Delusions of Inferno

 Your lips, burning with

Whiskey fire

Like a brand on my neck

Sweet and searing

My little darlin'

You know not what

You do to me

So close your glittering

Eyes, drunk and sighing

You should sleep away

This memory 

As I should slip, awake, 

Into it's dissolution.

Dollhouse

 I fall asleep again
Under cold winter breaths
In your ex girlfriend's bed
I can hear the interstate
A quiet silver shrill
Echoing like choral bells
I am a traitor
And I prohibit you
To see me as glitter
Or the blink of Christmas lights
If I become something to you
I would rather die
Than face your rejection
Shame coursing my veins
You are neither knife nor fist
Something deeper like
Surgical stitches
To give and to take away
Blood and life and
I want to remain
Dollhouse playmates
Until my brain rots and
Red fades to white and
Bones can recite
Our poetry. 

[Prose] Fog Light

 The rain. The fog. Londonish. 

It's only nice if you have someone to snuggle with, someone to hold, someone to love, and it's somewhat nice if you have a book and a big cup of homemade cocoa and marshmallows. And it is perfect if I have nothing but my bare skin on the pavement, the rain covering me in cold, the chill seeping into my bones. It will possess me until I am nothing but icy lashes and grayish skies, no spirit on the line, no blood to spill over your black trench coat. 

You'll be a yellow light in the mist, washing over my form, bathing me in artificial warmth. A paisley shirt. Summer scents of grass and dirt. The tar stuck to my socks that never really stopped smelling of moth balls. And listerine smells like that. So if I washed my mouth out, it would fill back up with you. 

Tourmaline

 He becomes warmth and the smell of 

Fireplace, wafting up the staircase, 

I used to wrap up in his sweater 

When the winters got too cold

Now I wrap him in the air

The heat, the silence; whatever I can give

To say thank you like a prayer

And I stake a fence around him until

I am a post, quiet and still

Cold in the frozen night, a sentry outside

His bedroom window, 

I want to be your peace and I'm sorry

Because I am not a fencepost

I am not a bookcase

I am a woman

Blood running dark with deep desires

Cold in my fingertips and 

Visions of tourmaline eyes

Let not the stars bear witness

My criminality is my own sentence 

To serve, I am 

Want and need and nostalgia's 

Favorite haunt, a guileless fiend. 

Got very inspired by the Macbeth line and went at it. 

Orange Lights

Chypre church pews
And celery seeds,
Little boy on the hill
Rolling in the grass,
You grab my hand
In the smoke of caps,
Slam on the hardwood

Till it's permanently scratched, 
Orange light posts
Breathe in the night,
You'll be the death of me,
You'll cut like a knife.

Sa'yo

Oh my love,
Why did you break me
Into thousands of pieces?
We are telenovela dreams
Kissing and crying and
I just want you to
Hold me and stop screaming,
Tell me all these hurts and fights
Were but a nightmare
And the real you is waiting
Under Manila streetlights
With dozens of roses and
A bottle of red wine,
The moon over your mother's
Home sears silver sadness
Into my sunburned skin
The waves rock and starlight
Caresses their crests
Like your hands brushed my
Bare and pale chest,
Now you shove me away
Your dark eyes burn with hate
I am locked from the place
I believed to be my escape,
When the darkness breaks
I will go, pinakamamahal ko,
I think I would have
Loved you until
It killed me.

Fourth of July

You stood tall in all black
Mourning among the
Fireflies, the girl we
Both loved behind our eyes,
Plummet down the
Gravel road and into your
Open wounds, I wanted to
Kiss you silly until
Every tear stain was rinsed clean
Lying in the bathroom
Phone pressed so tight only
you would listen,
Would you blame me for
Being jealous of the heartbeat
I could hear yet
Never possess?
I've watched you since forever
Did I not invest?  

Bedsheets Pt. 2

can i just curl up in
flannel sheets by the
cold blue window
and feel at home in 
the silent serenity 
of your love

tonight i am sick and i 
am overdosed on affection
but those foggy nights
of wood pipes and 
pretty eyes, they haunt
my delusions

you are normalcy and comfort
simplicity, clarity, the love
which never changes
you are a bookcase
and i am a little girl
standing in front of it. 

Drunk

I spend my evenings and
my afternoons and every
morning wishing I could just
get drunk to the point
that I don't know who I am
yet I haven't made it that
far yet, I hope you
are having a good life even
if I know you're suffering
can this guilt just be
bitters in the bottle and 
can I drink it down until 
it's empty? 

Immature, Bitter

Tell me you did 
love these eyes and this
mind of mine, tell me
you haven't forgotten
the childish sweet nothings you 
spoke over the phone, 
2am, "high as fuck",
the "real you" was a
terrible storm which
I couldn't hold onto but
tantalized and twisted
about in my chest,
a wild animal of a man
a bruised and bleeding
lip, would it kiss
my skin?

hold my numb fingers
in your alabaster hand, 
balance on thin ice, darling
honey sweet child of mine
music at midnight
peace in the darkness of
our mutual escape flight,
I told you to 
treasure yourself and you
passed out pieces of your love
like political fliers,
so much like your father
desperate to be liked
desperate for approval,

but didn't you know
she was here? and you
shot at this frightened deer-
she ran, you seized her,
knife to my throat
lips to my ear
drunk on the bottom shelf
your ex pulls off a girl's belt
call me and
i'll let you slit me open
blood all down my neck 

was I too delicate to admit it? 
did it mean so much you 
had to preserve it? fossilized amber
like my glowing eyes
in the sunshine,
or did you never really mean
any of the little things, the glances and
prances of a child
who has something he thinks
he might want but doesn't
quite know how to get it?

were you too precious
for selfishness? 
I held onto you like a wish
only the stars and God heard it
that if and when all is worn out
and I get broken down,
the ocean would open up
and on the salt spray of the 
Outer Banks
you'd be around,

now I'm wrecked and ruined
you're a tragedy of a human,
and when you wake up tomorrow
and again in six years
you'll do it; you know you will
pounce upon me, adrenaline junkie
amphetamine haze of hiding
your disorganized attachment
puffed up in clouds of smoke and mirrors,
swiping left and right until your
disease makes you go blind.

the heart I loved far too distant,
a green flash on the horizon,
are you that unable
to remember when
you were sent to bed by me
with tear stains on your pretty cheeks
and the ache of your soul 
in mine,
so deep?

Father

Most mornings you make her coffee
of course it's yours, too
that's what marriage is

The orange light of the percolator
was the depth of your love
for us

Consistency through the dark
the dawn, the weekends
and the weekdays

New Socks

 My phone thinks I'm in Mount Airy
what an ironic coincidence
considering,
I used to think if I lost everything
I'd be left with no one to love me
and it's not that I'm angry,
but winter's here
colder than an ice rink, colder than
Seoul, colder than me-
my fingers go numb and I 
need new socks
I need new sweaters
I need a new heart. 

Mountain Earth and Pasture Grass

I miss you.
Like taking a knife and twisting it
Deep inside my stomach
Torturous feeling of desperation
Materialize myself in your passenger seat
Curl into a bawl and cry
Like you've never seen before
These are the moments when
Smell of sweet milk and espresso and your cologne
Wraps me up in an invisible hug
All I need is your voice
The engine running
Music calling, telling me I can go wherever
I can run as far as I want
Drink in the blue sky and sleep on the clouds
Fill my lungs with mountain earth
And pasture grass
Until I can't take in anymore

September 20th, 2015

Kitty Hawk

Sand and salt washed
Green dress,
No tights no lace
Free like waves,
Your voice and
Careful plans lay
In wait

My toes scrape
Against rough ocean wood,
Like surf
You always say
"Love you",
And hang up

In the space between
Soft yellow, aqua, and
Honey words,
I flew
Atlantic bird
Through your memory

Bedsheets

I am waiting
For the smell of your air
To unwind me
Entwine me
Define me

I lay in your bed
Soft, cold blue light
Never to touch you
Because I wanted to hold
Your soul

If you see me
Don't say a word, please
I only want your bedsheets
For I'll never
Have a soul.

Dear Congregation

Religious trauma, written February 1st, 2022.

Dear congregation,

You did this to me. You and your gossip, your rumors, your watching eyes. You're the 1984; George Orwell preached you to fear the world but you preached me to fear everything and everyone.

Dear congregation,

Thank you for messing up my head. My first anxiety attack was probably over something I did wrong and probably didn't matter considering I don't remember what I did but I have the way it felt seared into my memory. Like the scream of locomotive breaks, the taste of old jewelry in my mouth clanking against my teeth.

Dear congregation,

I'm drowning on oxygen. I'm nervous every time I walk through that glass door to see your perfectly aligned morals all clashing up with mine. I'm screwed- no one will love me if I'm this twisted up. Sons of the world, sons of the lady sitting behind me, sons- they all want one thing.

I can't give it to them.

Dear congregation,

I'm tired. I wear traitorous socks inside my child-sized shoes. I go home, I have a drink, I cry into my desk at night while listening to The 1975.
I miss what you stole from me.
I miss what the world stole from me.
I wish I could free fall into either one and find someone to love me. My hands are etched in pen ink, letters from a friend. I took pictures of my sins.
The flash was on. Words glow.

Dear congregation,

They whisper lies and accusations. I fear for the last remnants of my innocent youth. Innocence? The beauty of knowing evil yet choosing to smile in the arms of love. Not some snow white fairytale-- no, my innocence was blood-red and covered in dirt and alive.
My innocence died to you. My innocence died to an inch of cleavage, thirteen-year-old bra straps, knee high skirts, and then I chopped off my hair. My innocence died to the fucked up ideology that men can't help themselves. My innocence died to a drugged up boy with green eyes and a southern drawl, his body weak and lifeless like a dead cat pulled from a washing machine. You hit the start button.

Dear congregation,

I attend you simply to fulfill the gnawing duty that my moral compass-- no, my intense, ingrained, overwhelming, anxiety-fueled guilt-- pervades me.

Leave

 Dropped the rings, the color 

soft pink- you're stealing 

my words, my love, 

and my skin, 

You rip it from my muscles, 

fingers gripping 

till I crack and bleed, 

my flesh the color of cruelty.

Wavelength

 maybe everyone I thought was my soulmate

was just a mirror image of myself

waving back at me 

and the way we speak is just 

a reference point, radios bouncing 

signals off each other

Silver Tongued Devil

 You can read me in an instant
your eyes like those of a soothsayer
my soul laid out and my heart
bleeding all over my bare feet
I'll play your game, wait on your name, 
and resist you all the same
Welcome back to earth,
my little clairvoyant, till when
can I turn away your prying intents
and your careful, softest
touches? 

Holidays

Your boyish question stirs
in my mind like the Atlantic 
on a December night, you
won't wait and I won't stay,

on Christmas morning I see
our green-eyed prodigy, 
I wake up wrapped in
flannel sheets, 

we are purest bliss

walk the farmlands,
fingers on the fences,
you make the money and

I'll raise the children,
four or five or ten.

Cadaverous

Please, laugh yourself away
With your speckled skin and brilliant
Baby blues, you need something new 

There's nothing fresh here, we are
An old story retold a thousand times
And the blood in our veins won't change 

You'll find out that I'm a torrential rain
On your graduation day, a downpour in
The bright light of May 

You'll realize I'm a perfect accident
Fleeting and final, I run from my pain
Like death is on my shoulders

You'll grow to know the truth of me
When I'm crying in the dark with your
Daggers in my chest, bleeding

And some other hand could seep in
Entwining, a rose climbing within
Thorns pressed to my skin. 

Alabaster Boys

Your eyes are empty and tired
Against the gray skies,
The misting rain is my
Hurt and broken, ruined passions

I laid down in the overflowing
Gutter of your love, your eyes were
Wet grass and summer oak,
I'll admit you might have been right

But only if you apologize
For pouring me out and
Crushing my soul with your
Ivory fingers and callous tongue

So why show up here?
Your white nose bridge is
A ghost's profile view,
Haunting me with cold.