Abrasive compulsions rarely register amidst feet-up on the bathroom counter, awkward comparisons & diluted affection. Translation renders this obsolete. Repeating ghost-white, sunken eyed mistakes, irrelevant phrases torn out at the root ( Read more... )

we pull our bodies away from desire
& give different names
to the same monsters.

eyes like medusa,
hands greedy as eve,
you do not remember my touch,
only the songs like sirens
held captive under my tongue.

I ask you now, would you have loved me less, wings pressed to the sky like an effigy, like a plea bargain. Were you lying or were the buildings really that tall, was anything really that endless, our hearts that possible? It is true, I am pressing a knife to my own throat, it is true, I am speaking in tongues, whispering loud enough to cross lines ( Read more... )

They hang men for less these days, or haven’t you heard? Your crimes cannot be measured in the number of bodies in your path, only by calendars, by time cards, by cigarette butts lining the street like apologies. You will not be forgiven in this city, your name will not be erased no matter how many times you try and leave. We will be living on the ( Read more... )

11. i just want to be good.

1. i am afraid to be so close between lies, dancing on alibis, magnifying desire and dividing it by impulse. deciding what i can fix & what i will let die ( Read more... )

i had a dream i don't remember, but i know you were looking at me like i was contagious, and she was laughing in another room. in our old room. i cant sleep much these nights. i drive in circles in an abandoned city, my heart a cat stuck under the tires. i cant feel much these days. i cannot decide what to do with my hands, what to do with my hair ( Read more... )

i am a walking chimney, holes in my bones, cavities in my teeth. i am trying to remember myself as a child, but i just come up with empty anecdotes, stories reconstructed by twice removed family members, smoke and mirrors with a tiny gauze of truth. if you die this week, there are only two left of us. we work well as a dying breed. we feel more ( Read more... )

my winter skin is thick with ghosts. i try and i try but it's never even close. all i'm asking is for someone to stay, so another layer doesn't ruin this steady stream of dissipation i've so carefully constructed. wearing your mother's dresses doesn't make you an adult any more than praying on airplanes makes me a saint. i show up early, you've ( Read more... )

you just wanted me to bleed a little bit, isn't that it darling? prove these veins serve a purpose. prove that i am more than words & bones. have you made your point yet? there is not much more i can do; the needles have long grown weary. you just don't know how to stop. i am far past the lines we drew, but it's been too long, they must be ( Read more... )