Someday you’ll understand.

Every leaf of inhibition mirrors the veins of your hand—

You compulsively tear strands of grass from the ground;

Since you were a child, you loved its lack of sound.

.

All I ever wanted was clean breaks and milkshakes.

But instead you told the waiter, “We’ll just have some water, thanks.”

And then over linguini, you told me how you felt;

You killed all my dreams with assassin-like stealth.

.

When tears come in streams, water tastes like moonbeams.

But water can’t feed all my fabricated dreams—

I need chemical strawberries frozen thick in my veins;

I need your ibuprofen stare to kill all of my pains.

.

High fructose corn syrup coats my soul, love,

It trickles my insides forming sugar stalactites.

I lie to myself while doing makeup in the mirror;

I’m lying to you now between bites of white rice.

.

Goodnight.

“She’s in a war of consciousness,” he said aloud.

He pointed the camera to the pile of limbs.

The image screamed “moderate hit with a sequel.”

The love-limbs grinned and turned to her side.

“If I hide my surprise, will you tell me how it ends?”

So he mouthed her last words from his lips to hers.

The teen years consist of slowly coming to a realization that the world is not as fair or as conquerable as you always thought it was—-and that’s a terrible and beautiful thing. And you realize that Newton was right, and that with every terrible, terrible thing that you come across, there is a beauty that matches its terror, and with each beautiful thing, a terror that matches its beauty. And you guess that despite what anyone says, or preaches, or believes, the world can only be accurately described in two simple words: terribly beautiful.

When is it the proper moment to cry?

Indecision creeps from my well-trained eye.

Goalkeepers aren’t only on soccer teams, love,

So watch my body’s rhythms like I’m

Manchester United.

New York City fucking scares me, but it makes me feel alive.

I don’t know much of anything. I often feel as if I’m regressing, fading into an oblivion negative enough to depolarize my every atom. I don’t know why. I don’t.

Yet whenever I’m in the City, I feel a physical shift. Something palpable. Something real. There is consequence to every step. Dreams are at an arm’s reach. So are the demons. So are you. But at least you can finally see them.

I have never before felt so insignificant. So absolutely present. So powerful. The suburbs shower you with the moldy grandeur of significance since birth, an empty baptism. You are special. Sing the gospel. Write your goals in the blanks provided.

Significance is a separation. Postulation, not protein.

To be insignificant is to be a part of something. Whatever it is, you’re in.

Influential.

The City and the person take turns playing canvas.

And everyone, every one, separate from path or sphere or goal or flesh, is always in motion. The spirit of the City is that we try. We all try.

We recognize the power of the City and ourselves. And we underestimate neither.

I’ve been trying to find a way to keep that feeling, for me to invoke it at will, so that I may go about my days with a sense of power.

I’ve tried snapping twice at inspiration, hoping to thread the senses.

Maybe there are no threads. Maybe they’re everywhere.

Maybe that’s the same. Maybe that’s beautiful.

a train without sound is hard to derail
(how can something so beautiful fail?)
I tongue the scar of your rough-boy love
and find nothing but consonants there.

I recall once wishing for a heart of ice
or a bomb-heart, a heart-myth would suffice
like school chalk, lessons strangled my lungs
it is summer now, though; I no longer care.

my demons, they twirled in espadrilles
on my tender skull; I needed purple pills
yet I opted to sleep in the sharp snow, bare
til I was clothed in crocus and clover.

I’m patient when I want to be
a patient when I want to be
impatiens when I want to be
study me, study me.

I’ll fall for old books, Barthes, or roses
for baby’s breath, I won’t
I’ve been spiral-ing since my first breath
study me, or don’t.

a train without sound is hard to derail
(how can something so beautiful fail?)
I tongue the scar of your rough-boy love
and find nothing but consonants there.

sunlight through plastic blinds
is God’s unblinking eye
dust falls on cratered lids
half-tempting a half-sleep

i found oblivion
in every negative space
and the apocalypse
is a sun-flooded classroom

sunglasses on and I feel nothing
an insomniac’s trick
dark swallows heart
in the seams of a blink

solar//lunar//mental eclipse
lettering’s the only difference
print is poison, print is poison
hope lies in dissolving contrast

solar//lunar//mental eclipse
lettering’s the only difference
you blink, you lose
don’t blink, lose you

they’re called mind games

because your mind will always

win

when your instincts are the definition

of both morality and

sin

you are the dark place in my mind
the corner I revert to when my synapses sink in time
crush me and caution me and garnish me with your care
planning dyed hair is a strange affair
an affair that’s never a thought, but a symptom
pull the knife out of your back while I play the victim
are you tracing your feelings, reasons, meanings with a blade?
miles of Niles in your system left to untangle in the shade
of a chemical, hereditary, primary reaction-function
truths dripping from the salty-sweet eyedropper venom
of your eyes veins eyes veins eyes veins eyes
lies brain wise brain tries brain, synthesized
Synth is a religion and nightclub floors are the pews
bass is the gospel and flashing lights are the hues
that currently color in the skeletons of blueprints
you drew for your dreams, defined old reality with
tongues in others’ lungs doesn’t make for an answer
but I hear your prayer, girl, and I echo your seance
bodies twisting in rhythm with anyone who will feel us
people, sweat and Ciroc are all liquids, what’s the difference
searching for a Fountain of Amnesia to heal us