I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

No matter how much you lift me
I would remain to be an ostrich
Even while having wings
I couldn't fly.

The radio alarm is a bit too strong
for his afternoon hangover taste.
He goes downstairs, sets the coffee to brewing,
rubs his hands through the hair on his face.
As he sits and he smokes, he can't quite think of the joke
she once told him about wooden eyes.

The coffee is ready, his hands are unsteady
as he pours his first cup of cure.
He tries to be happy he woke up today,
but whether being awake's good, he's not sure.
Outside it's raining, but he's gallantly straining
to keep his head and his spirits held high.

As soft as the flower bending out in its shower,
fiercer than hornets defending their hives,
the memories of sharing her secrets and sheets
run him through like sharp rusty knives.
He decides that his cup isn't quite strong enough,
takes the ***** from the shelf, gives a sigh.

He goes to the porch to put words to the torch
he still carries and knows whiskey just fuels.
Thunder puts a voice to his hammering heart.
Through ink, his knotted mind unspools,
writing of butterflies and of how his love lies
cocooned under unreachable skies.

From teardrops to streams to winter moonbeams
to a peach, firm and sweet, in the spring,
he writes of pilgrims and language and soft dew-damp grass
and how he sees her in everything.
He rambles and grieves, and he just can't believe
how much he has bottled inside.

He writes how the leaves, when they whisper in the breeze,
bring to mind her warm breath in his mouth,
how when walking through woods he loves the birdsong
when they fly back in the summer from the south
because she would sing too and he always knew
he wanted that sound in his ears when he died.

He writes even the streetlights, fluorescent and bright,
make him miss the diamond chips in her eyes,
how the fountain in the park plays watersongs in the dark
when he goes to make wishes on pennies
and while he's there he gets hoping
there will be some spare wishes
but so far there haven't been any.

He writes that the cold makes him think of the old
hotel where they spent most of a week,
lazing and gazing quite lovingly,
and how he brushed an eyelash off her cheek.
The crickets and frogs and all of the dogs
sound as mournful as he feels each night.

He writes about chocolate and fun in arcades,
he writes about stairwells and butchers' blades,
and closed-casket funerals, and Christmas parades,
then sad flightless birds and tiny brigades
of ants taking crumbs from the toast he had made,
and political goons with their soulless tirades,
old-timey duels and terrible grades,
strangers on  buses, harp music, maids,
the weird afterimages when all the light fades,
the pleasure of dinnertime serenades,
sidewalk chalk, wine, and hand grenades.

He writes of how much fun it would be to fly,
and saltwater taffy and ferryboat rides,

sitting on couches, scratched CD's,
pets gone too soon and overdraft fees,

the beach, the lake, the mountains, the fog,
David Bowie's funny, ill-smelling bog,

jewelry, perfume, sushi, and swans,
the smell of the pavement when the rain's come and gone,

and shots and opera, and Oprah and ***,
and tiny bikinis with yellow dots,

stained glass lamps, and gum and stamps,
her dancing shoes on wheelchair ramps,
that overstrange feeling of déjà vu,
filet mignon and cordon bleu,

bad haircuts at county fairs,
honey and clover, stockmarket shares,
the comfort of nestling in overstuffed chairs,
and her poking fun at the clothes that he wears,
and giraffes and hippos and polar bears,
cumbersome car consoles, monsters' lairs,
singing in public and ignoring the stares,
botching it badly while making éclairs,
misspelled tattoos, socks not in pairs,
people who take something that isn't theirs,
the future of man, and man's future cares,

why people so frequently lie
and bury themselves so deep in the mire
of monetary profits when money won't buy
a single next second because time's not for hire,
and that he sees her in everything.

Lost and exhausted, he sits back and reads
He barks a mad laugh when he suddenly sees
After such turmoil, just one words he needs.
Everything.  
She’ll always be everything.

De-winged and flightless
         is the dragonfly
              that tried to slip by
                       in my slipstream,
It found instead the pickup
          traversing the alleyways
               of my convoluted imagination.
I don’t know why I’m driving,
          ever driving someplace
                unrealized and unexplored.
I feel so disconnected,
I feel so disrespected by the world
                sometimes
But that’s not fair
           it has been good to me.
I feel so disconnected
        sometimes
and yet it comes in times
           when I’m most consumed
                most surrounded.
Maybe I’m just tired
        and the walls around me quiver only
from the struggles of my waking eyes,
Maybe I’m just bitter
        that I can’t have the perfect life
                 and feel as if nothing could be better,
Maybe I’m affected
        by this liquid life I’m draining from my cup
                 in hopes of finding a different day
                                            at the bottom.
Is it jealousy that lingers in my mind
        or mere longing tinged with a heavy
                 dose of confusion?
I am confused.
And yet I’m still alive
        unlike my dragonfly
                  and so I stumble onward.

-*BRD

I wish they clipped
the wings off Icarus's back
before he took flight.

It would have been easier that way.

He could have stayed flightless,
some sort of meatsack
with little wax stumps
growing out of his back,
not unlike those of trees.

The story of Icarus
was not made to scare us
away from flying
too close to the sun.

The story of Icarus
was made to scare us
from flying at all.

Peacocks on HP  .  .  .
Are not birds, yet dinosaurs,
Wingless beneath earth.

My hands,
Flightless birds with parchment skin,
marked with scars, glowing white.
They turn blue when the weather is cold.
The old wives say to look for men
with hard-working scars on their palms.
But what of a woman with marked hands?

A large and ponderous, flightless bird
Was what I pictured of ‘ennui’
When first I read that warning word

In retrospect it’s less absurd
That self - created lethargy
Is like a ponderous, flightless bird

Boredom’s not a dream deferred                                
It is a state that you must flee
Be thankful for that warning word

One mustn’t let repose begird
Your ***** life, or else you’ll be
Much like a  ponderous, flightless bird

Get out, and farther, from the herd
And risk the dangers to be free
Go boldly and defy that word    

The choice is yours, you’ve no doubt heard
Part warning, yet therein a plea
To banish ponderous, flightless birds
Let action be  your favorite word

His heart was kept in a babooshka-doll
that released memory smells
with every layer that eroded.
The wooden fences faded
to damp brick in the corner
of his head reserved for the harmonica
that played through the microphone
in his neck till the sound got lodged
in his maudlin march
that had him running like he
was angry at the road.
His Echostep
vibrating in
the kremlin skin
and marrionette heart strings
that kept him.... him.

Despite broken wings
he made the air around him dance
with the resonance of each
broken crystal ball shard used
to predict the past.
Each chime raised a mountain,
folding back on itself
hoping the hallucination would end,
till tired hands
batted away golden hawks.
With rocks for claws.

It was all the fights with the wind
that had the clouds leaving the moon's
Picaso skies,
and sailing towards him on warships of
rain and frozen effigies.
They arrived, astronauts
from outer space
burning from the lips
outwards revealing grey
intent and red mists.
He fought back with false start
epiphanies and the falsetto
prophecies that stung the air
with pitch raining down.
Leaving bare branches where once
green hands applauded
everything but empty air,
like listless typewriters furiously
trying to find their voices.

Feirce winds and fake faces
left blinking with closed eyes
in the vastness of battlefield.
Turning stomaches and
blank canvas whirlpools,
storms of anti-peace
scarring the last conquests
of the flightless ape lizard,
and all his gorilla warfare.

I write these words from boredom.

Where they lead to I know not.

All I know, is that I write from boredom.

Boredom creeps upon me, like a stealthy foe within the night. My interests can be peaked then can go out like a light. Maybe with a bit of horror my boredom could be solved through some fright. Alas I know that to resolve my boredom I'll have to put up a fight.

To the boredom I say good day and try to be on my merry way. Boredom however has more to say upon this day in such a way that it molds me like wet gooey clay. Shaping and forming my mind for the evening, the boredom kicks in an my spirits start leaving.

Once thriving and passionate, once creative and fair. Now because of my boredom I lack the very will to care. To care about feelings, hopes and dreams. Like most of my cares, they simply fall through the seams.

Seams within my mind that bind me into one whole thing. A thing that has no will to continue with such a boring night. A flightless, hopeless, careless, and boredom filled night.

So sleep tight, because as of now it's all I have to escape my boredom. Once I crawl into bed my mind is at ease, but when I wake up I need something that will please. Anything, anything at all.

Whether it be down or up the stairs, in between some spider hair, along a glowing beam, even along a narrow stream.

A gray dull life is not one I desire, day by day I hope for something to light my fire. Boredom strikes when I least expect, I always wonder when it will hit next. I'm lucky when it leaves and pray that is does not return.

However when it does return I yearn for something to do. I Look for a clue for something to do, just as you likely read this from boredom too. So my dear reader I bid you farewell, from whence I came I shall return to my boring spell.

Oh flightless seabird,
I think you are lovely.
Mouth unfed,
feathers untethered.
Sitting pretty on the creek,
friends and families tasting the blue.
No wind under your feet,
not yet.

They think fondly of you,
seabird.
That’s a choice they’re allowed to make.
The higher they fly, the further away you become.
The weakest love you,
pity turns to self love.
At least they can fly,
at least they’re not alone.

You know better,
my seabird.
I saw you,
and so I knew you.
Easy.
It is you and you alone who grins at lilac kisses,
melts the silver sparks.
Sour grass midnight and
rusted dawns alike agree that you see,
therefore you are.

Flightless seabird,
We’re looking back with glass eyes.
You are here,
and you are loved.

You are not alone.

So, dope  young fellow
With your pretty boy swag.
With your SnapBack on.
Pants so **** low.
Every girl just waiting in line just to give you a blow.
You're royalty around here, but this is still high school.
Taking every girls cherries and jewels.
You think that you're raising the bar but I've seen this before:
Call it VCR.

And then there's me:
Who don't get no ladies.
Because I'm the type of person who actually treats females as actually human beings.
Not toys.
I'll put them before myself.
I care about their joy.
You know what's dead: chivalry.
And it can never be reborn.
Not like Call of Duty: zombies.
Boom, headshot.
But there's another ten coming your way.
Then it gets to the point when you're just blown away.
But I'll be your player 2.
Girl, I'd give up all my perks just for you.

So you guys out there with the pretty boy swag.
Who just zip it all up cuz they think they got  it in the bag.
I'm going to fight.
I'm going to step up for the voices not heard.
Cuz you've drowned them in depression, you've choke them with cruelty, and you've slapped them with sadness.
Unable to act.
Like a flightless bird.
I'll let them out of their cages so they can fly once again.
So you can't weight them down:
Call you Anchormen. Ooo, **** em'

So, pretty boy, nothing close to fantastic.
I just wanna say:
That I know  I'm swagtastic.
S- saving
W- women
A- against
G- guys
T- that
A- abuse
S- sensitive
T- tender
I- innocent
C- companions.

Shorten that: swag.
S- she
W- wants
A- a
G- gentlemen.

So now boy,
Lets just see which one of us got that "Pretty Boy Swag"

rekindling lost love is like teaching a flightless bird to fly.
the wings are wounded as are we,
but we still try to reach the sky.
we have dreams of what we could be,
even if they are impractical.
love equates to delirium,
and I don't wish to see reality anymore.

Christmas.... ugh
Isn't this a perplexing situation?
I have an interesting question...
First, I know this poem is not perfection
But does any one know what it's like
To be utterly alone on what's supposed to be
A most joyous day, surrounded by friends and family?
That annoying cherubic man
Won't be visiting my home
It's just an idiotic holiday
And no one cares I'll be alone
No homemade Christmas dinner
I might make myself a grade A steak
I'll raise a toast to myself
Nothing to boast about
Probably just whiskey, bottom shelf
I immense-ly hate Christmas
Say I'm dense-ly, I don't care
Been that way as long as I can remember
From the makeshift tree, when I was three
To being stuck homeless in a snow drift at sixteen
I can count all the "merry Christmas's" I've received
On one hand
It's never been merry, or happy
Most I got was engorged on stuffing
And a poorly cooked, dried out Turkey
No presents under the tree
With a gift tag saying Melanie


You know what? Sorry Quin,
but this is too **** depressing...
I quit...

Tequila, Velveeta
Distant, instant
Solemn, Gollum
Under-wear, I don't care
Tiny, finely
Flightless, loneliness
Hindrance, appliance
Backward, forward
Orange, purge
Rooftop, please stop
Kringle, Pringles

Ha! Invitations?
No...
Salutations...

These are English translations of poems written in French by Renee Vivien.


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped in flightless wings.

It's getting late; soon we will sleep
(your eyes already half closed)
steeped
in the shimmering air.

O, the agony of burning roses:
your forehead discloses
a heavy despondency,
though your hair floats lightly ...

In the night sky the stars burn whitely
as the Goddess nightly
resurrects flowers that fear the sun
and die before dawn ...



Undine
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your laughter startles, your caresses rake.
Your cold kisses love the evil they do.
Your eyes―blue lotuses drifting on a lake.

Lilies are less pallid than your face.

You move like water parting.
Your hair falls in rootlike tangles.
Your words like treacherous rapids rise.
Your arms, flexible as reeds, strangle,

Choking me like tubular river reeds.
I shiver in their enlacing embrace.
Drowning without an illuminating moon,
I vanish without a trace,

lost in a nightly swoon.



Amazone
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch  

the Amazon smiles above the ruins
while the sun, wearied by its struggles, droops to sleep.
******’s aroma swells Her nostrils;
She exults in blood, death’s inscrutable lover.

She loves lovers who intoxicate Her
with their wild agonies and proud demises.
She despises the cloying honey of feminine caresses;
cups empty of horror fail to satisfy Her.

Her desire, falling cruelly on some wan mouth
from which she rips out the unrequited kiss,
awaits ardently lust’s supreme spasm,
more beautiful and more terrible than the spasm of love.

NOTE: The French poem has “coups” and I considered various words – “cuts,” “coups,” “coups counted,” etc. – but I thought because of “intoxicate” and “honey” that “cups” worked best in English.



“Nous nous sommes assises” (“We Sat Down”)
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Darling, we were like two exiles
bearing our desolate souls within us.

Dawn broke more revolting than any illness...

Neither of us knew the native language
As we wandered the streets like strangers.
The morning’s stench, so oppressive!

Yet you shone like the sunrise of hope...

                     *

As night fell, we sat down,
Your drab dress grey as any evening,
To feel the friendly freshness of kisses.

No longer alone in the universe,
We exchanged lovely verses with languor.

Darling, we dallied, without quite daring to believe,
And I told you: “The evening is far more beautiful than the dawn.”

You nudged me with your forehead, then gave me your hands,
And I no longer feared uncertain tomorrows.

The sunset sashayed off with its splendid insolence,
But no voice dared disturb our silence...

I forgot the houses and their inhospitality...

The sunset dyed my mourning attire purple.

Then I told you, kissing your half-closed eyelids:
“Violets are more beautiful than roses.”

Darkness overwhelmed the horizon...

Harmonious sobs surrounded us...

A strange languor subdued the strident city.

Thus we savored the enigmatic hour.

Slowly death erased all light and noise,
Then I knew the august face of the night.

You let the last veils slip to your naked feet...
Then your body appeared even nobler to me, dimly lit by the stars.

Finally came the appeasement of rest, of returning to ourselves...
And I told you: “Here is the height of love…”

We who had come carrying our desolate souls within us,
like two exiles, like complete strangers.



Words to My Love
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This is Vivien’s “coming out” poem, although the term wasn’t coined until many years after Vivien’s death.

Please understand me: an unusual creature,
not so very good, or bad; perhaps a bit sly.
I hate overheavy perfumes, abrupt outcries.
I prefer grey to crimson, scarlet and ochre.

I love the dusk, when day winds slowly down,
an intimate fire ablaze in the bed-chamber
as the lamps glow wanly, golden-amber,
reddening bronze and blueing the mantle-stone.

My eyes take in the carpet, smooth as sand,
imagining Sappho’s shores of golden peas,
where beyond the bright sun sets on Aegean seas...
And yet, within, I still bear the sinner’s brand.

For I am at that age when virgins yield
in their weakness to the men they want, and dread,
and yet have no companion, here nor ahead,
because you beckoned from a forbidden field.

The hyacinth bled—blood-red—upon the glen
while you imagined Love: pure, innocent, freed.
But women have no right to such Love! ... We’ve
been banished to the brutish rule of men.

And yet I had the impudence, to yearn
for forbidden Love’s immaculate white light,
the gentle voice communing with the night,
the delicate step that doesn’t scar the fern.

They have forbidden me your delicate lips,
because your hair is long and fragrant-odoured,
because your eyes convey the wildest raptures,
as depthless seas toss about small, unmoored ships.

They have wagged their fingers, in their pious manner,
because my gaze entreated your dear gaze...
No one has tried to understand our ways,
or why I was bewitched by your strange glamour.

What of this dreadful law that I transgress?
Nay, judge my love! Pure, unbesmirched by evil,
and honest, though perhaps as lethal, still,
as any man’s desire for his mistress.

They did not understand my heart’s desire,
as I walked the path my destiny transpired;
they asked, “Who is that woman doomed to fire—
the flames of Hell?” Yet I love as required.

Let us leave men to their strange “moralities”
to seek new dawns like honey, golden-bright,
far sunnier days, and ah!, more loving nights!
Our minds will rest at ease, in amities.

Immaculate, the bright stars shine, above...
What do they care how men judge, from afar?
And what have we to fear, because we are
pure in our lives, our thoughts, and in our love.




Renée Vivien (1877-1909) was a British poet who wrote primarily in French. She was one of the last major poets of Symbolism. Her work included sonnets, hendecasyllabic verse and prose poetry. Born Pauline Mary Tarn in London to a British father and American mother, she grew up in Paris and London. Upon inheriting her father's fortune at age 21, she emigrated permanently to France. In Paris, her dress and lifestyle were as notorious as her verse. She lived lavishly as an open lesbian, sometimes dressing in men's clothes, while harboring a lifelong obsession for her closest childhood friend, Violet Shillito (a relationship that apparently remained unconsummated). Her obsession with violets led to Vivien being called the "Muse of the Violets." But in 1900 Vivien abandoned this chaste love to engage in a public affair with the American writer and heiress Natalie Clifford Barney. The following year Shillito died of typhoid fever, a tragedy from which Vivien never fully recovered. Vivien later had a relationship with a baroness to whom she considered herself to be married, even though the baroness had a husband and children. During her adventurous life, Vivien indulged in alcohol, drugs, fetishes and sadomasochism. But she grew increasingly frail and by the time of her death she weighed only 70 pounds, quite possibly dying from the cumulative effects of anorexia, alcoholism and drug abuse.

Keywords/Tags: Renee Vivien, lesbian, gay, LBGT, love, love and art, French, translation, translations, France, cross-dresser, symbolic, symbolist, symbolism, image, images, imagery, metaphor, metamorphose, metaphysical

if you told a baby bird
he couldn't fly
he'd walk around
and wonder why
left foot right foot
left foot right
a flightless bird
envys a kite
to let the world
determine fate
is wearing the nose ring
that bulls seem to hate

Peacocks on HP  .  .  .
Are not birds, yet dinosaurs,
Wingless beneath earth.

Lost in the majority
hiding within the masses
seeking acceptance
afraid to be yourself

The bullies' 'democracy' claims another victim
the chains are for you
not your so-called prisoner
Not the one who dared call it as it is
Not the one unafraid to stick his head above the fence

What is a person if not their truths
Be it right or wrong, better die than a ******* sheep
The Dodo was wiped out because they were flightless
Couldn't escape the clutches of human
Was it their fault
Or the God who made them without wings
and also created man in charge of earth

Man is the highest being
who professes to know more than God
Do what they want and take what they like
We can, so we do
We'll just make it up as we go along
Its unlawful to **** but our Police can **** the Darkies
You do jail time for stealing a loaf
At the top they are stealing millions slashed in Offshore Accounts

Then some flatulences of deranged ******* ranges along
declaring we are Red Devils against the Privileged
See that man go make his life a misery
Don't befriend him, don't even talk to him
Come join our club cause we are the majority

The flatulence of ******* have just stolen your Free-Will
Pitting you against another who has done you no wrong
But it's alright because everyone is in with it
No it's not OK because they have just made you a slave
Played on your fears and made you feel inferior
Judged on your behalf without your consent
And manipulate you without your approval
Because they have fooled you
Made you think you're only strong in a pack
While tainting your mind with Hate
And stealing your free Will

Welcome to Cowardsville, Have a nice stay
Cause you're staying your lifetime
Real Democracy is seeking Common good for all by all
Not common destruction of another blameless Human
as sport to hang asinine trite banners on, to **** your mind in
That is not Power, its a scam by Cheats, thugs and hooligans
who also want a slice of the Top table pies and cherries,
without learning the rules of the game
What these shites call Power is hate and Bullying
And bullying is Wrong and cowardly
It could be YOU someday

You may not have much but at least own yourself
And own your mind
Make your own decision
Don't do because someone stole your free Will
Least of all a Flatulences of Red *******
Who banish Freedom while yelling Freedom For All
Who lies we are fighting for the common people
While their union Leaders earn same as the ******* PM
and live Rent free in mansions with fortunes in Banks

Is Putin equal to all the others he rules over
Is Trump giving up his Billions to make America great
Has Corbyn given a spare room to a Palestinian refugee
or donated half of his wages to the poor
Do you honestly believe Politicians tell you the TRUTH
Whether Red, Blue, Orange, Gold or ******* Rainbow

Then some Shyster Flatulences of Red Nincompoops steals
your Free will and sends you like dogs to go harass
and torment one single Man and calls it Revolution...hahaha

Go have a coffee and smell the Roses....people!

my wings are creased and crumpled
they are dull and pale and weak
a pair of lifeless curtains
void of colors that you seek

they never flap nor flutter
they cease to make me fly
they've lost their silver luster
i can't remember why...

I prostrate myself before thee
With a sheepish plea, to no longer be,
Because I swear to you, I’ll never foresee.
So you smile and you laugh and you cast a man back
Find love in all you see? Empty words!
You never spoke to me.
This ground, it trembles
With fury it quakes
And how the knees do fall to curse this fate.
You’re the face of the faceless
The crux of all matters
The infinity of wisdom
Yet all you’ve ever given
Are the gusts of wind,
From flightless wings.
You don’t stir or shift,
Your distance? It’s a gift.
Your tongues of flame shall here find no domain.
Still you’re still
It’s so hard to breathe
I can’t take a step in this hate you’ve given me.
Now and forever all there shall be,
For you it’s my back, it all you’ll ever see
Payment in kind, need I remind?
But with a nerve that astounds, you turn me around.
Coward you scream, and coward again
Thunder roaring with your violent retort
Worthless peon lost in your wordless poems,
Oh, fate and fairness have never been so close
Rightfully, they’ll coalesce in your ghost.
Furnished with nothing I throw not but rage
You smile and withdraw from within this cage
Adamantine its walls, the door swings closed
My whys and my how’s are all I have left,
You take both with one last quip.
You deserve it.

I toast to the spirits you've been counting, lying in that hammock with a stranger from Mars. Your muddy fingers, they creep like hairless spider arms between the ropey knots that bind together all its parts. There is a house inside the hilltop, where it peaks there is a church- there once was a man in shackles and handcuffs living there, he also had mud on the bottoms of his feet. Even the pennies you found get lost now and then. Even your white hair goes a shade of blonde. I can't sleep but I don't try, I never tried not to do something so much that the rest of me broke. I pushed so hard that sand fell into my socks. You only told me half of what will happen to you at 10am, the rest of it you told me that you'd prefer I didn't know, but if I am to survive on the secrets I know that you don't know about. Then tonight I will be sewing the wool over my eyes.------------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- No one could ever have any idea what comes easy. The creaking heavy wood of your slop-room door, or the filth I cough up in green, mustard, and tar globules every hour. There is the was. Small hands in half pockets. Stitches supposedly dissolving into our skins. The yellow wall, the panda pillow, the Pink Sugar, your hair wax and heavy handed straight-ironing tilt my curved and bent feet Northward about 6 to 60º degrees. Late trains and no complaints. Stubs of hair and tender legs. I don't give but my elbows buckle. This frame wasn't built to take blow after blow. Some friends tell me they can see tomorrow before it comes. Lakeside, readied, silver-necklace I haven't seen. Gold flightless bird that's never walked but says it will. I am cornered, my cornea tinted my vexes and leftovers, black and white pearls, birthdays, earthworms, and vinegar. Family dinners that push me nearer to the hole in the donut. I'm just so afraid of falling overboard. It's just I can't go forever without being heard.-----------------------------------------------------------­----------------------------------------------------------- In and the. How long do stories like this carry on for? Does my name come up in private? Does mom two even know whether I ever existed or if I was split? I am the answer to the secret 'ask' question? When do I become background photo one or two? I am the one that's grateful I had a chance to sleep toe to toe. That I uncovered the winter that woke up the bleach and incense in the frosted air. While school is in session, am I crazy to believe in mermaids and sparklers and stickers, I'll stick with the choice that I made a year ago Tuesday- September hasn't ended but November's nowhere near. The reason I smoke so much is because I am no good at waiting. For phone calls, tweets, texts, updates, or written mail. No one told us that this could end underwater without even half of a breath, if you'd of asked then I would have told you that's why I steal your underwear and your sweatpants. You can have all my money, I don't even want, I just need it for you. You can have every word that I write, wield, and speak with, every sentiment and sentence, each promise,and compromise, everything that I own.-------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------------------------------- Four photographs later. Everything means something. I'm in knots. Spiderwebs from elbow to elbow. Fishing hooks from knee to knee. My neck feels very naked, bare. Nothing, not even traces of pink or cerise lipstick or lip marks. Smudge me, stop punishing me, please, prease, don't leave. This isn't very good for either of us. My story cannot tread so closely to an ending, to the ends of a night or a phone call or an eyebrow pencil or an eyelash curler, not the double-sided extra-soft blanket you keep on your bed, not the bottles and dollars and boxes and jewelry under your mattress, not the zip in your doorway or the zipper in my jeans, not the two holes in my belt loops or the caffeine in my morning coffee. I quit cigarettes, ended my sentences earlier, grew quiet, wore more band shirts and skinny jeans. Even the lines of lips, outlined by hips, white roses painted red, blonde hairs blanketed by the bleaching on your head. I'm wrestling hula hoops, I'm putting my pinkies in your gauges, and amazed how good it feels- and I'm happy you didn't....leaves of autumn shatter on concrete city streets, although you'd hate it I'm thinking of a tattoo sleeve, how about you make it? Darling please! Rice Krispie I'm on my Lee Dungaree's, begging you to meet me on our knees. And every candy that I spit out once I got to the middle, every lollipop that I ever bit into to find the gum, each Happy Meal toy I bought separately; you are the only girl I attended school to meet when I wasn't enrolled. I'm holding on. The bottoms of my jeans rolled up so I don't fade into use. I miss having your tongue in my mouth. I want to feel my hands in your pants. It's my tongue that gets curious as I begin to feel the heat off your *******. Tender touching. Dire romance. Throttle my face with your legs. I'll perch you up on a pillow, you can hold my head till I beg. Because if I go at this life thing alone, pretty soon I'll have a mouth full of lead.

You spoke those words to me as you departed from my sight. My sorrow overflowed, nothing meant anything to me but your words. I never got over you, Chelsea. It took me a few years before saying that didn't hurt, a few more to get the courage to see your Facebook page, and yet I still have no courage to say anything to you. I don't want  to be pushed away again, the fear of falling has left me flightless.

Drain me out

I am a flightless bird soaked in deep water
Hindered by the heaviness of my feathers
Constantly weighing down my flock
I am not my own burden
But a bag of rocks thrown into the ocean
A corpse to never be found
When meant to catch the eyes of the innocent
My body refuses to stay afloat
My mind is living under
And I have no choice but to hit rock bottom

So hear me out

Carry my withering bones and feathers
When my body decides to give out
I cannot keep living under water
I am not meant for this environment
My skin is meant to feed the clouds of freedom
Tracing linear passages and unsteady travels,
With my own people
We are meant to soar into oblivion
Of building dreams and vision
But my mind keeps living under
And I cannot escape what has harvested inside
I have no choice but to hit rock bottom

n.j.

She no longer soars
Agony in every stroke
She beats broken wings