The demon clutches in the belly like a claw that screws as well as grabs. It hurts better that way in the deepest way. The darkest way. Wa

Because I thought I saw Jesus within the pulsating wall A prophetic drawl Pathetic bawling Incessantly crawling back beneath the...

In frost covered fields With garnets congealed A pomegranate drips Scattered seeds amongst the star-lit field A twilight blooms

To scrape beneath the surface brings with it its own mortality. To bleed and feel a fire made flesh. Ruby colored pulp trickles downward, sometimes slowly and at other times with a flush of emotion so to drown out the hours and days and weeks and years of otherwise monotony. Sloshing up, spilling over, at moments gushing out, until it’s all spent at the bottom of the hourglass—that damned silhouette in which we drove with a turbulent force your vibrance and my rage. To fee

I stood at the edge of the reflecting pool With water cascading, lush and cool I jumped into that pool of sun And sank simply down with lungs That filled easily and felt freely To live and breathe each day brimming In that reflecting pool When God reflects, I thought, it might be something Fresh like this with cold gulps of water between billowing breaths I sat and thought that I’d lived for a day Until I realized that I was in shades of grey Like concrete smacks! But blue at

You’re like a force field that contains the blaze in me because you learned to grip fire with your hands You’re a phosphoric, Promethean Man That bends light to you Clenched in your hands to Mold like clay the silhouette and form It’s not that I disdain the flame or the fierceness from which it storms But I shift to mirage my glow In folds of gold And blackest smoke licking at the vision, Blinding from the sides of that dark fission Missing you nearly, blooming in ash I could

The key is to detach and then to reduce it down to the roots, strong solemn things that grip the body, and smooth out the mind in copse rippled monotony. It’s the giving in of things and letting out of things until the spine bends the wrong way, then sets, waiting to be snapped back, not at once but continuously creaking at the vertebrae. One, two, and three. Society does take its toll on me and I learn that I cannot bend the wrong way as other people before me, trying to de

I wish that you’d listened to the call of leaves and the purring in trees, but you got distracted, turned away (as they do), and left me astray on the path to the wild ravine. It’s okay this way. I’m used to it, admittedly. And I’m not what I’d call gentle beneath. Biologically predisposed to think diagonally, to cut through the grove and creep nocturnally, catty-cornered to the sun soaked drove. People have got stand in line, so I stretch miles between us, chance the of

I have a love for beautiful views that began when I was a child. I’d sit on top of the monkey bars or sit in my favorite hemlock tree just to see from that vantage point. I watched setting suns and moonlit skies from this view. On summer nights when the neighbor kids were catching fire flies and eating ice cream, I’d sneak upstairs to stand there in that spot watching everyone below. I pressed my nose up to the cold screen to feel the cool air of summer nights waft in on m

She was squished up in the tire of their pickup truck when I heard her meowing. I crawled under and found a little grey fluff of kitten, not much larger than my hand. She had grey eyes like me. I named her “Storm,” and snuck her into our basement until my parents found her and then she disappeared. I never did find out what became of her, but even as an adult I think of her sometimes.

I go away Are just three words I use sometimes To break the silence of a fragile state I go away, I say, when the moonlight breaks Through tufts of cloud wisps Blue light spilled out at the windowpane I sift through moods and claim An imagined room that’s furnished With a small wish To go away

I’ve been casting you in lineaments, you vaporous thing. You’re a distorted mirror that bends ‘round my mood. A cold surface of marble sublimity. I etch your cheekbones with my fingers, high and smooth. Two planes set flush beneath the eyes like me. You, ageless woman, The Queen Of The Abyss. Sometimes you seem a bit too cool to associate with me. Pure inhuman ethereal wisp of my subconscious feathers wistfully the dream. Your fingers spread like spirit things that st

Fireworks burst like Dandelion heads I blow at the sky Wishes bloom in red

And gold drips through fingertips —coagulated sunlight— soft globs of me spilling out everywhere.

I’ve been standing at the threshold of things, hesitating and ruminating, wondering if the place I’m going is better than the place I’ve been, wondering listlessly if I’m at the edge of me. I push ahead only to fall behind again.

I want to bruise you like fruit, plump and ripe. I want to use you and abuse you. I want to chew on you, blood vessels bursting like raspberries, malice contorting my mouth like a bright red smear. I want you to squirm like an antelope might, thrashing, kicking, fighting until the end. And I want to drag you down and drag you under into my darkest place.

I’m neither here nor there. I feel instead. I feel that I’m far off like stars and cool night air passing through the window, breathing in and slipping out again, a hushed love affair with an imagined state, the feeling of freedom, the freedom of flight. I’m not a woman but a dream instead and I feel…

This black night, which envelops me—I cling to the shroud So that I may remain Awhile longer Unexposed Before pale blue light swells Through my window And announces to me that I am delivered prematurely To what seems to be The artificial glow of the incubation, Newborn Fragile and pallid I remain unaware of the life which looks on before me At dawn, my breath hovers like a kiss To awaken in me The silent scream, which declares To you, my world, That I am before you Awake and

PART 1: I’m not sure I’m the obvious choice. I’m not bold or powerful. My brothers were always more forceful than me. My sister was always more steady than me. I have small bones and a fainting reflex. Whenever I see blood I faint. I was shy at first. I took long to first start speaking and when I did I spoke. In. Broken. Sentences. For. Quite. A. While. I felt afraid of scary things or ugly things like spiders or darkness, needed help with checking pockets and shoes