open

let me open the body

red along the lines of my lung

scoop my hands together

to the axis of your heart

as the world tilts sideways

when i move in to kiss you

let me open my body

lock my fingers within 

the shallow indents of my hips

bend forward at the waist 

and breath slowly

through the pain and the beat

and the kiss of it all

let me open your body

straddle the width of your hips

run my fingers through your hair

and breathe deeply

almost enough to meld you to me

so i will never have to let go

when sleep approaches

because i can count the beat

of the moments until morning

trace the lines of your jaw

and scrape my nail gently

along the curve of your ear in a shiver

of delight

and by the end of it

i am gloriously happy

the body says

i can trace my fingers over

the black lines, the swirl beneath

the skin now that i have marked

myself, the lines of my body

permanent.

and the body says whoa,

surprise, to the face in the mirror

as the shadows connect

down the right side of my skin,

pale enough from the end of summer 

beneath the light

of the small bathroom 

as i examine my reflection again

and again and

again, in hopes to achieve understanding,

of what i'm not quite certain yet.

still, i think i am beyond blooming now,

ripe along the sides of my ribs,

fading shadows of the marks 

you've left on my neck

as i stretch, raise my arms above my head,

and flex the beat of my heart

in the mirror, ink flashing

sporadically as i twist and turn

myself together and apart simultaneously. 

for i still exist, together, apart,

tattooed and bare, bruised

and healing in the lines of the mirror.

and i quite like this reflection.

Waking

Where do we go
Upon waking, slowly as the eyes crack
Beneath the withering of our bones
The elastic stretch of blood singing
Muscles crying
Tear ducts dying
All ground to dust upon
The rising of monday morning
Sun

Still
I know I've lost something

Dark God

I will love you
in all the essence
of a dark god,
chest bare and breath shallow,
counting the gaps of your ribs,
an uneven earth in the garden
of your body, trapped beneath my fingers
as I raise my hands up the ridges
of your bones, trace
the soft curves of your lips,
the grin of a black smile
in your teeth, press my mouth
to yours and sigh
as you bite down,
hard, blood a vivid dribble
down the curve of my cheek
and a fresh stain across the front
of my shirt
until it reaches the axis
of my heart.
I have been waiting
for this and with every second
I can feel the pulse of the blood
beneath your skin,
the scream of your cells
and the gasp of your lungs
left crawling across my body
in punishment for what
I have done.
There is very little choice
in this matter,
so please, kiss me,
let me lay you back along the sheets
and begin my final descent
down with you.

Damage It All

Shh.
I'll drift you quiet in the night,
kiss you back upon the face
of the mountain,
dry your tears and lie,
saying it's alright.
But you, your lips
carved in stone, eyes sunken pools
upon the surface
of the water,
you smile only for the pleasure
of someone I've never met
and I know
there's no chance for me,
to pry the corners of your body
open, lick you down
and wash the memories of another
man away from you.
So I bite my tongue
and the blood runs dear, sticky
and sweet, a sugar
coating to my words as I try
to slowly strip away your defenses
and damage the two of us
beyond all repair.

crossfire of these days

I carry this body in pieces,
the creak of my joints
as rhythm,
the collapse of my lungs
as weight,
the snap of my neck
as finality,
my heart black ashes
in the crossfire
of these long days just waiting
to be over.

unfortunately

07/19/12

unfortunately,
this is not how i would have it.
i want your hands
on my body, teeth snapping,
ribs creaking as you pry
me open in a form
of benediction
against my sins.
i want no whispers of love,
only your arms open
to catch me, to punish me,
to mold me into someone different
from who i really am.
remake me.
for i cannot handle myself
this way any longer.

Watching You

06/03/12

I can remember the way
I watch you,
eyes darting away to not get caught
as I check you out,
scrape the lines of your body clean
before rising up to meet your eyes
in a panic,
for I want to touch you,
kiss you clean,
straddle your lap, lace your fingers
through mine and allow myself
to fall forward into you.

Learned to Hate

You’ve learned to hate,

starting with the slow

painful quick growing

of your skin,

stretching a betrayal all across your body,

because you’re no longer a child.

You’ve learned to hate

this cage you’ll never be rid of,

for it’s too big,

too fat, too wide,

not skinny enough to swallow your soul whole

and eat you through from

the inside.

You’ve learned to hate

this blood that’s always flowing

when you least need it,

for in the eyes of anyone else

to you it says you’re dirty,

you’re sinful

now that you’ve split

the essence of life upon the floor

and devoured the fruit of heaven,

because you know

you can never go back.

Open

My body is open,
curved wide along the pieces
of my spine,
heart failing as the blood
pulses weakly through my veins
until I'm left with nothing
but the faint beat of my heart
a dull echo in my skull.
I'll ask you to fill me,
hands fluttering along the sides of my ribs,
fingers tracing the ache of my lungs,
the strips of my skin blood ribbons
trailing down my clothes
as I wait to receive your love
and end the emptiness
inside me.

Broken Spine

I’d hope that you’d lick me back across the pages, scrape your teeth along the base of my spine, words floating past the muscles of your shoulders, ink spotted upon your lips in the delirium of this long and inspiration less night.

            

I’m always waiting for your hands around my throat, warm in the memory of this silence, your voice muted against the heavy pressing petals of the sleep that floods this night. And I stumble, cross and scramble through the dark, sliding out across the floor, blankets tangled, pencil, paper, anything I can find within my grasp, naked in the stinging need not to let it go.

           

Because you wake me at inopportune moments of the night, in the back alleys, the corridors and emptiness found in education, the silent seconds beside the traffic lurching forward, your hands tangled in my hair, my body heavy, my fingers burning and your voice a whisper in my ear that I’m about to lose.

            

I am about to lose it.

            

I’m scared of this moment, for I need to be blindsided, pressed against the shelving, trapped between your body and the wood, your lips a feather across mine to muffle the cry. For I am nothing without you, the gravitational pull you carry, the smirk of a smile stretched tight across your teeth, ready to bite, smash me forward, burry me under the grave of my own talent. You are always ready to kill, shred apart what ever love I give you, in an attempt to show you care.

            

Still, I’ll take what I can get, the cold traces of impact you leave trailing across my body, the realization that I can no longer escape, no longer go back to what we were before.

            

For I was your lover long before we knew it.

Red Sunflower Desire

I can remember
the first time I split
this earth open,
locked within the blooming
garden of sunflowers that
formed the upstairs bathroom.
I told you first,
almost begging, asking about
how I should tell our parents.
You dragged me downstairs
and pushed me forward,
spilling forth with the news,
as we all sat there awkwardly,
my small frame I was already beginning
to hate; buried beneath the blue folds
of my bathrobe,
underwear pressing tightly to my skin
as if to brand me
with the red secrets of shame that
I would carry throughout
the years.
I checked off day one immediately,
beginning a regular cycle
of forgetfulness and inconvenience, for
I can no longer count
between the lines in my memories,
a stack of pads sitting
on the polished wood of the
kitchen table as I rush out the door,
breaking apart once more
as my cells and priorities
rearrange themselves again.
I carry no quarters
and spend my days hunting for
toilet paper, stealing pads from under
the sink at other people's houses,
cursing this body
with its ugliness and the blood
it oozes.
Cursing the unjust actions of the
unaware public
as I stand there ready to cry,
staring at the shelves
of a Chinese supermarket, every time subtitled,
debating and counting my money
because I need to have enough
to last me for meal money
till I make it back home.
As I stand there,
yet again no change, no machine either,
only my trusty friend toilet paper,
crinkled and uncooperative,
as it bunches up when I try to go
back to enjoying the movie,
As I lay there,
surrounded in the filth of my own
making, staining my bed,
my safe zone turned into battle grounds
with the blood trailing
down my thighs, out across the sheets
and deep into the mattress.
There's nothing left of that
fateful October day
as all my fears and desires
were confronted by the flowers
blooming across the walls
to match the red blossom
on my panties,
and I know,
this feeling of self-hatred
needs to stop.

Island Blooming

This holds a different type
of greenery, pooled limped between
the scrapes of the pen and
arched between the branches
of my childhood,
as I lay back, caterpillers crawling
down the brittle sides of my ribs,
the mud sliding past my lips,
falling forward into the expectations
I formed on the fields, singing
while skirting the memories of previous days rain.
Yet when I close my eyes,
or run my fingers across the veins
in the bark of the tree in what
is now my city, choking back the mist off the lake,
I'm overcome to write the colours free,
spill the green forward and
spread it across the flesh of the page,
streak my tongue through the dirt
and subjugate myself
beneath the twisting,
pulsing, sadistic love
of the island in full bloom.

Descending

There are these moments
when I find myself locked back
within the confines
of your embrace,
your arms a dead weight slowly descending
upon the curves of my throat,
my fingers locked into
the strands of your hair falling loose
across our faces
as the sounds of breathing
grow louder against
the stretch of this moment
as I pray for you not to let go
before you end it all.

Scream

I want you to listen to the
scream trapped beneath the surface
of your skin,
feel the bubble rising up into the sky
and burst with the realities of
this relationship ending.
Because, because I'll lick it clean when nobody's watching,
simmer in the sweet, kiss back the wounds,
seal it all up while trying to block the sounds
of dying
that echo through these compartment days.
I want you to realize, I want you
to taste the bruises on the underside of
the white picket fence,
drink the dirt down, swallow the garden whole and
pluck the feathers of this dream apart and cook it raw,
Because, because you never know
the sensibilities of emptiness dying,
your body crying the tears that come with
the blue pain of nightmares,
while the voice grows softer still.
I want you to listen to the
scream trapped beneath the surface
of your skin and
realize
that this is the end.

Forget You

This is the moment I'm afraid of,
the slide of the train derailed,
my breath a white gasp
against my teeth
as I run my body down into the sidewalk
in an attempt to fling myself
into your arms
before you shatter away from me.
I have the blood of your heart
in my ears
and the beat of your body
on my tongue
as I attempt to kiss
our relationship away from my skin,
peel your lips clean
from my hair, gag and swallow
your scent below the level
of conscious memories
of this day.
I'm crying and praying
to forget you.

The Lines of this Moment

I breathe beyond the shallows
of the deep, my arms open wide
to catch the current
passing through my skin,
traveling along the lines, creases,
veins, pumps and gears of my body
as it slowly winds forward
into the reef,
the incredible light
along the lines of this moment
a faint trace along my shoulders,
your breath a bubble against my lips,
the split cry of this second
a burst behind my ears
as I dive forward into the calm
of the water,
and then...
nothing.