Near Sighted Nebulas

how badly am I desolate
apocalyptic heart
in futile lands
searching for Apache Skin
he sees not
hears not
and waits for me
on the edge of my vision
I turn and he turns away
I came for skin
and some kind of love
but I tripped
on the rungs of reality
only on chemical waves
do I thrive
only on those days
when my eyes
roll all the way back
to the dawn of time
the dawn of nothing
alcoholic memoirs
crevice brain
those tunnels in vision
those fingers
poking holes
in my membranes
I saw it in my dreams
I know what he needs
I saw it in my nightmares
and ripped the head
from its many arms
all empty heart
come fill me up
come fill me with your sour seed
Apache Skin
come on home
where wildness grows
in thick thorny beds
up the side of my skull
come on home
and nestle down in these canyons
of flesh
I'm waiting
and I have swallowed the worlds
in my galaxy of eyes
just for your enjoyment

Honey-Eyed

it was a crippled candy cane promise at best
the idea blooming in my mind
seeping out the edges
over the side of the bed
into a syrupy puddle on the floor

your arms wrapped hard around me
daylight an unwanted dream
I thought my thoughts
pouring honey in my ears
attracting ants marching up the wall

two by two they come
two by two

my world is dripping
sugaring my thighs into a sticky froth
spreading like peanut butter
your fingers find the way home
and you lick your lips twice

give it long enough
and sap becomes amber
deep within the chambers of my hive heart
queen of bees decorated teeth
my candied dreams pressed up against your back

deep breaths come
two by two
by two by two

and I stop
breathing that is
the river in my dreams thick as molasses
dark, rising up under my eyes
tearing down my face like frosted nightmares

my voice rather sticky
I find your flaxen skin under my fingertips

and march them
two by two by two
up the side of you body
slide my hand over your ribs
rest upon the flats of your belly
sticky fingers
sticky ideas

I close my eyes
thick in love
and you slip out the end of the sheets
sick of candy
pressing ants under your thumb
swatting bees from your eyes

and two by two
by a whole horde of fucking twos
I slip back down under a river of molasses
this wicked thing to do
opening my mouth
full of the blackest sugar
and scream

Not Today

quick
rabbit heart
you beat too fast

i stood at the edge
watched you
slip out the door

quick
but smiling
dreamy eyed thing

fluttering
like a red bird
in my hand

i am not dead cells
tonight
not devouring

i am not fear
rest upon my lap
and find comfort

skin
milky and perfect
wreckless

breathing
fingers laced
in flowing hair

truth nearly there
quick
as the morning creeps

and i lay my head
down
and thought

someday
yes someday
but just not today

Lips as Red as Blood

my thighs are slick in a rush of blood
crimson thickness is running down my legs
past my knees
pooling at my ankles

it's filling up my mouth
when I part my lips
I can only speak in burbles
and spit the ground all red

the dirt drinks me deep
filling up the cracks in the landscape
my femininity dripping
a trail of jeweled droplets to his door

he can never understand my comfort
in the drips left behind on the white tiles
as I slip from the kitchen to the bedroom
seeking lips to kiss only hard

he cringes in the face of the female rigor
that stiffens my belly
with unkempt want and forgetful desire
he does not understand what it means to bleed

to bleed with no blooming wound
to sit folded in on your self
with fingers tipped in blood
and eyes heavy in unfocused thought

the ground is thirsty for me
the moon tugging at my white dress
slowly turning crimson in the fading night
as he twists nervously at the door

he is goose stepping around my trail
gingerly picking his way to a clean spot
he quivers, 'I can feel the red tide of you slamming into me
even with my back turned'

I whisper through lips as vermilion as blood
'then never turn your back on me
and you will never have to know the nightmares
I have been saving especially for you
never turn your back on me
and I will not come howling for you in the night.'

I take my white dress and crimson flowers
blooming all over the room
and fly up to the ceiling
grasping only shining bloodied kisses

I leave trails of garnet on his face
I tug at his hair
I weave in and out and in again
dipping my red fingerprints down his back

and when the night cries in staining tears
the patches he is unable to bleach away
he will remember me all in white
and know what it is to be wanted in only a hard red way

A Wall of Black Birds

a wall of black birds
met my eyes
with a slamming start

black wings and black eyes
falling on me
in one swoop
and a woop
and a call

suddenly
I was upright with my mouth
now wide open
gaping
mawing
stretching from here
to that Christ-like figure in the sky

black birds, black birds
in my teeth
reaching for my throat
black feathers sliding down my belly
sprouting out my arms
decorating the crown of my head

my vision darkens
the fury of the sheer beating of wings
drowns me in bleakness
deafens me
weakens me
I hiss through my teeth
and turn my eyes upwards

the sky is black
I choke on feathers
vomit up my undiluted love
I raise my hands in front of my face
crying out loudly
I flap my arms
and fly furiously on

Fire Break

beyond the fire break
the woods are burning
columns of dark smoke
snaking fingers into the hazy sky

the heat of the summer day
becomes choking
the crackle of pine trees
becomes deafening

the forest screams
in the throws of an unstoppable force

as the night falls
the heat remains
and the vast fires
turn the skies red as false dawn

a boiling licking tongue
scrapes the blood red moon
the world speaks a language of dry tinder
moaning in burning ecstasy

behind the blackened columns of cinder
with a face streaked in ash
I listen to the forest die and be reborn
and in turn chase my mind
to thoughts of driving rain

If only there was water
If only there was no fire but water
If only water drowned us all
If only...

The landscape aflame twists in whirls of smoke
a wall of fire rages
I turn my face
everything explodes
I drop my head and run

I feel that fire reaching for me even now
with dancing digits of orange
rain forever just a dim wish
I wake choking on imaginary smoke
and see all the world burning behind my eyes

I sit upright
and through clenched teeth
wish for death by drowning

retelling the story

this is the happiest moment of your life
you are so very happy
so very fucking happy

i am afraid
afraid that you are reading this and not telling me
i am afraid you have found me out
found me under this pile of rubble i have named my soul
my heart in pieces like a collapsed building
the structure buckling under the pressure
pressurized hate in the form of soft words
i will build a kingdom of letters
and an army of sentences with no punctuation

i am stripping my clothing off
i am doing it slowly
seductively
sliding silk down my skin like a waterfall
scent curls around me softly
lifts me to my own hands
running down the length of my legs
kneading the flesh under my fingertips
slipping into another space
a different place in the world of my mind
i drift
and i do not come up for air

you are just so happy
the smile is cutting your face in half
cutting across your vision
she's everything you ever dreamed of
so young
so nubile
so lithe
so thin
such perky tits
such sexual energy
such a game you play

i darken your day with my passing
i am a rain cloud
heavy
a lightening strike smoldering in the ground
a crater to inevitability
to discomfort
i am not thin
my breasts sag with the weight of age
they sway in a mesmerizing hypothesis of damaged reality
my stomach is round with a life lived rather than a life denied
the scars that dance across the pale expanse of my epidermis
whirl like spinning dervishes of pain and story

here!
this is where my leg run afool of a large rock in the swimming hole
this is where my cat dug his claws into my arm in a moment of fear
this is where pain took me over and i sliced away at myself
trying to find the truth
trying to find the exit
look here!
this is where i split open and the entire universe fell out
i am a mother in the stars with no children
i birth only ideas
ideas and eroticism that has grown useless in the intervening years
i am breathing stardust
coughing on emotional warfare
and throwing it back up
the river flows out of me in a wave of blood
and falls back down to earth
i have crept forward and stood in the light

i manage this every few years
every few years i manage this resurrection
every few years the feelings reemerge
i feel for you again
i open myself with the tiniest crack
and i let you in
every time i regret it
i regret the light seeping into the back of my eyes
and i regret your words most of all
maybe i am finally finished with you
with all of you

i am living for myself now
i am living for the ecstasy of the Idea
the moment when word forms the Idea
when speech fails but the Idea remains
when the logic of it becomes
the most erotic eruption in this space
these references to other poets
our Ideas existing
just being
being

your happiness means nothing to me now
i eat men like fire
and only the Idea remains
i am the erotic in my own right
and i exist alone
in a world
without
you

Armor

on nights
such as these
i only wish
to hold you tight

lest you evaporate
from my arms
as i have
so very often feared

for in my experience
evaporation is unquestionable

here
i would be vacant
little left
but a hollow smile
twisted upright
slashed across my face

your sleeping form
is the only thing
that holds me to this world
on treacherous nights
such as these

i am lying by your side
praying
for the dawn to never come