On The Nature Of Daylight

I'm falling _____ the way that the sky dips into the earth . Letting the emotions pour into the landscape at times and then getting restless and surfacing. I'm falling ___ with K because of the way his bottom lip hair cradles my bottom lip. fix this because there's nothing more misleading than the promise of midnight coffee and drinking the fat off of the stagnant stout brew of harsh smoke. 

Francesca would know the feeling, her portraits would speak to me in a way that I thought was impossible for a woman's body to be so potent. every shift of her translucent veins fades in and out of reality. there's a small bee crawling under chest, leaking honey through her amber arteries. he closes her eyes and a writes a poem in thin, swirled black lines around her rice paper belly button. with every new line, honey seeps out like blood. Benjamin clutches her arm like it's a crutch, grasping onto her collar bone, and digging his fingers into the nape of her neck. the lights flutter, making the world look like a scene from an old projector. a light through a fan on his back, defining the soft muscles under his skin.  

I'd like to be the clothes you wear on my doorstep but I miss the sensation of you and your secrets whispered in the deaf of the night. Sweat on the bottom of your lip, every molecule crushed with the realness of life and love. This sadness drips from Valentine's open mouth, i can smell the rose's from here. each one a memory i ache to forget. when his mouth opens, flowers leak out of the cracks in his dry lips.     

Dark Center of the Universe

i shut my eyes and you're always there. perfect hair perfect lips perfect voice cooing to me from outside of the 2 a.m. night window. i cut my wrist on the windowpane, a scar left from too little medication and i bleed strawberries, lean out and kiss you the most delicious transference of nature (how sweet the sound-

i can feel it dripping down my thighs, the baby screaming across the street, the man working eternally on the garden in our front yard. i hand him tonic water and pomegranate juice and it sticks to his teeth while i wait for time to catch up with my bones

our eyes locked for a moment

my days blend together until they are only separated by the amount of medication left in the pill bottle at the end of the week or how many smiles ive collected in my pockets at the end of the day

they said my name so many times it wore thin and scraping against the cement run over and shit on by beautiful huskies.

i heard the rain before i saw it, decidedly too gorgeous for this day. not today. not this day, it is soo dark today. my nose froze against the door before i would open it. my mother screamed when she saw the bath water, her face paling in comparison.

-que paso guerita?

-nada...

-como estas?

-bien, gracias, y tu?

-ohhhh, that's mechanical. you don't know sad in spanish or you would have told me you were sadder than the day is grey. why?

my teeth shatter in the garden, bees fluttering, coming to see what the dream was.

The Wolves

the trees wept silence

falling gently into the 3 a.m. sleepsweat

blood the color of dreams,

and the boy slipped off the ledge,

face flexing into a full moon night,

all beauty and blossoms that blushed and were too shy to open

what kind of night is this

but one of nostalgia

and the late night purring babys breath on the front lawn

her nose exploded into the flower of the soft spot between my nose and mouth

all white and lavender

the center the liquid light honey

bea,

when you come fresh faced and proud

the angels will use stars as lassoes and reel you back among them

to sing them the songs of your lucid moments

under nights putrid blanket they'll wink at me

and promise that every ugly crow be your blue eyes

so natural blue

stained with profound waves ebbing liquid gasps

Beach Baby

two ativan later I still can't keep track of my breath. i watched it escape out of the window a minute ago skipping across the lawn to have late night fornications with the flower under my window. i look at my hair, let it slip down my neck from its ponytail, and run my fingers through it, still cold from the stale air in the car, and I can't figure out what to do with it so I cut it off and feed it to the cats across the street. a crazed smile cascades across his face, the edges of it playing in his hairline and twirling themselves into his thin blond follicles of hair. the wind from outside pushes in through the crack in the window, freezing my lips as it touches them. i peel the skin from my bottom lip, leaving it raw and red begging to be cradled. he kisses me and the blood drips from his chin and onto my chest, puddling in the dip in my collar bone. she's motioning from outside and her toes are digging into the ground as she stands on tip toes, scraping away years of dust and grime like a healer.

my body turns into water on the bed, every breath condensing me and every exhale separating the molecules until i lay clear and rippling across the bed. the dog drinks from where my stomach should be, lapping up the water like a deprived creature. i stood at the gate and let you kiss my forehead. my shirt bundled and hugged my back and the honeybees swarmed around my feet, helping me stay up. I make a four leaf clover with my tongue, feel my tongue go numb.

Cold

my hands tremble, the warm water washing over my body. the water hits the walls sounding too loud. my heart flutters under the skin covering my throat, all the muscles and veins throbbing in synchronization. my senses are too clear, i feel my whole body moving with my pulse, look down and see it pulsing too fast. my vision blurs, bile rises in my throat. there is blood dripping from where my fingernails used to be. i kneel, letting the water hit my back, and my hands rest on my thighs. the blood runs in streams from each finger, diluting as it travels down the slope of my bare thighs. there are blisters forming on my palms, starting as clusters of tiny sacs filled with clear fluid. as i bite at them, they turn into raised bumps resembling mosquito bites. my feet are clammy against the flesh of my lower back in spite of the scolding water hitting my back. i look at my body and don't feel any sort of attachment to it. i'm looking at myself from the ceiling corner. my spine is raised as i haunch over my bleeding hands. the emotion on my face is as blank and as white as the marble of the bathtub i am kneeling in, the only part of my body visible my eyes, hair, and red streams of blood. the water steams around my face illuminating the lifelessness that plasters over it.

Neice

I watch as the boy steals glances, his face covered by 800 thread sheets and when i woke the latin boy would stroke my hair while I lay on his chest and whisper to me that it was time to kiss him. there isn't a sound in the world that could emulate your shoulders and the intricate lines that weave in and out along your spine. serotonin filled my fingertips and her fingers pressed against my throat, her belly touching mine, and her smile piercing my nostrils. the air was sharp and tinted reds and yellows. she runs, and the needles come crashing down, pinning her in a million places throughout her body. her taloned feet point one last time before she's lifted with the needles as they ascend back into their place. and just like he said i would, i slipped she says pushing her body harder into mine and snaking her hand around to the back of my head to take a handful of my hair and throw my head to the side so I can feel her lips and her warm breath against my ear. my eyes drift shut as I watch her body slide in stages off of the silver needles.

whisper, is this what ____ feels like?

she grins to me from her place two feet in front of me and beckons me with a flick of her foot against the floorboard. the wood instantly turns to glass where her foot touches. her hands delicately turn me so my back is to her and she moves the hair from the nape of my neck, her hands drifting to rest on my pulse.

whispers, shhh, baby, shhhhh, licks my ear.

my fingers crack open at the creases where my palms reach to meet them and reveal a canyon of sacs filled with clear liquid and little toy babies all waiting to grow. my eyes were numb and my ears rang as I ascended the stairs, hair sticking to my temples, the bones in my knees grinding against each other. my grandmother kneels in front of me, her eyes blue, face pointed like a fox, and takes my hands. she presses them to her chest and they sink into the firm skin that lies there, tearing a hole. she smiles and her mouth is filled with honey bees. they crawl out of the corners of her eyes, her ear canals, her nostrils. I retract my hands, cupping them as I do, and honey drips from my fingers and the various organs resting in my palms. she keels over and her head lands in my lap, her blue honeymoon dress soiling on the pavement.

babies were lined in rows on platters, each one in a different stage of decay; eyes hanging from sockets, skin as purple as a ripe bruise. someone bites, chews, and a grey eyeball hangs from a vein in his mouth. he smiles, and blood drips from his mouth onto his chest and veins layer his teeth, hiding the enamel completely. i look up and a ceiling mirror reflects what's happening on the floor below, men and women hunched over what could be a normal dinner ferociously digging into their meals , and notice a child walking toward me. when i look down, she's right in front of me, one eye focused on mine, and the other skewed to the floor. she lifts a bloody finger to her lips, opens her mouth and starts to scream.

Baby Bleu

Curdled blood hung from the ceiling and the walls were made from veiny arms and legs, all reaching and kicking. Bile dripped from my mouth as a thousand eyeballs glanced at me from under the glass floor. The wind blew and I felt the ghost of a hand on the back of my neck, forcing me closer. He laid in the field, one eye skewed to the side the veins bluish and black tints caused by months of rotting. I could feel your bones as they ground together while I held you in my arms, and your mouth opened as if gasping for air.

Not Your Year

I think back to a time where the sun kissed my lips, my cheeks as red as your lips after a game of love and be loved. My hands shake, reaching down to silence something that never should have been silenced in the first place, I can't tell if this is reality or not. If you were to cry, the world would drip from your cheeks. Women and children and dogs would stick their tongue's out and hope with the love that's wrapped in smiles that it could fix them. Needles, blood, and tears were all I had and while I looked at you, you transformed into a winged creature, your nose hooked and long. You appear and reappear like a drum beat, coming and going as you see fit. Your love fades and comes back as strong as a fingerprint in the sand. I wish I could collect pieces of your body, looks you've given me, the way your hand flutter over my back, barely touching me. I feel the flow of energy the most in those moments.

He slit his skin like he's filleting a fish with a blade he found hidden deep within the remnants of a dream I'd forgotten. There were bodies strewn over muddy earth when the levvy finally broke, and we used them as clothing to hide ourselves. My eyes bled soft reds and pinks, and you licked the blood from my eyelids as if it were a delicacy not to be forgotten.

Is this the way to feel? Am I doing it right?

I Was Young When I Left Home

It was the sound of fingers moving across old guitar strings. A hollow man sitting on a stool with his legs open, the instrument resting on his right knee, and his voice as rickety as a wooden rail station as he fumbled over the notes. He smiles and there are fragments of happiness stuck in between his teeth and a feeling of misplacement in the air.

Keep Yourself Warm

would you be offended if i told you that you are beautiful? you whispered in my ear and your hands clasped around my belly, pulling me closer, and my arms reached up to hold the back your neck so our cheeks could touch, and I cried soo hard the windows broke and icy air filled the room with something more than pain. red toes and cheeks and noses and i can't feel my legs what happened to silence and dreams of good and happy, now i just feel so used all the time. nausea every time of the day, i've made myself sick with worry and stress. i've regurgitated every piece of food i've tried to eat the past two days i wish i were a new born and i didn't care so much, but i dont know how else to live. i looked down and there were toenails scattered across everything and my feet bled the the blood of someone not real. fangs and fucked up girls hiding their naked skin under layers and layers of pills, alcohol, and weed,

you wanna kill it or you want me to?

you peeled away layers and layers of dust and grime and old habit like an old trade you'd learned once. i sleep where my feet were so i can let my head hang off the end and feel nothing hang from my scalp but old memories and the will to live. there's a warmness in my fingertips i did not warrant and a coldness in my toes that chills everything. if you smile again everything in the world will settle itself back into the right rhythm and maybe i can sleep again without fretting about the past.

Loud As Hope

you've reattached that yearning in me that i couldn't get right the first time. there's no more coffee and cigarettes a 3 a.m. or that quiet resentment that always pulsed my life out into something unmanageable. her eyes are like glass and her teeth are sharpened to a point. i planted the memory of love so deeply, i forgot what it was like for my stomach to sink and the veins in my cheeks to swell and expand, blood swirling. i forgot that it's not bad or wrong or weird to still feel like my chest is going to explode when i think of love. the harder i press into you, the safer i feel, and i guess it's kind of the first time i've really felt that without feeling pressured into something. i didn't mean for this to be a love letter, but nine months go by and there's something greater than all the flings and late nights with boys of the past. trust, warmth, comfort, sleep, smiles in dark rooms while our fingers traced the curves of each others cheeks, necks, shoulders, and backs.

and all of it is so terrifying.

being able to look at myself, my face, and the silhouette of my body in a mirror and say to myself you are beautiful, you are loved, reinstalling a confidence that i thought i had once but had covered itself in fear and hate.

Honey Bee

I really want these plates for when I go to college. I don't know if it's a nesting thing, or what, but I've been searching for dinnerware and silverware, and other things.

Off the Record

sleep whispers to me, speaking softly into one ear while Samuel Beam sings into the other. warmth radiates throughout my body, filling me from my navel out and my vision blurs. my fingers fill with euphoria at three in the morning while my levels of dopamine, norepinephrine, and seratonin find their balances in my body and there's always going to be some memory of it so why can't i find the girl i was two months ago? he spoke and his words painted themselves on my palm like he was reading the wrinkles left by some other time, some other memory. scars on my hips, eyes wide, love plastered on everything. emotions swirled around me in circles meant for someone with better tolerance and knowledge of how the world spins.

blue fingertips, bleeding hands, the way his face looks while he's relaxed. her hips were all bone and ground teeth as she looked through the mirror at me and there's nothing i want more than to sleep a night without a dream. blissful darkness is the only thing i don't have. my day doesn't end, it just picks up in incoherent ramblings in my dreams.

The Burns Anxiety Inventory

At any one time, I feel: anxiety, nervousness, worry, fear, that things around me are strange or foggy,that I am detached from all or part of my body, sudden unexpected panic spells, apprehension or a sense of impending doom (especially while driving), tense, stress, "uptight" or on edge.

Most of the time I have: difficulty concentrating, racing thoughts, frightening fantasies or daydreams, feelings that I'm on the verge of losing control, cracking up or going crazy, fears of passing out or fainting, of illness, heart attacks, dying, or that something terrible will happen.

Without doing anything I make myself feel: skipping, racing or pounding of the heart, pain, pressure or tightness in the chest, tingling or numbness in the toes or fingers, butterflies or discomfort in the stomach, restlessness or jumpiness, tight, tense muscles, sweating not brought on by heat, a lump in my throat, dizzy, lightheaded or off balance, headaches, hot flashes or cold chills, tired, weak, easily exhausted.

2 Prozac, 1 Ativan, and a Klonopin later, I feel like I've destroyed my brain. I feel as if my thoughts are choppy and don't run together, like I'm going to drive myself insane and one morning wake up with the cats, squirrels, and birds out to get me. Things that aren't even logical seem real and like they could happen at any moment in time, and I scare myself so easily into thinking ridiculous things.

When I was little I would wake up screaming because my dreams were so real and frightening that I couldn't sleep. This disorder, anxiety, it's like a dream. I don't feel attached to the world, even though I know it's here. I can speak in complete, coherent sentences, and I know I'm sane, but my brain feels so foggy and dead, it's like someone put an opaque cover over everything I experience in life. I've thought about so many things: exercising, meditation, medication, leaving my comfort zone so I don't become an agoraphobic. I just need to do things that aren't normal. To be away from my mind.

Empire Ants

if there were no light then this would be easier, you whispered, and the lights were low and Requiem For a Dream was playing on your computer and every part of my body ached to be closer to you and then you were gone and I was standing in the bathroom pulling my hair out strand by strand but your fingers were nowhere. at night I wake up and there is a scream caught in my throat; there are children huddled around the bed, peering down at me; there are men and women that stand like cattle, their eyes a deep white, chewing at their arms and fingers. the bald boy sits at a dining room table at night, smiling over and over again, laughing manically at the approaching cars on the side of the road. he stumbles towards me, grinning, and my fingers wither into dried flesh on my lips as I try to silence him.

lamps without bulbs sat around me in a circle, and I could feel the sounds of fighting and locked doors everywhere. the light from the window painted the shower golden and droplets of water reflected off of everything and she was so beautiful in the hot tub while we numbed our minds with the colors reflecting off legs, arms, eyes, and stomachs as if it were some type of sacred ritual. She scratches the skin off of the side of her thumb and hands it to me as if it’s a gift. I reach for it.

When was the last time you felt carefree?

(rolls over uncomfortably, leg shaking, fingers trembling)

Two days ago, lying on his chest and talking. I don’t know what about. Anything? Everything? It gets to a point where even if there was a difference, it wouldn’t matter because everything feels like poetry now. He speaks my language, ya know? the language of movies late at night. bliss, that sort of thing. you spend enough time together, and your bodies start to move around the other’s with ease, one move triggering a reacting move in the other. it’s all a part of your subconscious after a long enough time. you don’t know you’re doing it, you just move and react and feel according to what the last six months have told you. bites, secrets, his hands cupping my face, my hand reaching out to brush away his hair, it all feels natural.

if there were no light then this would be easier, you whispered, and the lights were low and Donnie Darko played on your tiny t.v. set while you hugged me close and I felt at home with candles lit by the bedside and you were every where with me. and then you were gone. and I was standing in the bathroom pulling my hair out strand by strand but your fingers were nowhere.

at night, I wake up and there is a scream caught in my throat; there are children huddled around the bed, peering down at me; there are men and women that stand like cattle around my bed, their eyes a deep white, chewing at their arms and fingers. the boy sits at a table at night, smiling over and over again, laughing manically at the approaching cars on the side of the road. he stumbles towards me, still smiling, and my fingers wither into dried flesh on my lips.

lamps without bulbs sat around me in a circle, and i could feel the sound of fighting and locked doors everywhere. the light from the window painted the shower golden and droplets of water reflected off of everything and she was so beautiful in the hot tub while we numbed our minds with the colors reflecting off of legs and arms and eyes and our stomachs as if it were some type of sacred ritual.

She scratches the skin off of the side of her thumb and hands it to me as if it's a gift. I reach for it, but stop mid grasp and stop, blushing when I realize it's turned into a big huge nasty sort of thing.

there's an icepick running down the length of my spine, some kind of liquid in between my toes, and my face is swollen shut- with fear or sertraline I can't tell. A laugh that sounds like a snarl escapes my lips as my head lolls to the side and drool streams from my mouth, mixing with blood that's dried on my neck. A small bug is lodging itself into the lining of my stomach, I can feel it trying to penetrate the tissue, convulsions raking through my whole body. I'm rolling, grasping my stomach, and heaving blood onto the wet concrete. My eyes won't concentrate on anything but the dead polar bear I've hidden my numb feet under for a little bit of warmth and the slippery blood underfoot.

A girder hangs on the bed frame and I've finally realized that my mother was a girl at some point in her life. My grandmother speaks and I close my eyes- she turns into the 97 pound beauty she was at the end of the 50's. I can imagine her giggle is what my grandfather fell in love with, and that her eyes were things wars were fought over.

I stood so still I could feel the night pulsing off of me in rivulets of sweat running down my forearms and the world was just another plaything in your eyes. Insomnia leaks out of your ears and out of the blue sack of flesh under your lower lid if only there were words to make you comfortable enough to sleep but now there is only silence and the memory of silence. Is this your 3 a.m.? Is this what every fear was supposed to be made of but now you can only feel awkward pauses, looks of disappointmentdespairragefear, and somehow your mother's ghost of a hand on your cheek. I have melted my fingertips to the coffee cup trying to stay alive and coherent enough, licked my fingers before pressing them to the iced can in hopes I see through restless nights and something I can't quite explain that keeps me up.

You've hit me like a rock and I'm so furious I want to cry and punch a wall, I've missed you more than I know and timeisAWFUL and whatthefuckinghell, where did you come from with this?

all my love was down in a frozen ground, remember?

i don't do silence well.

"yours is the music for no instrument"

Telephone wires were never-ending eels flowing through the sky as I shut my eyes and sun bathed my skin in light, bringing out the pale pigment embedded throughout my skin. Sunglasses cut into the bridge of my nose and I could feel the accumulation of tears in the beds of my eyes; with every blink they followed a pattern down my cheek bones, landing in the dip my collarbone makes, searing vicious words into the skin that lay there. Pecans stabbed my hands while the floor ripped open the skin of my heels and there was yelling and people cracking eggs on the pavement and drinking the yoke out of gutters on rooftops. My mind's like a tape reel repeating itself to a steady chaotic beat, and nothing seems real when I think about it. Grass stuck lightly to my feet as I walked along the golf course in a honeymoon dress that blended in to the color of you hair which was a never ending bracelet around my whole body. There were lightning bugs swarming the skin of my legs, as if I was polluting the air around them, and they just needed some sort of wave from the captain to swarm. I remember blushing as I laid on the couch because memories of you were pulsing through my head every(everyeveryevery) second of the day; and I sweat, making everything I wear stick to my body while I vent to her. Feeling as if I were drowning in the humidity of Houston heat (and there's nothing like sweating enough to make your hair plaster itself in slivers on the nape of your neck.)

Waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for hair you know isn't there and letting the shingles of the rooftops dig into the bones jutting out in your hips. It's all apart of some childhood memory I'm fabricating, right? I want to remember those things?

When it's summer, I'll put all my pillows on the opposite side of my bed and sleep with my head where my feet used to be, because in the summertime, the sun shines through the window, and I've become addicted to moon settings and sun rises, 'cause that's just how insomnia works. I've almost completely given up the luxery of sleeping now. I crushed the skin of a peach and let the sack of juice seep out and down my chin, like a mosquito on a windowpane and sometimes I wish I cried peach juice because then crying would be so much more attractive than mascara rivers.

If I close my eyes, there's a tributary film to every dream I've ever had playing, and when does it ever stop? Peeled fingernails, burned collarbones, and torn knees is all I have to show for being a human being; being fragile is all I have. His eyes were burning, reflecting fire, and smiling straight through my chest. Intoxicated ramblings, somewhere next to me a bird was pecking at my calves, and there was a stream of conscious thoughts flowing across my lips. Like water trickling through my fingertips, I felt as if I could melt into the cracks of the cement, and no one could squeeze me into their palms anymore. When I rested my fingertips against the frame of the door, the pads of my fingers quivered with my pulse, and my shoulders rolled back, and I fell; out of life or reality, I'm not really sure myself

Reciept

i've evaluated everything already and there's nothing I can do and I'm sorry, so sorry, and there's nothing to it, little one, run, run, and your little legs

no caps, too many and's, too redundant

fucking just let me sleep and you can tear my heart out or suck my soul straight from my jugular if it makes ya' happy, because my eyes are bloodshot(remember west texas and sunsets? ) every time I close them it feels like knives, thousands, are running the length of their blades in and out of my iris's and you just sit there and watch me across the room while tears are flooding my mouth and drenching my hair like it was the middle of july and I was sweating from heat, when really,

you're just a fucking dick.

but these are the analogs of the sleepless and there's nothing to be done, end of story. we're all gazing at the ceiling and wandering what obscene thought will come floating to consciousness, because believe me, they're pretty fucking vulgar and there's no way to get them gone unless you're sleeping, but even just thinking of it makes you feel helpless and allofasudden there's this huge bursting out of your body idea of walking, running, movement, actions, doing something to wear you out, and there're tears streaming across your cheek bones and clumps of crusty mascara from the night before sticking your eyelids together. how come there's nothing to be done, I did everything correctly?

eat at six

use a desk

take some benadryll before nine

close eyes

it's like when you expect your umbrella to keep you dry in the rain, but it has holes and faults you knew nothing of. sleeplessness consists of every sort of let down I know. I expect my body to shut off. I expect it to thrive with MORE sleep, not less.

fucking fuck fucker.

light stained my face the color of your smile and my eyes were sharp and unrelenting while his face screwed into something that only mental patients know how to describe. there was a knocking at the inside of my head that got the best of me, and i tried to warn you about this, remember?

but my hands are cold and my smile is disease-ridden, she looks at me, and I want to cry,

speaks, you took every good moment I remember and stained them black.

i've tried everything from taking fingernails to my shins(teeth, bones, nerves, scalp) so maybe there would be an influx of endorphins in by brain that would put me to sleep,

but,

instead there was a boy hanging from my ceiling and trying to speak poetry while the material of his shirt twisted into the epitome of sleepless nights and I wasn't the only in just combat boots, underwear, and a tanktop smoking a cigarette on the boardwalk between reality and the 'unnamed color of your eyes'. Apparently, they were all too many shades of grey for you.

spikes are sticking into my throat like I was cheese on a dinner plate and I feel as if my thoughts are clouded with way too many memories and i'm flood(ed)ing with the nostalgia only smells can revert you back to. there was a way to block everything out once, and I utilized it quite faithfully; one eye shielded, the other closed while a melody flickered behind my back.

one minute i was standing in what I thought was your world, and when i looked up it was the middle of May and I was okay with this because you weren't here and I was allowed to breathe for just a moment.