The Gift
If I gave you a coffee mug
or an ashtray
would you think of me more frequently?
Would you think of me in terms of
porcelain and smoke?
Caffeine and nicotine?
Or would it just satisfy some sick oral fixation of mine.
This hypothetical ashtray would be made of
translucent royal purple glass
not fragile.
And the mug;
deepest, darkest, bloodiest red
with the perfect luminous silver face of the moon
eyes bloodshot
full of poetry
and all the bile
from broken hearts.
Bear on a bicycle
You must have been illiterate
to my nervous smile
that said
no roof access.
You tattooed your name
in purple ink
on the inside
of my eyelids.
Clothing my skin
in
microscopic feathers
like elevators in heat.
Planting
pomegranate seeds
in my garden of stones.
Tiger lillies
We move forward
and every flame orange flower I pass
you've unconsciously given to me.
Fire to fire to fire
lips tiny lions
beating me back to life with your skin
weaving smoke about our heads
my blood nearly charred
from your hold around my waist
emotions tied thickly with steely silver string.
Bliss hissing; violent.
You're picking up thin pebbles
to throw against her glass.
You're breaking her
with your marble eyes
and the delicate way
you drunkenly place feathers in my hair
like I'm some seagull goddess
to your slippery seaweed self.
Placing my tongue bound body
on the elemental mattress
turning up the heat
with thin fingers
blue flames licking white skin clean.
Take me down to my bones
cracking me like a ceremonial mirror
playing with the pieces
a glassy womanpuzzle.
You break me to find me
to bind me
as I lie shattered,
sharded,
discarded
on your bedroom floor
but you've cut yourself
all to hell.
Loaded
Black and white photos spread across my bed
taken long before we met.
Train tracks reach far out to the distance
and he stands, dark jeans slung across his hipbones,
left hand cocked in his pocket,
hair spiraling down naked shoulders,
black copied skin shadows lithe across his chest,
tattoo immature and coiled on his right bicep.
There is a slight patch of grey leading from his navel down; shadows
nipples; dark buttons on tight flesh.
Blurred trees in the background.
It's like a map of his body.
The face is half shadowed, half smiling
bracelet bright around his loaded wrist.
The Sweater
There's too much past in my old black sweater. Time to wash it scentless and
fabric soften it for the thousandth time. Someone I've been friends with for
years gave it to me, and it had been her favorite too. The day I got it, I was
in love, and the three of us were at her apartment. He danced around me, singing
along with the Cure tape Just Like Heaven at the top of his lungs covering me
in splendid grins as precious as Anne Bolyn's 11th finger. Later, he took it
with him when he left for Colorado. I missed it that year; him too. When he
finally returned it it had his hairs woven through it from constant wear. It
had his scent deeply in every fibre, tiny ghosts that squeezed my heart whenever
I pulled it over my head. It spent time alone with him- lay on his floor, trailed
into his breakfast, soaked up ink stains from his pens, undetectable in it's
darkness. He may have thrown up on it some drunken evening might have sweated
into it during some awful dream, realistic and dark. I know he slept with it
on occasion. It's been very well loved in it's lifetime so far. The right shoulder
is fraying and my skin shows through a strong contrast behind blackcrocheted
webs. I curl my legs up under myself, memories aching in my belly vague, like
paintings intricate in a pitch black room. They make me crave Dr. Pepper and
a bag of Hershey's kisses. They make me want my present lover to walk in, undress
me, and carry me to a steamhot tub to sit behind me in the breathy water scrubbing
me clean.
Matches
Do you feel my eyes
as I feel my way
into your darkened room
slipping slowly
on tinderbox toes
creeping lonely
towards your sleeping,
sinewy,
self.
I crawl into bed
with unknowing you
falling asleep
to the rhythm
of your breath.
We both dream
our souls are being eaten
by butterflies.
Game?
Bent over backwards
with memories
of old lovers
playing chess on my stomach
You pull up your chair
to my straining body
and place your cup of cappucino
on my left breast,
tap your lit cigarette
into my navel,
then reach into your back pocket
to pull out a deck of playing cards.
You lay them out
in perfect order
across my body.
My arms are getting tired.
You scoop up the cards
into your hands
and shuffle them.
My legs ache
You play solitaire
on my naked skin
until you lose the game
as I lose my balance.
We both fall to the ground
and lie together
on a bed of broken chess pieces
and mismatched cards.
Glow
Blood on my back from my sweetheart's stigmata
is staining the bedsheets like a virgin's first sweat,
aesthetically complementing the petals on the carpet
and the unopened bottle of wine beside the window.
The curtains remain undrawn and the light
spills through the dust in the air.
I am trying to ignore the taste of copper on my tongue, dark and heavy,
My eyes open -I'm alone wrapped in clean sheets and a half sober smile.
Ice is melting on the windowsill,
leaving small puddles behind; formless and docile.
Rum & Thievery
On my floor there is a grey cotton shirt I took from his apartment
when I'd had too much rum.
It still smells of him, which is why I must have taken it to begin with.
The scent lurches tight in my belly and my mind runs a memory clip
of the time we made love on his bathroom floor,
my hands tight around the clawed legs of the bathtub,
tiles cold on my back,
hands hot on my hips
and breath hardmoanhissing in my ears
our sexsweat scents warm and veiling the 6am room
circling us like heartsick honey vultures.
A dozen posies with morning breath
And I want you
to stretch my skin
tightly across your senses
and beat me
with rhythm kisses
take me to Wonderland
pull me between your pores
inhale me
push your skin into my skin
like melting stone,
let's dive into each other
cuz this is as frustrating
as not being able to dance through the looking glass.
But I still follow rabbits
and I'm well acquainted with the taste of your mouth.
Let's drink each other
like Halloween punch.
Wrap me around you
like so many brightly coloured ribbons.
Run across me
like ecliptic tarantulas.
Lay
Your smiles are corrosive
your tactics perfect
lies gilded,
and as shiny as lacquered plums.
Sun on your shoulder
and steel in your tit
I jumped for the ring
missed and fell.
Sweet tongue on lip
smile; crooked honey
hands like sea anemones
slide across my skin
slickened salt
kisses
laid gentle
like spiders eggs.
Human espresso
Vivid, beautiful you
with a polarity smile
that wraps my spine in tinfoil
like a gherkin abortion
I'd breathe water for you
exhale the radio of my dreams
I close my eyes
and walk blind
in the rain
My skin melts
and leaves my white bones
leaves them to bleach in the sun,
in the heat of the stars
You walk by and think
"what pretty sticks"
you take them home
and tape them to your ceiling
I watch you sleep
Fish
And yes! I'll admit it.
I wanted him to the point of aching from the inside
out,
as I sat coyly drinking the ice-cold cranberry juice he'd brought me.
I glanced at the fishtank to my left,
which lit the dark bar table with a gentle piscine brightness.
The shadow of a fish moved gracefully across his face,
darkening his eyes for the second
that I lit my second cigarette with his white lighter;
a non-childproof bic still warm from his hand.
Tongue
unintentionally surfing his teeth in my mind,
I wanted him to plant gardens of tiger lilies between my legs.
I wanted to wake again with him tracing my face
feather light with his fingers, believing he hadn't woken me.
I wanted him with my morning coffee.
I wanted him to balance himself on my breathing and swallow my tides.
Sitting across from him, with only warm smooth words
between us,
I wondered again what would have happened
if we had somehow found each other at the right time.
It felt as if we had yet to finish something
that we never really started in the first place.
There were things left to say and do floating around between us,
moving across us like shadows of fish.
E-mail for my lobster
Soft and hard and 60 shades of hot.
You could tap cigarette cherries on me
and I wouldn't feel a thing
Do you have any idea
what you do to me?
The way you sculpt the alphabet
slips into me
and makes me shake.
You're miles and miles away from me
and I can feel it
this heat
sending shifty waves up from me
so no one can see me clearly anymore.
I ache so purely
to the very me of me
for you
with you
around you even this far.
You make my skin move
of it's own accord
twisting and creeping towards you
at a million miles a second.
I can feel the distance
between us
like inhalable dust
or the smallest space between magnets
afraid to touch.
I want to breathe it in;
that dust.
I want to press those sliding metals together
melt them to one another
melt to one.
I love you
I love you
and I can't breathe it hard enough
I can't suck it deep enough
I want to
I want you.
I feel like I could scream loud enough
to shatter all our barriers
split your circle
suck up the miles
shake the fucking world
they will hide from our love
ashamed perhaps
aching for this
this
us
this
we
this
he
she
I love you
from my bent soul.
Taste...
No Place Far
Tonight I'm no place far,
and I wish you were here with me now
to rest your head across the small of my back.
Instead I have a paper cut burning lonely between my fingers.
Lips laid down softly in last night's dreams
have drifted silently across today, warming it ever so slightly.
The heat rising across the air like invisible coffee scents.
My Thursday was unintentionally brightened.
Whole in the Heart
It aches miles deep, this love without lover.
Invisible fingers reaching out into the darkness and meeting nothing.
The untapped capacity deep too - near to overflowing.
I can nearly feel someone out there
as I run sandpaper over old dreams and memories,
smoothing their edges and removing ancient splinters from my fingertips.
I want to lie in this bed of mine
trading secrets
with someone like they're penny candy.
To drink each other's memories
pour out glass after glass of our lives,
vibrant and unedited until we're drunk on knowing.
Pass the Honey
Past and present lover inside and around me from midnight
to dawn,
warm fingers splayed across my body even in sleep.
Waking to rising heat wandering into me,
welcomed in a daze of post sleep moments.
Pleasure returns after many months far from my bed,
my head spinning; lost in the heightened sense of my skin,
in the scents re-emerging from within my memory.
Dreamlike, these replays of the last few days tighten my breath.
Alone now, and buzzed on life.
The holes in my skull still full of senses,
the holes in my heart swollen to closure.
Breath and sweat and whispers in my bed again,
echoing delirious and hot, orgasmic and sweet
even in sleep.
In the ice cold sky the moon looks down,
clearheaded and nonjudgmental,
a full circle riding high above this clear December night.
Tonight I feel perfect, alone in my skin.
My heart feels like a pot of warm cranberry tea.
Adrenal
Oh, you splinter me alright
with those vibrant eyes
so intense it sometimes even pains me
to trigger a glance in your direction.
A ring
on a wooden table;
a stain from a past resting champagne glass
would be as comfortable on my finger
as the circle around the moon
which is sometimes there
but usually isn't.
This would comfort my body
like an old friend.
Want
Words have flavors
but my taste buds are sore and eroded.
I blow you honey scented reminders
that float like gold dust pollen through your dreams,
sweetening your head and settling on your bed.
Tickle you to sneezing which wakes you for a moment
before you slip back in and nearly recognize my hands
sweeping around your insides,
leaving tracks and trails
and snips of my wanting
slow and haunting
like lovesick snails
that have lost their way back home.
Wake it up, baby…
Pull me awake!
Yank that golden rope that begins at my belly's
center.
I wrap it round and around my waist
like some perverted snake charmer.
Take it in your hands and pull me from your inside out.
Wait for me, find me, wake me to you,
put your flowers in my hair
and swing from my thoughts as if they were vines.
I'll give you full reign of my mind
and a map to all my dark corners.
All I am has never been met,
never been written,
never been spoken.
Find me and drive in
dive in and I promise you won't drown.
Take me under your tongue like a drug.
Inject me under your skin.
Spilled Milk
And there she stood in the post rain downtown damp,
her eyes twin to his, brown, deep, drownable.
The lips twisting up into the same smile,
reflecting her brother and no other, matched tooth for tooth.
Her hair cut short now too, long limbs draped in dark clothing
smelling of cigarettes and spice.
I believed, for just a second, that it was him
come to take me into those long gone arms
enfolding me and forever shutting out the cold
with the warmth of his darkness,
leaving kisses like lost petals against my face.
For a second.
And then the déjà vu turned tail
as she stepped into the streetlight to greet me.
We spoke briefly.
I didn't ask after him and she didn't bring him up.
Later at the bus stop,
I reminded myself that I'll never touch his skin again.
goldfish on a sinking ship
For once I walk past the bar and find it dead and locked.
Only fish and their shadows climb their waters and walls.
I envy the fish that can watch your face every day,
staring unashamed and without fear as you go about your days work.
Ah, but they will never know your kiss
or the gentle creaking of your bedsprings as you turn; attempting to fall asleep.
They cannot breathe in your embrace or taste themselves upon your face.
You'd never think to float tiger lilies upon the water in their tanks
or moan their names; their scales grateful under your nails,
their finmarks red on your back,
their souls crushed between your perfect fingers.
These things will never happen.
If only I had the memory of a goldfish
and could forget all you've given me come 8 minutes from now.
This is not healing this feeling of two legs, one head finding their other half.
50% of your soul, They say, is held captive within another seeking other.
Running on empty with half a soul doesn't leave me much room for hope.
Like a sinking ship, too heavy for its weight,
hope was one of the first things I threw overboard.
But when no one was watching,
I broke off a piece and hid it to save for a rainy day.
It could be the thing that holds the nails of my ark together.
Internal Combustion
Cinnamon hearts on my tongue
make me hope your tooth is sweet
that you'll swallow these affections
like a sideshow sword
you leave me hungrier
I'm screamwhirling on the inside
don't you hear all the commotion?
feel my skin buzzing;
velvet bumblebees humming under your touch
holding me tight
my bones turn to glass
and I'm shaking like a dashboard hula girl
please don't tell me
you're smiling at that dizzy pitch
because you just wanna be my friend
tracing tattoos on my skin
in the name of art alone
I want you to reach inside me
pull out my heart
take a bite
tell me if the flavor suits you
wash it down with a gin & tonic
(the kind with a squeeze)
then pull me against you so hard
that the fever on my skin
is left where I'd been standing alone
a heat ghost that drifts down to the floor
in warm, faintly glowing dust
you could scoop up in one hand and blow away.
