Listless Cigarettes, Crumbled Papers

mistaking madness for muse

misinformed artists

making a miraculous living

on mere dimes.

if i told you to eat me alive…

raw with a hunger for passion

slashing holes in canvas,

slurping the paint like sustenance,

wrap it

like a kite

maybe you’ll fly if you tie yourself tight enough

hanging from ceilings

anguished by your own creations

are they eating at your stomach acids?

they make it hard to eat, huh?

so abusive yet

you suckle at their tits,

grasping so greedily

begging for one more soft-spoken 

artistic phrase

selling your soul for

inspiration

they are not the gods of muse, not

the nine muses

they are fucking succubi

tearing at the metaphorical flesh

that tucks you into comfort zones.

you’re rusting at hinges between your teeth,

between your toes and the space between your eyes

mon amie

what do i say when i discover

what i longed to hold

mon enfant intérieur… 

you know that when

your innards cry out against the skin around your belly button

you know then that

your words are truthful to

the most desperate core of your fallible humanity.

harness the terror -

you think you’re fucking scared?

anchor yourself to it

let it take you on a whirlwind in the pool you waded in as a child

down into your subconscious

where man and woman are one,

too much sensitivity becomes an overwhelming orgasm

more pain than pleasure.

down to the basement,

where the darkness hides the most horrifying

parts of you….

faites l’amour dans la saleté…..

brulez légèrement votre douleur….

doler, tormentar…

it’s all the same no matter

how the syllables flicker off of crazed tongues.

mistaking muse for madness

masking your true message

may the cat let go of your tongue.

humming a song i’m not sure i know

trembling in my boots

sipping a gin and tonic

a drink i’m not sure i liked

when i was in bed at home

watching demons pleasure me on my ceilings

in the corners where the cobwebs grow

in stop-frame animation

each line another vein in a forehead

aching for less sunlight.

but now i like it oh i do

burning down my throat

and if i reach cuffed wrists up, 

feel free to let me go

turn that key and watch the flow

bare the consequences like yellow teeth

watch me destroy the ground i walk on

earthquakes for feet

quivering typhoons for hands

my own saliva makes me sick.

mimicking at a masquerade, 

men made miserable in the moonlight

men in les miserables - the aching of 

shadows on faces and

questions in hearts

ache with the hands next to you

grasp them and gasp with them

tremble with them

tear slits in your closed eyelids

bare them to the sunlight

the horrors of what this new day brings

a new era

opened eyes and

brain waves you didn’t know existed

cup falls from hand too shaky to continue

shatters on the floor,

liquid liquor lingering

lapping itself up

like a sad guard dog

too tired to save me

messages

messages for the woman in lingerie

come and join the menagerie -

bon nuit ma fifille,

grasp the sweet taste of darkness between

your terrified lips

avez-vous peur?

ah non, oh non….

clutch to moderate reminiscings but prepare

because you will never go back

metanoia……..

if i say i fucking cringe for you

i fucking anguish

for your knotted knuckles on my

kissed collections of freckles

just don’t look back with me

take one blind step forward

and wrap your fingers in mine

in case we fall

si nous tombons……

turning my hands up for the first time

begging my imaginary friend for sleep

as if his tears are like morphine.

to whom it may concern:

. 

i plan to be ethereal,

a woman you see in your daydreams

when the light of the sun and

dim of the dusk both

hit your cheek in the most perfect way.

when the warmth is just enough to

help you doze – you see

a woman in white dresses.

she’s stumbling through the forest

both graceful and stupidly clumsy.

she grasps your hand, grappling

with whether or not to tell you.

her hair color-shifts with the wind

bitingly-cold and black,

medium and brown,

and when the sun comes out it sings

a platinum blonde.

you want to tell her that she is beautiful,

but those kind of words

bounce off of her

as if she is stone.

she’s barely reachable, you

want to grab her ankles and say

that she should stay in this world,

with you. that you want her brilliant mind

to lead to her tongue

and tell you all her beautiful thoughts

instead of daydreaming, visiting

the other-world.

you want, when she kisses you,

you want her to think of you

and not fireflies and butterflies and

bumble-bee lullabies. you want her

to think of your warmth, not how the

grass reaches up and tickles her calves.

you grab her wrists and shake her.

all that does is force her big blue eyes to connect

with yours.

you won – you brought her down.

but her big blue eyes look betrayed and sad

and they glance back down to your handcuff-hands

on her red wrists.

you’re disgusted with yourself,

wrench yourself backwards and

bathe off the horror in the creek by the cabin.

 .

the creek is where you find her

lost in her memories and imaginary homes

and you want to reach to her but you

know there is no use in it –she is mumbling to

herself and clutching the hem of her dress.

her ophelian eyes look at you

and you see a fog pass over them.

you know that someday she will be yours

but today and every day soon

she belongs to the cage of her thoughts

and she is quite comfortable just there.

to whom it may concern,

whoever you are.

i want to tell you that your worry

is unwarranted

and that just because i can barely breathe

doesn’t mean i’m leaving any-time soon.

it just means that everything makes

a little less sense

than it used to.

.

sincerely me

yep, that’s right.

i cried.

the brick and mortar,

stone and solid steel

of who i am began to shake.

dust tumbling from the cracks.

i sobbed.

i took one step forward and then collapsed to my knees

i cried until my throat hurt and

i didn’t think i could make anymore

heart-wrenching noises.

tears fell when i thought they couldn’t.

eroding my rock-hard cheekbones.

i felt myself falling apart.

when the tremors subsided

i knelt and picked up the shattered bits

of broken brick.

they nearly sliced through the skin on my palm.

i promised you that

you wouldn’t have to hurt anymore

and so my heart stopped in my throat

when i realized it’d be a bit longer.

i came home and i cried like a baby

because i realized i truly am alone.

there are people that love you

who really don’t care

if you’re broken down,

they still ask you for coffees

and you still bend over backwards,

walk in bare feet

to get them what they want.

in the end, i am alone

i sobbed alone,

tears fell alone,

i am ultimately

here, with my anxiety wrenching

my own hands.

maybe someday…

maybe…

there is an end to this madness

that’s what leads me astray

that regardless of this mess

the sun brings another day.

.

although my hair makes me itch

i scratch my skin and it goes

into remission - 

just like the thoughts that would never go away.

.

what’s wrong with the bars

why does everyone sound so sad when

there’s somewhere besides the cars

to drink the pain away?

.

and cigarettes, too -

i hate it when people glare at me

for lighting up in my own solitude.

.

i wish two-liners could describe

the pain in my chest when i inhale

and you’re not there.

.

or three-liners that look like haikus.

.

if i as a poet could tell you as a poet anything

it would be please don’t forget

to sing when every where else is silent

don’t forget to pray to whoever

don’t forget to dance in ballerina slippers that you found

in an abandoned house

when you four-wheeled with your lover

before you told him goodbye

maybe for good.

if i as a poet could tell you as a poet anything

it would be forget the stupid names

when you grow up there’s no more dating

there’s only mutual interest and a maybe

so if you forget terms like that now

it won’t hurt as much later.

also if you stop calling yourself a poet

you won’t have boundaries any- more

and the words will flow

as if blood from your veins.

remember that when it’s too much to bare,

when it’s too much to stain a page.

so saturn told me how to be me,

told me when i was allowed to run free

turning of the planets didn’t make much sense

but the way that they had some gravity in my legs.

.

jupiter was showing when i turned twelve

when i decided to see more than empty shelves.

when what mattered was the fact that they were there,

not that they were lacking some kind of

eye-catching flair. 

.

i guess apollo held me in his arms

when i was eighteen.

he demonstrated the inexplicable charms

of the expensive life —

such a difference from what i was used to.

.

Mercury instilled a poison in me

let me step on ladder rungs made of hands

just so i could learn to tweak

that glass ceiling, open it with hinges.

.

mars just struck me as a child

made me curious, made me wild

cursed me with my desperate sadness

like a tragedy reenacted with

money spilling instead of blood.

.

venus kind of complemented jupiter

showed me that the homeless were

beautiful with the dirt on their cheekbones,

that it only made their features more dramatic

although there was less of them to love.

.

muse takes form in neptune,

and although I am blessed,

inspiration is like a monsoon that

tears words like ribs from my chest…

.

The MOON comes out to remind me

that I am her child and that she

reconciles with my father, the sun

so that I have a home again

in the streets, in the grass,

in the desperate seeking lingering in my chest.

My mother when I had none, she evokes a sense

of faithfulness in faithlessness 

gives me reason to believe in something although

the world is reduced to nothingness.

.

These whole planets created me with their stars

so that I could remember how small we are.

When I look up, we’re merely dust

and all anyone has is a meager crust.

I know these games.

One day you’re grazing in the green, lounging and

showing off your white fur to the world.

The sun will smile down on you and you will

draw tears from the cloud’s eyes.

The rain won’t even phase you.

The next time I see you, you’re whining about

how the grass is shit-stained and you’re

just eating the remains of a dying planet.

You curse the sun for being too bright and I

begin to understand. I begin to squint.

.

Sometimes, I try to reach out and hug you,

call you on my way home, silently smoking so

that I won’t break your heart. I call and ask if I

can grab you a coffee, and you shrug me off -

say dad has gotten you one already and then you

rush me off the phone, as if my voice is wasting time.

I wince and slam the phone down. It’s cool, I have

my cigarettes for a reason. I still smoke for a reason.

.

Then when the full moon is fading into the black sky,

I decide you’re just a demon in my life, I am just

some spawn of a hellish devil and I feel so much pressure

in my chest that I’m surely going to explode.

I feel the red pulsing to my heart, feel the red beating

against my ribs. I can hear the rage in my ears. I can

feel my fists clench for things I cannot control, like

the fear your footsteps in the hallway evokes in me.

I turn down my television. Stop breathing. Begging

with my body to stop fidgeting. I think you pass by,

thinking waking me up isn’t worth it, and then your

angry knock jolts me from my bed.

If I don’t get to the door in time, you might break in.

.

I think what makes me the most angry is that

you take my daddy away from me. I was never the

girl to play with dolls but I did cry into my stuffed

rabbit pretty often. Every time you raised your hand

and pursed your lips and

every time my father looked me in the eye and said,

“Well… If you didn’t have such an attitude…”

You made him think I deserved it. And even now

you put him in a position where it’s you or me,

and he would be an idiot to pick me. I even

acknowledge that.

.

You morphed from a mother that rubbed my head til

I fell asleep to master manipulator who ripped my father

from my arms. I feel like I should have some

Oedipus complex. I feel like I’m some sort of competition.

Do you know how many suicide notes I’ve

written to you?

Do you know how many things I blame you for?

Every failed relationship.

Every hallucination.

Every wasted day rotting in my bed.

Every time I thought I wasn’t fucking good enough.

.

You can’t look into the mirror without

shattering it with your devastated hands.

You see bags, black-stained eyelids from long-

nights and disparity. You look at me and

see the glazed-over look of someone who wants

to escape, see the pain of a girl that can’t get out

of her skin. I tear myself open, I rip my skin to shreds so

that I can see that I’m human, that I’m made of muscle

and not just some impalpable essence.

I rip my skin to shreds to justify any lingering emotion

that attaches to my skull.

.

I never really thought I had a mother.

I thought I had a friend, a piece-of-shit sister

that typed away on her cell phone at dinner

and family gatherings, one that wore

a whore’s clothes, showing off nipple ring rebellion

and the fact that you came to my school to give me

tampons in that fucking shirt mortified me.

The fact that someone in the lunchroom whistled…

I thought that dad was just your caregiver

(which he kind of is… honestly.) and that we were on

the same level because you act like

a tantrum-throwing eight year old that didn’t

get their fucking piece of candy. 

I want to show you all the things you’re lacking

but you think you own the world. You think you

own me.

You’re not the fucking Iraquis. You don’t own

your family. You don’t own my body and my right to

wear or FUCK the men I do. You don’t own my money

or how I decide to drive three hours away for some

semblance of “home”

.

Divorced or widowed. That phrase really made me think.

I prayed to God that my dad would divorce you.

I sat on the stairs and never once thought you

were good enough for the hero that was my father.

He looked at me with such fucking happy eyes once.

Now all I see is pain. I think you’re a succubus,

that you climbed through his window one day

and you were ethereal like I wish I was. I think

your red hair and stupid blue eyes seduced him,

I think you suck the life out of him.

I think you age him more than he should be aging.

My father is an old man because of you.

.

My lover would call me immature for all of this,

but maybe it’s just something I can’t shake anymore.

The way you rage in fits across the house, little screams

that just terrify me, little screams that sound like the

demon inside you is clawing up your esophagus.

I get scared sometimes that I’ll get to meet the little bastard.

I also get scared that there’s nothing there, in your belly.

That it’s just you. That it could be me.

I get scared that your torment just makes you that blind.

.

I ache at night for all the horrors in the world. I

take on the persona of other people and feel the

clenching of their stomach as they find loved ones in

bathroom tubs, not breathing any-more.

I feel the blast of a gun, wonder what it’s like to just

end.

I ache for all the people that are hungry, that

can’t live one second longer because I have been 

to that last place. I’ve been to the point where

the world was too much on my chest

like I couldn’t breathe

like your horrors were suffocating me

making it impossible to breathe

because it’s all my fault

you see all the pain you’ve ever suffered in my eyes

and you want to rip them from my skull so that

you never have to look at them again.

I get scared that you’re not my mother anymore.

That you’re just some being.

Someone who’s not there anymore.

I wish I could pretend you were ever there to begin with.

But I have known what loving this wounded woman means and I am paying the costs of her tenancy in my heart. Her death will not change any of that; only I can, as I learn those costs.