[x]

Revenantthey came like phantoms;

oceanic whispers left me washed out.
those gossamer ghosts that lined
the doorways-- eyes in a constant
state of surprise as they reached for me:

needle fingers pricked, fueling
my addictions. they ached
for my veins, entangled like
the strings of my paper heart

and they stained my skin,
amethyst bruises in the shape
of recognition.

their breaths were the heavy hums
of a forgotten lullaby "one day you
will leave, and you will fade into a
virulent void, like us. you will warm
our icy bones, and we will love you,
like no one else can.

go back to sleep, little girl, we will
come again" with their cer

Origamipaper hearts
contract each time the earth
spins, making its way through
the aorta of space
and time creased,
my heart doesn't really beat,
it folds.

an attack that is massiveso,
here's my hair
and my knees and legs
and even some of my shoulders
and they are dressed in purple -
don't ask me why though
an artist told me
purple was dangerous
'cause purple is red and blue
and red is fire
and blue is water
and i am red
and he is blue;
it doesn't matter now
'cause
''we'' is not me and him anymore -

so,
here's your hair
and your lips
and your eyes, and just maybe
some of your fingertips
and you still don't have a colour
and maybe that's better
'cause
i'm a mess
and you're happiness

and you use
complicated words
like ''phantasmagoria'' and ''ephemeral''
and you use
cologne that smells like h

comatose. i never told you:
i hated the way you smelled
like winter, like
fog or listerine or
something long forgotten.

i guess i miss you the way
i miss brooklyn,
all thirsty for a song
i've never heard, pining for
a place i've never been.
homesick.

--

i never told you:
i keep your old promises all tucked up inside,
like bruises sleeping fallow
along my hipbones.
i promise i'll love you always, i promise
i'll fix the coffee machine tomorrow,
and if you let me,
i'll fix you –

well, you never were a fixer.
what you are is tired, and you never understood
why this fucked-up little town
unmade its bed, swallowed an

i'll hire mourning dovesfell to my knees and realized that i grew up always saying 'i.'

--
do you not find it selfish that i see myself
in those i admire? i pray in a white robe,
i ask for my halo.

it's a skin-cancer full-life old god who grimaces at me and mourns,
'child, you can't live a life worth shit
covering yourself, a reverse onion.'
he hiccups and falls from his chair.
god has breath that drives men back to their moonshine,
and he's living large in his blue and green bachelor pad.

my supplicant's hands burn at a god who is so vulgar,
and though he's not the type to say
'you only live once,'

maybe it's the shock value that signifies something:

i rememberi like to get drunk
alone
because if i'm alone
i can feel self righteous
ly angry at you
even though you
have been gone for years.

i bet you never think
of me,
i bet your life is fine
and you're busy
making someone believe
you're deep and
complicated,
troubled water
tumbling beneath
bridges.

i bet you don't know that
when people remind me
of you i collapse
like a star, inward
and curse
myself for being so weak
for being so small
for the salt on my cheeks
from the way that you spoke.

we were friends for so long
that i can't believe
how it all came out
in the wash,
and how unclean it still feels,
and how i'll ne

truth is, I don't wanna love you.Is it really fear?
Till my blood runs silver, pure mercury.
I know little of coherency.
-
Today feels like chalk and phlegm and pheromones.
I remain a retching mound of meat.
An undulating mass of muscles and organs.
-
When I thought of you I thought of flesh.
Sensation and numbness,
breathing while holding my breath
alive but always dead
-
I saw red, maraschino streaks.
Lines of flamingo pink creased across the surface.
Then I thought of flesh and blood and feeling
and for a second,
I couldn't hate you.
-

Is this fear?

A Lizard Tries to Court a RoseUnfamiliar Brunette who wears red sweaters,
were you to give me a chance...
I would probably greet you awkwardly
with a quick half-wave beneath my ribcage.

I would then adjust my glasses,
wondering if I was supposed to know you,
sweating at my hairline as I desperately tried to decide
whether or not to say your name,
which I learned when I heard the professor say it
while you were chatting at her desk.

I would stare too longingly at your face,
attempting to decipher whether or not you realize
I have no fucking clue of what to say. Finally,
I would muster from the depths of social ineptness,
my hands wound tightly behind my back, "Uh,
it's n

summergirlNow read aloud over here. Do give it a listen, won't you?
i. summergirl,
you are crowthroated and tumbling
through the aspen grove
hair on fire with sunrise, lungs
full of sky.
eyelashes like wildflowers
and every morning brings
a new spray of freckles
and a sharper curve to your collarbones.
the cornfields hold no shadows
for your lighthouse eyes
and there are no endings in that
surefooted smile.
ii. you have grown
so fast.
autumn finds you with broken ankles
leaning on an oak branch
and watching the skies.
crow to sparrow--you are quiet.
summergirl, there is peace in silence,
perched treetop,
fallen antlers in your hands.
you will come to mourn your deer.
keep them close.
iii. by winter you have paled,
and like the streams
your eyes have frosted over.
you feel the chill--
there is no need for sight.
summergirl, th

Though Afraid of Wolves I Seek Your Forest Hearti. My mother used to say
if you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go into the woods.
I never listened. I used to imagine
my blue winter-fingers through your hair—
a pack of wolves through the trees,
hungry and searching.

ii. These days I tend toward a kind of prophecy for my mental health.
I miss when you used to read the future for me.
I found the slow deliberateness
of your fingertips along the turquoise backs of my cards
soothing.

iii. I have begun to learn a new language
so that our hearts might speak directly to each other,
ventricle to ventricle, as they did once on my blue bedspread
(but not as I’d have liked them to

NostalgiaRocketing in wavelengths emaciated and impeccable.
Irregular pressure palpitating
artificial rhythm
heavenly cadence

Looking through kaleidoscope distortion
crystalline delusion
Prisms shouting shards of fragmented color
powered rainbow
chandelier pigment
Speaking to a snow flurry
those minty lips like
lemon icebergs
icicles and
ecstasy.

we are frozen. captured memory
"…there is no marrow. no calcium

golden afternooneverything is weighted
but not heavy,
down to the last glitter of dust
settled, it all belongs and
sits obvious, unmoving,
comfortable--still
but not frozen,
existing with no intent--
perfectly present, quiet
but for the hum of something,
a fan or a fridge or a
thought, constant
but not intrusive—
a certain slant of light
turns the floors to honey
and makes it seem like
measuring time is too busy--
this moment is eternal,
and sits heavy and warm
in your palm,
like a small gold ball.

planetary perspectivedid you ever stare into the sun as she was falling behind the horizon
and realize
you're the one falling?

could you finally assimilate, during her spectacular dive,
the wonderous speed
at which you're moving?

did you ever walk barefoot by the roaring, receding ocean
and ponder in awe
the distant moon's attraction?

did you ever observe great orion plunge into a forest
and mourn
when the hunter didn't find his way home

but stands forever in cold space,
while we, in our naïvety, just keep going
around

and around

?

Appetite Comes with the Eating1. The real horror of October
is the winter, the rising darkness.

It's said they caught him weeping,
heard him babbling about the steam in the snow,
the brown mass that had been a person—
his little girl, dead from the cold.

He ate his wife and daughters.
And when the villagers came for him,
he let them take him—to the tree
in the center of the square, where he hung,
discolored with frostbite and gangrene.

They called him Wendigo,
gave him to the spirit of the Dying Season,
and hoped that he would rest.

2. My ancestors had a word for his kind—
Strigoi.
They would have cut out his heart
to stop him from feeding.

OrangesIt is the language of citrus
that emanates from your pores

pulp and peel like skin--
to sin of unbecoming

of flesh solemn, praying
in pangs of scorching sun

like deep breaths of water
from sinking eye to lung

divulging in secret
these round irises

in blind spots between rooms
and up against the wall

the mad rush of time and tide
drowning in deliverance

and you think,
divers die in nostalgia

come morning you salivate
at the sight of oranges

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Believe the coils of the smoke-fanged snake
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Empathy
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(close your legs,
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(Look deeper. Creatures creeping beneath pupil.)

It.
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"No these are your teeth,"
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(yes, but I don't want to destroy it.)

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[She.
She kept claiming to be me, and her smile of soil and tulips was so naturally beautiful. I couldn't help but believe it.]

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Diabolical Joint Stupid human race. Always ignoring all inanimate objects just because we lack the ability to speak or move. Well, prepare futile humans, for your ignorance is ending today, and I am the one to stop it. Yes, I know it isn't going to be easy. I mean, I still can't move on my own, and the talking thing isn't going so well either, so how will I do it? I'll demolish them with the only thing they need me for: smoking. That's right, I said it. We all know humans love to toke it up. When's the last time you saw someone turn down a perfectly rolled joint? I'll tell you when. Never. So you see, it might be a long shot, but I have the up

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pretty little wishes
like
catching snowflakes on Christmas.
completely unique freckles of lace
melt like sugared-butter on your tongue
the snow tastes better than any gift.

these are my secrets

quiet shy whispers
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lit with just enough light
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my words rare diamonds

I've never glimmered
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all my quiet whispers

then who knows
i could do more than glow

Hobos Housed In Urban Decaylicorice lace lullaby
        cooing
               minty-mouthed melodies

from my feathered, freckled
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     flightless fright
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             It.
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Seeing Red Again

by ~EmaciatedandEpitaphs, Jan 20, 2013, 12:39:41 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

She kept saying something about cardinals, yammering on while I continued to study the swaying cattails, watching sunlight and wind smear through the reeds. I heard her mumbling something about beauty and youth and color but I couldn't quite hear her. I was captivated by a flaming sunset, observing the fire trickle through rippled lake water. Seeing for the first time an effervescent inferno dancing on ever-distant hills. I yearned for heat.

She told me of blood: moist, hissing, exquisite.
She said it was fire; a delectable, searing ecstasy.
"It feels like roses, maraschino cherries, iron scalding across your tongue."

Head down, shoulders slumped. She glared through a veil of strawberry blonde hair, delicate freckles glimmering beneath the sheen. She then noticed me standing beside her, holding a razor and smoking a Marlboro Red. She scrutinized my perfection, glowering at the silken ivory softening my features, at the sable tendrils spooling over my shoulders. She stared at my crimson lips as they glistened.
It was then that I asked her about blood. She stiffened, eyes becoming violent, ferocity tensing into her expression.

Leaking from me. Seeping rage.
Mine, it's all mine. This wrathful glowing ooze.
I am lava, liquid, molten.

She spoke of it as if it were release. "Sometimes it's like apple-soda, rubies fizzing beneath the skin. Your veins will capture carbonation and for once you'll be bubbly, a glaring scarlet sparking lightheadedness between images of vivid rouge. It's slackened muscle slathering greasy pigments between pomegranate tissues;
open wounds
carmine tattoos.

Oh God...
I'm seeing red again."