Inside you are

Empty. Eroded by the winds of

Today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

You are not yourself,

Holding a mirror outwards

So no one can catch quite you.

The beauty of it is, you become

Them. Someone that is

Everyone but you.

Forget me not

One for a brief moment

We were connected

I could see your eyes (they were usually clouded over from your latest high)

For what you truly were

I could feel it

The dull ache in my chest (which grows whenever I think of you)

I felt you hands on mine like an electric shock

And I almost exploded with desire with all of the things that went unsaid, undone

Lust unfulfilled

I will never know if you felt it

Nevertheless I still feel it when e-mails are sent and received

As if keystrokes sent messages other than the ones we have typed

Only time could have told

If we were meant to be more than we were

Perhaps we were the perfect fit, never given a chance

I can only hope fate, or chance, will bring us together again

Sweet addiction

Candy heroin

Injections

Wipe away the tears

Slide you fingers

Inside

Melting sugar walls

Kisses

As intense as a high

Lick my lips

Throw your head back in the feeling

Grind your hips

As I inject my love

Sweet smiles

Baby

Have a nice trip

I am so in control

That I am spinning and spinning

On my tippy toes just like

When I was five in a pink

Tutu and my hair is pulled

Tight into a bun just like the

First time I met him

And the line was so straight

Like the little girls on stage

First position,

And the powder so fine

Twirl,

Went up so easy

Second position

And the lights pop behind your eyes

Pliè,

You are high

Third position,

Lies surround your pretty little head

Grand pliè,

You lose control

Curtain call,

Grave yard

Together we are

Goose-bumps that harden across your back

When I kiss you

We are broken bones

Held together by a single wish

Soon everything will be all wished away

We are the shivers

That shoot down my spine

When our eyes meet

We are everything together

But in an instant

We are nothing

And still the scars weigh heavily upon my heart

Perfection is a hard ideal to live up to

Cleaning out old closets

And dancing with old skeletons

Spirits spill up through old broken mirrors

And steal the breath from your lungs

Lick

The poison off my fingertips

Devour the flesh

Off my broken bones

We will make love

Under the cover of

Darkness

You and I

We fit together like

Puzzle pieces

Perfectly

Except it goes unnoticed

Today it seems as if freedom isn’t free

As if conformity is true individuality

Suffocate yourself for the coolest high

And drink liquor from the hollow of my neck

Be discovered in the black limelight

Where prescriptions are candy

And I am your cherry girl

We are all just covered in glitter

To hide what lies inside

Keep at bay the monsters

That serve you poisoned champagne

Enter the pearly gates of addictions

Shake off the glitter darlin’

-inhale-

-exhale-

You are caught

Run your fingers

Through my hair

Watch me dance

Kiss me

And slide to the

Thin skin

On my neck

Bite ‘till I scream in

Delight

When you go to bed with him

Brush the glitter off

‘Cause darlin’

I’m just so damn glamorous

I drank from the finest crystal

Emptied myself from the inside out

Down to the bottom of my broken dreams

Seems I ain’t got what it takes

Can’t make it as anyone but myself

And me is no one to rely on

Can’t live on anything but life

And life is two cents short at the moment

Can’t you see it just spinning away

Down the drain with the vodka on the run

And its all just goin’ to ashes

On the end of you cigarette

Suckin’ in suckin’ up

And I feel that anything more than this

Is just too much to save- too much to give up on

I can’t comprehend how hollow bodies bathe with the finest gold

And still they live the life of someone too small to see

Still, I drank from the finest crystal

And it will never be the same

For a moment we are frozen in time and the world melts away. Voices soften and blend until the only thing I am aware of is my breathing- erratic. The scene has long since dropped away and I am aware that the story has gone terribly awry. I am aware of all the things gone wrong in past tense. And for one hot second, I don’t care.

As we kissed I felt nothing but the cold satisfaction of retribution. And when I smiled against your lips, I was not in love with you.

            Four months I had had to think, locked up in something far worse than a prison. I was locked up in myself. Time passed by slowly. Though what we had disintegrated fast. It was only in retrospect that I could see it. But in retrospect it could not have been more clear.

            It was the Winter Ball. I stayed home. I could not face anyone, not after what I had done to you. I sat in my room and drank peach tea. My revenge had led to my greatest regret.

            That night you died. They found you in the 13^th street graveyard. Seven gashes on your bare chest, one final cut cross the throat.

            They said you smelled faintly of peaches.

Keys to a ship full of stones,

A lone ruby

Linked by a scant separation

Chaos melts softly to glitter

A shrink’s grammatical errors

Keep him from his booty

Shrinking into the horizon

Overheard remarks are revolutions in the making

Crazy ideas that make total sense

If you cared to think about them

Some people do all of the Edukating

Some people never change

All hearts are revolutionary cells

One thing is for sure

Your days of plenty are numbered

Madness blooms upon flower petals

Breeding craziness among butterflies

And I believe it is all because I have become so numb

Sitting with myself in a garden of the forbidden

Promises made and broken-the unspoken-lie at my feet

We are merely players in this game of love

Lost in the stars above

Woven through strands of crystals

Like sugar spun out on your hands

So delicately woven through your fingertips

Falls. Like raindrops fall from leaves

Splatter onto the ground and sparkle

Shatter into millions of little pieces

That looks like the snow that clings to your eyelashes

And when you blink

Your eyes are framed in glitter

At that moment you are beautiful

It was that easy- with the ‘snip’ of the scissors it fell

Everything I had worked so hard for

Was now a million sparkly pieces on the floor

I pushed so hard to get what I wanted

And it was taken from me

Death was god’s sweetest mistake

My tear-stained face cried out for something more

A lasting embrace

To which I found nothing but emptiness

Wind blows shards of life away from the core

Never to be reunited together again

Lost somewhere, destined to be gone forever

Sometimes an answer is truly final

And now you are alive

There is no more of this deceit you call love

And no more lies you pass off as sweet nothings

Finally I can be a person whole and complete

Without these scars upon my heart

Finally I rest safely within your arms

As I would desire to be nowhere else

And peace settles around us

We are home

Life changes on the uncertain waves of time and love

And to adjust is a must to remain a player in the game of life

Difficult, never easy, I assure you

But the most difficult changes have the biggest rewards

My beauty and I reunited

Forever, our hearts apart, but longed for closeness

Once reunited, bound for life

Never leave one love behind

No one ever knew what she was doing, why she sat there. It wasn’t a particular spot, though it was coincidentally the same bench.  She waited there long after hours. After the buses had gone, after the deadbeats had finished smoking behind the dumpsters. That was always the last sighting of her. She was never home, never anywhere. Rumors circulated; questions ensued and were met by silence. No one could spot her walking the halls; no one could quite catch her name.

It was raining that day; steady and wet. It was cool against my skin, almost cold. Seconds ticked by, followed by minute; yet an hour decidedly would not pass. I saw a deadbeat, followed by another, and then a congregation.

 Look left, right. Check for authority. Any oppressors are the enemy.  All in black, going to the Promised Land.

The smell of rot was never so enticing; mixed with the sweet smell of an all natural remedy for suburban teen angst.

Still she sat, engrossed by the textures and patterns in the art of cheap cement. Perhaps the cigarette butts to add to the urban theme. It grew colder. I knew those deadbeats could only stand it for so long. They would file out, on the quest of the golden fry. Messing with the popular kids at the local fast food joint, then to the convenience shop for a rendezvous with the apathetically-going-nowhere kids.

They were gone, and she didn’t move. She made no indication she noticed the departure of the herb. The rain continued still, flooding the grass, promising to make the football game muddy and miserable. Maybe the rain would deter the wannabees; only diehard fans would be there: popular kids, sluts, parents. Anyone looking for action, of any variety. All the important ones.

Persistent, she was. A characteristic of any of the species of female, albeit annoying. She relented and walked along the path toward me, looking at the scope of possibilities and being greeted with a local fry chain.

Apparently, all was well in suburbia.  

Shards from the glass were thrown across the floor, skittering, on impact. They caught the light from the window. Outside rain fell and hit the window pane with a soft “pat”.

                Water from the glass snaked over the tile. The basement floor was not quite level. It magnified every blemish, every grain of filth on its surface. The water had gone barely three inches, but it had many twists about it. Going over or around an obstacle was the nature of all liquids. The ability to adapt.

                The ice from the glass began to melt, giving spurts of life to the slow moving stream. It, too, had broken when it hit the floor.

                Rain came down faster now. “Pat”. Drops began to sound like ammunition from a machine gun.

                “Pat.”

                I blew on the ice with my hot breath. It melted faster. The river became longer.

                “Pat.”

                Sooner or later it would come to an end.

                “Pat.

                Another drop slid off a piece of ice. The water would have to go further and further until it reached the wall.

                “Pat.”

“Pat.”

“Pat.”

It would swell against the wall, trying to move the cinderblock. Ice would melt. Drop after drop would slide over the tile and come to rest at the wall. It would form a puddle against it, pushing as hard as it could, failing to move the wall. To keep going. Eventually, the collection of water would become too large, it would move parallel to the walls. Slower at first, gaining momentum until is collided with the corners.

“Pat.”

“Pat.”

“Pat.”

Trapped.