Toxic Rambles

Clamshell.

I don't tell them what bands I like-in case they think they're stupid.
I don't tell them who I think is cute-in case they like them, too.
I don't tell them when I'm sad-in case they have no comfort.
I don't tell them when I'm angry-in case they get mad, back.
I don't tell them when I'm happy-in case they're not happy, too.
I don't tell them I'm not telling them-
-In case they'll finally notice.

Incompleted Thoughts.

tired-
still exhausted-
don't know how to get rid of it-
really stupid-
can't stop thinking about it-
not really like me-
but I wish-
makes me hopeful-
you know, if I cared.

looking for excuses-
really angry-
I was grateful-
after a while-
wasn't allowed to-
all the vital parts-
doesn't let me forget-
I'm the one who paid.

I needed to-
started a debate-
disparaging remarks-
stood up-
wasn't receptive at all-
fun last night-
a little awkward-
wanted us to-
but I could follow-
not really my friends-
rhythm and tempo-
I wish I could.

Funeral.

A doll in a box
Waxy eyelids propped up with cotton and felt
Your lips would never wear that color
If you were here you would snicker
And make a cynical remark about the color of its cheeks
Have a chuckle at the padded chin
I smile slightly as I take another look at the modeled mannequin trapped in pine
It's a funny thought
Until I remember that this clownish doppelganger in the box
Is what's left of you

Posthumous.

I wonder, sometimes
If my bones will be any different
than any others-
-after death
will I be beautiful,
underground?

Eccentricities.

Women with the ugliest feet
Wear the most polish on their toes
But the most beautiful
Slather themselves with makeup

The most obnoxious men
Feel they can get all the women
But the best of the men
Feel they don't deserve them

Stage Fright.

I draw the most beautiful pictures
on canvases meant to be erased
on skin meant to be washed
in sand scoured by the tides
I write the most beautiful poems
when I have no paper on which to inscribe them
because, secretly
I wish no one to read them

Truth.

I won't let you see that part of my brain
It's just something else for you to pick apart and sterilize
So that you can cut out and burn my soul and secrets
These little diamonds of truth from my twisted mind
Anything that deviates is dead in your eyes
Well, you can cut out my heart, then
Because the truth is all I have left

Cold.

Hollowed out my bones with a silver spoon
So far removed from heat as to burn
And set my skin alight

Addict.

irises, flat disks
blooddrained little corpses
black the negative space of
reversed cataracts
but white of eyes
filled with
regurgitated sap of life
pooling
veins burst morbid
fireworks
color of dreams
corrupted by
need

Anatomy.

You tempt me
Every word you say, a kiss
You draw me
With every curve of tempting lips
Your mystery surrounds you
I'll never know just who you are
But I'll eternally recall
Your violent innocence
You are
Too much for me
Can't handle it
With love or lust or air-starved mind
You may not know
My name
But let me follow you with eyes so blind
Guide me
To a place I've never been before
With fire on the distant shore
And childhood gone forever more
Maybe there I know will find
What part of me I thought I'd lost or never had or bargained for
My brain so analytically
Taking notes on all I see
This earthbound angel beside me
I want to know that part of you
Your lungs, your veins
Anatomy
I feel too late that fetters bind
This once was subject to folklore
But I've seen what they've missed, and more
And drank you in with thirst alive
Merely walls protect inside
And I have strength unseen before
My fires lit by flint and hide
I'm now connected to my core
As years of ignorance take their toll
And you are what I've failed to find
Without your heat I could not be
Encompassing abnormality
We alone can set us free
Our thought, our speech
Anatomy
Your essence makes the heavens roll
Your fleeting spirit waxing full
A fairy in a house of boll
Am I your hurt, your shame, your deeds?
Rarely spoke my name that way before
You are the mountain
I, the foal
My aching needs
Anatomy

Chemistry.

Steam overlapping my colors dissolving in pools of dank landscape reverting from tools/Used information of nation inflation and dreams bleeding road tar, building beyond means/Shootouts and stabbings and bombings and beatings and organized violence decaying your streets/Water is fleeting, your shores are receding and you've only so much time to preach out your peace

Lay down your guards and your weapons defend
We've concocted a weapon that no knife can bend
It steams in your veins and cascades in your pores
Your soldiers will scramble to poison your stores
No need to ship under the cover of dark
With victims too willing to stop their own hearts
Lying in squalor boiling their lives away
We'll ease down your ballasts and intrude you someday
But at that point in time you won't care either way
No will to fight it, no strength to convey
Huddled in a corner ripping scabs upon your knees
Blinded of surroundings, breath a fume-exhausted wheeze
Your flying high has crashed to die, your fuel is running out
Clogging blood and flame and sinew with a devastating breeze
Rent money up your arteries
Your family in the dirt
Your friends held up at needlepoint
But you transcend the hurt
Borne by years of slow decay
Self-pity, fear, and shame
Aloft on Technicolor clouds
You all forget your name
Our vats and syringes more lethal than guns
Dissolving the ranks of your daughters and sons
Converting to beggars your iron-clad young
On ropes made of moonbeams they slowly are hung

Ghost Stories.

Is your heart beating faster?
Through the veil
I feel the thudding of your pulse
I can hear your throbbing tremors
I can smell your fear
I watch you shut your eyes
Will you wake up from  this terror?
I know you ache to run and hide
Where will you go?
What scares you most?
What makes your body clammy, frigid?
What makes the hair on your neck rise
Like canine hackles?
What makes your breath catch?
I hear your gasps bottled in your lungs
Screaming for release
Is it the tongues of sinners spinning fables of the very depths of hell and sin
Is it the memory of childhood demons
From your terrors of the night?
Is it the feeling of dread?
The sense of crushing, burning fate you know you'll never live to speak?
Is it the monsters all around you with the flame-scorched eyes and clutching grasps?
Is it in yourself?
The voice that speaks the cruel truth in fear
The all-knowing deity that sows doubt and uncertainty and the ugly, biting reality blows?
I see you pause
I hear your thoughts racing
What is your greatest fear?
I know the fibers of your soul
I watch your every movement
I smell your hesitation
What will it be?
The heads or tails, the paper or rock
Your deeds laid bare or tucked away
In the end, was it worth it all?
I know your regret.
I feel your crushing guilt and grating woes
Do you remember all the ghosts?
Your endless ring of strikes and fouls
What is the worst?
You could have fought and tried and lived
I saved your doings for your eyes
I feel your pulsing, beating fear
I know you recall anticipating this
Sift through your thoughts for the answer
You had a dream
You conquered me
Stabbed an arrow through my tongue
Your anguish marks your guilt
I repulse you
Bloody glory
You missed your chance
I heard your thoughts
But in the end
Redemption
Only costs you your soul

Scrawled on the Sterile Walls.

Oh, honey
What a way to go
Amongst the veiny corridors
The beeping
Pulse of cold machines
The toxic smell
Of cleaning halls
Fluorescents
You can never sleep
Espresso'd nurses drawing blood
Iodine
Stains the doctor's hands
The mask of cold dreams on your cheek
Pumping drugs
Straight to the marrow
You're sacrificing limb from life
Soap operas
On the staring screen
Fuzzy pixels technicolored
Distracting you from all the food
And scraping skin cells from you chest
Families
Hover by the door
Hoping for best
Expecting worst
Garish cards
All clones of pity
Flowers droop and quickly die
Rushed visits
Panicked halting words
Awkward conversations hover
Changing hands
Impersonal beds
Crudely disguised coffins with sheets
Boundaries
Ripped down, torn away
Groping tendrils and revealing
Saving lives
And costing others
Morphine strips away perspective
You whisper
Words you've said before
Confused, you turn back to the wall
Dry burning
Fills your eye sockets
Fresh from the operating room
Your strength gone
Fight to lift your hand
I haven't the heart to tell you
There's not much hope
So I lie
And you sleep with a frown on your lips

Night Driver.

I drive at night with my tinted glass
While fewer cars my tires pass
The road, it seems
Is humming songs
None hear in the goings-on
The tactless streams of mid-rush hour is
Chastened by the silver power
Of the moon
It's gleaming cities
Blended shadows
Here I'm sitting

Oxymoron.

Where am I?
I'm falling in a stationary fashion
Drowning in an excess of air
I've been bludgeoned to life and nursed back to death where
I fell up a horizontal flight of stairs
This hole that I must climb to the peak of where
The mountain lies like a crevasse in the ground
The humid snows fall and
The sun freezes my bones
My enemies quake in the ferocity of
My generosity
And my friends bask in the warm glow of my hatred
I flew past the moon to dance at the center of the earth and
I walked a thousand miles to cross the street where I
Exhausted
Collapsed on the ground, floating in the sky
Where am I?

Wasting.

Her ribs
Drew like an hourglass through the curtain of her skin and
Her knees
And wrists like razors cut wide angles in her limbs
Her staring eyes
Like spotlights filled a depth more than her size while the moonbeams of
Her wishes
Gaped through throat and chin and thighs
Too compact
To fold up
Too delicate
To break
Her wasted heart
Is searching for the answers that escape as
Her spine
Shows knuckles fisted rising  through the gauze of taught pale flesh
The monster in the mirror building skin and tendon battle dress
She softly sings a love song as she strips away
Her size
She knows
Her mind
Deceives her but she looks good in its lies