3 AM

3 a.m. phone calls

cutting through silence

the jagged edges

where i used to tell you about my dreams,

nightscapes of thrashing nightmares

crashing through my sleepwalk sleeping

soft and low i could hear you breathing

as i raged and stormed

sketching my death monsters in the air

static live wires,

you received them

held them in your hand

weighed them

let them drop

massive and writhing

on the floor

i think it scared you,

the pretty girl with the ugly dreams

startled and shaking

i would call just to see

if you were still breathing

all i could see

coming out of my pillows

was blood and bone

i had a dream.

who died.

everyone. all the time,

i howled until the line went quiet.

i still wake

swimming under the covers

the slow pulsating sickness

trapped in sleep moving pictures

i reach for the phone

wanting to unleash them

into the earlynightmorning

but there is no number

to dial anymore

ariel

ariel is with me now

her laughter rattles my bones

her black stench stretches in my lungs

cellophane goddess of inspiration

languidly draped over my face

sticking to my mouth

her asphyxiation grip

her airtight embrace

stasis where i strain

she says she knew you

the woman with the pen

the fat pen held in your head hands

she says to tell you

you did not let her stay her welcome

she hauls me through air

red haired and clawing my nights

you had lady lazarus mistaken

they are both red in their intent

there is no white godiva

only lioness and cannibal

knocking on my mind's eye

i can see her through the keyhole

eyes afire and teeth stretched wide

i tremble in my cobweb corner

scratching the walls

and murmuring incantations

i have no calling

i still own my skin

but she is the beekeeper you know

she is both the honey and the hive

she will devour me

into the shadows,

the cauldron of mourning

her whisperings

made you bleed words

made you inhale your death

suffocating on the world

she helped you construct

out of paper and blood

and i can feel her diamond eyes

cutting my veins

bleeding me onto the page

tell her

i have no calling

tell her

i still own my skin

the painting

the acrylic sheen

begins to fade

sharp strokes

of purple

royal and loud

sweep beneath

the eyes

gray lines

stenciled at the corners

of the mouth

the hand

pauses and shakes

the brush

falters and drops

the muddled water

from an overturned glass

runs down the face

finely

she becomes unintelligible

finally

she is broken

a swirling pool

of the abstract

picasso's dream,

her mother's

latest nightmare

in pieces

she smiles

in dark cracks

of time

she rages...

Stream of Consciousness.

i've got flowers underneath my fingernails. and i was wondering when you were coming home, love. the floorboards creek and shift when i'm not looking. i painted the walls blue so i could sleep. my skin is plastered with ghosts that i can't shake. embedded fingerprints and gaping word wounds that burn when my eyes flutter half dead sleep. the mattress has a valley where my body rests less. and i was wondering when you were coming home, love. yesterday was one of those days where i couldn't breathe and i could feel my heartbeat in my hands. i moved my feet but held my tongue. i scribbled on the walls and waited for it to pass. i wanted to deconstruct my thoughts like a shattered oedipus. artifacts for the museum. but the static was too loud. and i was wondering when you were coming home, love.

Dreamscapes

dreamscapes haunt walking hours

shadowing my footsteps

rolling like fog in my breath

white and wounded

fragmented ghosts

that paint the skin behind my eyelids

bodies that hang from rafters

fish mouths gaping

arms flailing over the frayed noose

hospital doors

and the wave of dread

radiating from the exit sign

bullet holes and shattered glass

dummy bodies on the floor

toes sticky with blood

the woman with the broken face

the smiling neck stitched and raw

waking to sleep

with scratches that span my fingers

searching for who is not there

who is missing from the side.

insomnia 4

my eyes spiderweb red. i rub them raw with my knuckles. the tv is too loud but not loud enough to drown out the radio stations in my head. i press my cheek to the glass of the windowpane. it is cool against my flushed skin. the blackness comforts. all the other houses are dark. everyone is asleep except for me. everyone is still and i am a fine frenzy of nerves. i tear off my shirt because it grates against my skin. the ceiling cracks have grown bigger. they are starting to peel and flake. i try to slow my breathing, close my eyes, keep motionless, but this is all a big charade. i am simply falling awake.

susie sits

susie sits

in her cramped apartment

on rock haven street

watching the door

with shifting eyes

she pulls at her clothes

waiting for the knock

that comes everyday

busy B with her

twitching hands

and greasy hair

her Cheshire smile

just one hour

just one hit

just one fuck

money in your hand

love out of pocket

oh susie q.

busy B coaxes

we love you

susie stares

at her fingers

picked and raw

blood that runs wrong

always at

Home

In her

Veins

oh susie q.

busy B coaxes

we know you

susie reads

the tv too loud

flipping pages too fast

the words blur

and disappear

her foot taps relentlessly

on the dirty carpet

footsteps cause

her to shudder

the monsters have moved

from underneath the bed

to her front door

oh susie q.

busy B screams

we've got you...

Music From the Day...

does it seem like I'm looking

for an answer to a question I can't ask
i don't know which way the feather falls
or if i should blow it to the left

made off

don't stray
my kind's your kind
i'll stay the same
pack up
don't stray

close your eyes but don't sleep...
for the people who can't eat
who work with no sleep
for the child with no shoes on their feet
a generation who flash heat...
after dark my city's a fuse
after dark my city's a fuse

oh, say say say
oh, say say say

say enough, if you say it not is love
i’m gonna wait, gonna wait, gonna make it home...

‘cause she said love was just like youth
that it was time worth wasting

i wish that you didn't love me no more, i've been dead for years,
i wish that you didn't own me no more, i've been here before.

(norah jones, yeah yeah yeah's, one day as a lion, yeah yeah yeah's, wakey! wakey!, the distillers)

Ritual

the prayer flags burn to ashes

curling to the floor at my bound feet

i have rubbed the buddha raw

to rid the smell of you from my hair

i have prayed for peace

stared at my plastic hands stitched together

gripped my alien legs and begged for release

i have turned the wheel

cracked the mirror in the lion's mouth

eaten the paper caked with honey

but i still taste your skin

exhale, amen, leave me

i can't welcome no one in

dissipate now you holy ghost

you whisper memories like restless chants

sink into my kingly walls

like the incense smoke above the mantle

let something else hold you at bay

a eucharist of teeth and nails and bones

allow me to pray

you away.

Sometime Soon

i'm hoping to turn beautiful

sometime soon

waking to stretch

and all the lines of my body

make sense

and the sheets don't fight me

to sleep

tangled and unkempt

i unfurl myself.

i'm hoping to breathe deeper

sometime soon

and not choke

on the regrets lies and bones

i stored for when

the blackness wasn't

black enough

dirty and sullen

i fall prostrate.

i'm hoping to blur at the lines

sometime soon

i was always a little

sharp around the edges

black and blue

and yet you still see

through

me

ragged and fading

i call on clarity.

days into nights

i wonder

i weep

i stalk

through cobwebs

and i

don't sleep.

i run far

i drink

i listen

to static

so i

don't think.

i crawl

i stretch

i dig

through pictures

trying

to stall.

Summer 2

driving down I-85
lights off as long
as the sun grips
the sky
slowly accepting
her daily death
the wind whistles
through the car door
the radio hums
a tune that is
all the same
falls lake glistens
wild flowers wave

all this
and i haven't
taken a breath
in a week.

New Horizons

larry has a stab wound

healing on his stomach

he lifts up his shirt

to show me the gauze

stained red-brown

he tells me it looks worse

than it feels

jerryl has a friend

who was gunned down

last saturday night

on his front porch

dead on arrival

he has been carrying

a gun in his bookbag

since sunday

toya has a cigarette

hanging out of her

mouth every morning

before the door is unlocked

she is fifteen

and her belly grows

bigger every day

while the rest of her

wastes away

trey has a mother

who smokes crack

until she passes out

on the kitchen floor

he can't read

all he ever thinks about

is picking his mother

off of the kitchen floor

and taking the blackened pipe

from her knotted hand.

i am diagramming sentences

on the black board

ted smokes rock

subject verb object

bob bought a gun

subject verb object

sally sells drugs

subject verb object

i don't want to die

verb

in memoriam

david died this week. his wide grin that stretched across his face whenever anyone entered the room. his clumsy yet calculated dance moves if you happened to pass him the hallway. the neck hugs he gave away freely and wholeheartedly. all gone. i sat next to the altar watching the technicians bring his friends in to the church. his mother sat on the front row slowly wiping away tears from her face. behind the altar played a slideshow featuring david as a boy and then as a young man--the disease that claimed his life a shadow that fell over his face in those later pictures. he was only 23.

Summer

the heat seeps

out of the pavement

in long whisps

stealing the air

from my lungs

the city suffocates

and i shuffle

to the mailbox

kicking magnolia leaves

peering inside

for love letters

that never come

the tomatoes

at the farmer’s market

smell sour and earthy

but i’m still

rifling through

dirty clothes

trying to capture

what’s left of your

skin on my shirts

i sit on benches

drinking beer

sweat dripping

down the backs

of my thighs

desperate to remember

anything at all

the sun sets angry red

over the downtown skyline

the buildings are

ugly and fragmented

and i miss

the curve of your back

the construction site

where no one ever works

gapes like hades

in the humid night

i kick cones

and throw rocks

no one sees

me anymore

i can wonder

all night along

the railroad tracks

but it won’t make

the phone ring.

you and i

bloody knees
crawl concrete
rock specks
sparkle red
in the skin
this merry-go-round
turns again
you and i
do this dance
quite well
my friend
you standing
tall
me on the
ground
and no one
can tell
if you feel
anything
at all.

Elaine

your hands would shake

while you talked

as if they didn’t belong

to your body

moving on a will

of their own

you couldn’t get out of

bed for days

wrestling in the dark

avoiding the july sun

but the plants in the

living room were still

green and full

mocking you

in their stillness

the medicines never worked

just leaving you

anxious and bloated

leaving you turning

the pages of the bible

for relief that never came

i would stare

at my own raw hands

at the tearstains

on my shoes

my bloodshot eyes

and unwashed hair

wondering what

help i could possibly

give to you

that i didn’t require

myself

i tossed and turned

in the sheets

i sank and sweltered

in the covers

i breathed too fast

and moved too slow

my fingernails

disappeared again and

i wondered

how long before

my hands started

shaking like that.

Like Paper

i am on the verge of tearstains

i am setting up house inside my head

a little house made of

books and words and blood memories

where i sit inside

slowly rocking myself sane

and you will never know

because i will walk and talk

my eyes will still glitter

like a bittersweet marionette

ill make all the right gestures

but this is a play i have already written

and you are playing your part

to perfection

acting like my voice doesn't waver

0r my expression doesn't slip

out of your fingertips

i just watch from inside

carving ruins onto my arms

i tried drinking the bar down

i tried folding myself into

someone else's skin

like the foolish man

who built his house on sinking sand

and on street corners lips mimic

these are the best times of your life

but my life feels too old

like i've been walking in this tar patch

longer than my life line stretches

my bones crack 

and the trees whisper secrets

that leave me winded

no one can coax me out now

my skin becomes paper

my veins the pen

ill bind myself up

nice and neat

writing the epilogue into skin.

True Story 4

i was a child and you were a child.  we used to hold hands in the hallway because it was what everyone did.  i thought i was a woman trapped in a girl's body so i would smoke cigarettes after school and kiss you in the woods on the weekends.  you were just my type--breaking all the rules and pretending to be someone who you were not.  my mother didn't approve and so i just held your hand tighter. i knew there was something else behind the baggy pants, drugs, and bravado--like the things you would whisper over the phone late at night. you told me about it once--finding your brother that day--gun on the floor and blood on the walls.  the house had been too silent, like death, and climbing the stairs was like wading through quicksand. there he was.  but it wasn't him at all, just a rag doll limp on the floor.  and then there was the waiting.  waiting for the proper people to come to take statements, to snap photos, to make it disappear.  and then there was the waiting.  waiting for the world to feel right again, to stop hurting, to stop crying, to make it disappear.  so i just held your hand tighter.

Wishing Wells

small hands break like ice

splintering

under the weight of

tree stump hands

little girl does pirouettes

in the sand

feet disappearing 

more and more

with each turn

she won't crack a smile

for she might fall apart

spinning

spinning

spinning

like a fatalistic top

people tell her time heals

all wounds

but they never tell her

when to stop.--EAC

True Story 3

this is my first funeral.  i am nine and can't keep my shoes tied.  i can see the coffin from where we sit and it looks alien and sad.  someone speaks about your art and the words you bled onto paper.  someone else talks about your friend that burned out with you. i have seen the poems and the drawings--you knew you were going to die.  but, if we keep saying amen then we don't have to cry.  i stare at my feet wondering how we all continue to stand, to walk, to breathe.  it was so sudden and now here we are layered in black singing the songs you like, but cannot hear. i remember when your foot got run over by the car in the driveway.  who would have known that you were not invincible?

this is my second funeral.  i am 14 and waiting for someone to catch my breath.  there are pictures of you lined along the altar of the church, your heart-shaped face a dagger in my side.  a year ago we were in the backseat of the school bus eating pixie stixs.  a year ago we were giggling over hostile crushes and stolen kisses underneath the gym bleachers. now you are just pictures left undeveloped on my disposable camera or the cds i let you borrow but you never returned.  your blood is still on the street. we are all here instead of cleaning it up.  i won't dance the same anymore now that you are gone.  i won't laugh the same knowing that it will only continue to be stolen.  i refused to wear black eventhough i feel like i am blind stumbling through darkness.  i remember when you told me how excited you were about that dance.  why did you ever leave?

this is my third funeral.  i am 15 and figuring it out.  this time, i don't go.  when i was small you used to hold me in your lap and read stories. i have pictures to prove it.  i used to notice how our skin was the same color in the summer, like the color of coffee with a little cream.  i used to forget how you yelled.  i used to forget you could be mean.  after we left, i used to think that you did not have a heart, but in the end, your absent heart killed you.  i didn't cry when the phone call came.  i didn't want to seem a traitor.  i won't know where they buried you so i can't come leave flowers or all my inadequacies at your feet.  don't worry i'll learn to forgive along the way, but for now it is easier to be angry.  i remember when you sold all my things.  i wished that you would die.

True Story 2

driving through chimalhuacan with the windows down, my hand tracing the planes of wind as we moved along.  we had been drinking micheladas all night.  my mouth was on fire, my body  numb.  your sisters were in the back seat arguing in spanish about the cabron at the entrance to the club.  you were angry, your face stone-like and immovable.  you had wanted to beat the shit out of him, but we had pulled you into the car. your pride was hurt and somehow it was my fault. i just continued to sit silently in the passenger seat, waiting for it to pass over.  you didn't let it.  more yelling in rapid sequence.  i made a comment and your anger spilled forth into a hand gesture that connected with my face. i sat stunned for a minute.  it must have been an accident, but my mind didn't interpret it that way. i completely shut down leaving rationality far behind, screaming at the top of my lungs to stop the car. you pulled the car over into a dirt side street apologizing repeatedly.  your sisters were whispering spanish in my ear. all i heard was rage buzzing in my ears. tears streaming down my face i pushed the door open and stepped into the street.  i hesitated for a minute, then took off running into the darkness.  i could hear you yelling from the car and i didn't care.  i pumped my legs faster. my rage and frustration only carrying me further from the situation.  i ran until i couldn't breathe, my breath coming out in ragged gasps and muted sobs. it was then that i realized that i had no idea where i was. the street lights were broken and police sirens echoed in the distance.  my purse was in the car. there were only 50 pesos in my pocket.  all of the sudden this place was no longer beautiful, but dark and scary.  i was alone.  i sat on a street corner for what seemed like hours too stubborn to walk back to where i thought the car may have been. i sat and questioned everything.

True Story 1

do you remember the night you called me, after having a gun shoved in your face

on the blacktop? face down, head turned to the side, crushing the pavement, holding your breath, eyes shut tight, this was it.  and it was not like some movie where life flashes by in clips of black and white and color.  it was just people--that you know, that you have known, that you wanted to know again.  i had been lost in your memory for some time. the me, when i was still light inside.  the me, when smiling didn't seem to hurt so much.  you said, you wanted to hear my voice.  i said,  i wanted to not feel gutted when you said my name like it meant something to you.  life is too short and time is a bullshit excuse for turning away, but i can't stop running.  i picture you on your bed, but the only image i have of you is from three years ago.  i try to picture you as a man, maybe taller, maybe harder.  we speak through the phone like strangers.  how is this so when i used to read your body like a map with my fingertips?  i imagine the gun going off, your blood spread thick on the concrete and i know that i would have died too--in black and white and in color. hope is always your smile in that photograph of us on the beach when we were too young to realize that the world was burning up.  i told you i would come home if you asked me to, and then the silence, like the questions we never answer, like the gaps we never fill.  i was never enough to keep you still.  rather, you were in and out of the state, the country, your mind...  and now you call to hear my voice but it isn't really enough to break your heart or move your feet.  so i breathe slowly and say i'm sorry.  my voice is stretched tight like the phone cord beneath the door. i draw my knees into my chest, my back against the bricks in the hallway, and i can smell your house like i was sixteen with the world hanging upside down and butterflies in my stomach.  the only fluttering i can hear now is my heart--fight or flight.  you didn't fight tonight, which kept you alive.  i fought everyday after you left to keep you in the palm of my hand, etched into my life line......which kept me broken.  i have the scars to remind me.  i start to cry because i am not this person and you almost died and the ocean is so far away and the bed is lonely and your voice is heavy.  you said you'd call and i knew you wouldn't.  we said i love you like it was different, as if our lives could still talk to one another like they used to...

I'm missing home...

Things are very far away from me right now, as if I am watching silently in the background as events unfold, people speak, hands touch.  I have somehow made everything complicated and ugly and am not sure where to begin the arduous task of cleaning it up.  I seem to recall smiling a lot more in my past lives, the left side of my cheek pulling up a little higher than the right.  Now it seems unwarranted and fake, but I do it anyway because it makes everyone more comfortable.  I'll grin like a Cheshire cat if it means that you won't ask me questions.  I don't have the answers anyway.  Sometimes late at night, I'll sit on my steps smoking a cigarette and looking at the sky, wondering if I am really connected to any one or any thing at all.  Sometimes I tread barefoot into the street hoping that someone I once knew will drive past.  Sometimes I lie awake in bed trying to drag memories from the recesses of my mind, only to find they are blurry and dubbed over.  I'm not even really sure what really happened at this point.  All I know is that I am missing home.

Was

i always find it funny

having to use sentences in the past tense

when speaking of you

was...

is such an ugly word

with claws and teeth

that nip and gnash

some keep telling me 

that time is a line

but for now

it is broken and fragmented

the past cutting into the present

your voice echoing where your body

no longer stands

you are washing away

like chalk on pavement

but i keep drawing you back in

nudging the concrete reality

with my shaky fists

with my purple crayon

i can't stand in the house

my feet burning 

into the gray granite in the foyer

my ears screaming 

in protest against the clock in the kitchen

tick tick tick tick

this house 

smells like a life

this house

is lying to me 

as if you were still 

sitting in the leather chair 

with your feet propped up 

on the leather ottoman 

a finished crossword on your lap

this house

is lying 

so 

i won't speak of the prozac

in the cabinets

or the tissues in the trashcans

i wont speak of the wine

in the fridge left over from the funeral

i won't speak

but your books whisper secrets

from the shelves

there's the one you dedicated to us

the black ink set

by your own hands

i can still smell the printing machines now

like i was six 

and coloring under your desk

color is a language

and i am speaking in

blacks and greys

mottling the carpet in the den

dirtying the hardwood on the porch

sullying the sheets in the guest room

so i can avoid 

the shadows on the walls

the distortions in the mirrors

i can't look into the closet

knowing your coats and ties

swing silently on wooden hangers

i sleep with your army tags

underneath the pillow

a voodoo charm so that i might sleep

and dream painlessly

an obol for Charon

in case it becomes too hard to breathe

life has morphed into a static nightmare

like falling when waking up

or imagining that people's faces

are not their own

i'll keep speaking in the past tense

but i am not past 

this.

I have...

i have seen you

some mythic figure

etched in stone walls

your arms spread out wide

your profile sharp edged and serious

i have heard you

a siren in my dreams

calling me out of stillness

i come stumbling

grappling with your voice

syrup laden and low

i have felt you

like the hand of god

against my back

flesh and teeth and muscle

my mouth in a tight grimace

i turn and run away.

This is the closest of calls...

displaced as always, i can't feel my hands anymore.  i drive for miles unaware of the stops and starts, the bends, the curves, the turns.  i wind up nowhere i want to be. the song continues to play, while i sit dreading having to unbuckle the seat belt, open the door, and plant my feet on the ground.  i am heaven sent, don't you forget.  i am all you've ever wanted...sorry i told. i just needed you to know...i am the cause to all your problems, shelter from cold. we are never alone. coordinate brain and mouth. then ask me what its like to have myself so figured out. i wish i knew... i carry a notebook in pocket in case my brain becomes so full i can't contain the tidal wave of thoughts anymore.  i walk and scribble not seeing where i'm going or who i brush elbows with. i stare at my shoes avoiding the cracks.  my left hand shakes, tired from having to keep up with my head. this is war.  every line is about, who i don't wanna write about anymore...and keeping quiet is hard...oh we're so c-c-c-c-c-c-controversial.  we are entirely smooth.  we admit to the truth.  we are the best at what we do.  and these are the words you wish you wrote down...  i can feel my heartbeat in my stomach and it keeps me up at night.  i am breathing too fast or not at all.  i am putting up a fight to resist the reality they have imagined for me.  i am brokenfragmented and okay with it.  we're concentrating on falling apart. 

character cameos

The smoke curls from her lips weaving through the air like an exotic dancer whose hips must cling to a hidden rhythm. The chair is sticking to her bare thighs, so she grabs the edge of the bar and shifts her weight to let the cool air reach the sticky heat of her legs.  Slowly, with one finger, she traces the condensation on the rim of the martini glass, absently nodding to her friend seated next to her. the woman's words hang in the air, briefly, waiting for recognition, then deftly fall to the floor. Because, the only thing that is real in this place is the feel of the smooth glass beneath her forefinger and the sweet staleness of the cigarette as she moistens her lips.   This night and this seat at the bar is nothing new.  It seems that escapism works best garnished with olives.  

Kate works days at a little restaurant down the street and spends most of her nights clinging to these vinyl seats and the slow burn of alcohol.  She gave up trying to be successful some time ago.  It became hard enough..to just be.  Beside her, Laura bursts into hysterical laughter at her own sordid story.  Something about waking up next to a man she didn't know.  Laura grows silent.  Kate realizes that she has taken too long to respond.  She has taken too long to verify the validity or hilarity of the story.   Seemingly unphased, Laura continues, her voice slowly fading into a could of smoke and throbbing music.  Kate takes a drag from the cigarette and wonders what kind of cancer will come first.  She has been playing chicken for a number of years, and no longer fears death.  She doesn't welcome it either.

"Why are we here?, Kate asks.

"Because the drinks are good and the lighting provides a certain amount of anonymity.

"No, I mean...why are we HERE...here, here.  Why is our existence at this precise moment important, if at all."

"Sweet Jesus.  Can we not do this tonight? Please?...Okay?  The last time you slipped into a philosophical rant, we both wound up sobbing on some sketchy curbside street corner and you threw up all over my shoes."

"It's not my fault that clarity comes most fervently when I drink, or that it is such a downer."

"True.  However it is your fault when you choose to bring it up and then bring me down with you."

Kate smirks.  "I suppose, but you are the one who willingly volunteered to spend an evening of anonymity with me...the downer...correct?"

"Shut up and drink your drink."

Laura moans for emphasis.  This is one noise Kate is quite used to.  It is a low guttural growl that lets her know that she has gone too far for Laura; that she has let too much of herself show.  That is what that sound means.

In an attempt to save the evening, Kate makes some comment about two of the men seated at the end of the bar.  Laura giggles, takes a sip from her drink eyeing them approvingly.  Kate analyzes Laura determining that the atmosphere has lost the strange tension that always arises when the performance falters.  She now seems to have chosen the right words, the right facial expression, the appropriate amount of life shining in her eyes--and so all is forgotten.  All the words which slipped precariously from her mouth are now dead on the floor.  Her teeth hurt from smiling.

manifesto

disarmed, i have nothing left to give.  unencumbered, i have nothing left to want.  this is where i find myself inside my head again.  this is where i no longer care if anyone finds me there.  i will sit in the din and the chaos until i can no longer hear.  until i can no longer see.  i build walls of books and words and blood until the ink and my flesh flow into one another.  i give in.

Ramblings...

called 

out of blurred motion

dizzy spinning

falling

i am burning up

scabs crack and bleed on my feet

i have been moving

 in this tar patch

for so long

my clothes are shreds

that sway and stagger

the door slam shuts

and 

i fall

 to the threshold

palms supplicating

watching my lifeline

crawl and fade into the cracks

hard silence like knives

and broken screams on the steps

are all i see

i feel

the desert encroaching

the sand beginning to cover my raw feet

deep 

are the wounds in my belly

vast

 the pain that claims me

you who are not here

you who do not hear

speak 

stumbling

falling forth from your lips

the imsorry that drips

like honey

down my thighs

like blood

from my mouth...EAC

Poetry/Prose/?

She breathes in air and exhales smoke wondering why everything burns and smolders. When was this impenetrable wall of sadness built, and is there anyone who can see her anymore behind the stone and mortar?  She could scream, but it wouldn't break the surface of anything.  It would just lie there like some almost-dead, trapped thing.  Festering.  Seething. Breeding self-loathing.  Coating itself in contempt.  Words fill the space where her heart used to be.  She tried killing them with lust and alcohol, but they just screamed louder under her skin.  She is tired and wishes the face looking back in the mirror would stop blinking long enough to feel safe.  No one tells her anymore that she belongs in this place.  So, she bounces from moment to moment, day to day,  hoping someone--some immovable object in her motion-breeding path--will stop her.  This all stopped feeling real when life became a caricature of some book, some move, some song, she can barely remember.  The characters all laugh too loud and stare too long.  She is just waiting for it all to break open and consume her--flesh to flesh, blood to blood.  She waits inside her head, inside this obelisk she has built for herself.  This way no one can see the scars on her body.  No one can see the words bubble up under the skin, stretching to break free.  However, morning always comes and she awkwardly fakes moving forward--knowing that forward doesn't mean anything.  Knowing that no one asks questions if you simply appear to be awake.  Smiling hurts and everything is predictable here.  She crouches to the ground waiting to hear some answer of why it is harder than before.  Waiting to hear how much longer she has to sleep walk in the sun.  Pulling her hands to her chest she prays for some sort of peace so her skin doesn't hurt anymore and her heart doesn't feel like it's trying to escape her body.  She builds altars to everyone and to no one, lighting candles until her fingertips are charred.  The silence is resounding and the words, they still...pound...pound...pound.

Confessions of an Insomniac

The crack in the ceiling is growing larger.  It snakes its way from the edge of the room to the light in the center, carefully avoiding my thoughts haphazardly stapled along the white surface.  At some places it flakes open like scales, exposing its smooth underbelly.  It is dark and blank.  I am dark and frenzied. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't a reflection, or some metaphysical transference, of what is going on inside my head.  I wonder if when it finally breaks open, will I break too?  I stare at it until it is some live thing; some angel, some demon, spreading itself out above me.  I struggle in the sheets.  I close my eyes and count to ten, to fifty, to a hundred, to a thousand.  The static in my head does not subside.  When I was little, I would lie awake in bed and think until my thoughts bled into some strange nightmare-dreamscape, from which I would wake up sweating and crying.  I would think about the fight that my parents had that night, or the fire that could start in the house and slowly consume us all, or the sickness that might grow in my mother and take her away from me, or the gunshots I had heard while on the playground at school that day, or the skating rink I couldn't go to anymore because someone had been killed in front of it...  Now my thoughts are sharper and have picked up speed, gathering momentum the more I become conscious of the world around me.  I think about the women in Juarez waiting for the bus in the dark, the flower workers in Bogota, the goldminers in Brazil covered in dust, the children with AIDS in Africa waiting for medicine that will never come, those being persecuted in Vietnam for their religious beliefs, the pigs in the factory farms who can't move and have never seen the sun shine, the dogs in the shelter waiting to die, those on death row waiting to die, those in the hospital hoping to live, those who are hungry, those who are abused, those who are scared, those who are ashamed, those who are depressed, those who live on the outside and can't buy their way in...I think until there are just words stretched out on to movie screens behind my eyelids.  I don't sleep waiting for an answer--waiting for the words to transform it all into something less painful, less surreal, less dystopic. Now the crack just mocks me.  I roll onto my stomach and bury my face in the pillow and count...to ten, to fifty, to a hundred, to a thousand...

More of the Same

i know...im still a nerd because i find these hilarious too...

Postmodern Humor

the fact that i find this funny speaks to how big of a nerd i am and how much i love 1) foucault, 2) postmodern theory, 3) critical theory

Randomness

I had found you once again--after years of not talking, years of letters started but thrown away, years of wondering if this was finally the end of knowing you.  I had found you...and realized that even standing before you, I had lost you.  There was something in your face, something that said you had stopped believing that life would change or get any better.  I could recall days when your face was the only thing that made me believe in the promise of some future where the wind tastes like salt and the stars stand stark in the sky.  Looking at you now, I couldn't find anything that was left of that past or that future. It was then that I had to give up on the idea that our lives would converge again in some cosmic way and all the regrets, the losses, the broken promises, and even the world would be righted once again.  And so, I left you that night...  

Black Paper

this is where the edges
burn and peel
a black ravine
of dead paper
this is where
i tread
like some
ezekiel prophet
talking in my head
the great beasts turn
their wheels
the air tastes like honey
it is when the edges
turn to flakes of dust
that i dance
some ancient dance
and dream
of dense jungles
where rocks speak
and the trees chatter
where my feet
tread whole on the earth
away from the edgework of the paper...EAC