j u l y / /

thought i'd do a feature.
these are all either from my lovely or beautiful collections and oh my gosh, please do read as many as you can because they're all amazing amazing pieces i just love you ALL
  
spiders are so misunderstoodi've got this sour taste of straight spirits still lingering in my mouth and the touch of 8 boys hands still lingering on my skin
the stench of wine carries in my pores now, i can't scrub it out until i bleed it out,
and i'm a walking contradiction stumbling into metaphorical gutters just as much as i
throw up into real ones, and all i ever wanted was to surround myself with
colour and the humming of it's vibrancy and maybe the
buzz and whir and clicking of what it means to live, sounds like a stick insect or something,
and i wish i was a stick insect because then maybe i could blend into some leaves and
disappear forever, don't you ever feel like never coming back?
i've got these two friends leaving soon and one of them broke my heart,
but i'd sooner break his bones than admit it to him, and really i think it's funny that all the people i
seem to truly care about are the ones that pack up their things and leave
they somehow seem to leave me behind with all the residual emotional uphea   to kill a butterfly for Lindsey
for as long as i can remember, my friend Lindsey
has been in love with Peter Pan.
on a night of pill bottles and pale skin, Peter visited her
hospital room and the green fringes of his kid-clothes
tickled her nose as he glided around the ceiling.
no one knows that Peter actually likes school. it’s
where they taught him how clouds feel on your back,
the difference between young and small, the way
it looks a lot like scratches.
Lindsey carved a map of Neverland into her wrists with box cutter slashes.
the winding valleys and mermaid lagoons weren’t war paint,
just battle cries and bad decisions.
Peter Pan taught her how to trust when he taught her
how to fly but Lindsey sobs like a metronome;
so many ticks, she just loses track of time.
survival isn’t something you learn in school but Peter
traced the purple lines on her arms and penned-in butterflies.
you are no razorblade promise, you are no fragile lung.
you are Lindsey with the angel voice and a   schadensomethinggod, do i miss -
and i level the words against my shoulder like a shotgun,
weigh the thought out on my tongue like teeth
- well. does it matter what i miss,
when none of my shots have ever hit the dead
center
of their plush-pumping targets? i miss, i miss,
god, do i miss. god, do i always fucking miss.
shaky fingers, if you ask me. weak wrists and hollow elbows
and wire-boned shoulders and broken ribs and rattling spine
and, and, and, and, and.
i've tried writing about people who aren't me for so long
that sitting down and pressing probablymy keys to the
letters feels as fake and scripted as it always has. i've
tried writing about people who aren't me for so long that
i've become yet another person who isn't me. i've tried,
and god, do i miss. pull up another target, paint the old
bulls-eye on, cover your ears. maybe this time -
maybe this -
maybe, maybe, maybe. and, and, and
i tilt whatever fake metaphor weapon i'm holding
up and under my chin like your fingers
(because of course, of   hallucinationsheat waves don't caress you
like ocean breezes; they 
hit
like two-year old
fists
on their bellies,
foaming flames at the mouth.
the only romantic thing
about summer
is how she seems to fly
like a mustang 
across the sun-soaked
pool pavement
and into the kool-aid blue
water--
she is eight again
and burned a scarlet red
and she's asking if I believe
heaven is in that bright,
cloudless sky
while she floats on her
back in the devil's light
"darlin, heaven is where
ice tea is an arm's length
away"
and somehow her quiet laughter
presses through the fog
of a vaporized mind
and somehow her smile relaxes
the choke of afternoons in July
and somehow we are in the 
kool-aid blue sky
drinking ice tea with angels
here the sweat does not tickle,
does not sting,
but glistens on our brows
like crowns.
<da:thumb id="458008845"/>   tigers and wind chimescoffee smells like coming home
but this time there is no home
only cheap, styrofoam cups
and a boy whose eyes do not
remind me of a supernova or
the tidal pull of the moon or
wind chimes in september.
They are not poetic;
they are tiger-sharp, jagged
razor wire promises inscribed on
a storm-cloud sky:
i will hurt you. i will destroy you.
and then i will leave you.
i tell him i am not afraid
and for the first time
i am not.   how you can manage to know so muchshe's barely an inch taller - but still taller -
squinting at the horizon line and heaving tobacco smoke
through resin coated lungs that should belong to a
fourty three year old smoker, not an eighteen year old
graduate
she laughs the loudest when others cast glances
and hushed whispers
and never misses the chance to tell you
she couldn't possibly give less
of a shit
she likes convenience store mints;
the round white ones you'd find
at the bottom of grandma's purse that tasted like
dust and chemically sweetened perfume,
and home
she went to a school where "dyke"
was spat like poison at her feet
but knew exactly what to say when three girls
cornered her, knew exactly how to throw her
words like fists
she gets hives from cats and grass and
practically anything outside her door
so she spends most of her time inside,
only leaving to have another
cigarette
she listens to tool and radiohead
and smokes half a joint before bed to help her sleep
but she still doesn't; not for long
and she twitc   moving out, moving onwhat would you do if you had
all your yesterdays in a box on the floor
would you shuffle through the ones i'm in
how often do you still miss me
i drove away in the rain
with thoughts of our last days together
the calm way you said this was over
the calm way i said, "you were right"
your bones crack like they were built to break
i am the salt of the earth, the sting under your skin
i'm fighting my battles with blunt objects
to leave less room for repair
i drove away in the rain
with thoughts of our last days together
the calm way you said this was over
the calm way i closed the door behind you
don't cling to my loose threads
don't read another line
close this chapter now
i drove away in the rain
you stood and begged me to stay
pleading and whispering, "it's been too long"
this movie ends with me turning my back