if you only could taste me
now,
my lips would say to yours,
the poetry of
"pancakes with too much butter
slipping off like young men's
clothing"
and
"frigid air before the sun has woken
latched on my teeth like drowning men
holding onto rocks"

you'd ******* dreams
of sneaking out midsummer,
(always my favorite, when nights were merely darker echoes of
the day)
of running down roads with black
feet,
in the disguise of a naked crow.
flying in the heat with a pistol in her black fingers.
that was the first
                      time
                            id
                              ever
                                   dreamed
                                              of
                                                 a
                                                  gun.
i'd swear you'd taste the blood-like twang of fired bullets like shards of metal on my lips, too.

naked skin,
sun-baked brown and sunkissed freckles, and ***** white, an olive from overseas.
we traipsed down the road, the never-ending black of concrete.
we yelled. we screamed like there were marching bands in the cages
of our ribs.
we drew in smoke and our instruments played the music
of lit tobacco
“you're a hurricane”
one of the best things ive ever been called

cut skin,
as blackberries slapped our legs,
leaving marks of red and purple,
as we ran through secret forests,
our laughs rising into the sunshine,
filtering through the leaves,
like chiming bells in an empty sky
we started a fire, dancing as earthy smoke
slithered on our skin.
we lit cigarettes in the flames.

icy skin,
as we stumbled,
springs bubbling inside us,
down the brown, mud painted hills,
and cried in wonder as we saw a treasure in the thicket of trees;
a frozen lake staring us straight in the eyes like an
antarctic cyclopes,
daring us to take a step closer.
first, tentative,
then we went rawly, crashing through the undergrowth
like small houses,
headfirst onto the ice,
with all our skin for its one eye to see,
our clothes in a mountain,
and our vulnerable bodies free
on the cold surface of a
secret winter in the middle of a
sun coated town.

warm skin,
as we raced down asphalt mountains,
like goosebumps on the skin of the earth.
we ran like tigers and cougars and cats and
lions,
roaring in the afternoon sun
as we embraced the completion,
of a four piece puzzle of our
youth.
warm,
as throat burning brandy from the womb of my couch,
and burning pain
as we poked holes into our skins,
red tattoos of a flamelike
trilogy.

red skin,
as blood dripped down through the
cracks of the Balcony,
as we painted the walls with it,
laughing squeezed between every
long drag of our cigarettes,
burning like two new stars in the
oncoming night,
tattoos and shapes appearing on our skin
faster than bruises
showing a young girl the ways of our corruption was almost as
fun as learning them
ourselves.

goosebump skin,
as we sank into reality again,
halfway in,
other half still shaking
hearts beating fast
i trembled
as i screamed across at a cat eyed girl
i was too shaking to fight like this,
and you are too lovely to cry like that,
and my dear sunshine,
your blue hair is almost as soft
as your voice floating in the
after dusk darkness
assuring that things would be
alright.

tired skin, as we lay on my sheets,
and kissed one anothers soft cheeks,
tired skin as we dragged our drugged up
skin
all the way home,
in a careless sack.

yes,
maybe “three ****** up girls”
one tall, soft words,
one kneeling on the pavement,
one shaking like an
earthquake,
but thats what makes it like
dawn,
beautiful.

wouldnt you rather be a tornado of impulsive decisions
raw twilight words
whiskey ridden breath like summer
air
sunset tears
and icy skin painted with shivers?

alive skin.

"granday"

its not a *******
twang,
like a rubber band loosened up,
you're like a white sheet
with absolutely no
wrinkles no
lint no
culture.

its not a droop of letters,
like the syllables are carrying old bathwater
on hunched spines;

you sound like dusty paper
left on the shelf too long.

its
"grande"
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.

fill your mouth with mid-august sweat
and belt it out like a pistol,
bullets ripping the fabric of blue
sky.
you are a flame in snow,
your tongue is supposed to be dancing on the top of your mouth
when you say it,

"grande"
roll your 'r's like you would to tamales in
corn flour,
like you would your body in mud
carpeting every inch of your soul in dark, crusted
veneer,
stuck between your toes.

your tongue is supposed to be ***.
exotic chocolate,
french rain.

your tongue is supposed to be like a wild motorboat upon
the raging ocean,
hitting the 'r's with savage animosity
                                                    "g­-rrrrrrrr-ande"
none of these
"grandays"
words like plummeting wrinkles
under tired eyes, your lips like dead fish floating
shallow and flaccid
in lukewarm
soup.
like rotting fruit left out too long,  
squashed, useless, a waste.

do not fill your mouth with
mierda,
****
poner un verano en tus palabras.
put some summer into your words.

we used to never hold hands like that,
with mine on top and yours on the bottom,
i was too small
you were towering like some office building calculations running through your mind,
yet art on the tips of your fingertips,
and I was short like the stack of books by my bed,
and it was like a mix of night and day when my hair spilled down your golden skin,
golden hair,
tousled blonde like some kind of lion lying on the bed,
veiled in a dark slumber.
you stroked my skin and it sent shivers down my back,
and kissing you was like lying in summer sun,
pleasant,
and you’re so different from what I have now,
because now I have fall kisses,
on a bed of crimson leaves,
with another blonde haired boy but this time he’s a wolf,
and this time he holds me while we are skin on skin in a forest of cattails underfoot,
the stubbed filter of a cigarette to my left,
our clothing to my right.
he’s full of fire,
it’s all over him, on his skin, branded across his face,
but I don’t love him,
i just like the way he says he loves me when he’s looking at me like sunlight filtering through leaves,
with his crystalline blues,
biting my lips with passionate ferocity

"i'm Rookie"

maybe i'll say it someday when I'm driving
naked skin burning on a sun kissed motorcycle seat
past old fruit stands,
toward some shadowed, dehydrated strangers arms,
in the texas heat.
i'll show them my homemade tattoos,
and recite some poetry to them.

i'll be wearing nothing but a feather headband,
and thigh high socks,
with a flask of throat burning
fire
trapped to the side of my leg.
i'll have nothing, and i'll need nothing,

but the open road,
and strangers hands caressing my candlelit skin,
when you can softly hear the rain at night,
like warm sweat of the
desert sky.

the smallest things make me want to sink to my
knees and scream;

my mothers shiny new black boots,
she's treating herself okay,
she never thinks
about herself,
she's done something about it for once.

my head is ticking
tick tick tick
i wonder if its because the pills i downed
with ice and bathroom water
are making me shake so hard, my brain is trembling
against my skull
concussion
tick tick tick
i can barely hold myself upright at dinner
my eyelids drip onto my plate
and my body aches like a train used it for a
doormat
tick tick tick
maybe its life telling me,
in its own way,
that the time is drawing near,
and these ticks are the distant
footsteps of the end


*tick tick tick