Baby-dolled eyes,
and glamor velvet
encircles
with a cruel femininity;

the darkest pin-up
of your
diamond-dazzled
dreams always takes
it up a notch!

It’s all burlesque
and whispers
when you come into her
world of mirrored
desire that
plays just behind
her lips;

that dances just behind
her rhinestone mask.

The vampiress of
merlot, cigarettes,
and lace
always remembers
her prey;
a black-widow’s
striptease, cold
and calculated.

Again, she delights
in the fact
that she has broken
another man
she invited
in to her ruthless
masquerade.

An autopsy would reveal that I
swallowed too many stars,

and every incision would look
like hideously-done cursive.

The busing inside and out
would be treated like ink blots,

and my congealing blood would
scream about how cold the room is.

My liver would float up like a dead fish
covered in alcohol, and bad rants,

and my eyes would roll sideways,
and make the med students think
that they were following them
around the sterile-white of the room,

or they’d direct them where to put
the next piece of the leftovers as
they dissect me like the post-suicidal
frog that I am…

Like a frog? They’d probably bathe me
in formaldehyde…

That’s found in cigarettes, ya know?

I feel like cancer anyway, so
I gave them a shot or two, or three.
They’ll probably find those too in my
lungs; pickled, puffy, and black
with helium soot that made me fly
when everyone around me refused
to hold me up any longer.

Childlike glow
of thy radiant
skin, pale like
snow kissed
by sunlight.

Rufescent lips;
like flowing blood on
thy porcelain face.
The same of
your cheeks,
and
the ribbons of thy
veins…

Dost thou know ye
art not real?

You are an aura; iridescent,
aglow with elemental purity.
Aether is your kingdom;
it’s subjects are the mists!

You are the day; bright,
possessive in your surroundings!
The prism is your charm;
it’s colors a decorative chain.

You are the night; mystifying,
obscure tempest of shadow.
The moon is your crystal ball;
you scry using the stars!

You are the seasons; ever-changing,
abundant, frail, and demanding.
The spring is your gift;
the winter is our atonement.

There in the vines
running down my spine,
are overgrown vistas,
and rooted enigmas
of the mind.

At my wrist —
the burning kissed;
pools in my palms;
red water of painful psalms
shrouded in mist.

Heme-less, desired;
nature, devoured;
draining forget-me-nots
won’t clot.
My nymph has retired.

Spinning on a top of color;
The balloons are inflated in the desk,
and the rainbow streamers gave me a paper-cut.
I thought the red make-up was blood.

Running and jumping up and down
on a box of inflatable candy,
that turned my lips purple and blue.
My dad thought it was lipstick,

so he gave me an old ***** magazine.

When the animals morphed into balloons,
I petted them with grass stuck to my hand.
And POP! – goes the poodle,
in the parking lot next to the splattered juice cups.

My friend cried and wiped his eyes with icing
as a clown grinned, showing his orange teeth
that was the same color of the cheese-curls in the bowl,

that the three year-old just poured into the kiddy pool.

I got lost in the ball-pit.
I remember every color, then nothing;
Gray had became the fun
to a depressed clown wishing he’d got the hang

of life’s circus.

i was in a darkroom of fractured webs
hands on fire slipping off of chrome
and porcelain
warm pulp juiced raw
and heavy but all i
could see where photographs
developing under my sticky fingers

someone after
me
it was soon
too soon (she
‘s better than
you)

ground down my knuckles
peeled back
exposed blue-green hanging
down my palm
shards swallowing it
whole like salt
crystals
growing
on
a
st
ri
ng

i came out the other side
losing myself to the sink
the same
as i
lost myself
to you