Sensorium

Put me on dear, like that long cotton shirt
the one starched white and ready to wear around
with the lovely straight lines and the pearl buttons
make a mess of me before you lay me down,
love is nothing but memories piled high
some forgotten and I know I wrinkle easily
but the comparisons unkind, the waste too much
someone was supposed to

fill me up

and sometimes my chest does swell, wonder flows in
but the tide tends to be unpredictable
there is no organized system of celestial bodies to move me
just questions inside of questions, uncertainty
and the sensation of ghosts using my mouth to breathe
making me a stranger
always new lines, alien scars on alien hands
where did you come from reflection
make your home with someone else

your eyes are infinity, they open and speak
but say nothing, remarkable but void, vast but meaningless
it is with blind faith that I believe there is someone behind them
where do you go when they close
is it as the creatures that line the shore
do you spiral back into some beautiful small space
will you expand one day and leave it behind for me
I have a dire need to feel for myself whats inside

fingertips remember everything

the rub of skin, uneven texture of life
we press and press never thinking of the cells we leave behind
the amount of ourselves left on lovers,
the grittiness of dirt, the softness when combined with water
that I were a tortoise to burrow down
I too would share my secret home
if only I could surround myself with the substance that sustains us,
smooth down the brightly patterned cloth of a blouse
it tells me it exists because of someone else's hands
fingertips that have felt the salt of another continent
do they retain a memory of these dyes,
caress a box of wood inlaid with yellowing ivory
wonder how the elephant was mourned
an epitaph written across the land in the language of foot prints
the animals the carcass fed
small consolation for the cruelty of men
we will never comprehend the level with which they love

callouses hold testament to the length of memories
how long have I allowed myself to love
only paper people and alphabets
strange things for a young woman to marry
in the name of avoidance
friction can not exist where there is only one.

masochist

I hear talk of fathers leaving mistakes out to dry
sending nightmares to their sons
like so many perverted sandmen crushing dreams
and snorting them for fun,
but what of the daughters
and is self-defection considered a sin

I would swallow you whole even though I know
I don't posses the constitution to digest you
I'll have to purge this mess that you make me
but I always did enjoy the poison therein
and all the things that pull me down to small deaths

defeat like discomfort brings its own kind of pleasure
to a masochist whose addicted to emotion
found floundering in a state of cessation
face frozen because when I'm brittle creases turn into cracks
and the whole thing can fall off leaving words wandering
left wondering how much sorrow they made
how heavy they weighed
or if it was mostly bought and borrowed

a storage unit of self abuse or pity or pain
sells cheap on a cold day like today
when you can pull up your hood
and pretend that it's not because you prefer to hide

theres no blood as black as that which beats
from a lived in lie
even if it was the white kind
packaged in paper printed with
self-preservation.

Delirium

There are people who live like meat

such controversial lives, they rot on the inside

deceptively affecting only those who stand too close

and observe too much

maybe they got stuck in the wrong chapters

or never started their own story

but that’s an uncharacteristically optimistic theory.

Days like this I’m consumed by carcasses of old love

when all the right floats out of reach

and the wrong bombards

making my heart shake and my consciousness shiver

nervous

break

and everything you spill is a joke

what’s that about laughing to keep from

delirium

I’m so numb that I think this chunky color

sticking to my skinny knuckles is grated beets

but the runoffs too red

and everyone’s crawling out of their comfort

with less than subtle, I don’t know

sympathy

solicitude

to ask if I need help

I glance at my reflection and guess

I must look sorry like this, insides turned out

because everybody slips from the weight they’re forced to carry

and sometimes we suffer that kind of grotesque trauma

besides I’m so small

too small to make a bed this big, but somehow I did

just never knew it would feel like this

with all the dirt thrown on, so boxed in.

Death glides across the tragedy of life

the ocean we bathe in, the flavor of inspiration

I’m the magicians assistant being punctured by an amateurs sword

and this punctured organ makes me faint

filling up with blood like a water balloon

doomed to be flung by some overzealous adolescent,

and yes I know those don’t throw anymore

unless their hands are filled with weapons

but aren't we all entitled to some wishful thinking.

I become delirious contemplating the irony of speech

that which is kept silent and all those things rashly spoken

often in the wrong order, usually traded for the wrong words

always for the worst reasons.