Trigger Warning: This poem includes depictions of assault and may be distressing for victims of sexual abuse and/or stalking.

at least, not in this instance (a poem)

Foodlion parking lot, I remember
the first time my mother told me
I didn’t have a home
Not with her, at least, not with
pill bottles stacking up like
stone sculptures, multiplied
by a bathroom mirror and
I wonder why I always
have to leave

There may be a box in this dumpster;
then it was search for food,
Hardee’s midnight drunks always left a sandwich,
No, I say, I’ve no issue getting dirty
No issue with a three month bender of various fixes and vices,
No. …

a poem about chronic pain (inside and out)

Sometimes, I think, if I just lay still enough, quiet , motionless , the pain won’t find me where I sleep. Well , external pain (of course). Inside, I’ll forever be an empty echo clanking about a steel hall. I’ll always feel it rushing out, redacted, like a breath, lost in a vacuum. Depression is a wiry, black hound that caught my scent long ago. I am hers. She is mine. Two drops of the same anima I know, memorized in the fibers of my being, the sweet perfume of her musky…

a poem

Pluck, baby, bend me like one of your guitar strings I say, I never seen someone quite like you — blue, them baby blues, you got a fire that got me hot, bothered; I can count the breaths on my neck I can feel the circles around my head, whisky spin — I am fifty shades of fucked up on that face, your steady pace strumming me soft, softly — your body is jagged smoothed by my hands I don’t need your name to be your altar reverenced by smoke, burning light me a cigarette breathe in slow…

a poem

There was a time when I
hated my sister for blowing
the candles out sooner
Now, each March, I recall
shared birthday parties
never worth attending:

Not in my father’s eyes
nor my mother’s, again
I remember what’s it like
to have never been wanted.

I trace the ebbing of a
hypothetical: I wouldn’t
be here listening
to a ventilator.

They call it meth, we call
it escape, but how many
pills do you actually need
to forget your name?

One- two- three- god, it’s really not enough; you need a cocktail, sip, shoot, how many lessons are…

a poem

I do not want to converse right now.
I want to be angry.
The bottle is filling, filling up
Accumulate until I finally explode.

BAM! POW! BANG!

The guts of my thoughts

SPLATTER!

Change not content
for the sake of measure
I have grown faint from adapting

My eye is in the future
but I feel a failure now
I’ll be building sandwiches
at thirty-three

My head, my chest, on fire!
It’s too much pressure, too much pressure.
Like squeezing air from a beach ball

I simply need to deflate

diffuse

Not enough air within, but too much…

another love poem

A voice that blends
from cool and quaint
to bold and brave
Soft and smooth
in all he speaks

With cigarette in hand
hope in my pocket
I finally felt
his ribbon mouth

His hands found
the small of my back
and the nape
of my neck

Black, purple,
whisped locks
shades of grey,
sun-licked leather skin

I grabbed his clothes
pulled him in
consumed his air
then breathed
out
smoke

Moving, shifting,
fleeting spark —
he is a vapor
on my spine,
a faded flavor
on my tongue
he evaporated
quicker than
he puddled

He is…