atomic

sepsis penetrated skin-too-thin, it bruised & blackened from the inside-out. brain under attack, prescribed pills & quacks & carrot-munching docs as the demon stained my vision in a color only i could see. years & years to the giving sleep of depression, to screaming down the street in self-immolation, to shocks & shell-shocks & the dust of the so-called normal. promises encased in crystalline shells with dead crustaceans locked inside, eventually my head rose above the water & my eyes readjusted until i could see the horizon.

childhood spent writing to the ghost in the dream, the ghost in the machine, this odd loner child who could not speak, whose face hurt to smile, who crashed through wooden floors on a daily basis in efforts to find the other side of the ground. this weird little girl who cared not for imaginary friends but for imaginary worlds, for worlds in which she belonged, for universes upon universes colliding into one another, colliding into themselves, colliding into nothingness, creating new life forms, new paintings, new poems, new songs, new cells of consciousness,

this bomb inside my brain

that exploded into stars.

victorious bones

days of rain. the gray gurgles and chokes.

veins of god bleed out into soil. the drey

drifts and floats. i am pulled into

a screaming black void.

the cold is hard and sharp and

slaps me in the face. we holler and howl

in animalistic rage.

i am terrified and i plunge forward.

i plunge forward and i am terrified

and i am joyous

and alive.

death in the distance

makes a hard, wet sound. a deer, mauled by coyotes.

all that remains is

a column of spine. vertebrae grounds down

into wet soil. becomes safe havens

for beetles and seeds

and celebratory feasts

(everything is a sacrifice).

violent, tracheal rhythms. acoustic guitar SLAP

i do the savage work of god.

i bleed and build myself again.

source

the sky is a deep, dark violet-blue. it is that moment right before the sky turns solid black. the stars are cold & sharp. i see every constellation. the crescent moon hangs low. there is a slight wind. every now & again, piercing chill jolts me alert. i look at the hands. they are softly illuminated by the light of the moon. the grainy sand beneath me glitters a dark gold. here, in the desert, i am alone.

i move towards the boulders and the touch the rocks i know so well. i feel their cold hardness against the warmth of my hands. their grittiness, roughness, scrapes the softness of my skin. i feel their decades of erosion, caused by winter’s unrelenting storms, summer’s unforgiving sun, the merciless decades beating down. i admire these rocks, unyielding & strong, for the ability to stand alone while silently enduring anything that comes their way.

steadily, i climb these rocks. i have the night vision and the audacity of a tigress. i leap before i look. here, i am primeval. a timeless truth has awakened that civilization likes to deny. released, i am an animal. i climb higher and higher as the beast that i am.

at last, i reach the top. mountains upon mountains of boulders surround me from all sides. slivers of moonlight brighten jagged edges. the land is submerged in darkness. india ink spilled by the hands of time. the light of the stars is generous, and kindly guides the way.

deeply, i breathe. the air is crisp and pure and fills every crevice of my being, and awakens every cell. planets rotate and collide on their axis. undiscovered galaxies seek to be found. all is breathing. pulsating. i am a note in the universe’s song.

portal

tiny crack. a rip in the sky. a glimpse

of what life might have been like

had i been nourished

with empathy, acceptance, and

love.

the opening is small, but glimmers softly

with promise & song.

cedar, sage, & lavender waft through the air,

a ghostly embrace

that can never truly hold.

my daydream sings in half-compositions.

old sketchbooks torn by arthritic hands, songs of hope

lost in the ether. but were they not whole?

cross-hatched layers, graphite haze,

representations of something larger

than they can ever be.

symbols of the things. though never

the things themselves.

this liminal state

between sleeping and waking,

i can only remember

fragments of the dream.

symbols etched into a rotting slab of wood

surface talk, drip drip drip

the leak that never stops

when you speak

it is like Chinese water torture

your personality is as original

as a print from the Pic & Save

safe and predictable

pretentious and hackneyed.

copies of copies of things that never meant

a goddamn thing to begin with

the more copies there are,

the more meaningless they become…

the sheets become thinner and thinner.

the masses who choose comfort over candor

(fucking disgust me)…

i want to take this truth serum that is my saliva

and spit it directly

into the mindless, spinning, gaping holes

into the mouths of the masses

i want to lean hard over the edge

i want onlookers to be terrified

i want the wind, sharp and cold, to cut my face,

my hair, to split the layers between Self and Other.

i want to be swallowed by the unknown

i want to lean so far

i fall off the edge,

never to get back

give me no forgiveness as my pupils lockstep

with the hard, glittering eyes

of a reptilian in rage.

gratitude

heavy black curtains, holding solid night.

memory insulation.

shadowy figures at the foot of the bed, rubbing palms

(anticipatory and vile).

i am kept warm by the breath of hungry ghosts.

radio waves breaking, vanishing castles

of glass and sand.

the dissipation of smoke

into hard, jagged edges.

deep sidewalk cracks,

unnoticed and broken.

//////// the path does not continue.

sky of cephalopod ink and failed escapes,

i punch my fists

through the air (thick and wet

as fever-dreams).

reds and greens, blues and golds, punctuate

the night. gleaming mouthfuls

of colorful mistakes.

plastic idolatry,

bushy evergreen trees,

and reindeer that fly

at seventy-two miles per hour.

there is only one santa claus

but i have seen thirty-nine of them tonight

and six of them were wasted.

i remember

//////// him.

barely, but i do.

sadly i wave

back to someone else’s past.

i promised the most alcoholic of the santas

that i would write a poem

of gratitude. so here it is.

when i was a baby

my mother broke me

instead of held me.

dropped me a few times,

but to her credit, picked me back up again.

eventually.

we shook hands

and agreed to make the best

of a difficult situation.

now i am almost forty

and am only sometimes filled

with hate.

years & years & years pass.

i grow like tiny fans

atop death and decay. atop boundless fields

of bioluminescence, atop the gaping mouths of mushrooms

(hungry and waiting) swallowing visions

& eating seeds.

i am one of many

made in the image

of promiscuous light.

+Poems