the river to pray -
Pray for the race of men.
In a masculine society where do I stand
effeminate as such - no two flowers touch
except at stem, and intertwining roots
lay under earth with reason.

Reason me to believe there is no question.
For questioning the authority of men
leads down no roads.
Roads are not the only paths to take.
Here, a place without horizons,
lit by amber, shadows fall
elongated and still against the ground.
There are no roads here.

Here, thoughts echo and in their nature
rebound off these cliff walls.
Here, you are the only one standing,
enduring your own constant bombardment.
Stop thinking - to think is to detest the calm.
Calm is the sublime.
The constant quiet of nothingness.

Nothingness is a fearful expanse.

My hands were wrung
not long ago, in fact the other day
they grasped towards each other
with a frightening pulse
felt through veins that stretch
across tendons as though they were longing
for escape from beneath - as a millipede would dig
out from the earth
painfully giving resurgence
to the fact that he was more alone there,
that I am alone
with only my hands
to feel what is not here.

I'm filled with aches and cavities,
concave heart
hollow lips.
I can't be your salvation
You can't be my elixir.
There is no cure to be found.
We're too young to save each other,
weak hands
intertwined like
predicaments of bittersweet,
frail blue eyes
like cities of crystal
staring quietly, relentlessly.

This is a *******
emotional scavenger
with no way out,
and we both know
this thing will never
have a chance
to stand on it's own
t                              f
w                           ­ e
o                             e
                               t

After the screams
I was coming undone,
splitting at the seams.
I hauled all my watercolors
out of my brother's office.
I took the paintbrushes
and palettes of a thousand hues
lodged between his camo army vest
and his heavy shoes
and I sprawled out in the
spinach-green living room.
I painted
willow trees and silhouettes
and viridian snakes spilling from ***** lips.

At 2am I got up
headed to the deck
and watched the stars
Because sometimes I forget.
I let my nights
be slaughtered by sobs.

These nights, this view
It’s mine, you can’t have it.
Everyone needs a place
and this is mine,
this tiny nirvana,
2 o'clock constellations
in the dark purple bruise of night
are my home.

A pool of watercolors,
magenta, cyan, indigo, emerald and cerulean,
swells in my chest,
in the empty space between my lungs.
A drowning, a baptism.

Everywhere, in everything,
your unblinking ghost.
It refuses to dissolve.