something in you is shaking, even when you're still
it's easier to give up
and that's what they don't tell you
saltine crackers taste better than torment
and coffee better than water
whiskey better than coffee
the sunrise, isn't always silent.
sometimes it's hell,
sometimes it's leaving your ex lover a voicemail they rather sleep through than hear sometimes it's pacing back and forth on the sand,
lonely
it's waking up,
exhausted
it's gravestones taking place of land
and hearts and images and memories
blurred, fizzy moss
spreading over skin of the people we once knew
it's not so bad it's not so bad it's not so
is it the ashes that are smearing your past?
when we can't think straight
and you are just i's and I'm just somewhere
not here are we
shaking or is it the room

My mother held me,
and asked what was wrong with my world.
Her rubbery hands in my hair.
"I feel like a plastic narrative," I said,
"and there's nothing I can do about it."

summer poetry kills us now.
Lemon.
like, lemon on your tongue,
but you love it
like, and you wish i wasn't so ******,
and i wish i wasn't so ******,
it's ironic in the way we keep living
i stopped calling
i stopped praying
cigarettes on my skin, that magic 8 ball, what'd it tell you?
stop asking me why i leave so often.
but hey, the last time your horoscope got it right- it hit you
along with every shot you took that night
singe, we singe our skin, chemistry converts calories and
today my bus almost crashed. almost
it goes something like, the unprecedented laughs we hadn't heard until its over
its over

full circle
I'm laying here with the window open listening to the rain for secrets or something or waiting for you to tell me what you haven't been telling me
like maybe there really is a girl out there with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair and her eyes are the kind of blue that is never mistaken for grey
she touches your chin before she kisses you, real softly or maybe she traces the spot above your lip where we all know angels rested their fingers before we were sent down here to rot or thrive
maybe you talk about gardens with her, how you'd never ever own an orchid cause that ***** ex of yours demanded one every hospital visit
how flowers aren't for boys but you'll pretend to watch football while you're really watching her bend down to touch the dirt like she used to smooth her baby brothers hair out of his little eyes
before their parents decided that it was more convenient to buy them a little apartment and keep money in the safe while they spent their pensions in Florida watching alligators and Dolphins and toucan ******* Sam but never at the same time
you see, I don't drink earl grey cause it tastes like fruit loops
and I don't eat fruit loops cause it tastes like the childhood I erased from my memory by forcing myself to dissociate
maybe this, is something else altogether
maybe this... is not true, another delusion, maybe your hands are busy counting change out for cardboard signs
maybe your feet move a little bit faster, not because you're in a rush to see someone who isn't me but because you're so scared of ending up back where you started

She dragged a steak knife
  across her forehead.
I said,
   What the **** is your--
Hey, we all have problems.
She killed herself with
the memory
   of a system.
Everyone was begging.
Beg. Beg. Beg.
   Make me a star!!
I want to be
   Kurt Cobain!!
So, they dragged blades
and did smack.
Tweeted lyrics
and took selfies
with a poster of--

But she was never alive, right?
There can't be a her
if there's a me.
But I suppose what it condensed
is bound to
  shoot out into
itty
    bitty
stars.

Good ******* Christ,
redeem the men and women
slaughtering genitals.
Grinding against
  the hole in society.

Are you ******* serious?
  Oh my god,
I will die if he takes off
   his skin!!
What a hunk.

It was all elaborate
and people were saying
  "droll".
That's a thing.
Everyone was ******* lame.

Then, the men stripped.
One, Jupiter.
One, Titan.
And what was stopped
was a hurried whisper,
traveling the confines
of the classroom.
  And the men
clothed. And the instruments
  unused.
Sketches ceased before creation.
Paint without purpose.
What a Greek tragedy.
Boo-*******-hoo.

What I could only imagine
a slurry of too many words
aiming at my brain.
The mention of us all.

You don't understand.
*******.

She dragged a steak knife
across her forehead.
I said,
   What the **** is your problem?