The best one night stand I've ever had.

I make love when I put my pen to paper
And I arch my back in ecstasy
As rhymes spill out of me
From somewhere deep within
Where lyrical intentions penetrate
Regions of my soul that I can’t understand

Caught unawares in your sidelong glances,
We tango to the death,
Lips locked in verbose gestures that translate
To physical ventures far beneath the carnality
That any sort of human flesh is capable of
Only unholy gestures that demons wouldn’t dare cast
Over the lesser of us mortals

And I am not afraid to betray you if I’m ever locked in Room 101
Staring back at unemotional logic and the hungry, thrashing rats
I will not be afraid to let loose and let my wordy regurgitations of
The intentions that I’ve written in my head spill out
Screaming “Do it to her, not me”
Never would I dream of harming myself to save
Some temporary rapture I find in the release through verses incarnate

There are horses neighing and kicking in my head
As I struggle against reins you’ve tied me up in
Elaborately intricate knots in my back that you’ve put
From too many nights in too many positions
Blinders on so I can only stare straight forward
As your lips form a seductive circle
Repeating the process over and over and over again
Bodies caught in the caustic ties
Of sublime literary inspiration grinding on each other and panting

Your moans are loud as you slip into trances worthy of prophet’s ears
And they make me feel invincible as I’m scribbling madly,
Writing words that are indecipherable
My mind is spinning as you violate my aural senses,
Leaving me in a synesthetic high
Where I can hear the colors you paint in front of me with your airy fingertips,
Leaving traces of moonlight and your back arched in ecstatic revelations
Because of the utter power you have over me
You enthrall me as your lips press forward into my ears
Whispering promises of redemption and fame and acknowledgement
That yes, I do mean something to you
Craving your touch more and more as I beg you,
My dearest muse,
To never leave my side,
Clinging onto your arms and taping your wings down
As if physical bonds could hold something so intangible

Your velvety hands imprinting poetic escapades
In my mind have no fingerprints
Because my problems leave no evidence at the crime scene
I cradle you like sand between my fingertips
Watching you slip and slide away carelessly
Leaving me at dead ends
Unable to finish my thoughts

And I fall into the discord of words jumbled together making no sense
I lose my eloquence, and if you’ll allow me to say so colloquially
You’ve left me with the literary equivalent of blue balls
Tempting me with a potential masterpiece and then vanishing
Before stealing one last, hard kiss that makes my ears ring and cymbals clash in my head
As the marching band gets back into logical formation
Leaving me without the capability for literary expression
My rapturous muse,
My poetic one night stand

pomegranates and laser beams

The lyrical escapades you send me on devilishly seduce me,

taunting me in a journey into the underworld

rivaling that of Persephone’s ecstasy

When she discovered those six pomegranate seeds,

Those six glittering, tempting rubies

Cracking pure joy between her teeth in those little gems

And savoring the scarlet juice that flowed down that perfect ivory throat

That Death himself dared not grasp


Save for six months of the year

and your brown eyes are boring into me from the audience

as you sip pensively on a concoction spiked with alcohol

and my god, it feels so good to know

that you could break me any time you hold me,

your words biting into my skin

your scores breaking my heart

that make me love it all the more when you hurt me

verbally slapping me around

the way that martial arts fighters

break their fists to make them stronger


I’m freaking out

Because the hallway lights are turning off one by one

Until it’s only you and me standing there

and the carnality that reflects in the lightest blue

that I’ve ever seen in my life is absolutely revolting to me

as you embrace me in the vilest of violent kisses,
our bodies traveling epic journeys entangled within each other
that would have put Homer himself to shame


your words worthy of sonnets that Shakespeare couldn’t have composed

You entrance and enthrall me,

But I refuse to be seduced by promises you whisper as

We’re curled up together while you try to assure me

That chivalry and honor and justice do exist
In a world unfamiliar with even the terms

Because they’re more than one syllable long



And we gyrate to the sound of gunfire

Shooting down the bad guy on screen

As you create a new villain in my head,

Haunting me days past your leave

It’s cute how you sheepishly ask me to moan your name,
as if you need some more assurance than the blood
running down between our thighs from
too many nights in a row too roughly
and honestly, I may be a little to drunk to remember it
momentarily blinded by the influence of alcohol
in my mind like the constant pulse of light

That shines in my eyes too early and too clearly

As I stare into the LED of 5:00 AM
It's getting late, and really, I should leave
and your bleary eyes are boring into me
like the laser beams in the bad science fiction movies we watched into the early hours
Seeing right past my lies when I say
that no, you haven't hurt me, and no, I haven't fallen for you,
and yes, this is purely physical between us two

I really should leave now because waking up next to you
is the best feeling in the world
so I must remind you that my love for you, is, after all, on a diet
Walking out the door as “I reclaim'd my buzzard love, to fly
At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.
Now negligent of sports I lie,
And now, as other falconers use,
I spring a man, swear, write, sigh, and weep;
And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.”

6/3/89

Once, I lived as a statistic, never bothering to polish the gem
That could have been – would have been – should have been
The life I led in my wildest daydreams because they’re so glorious and impossible
We tremble to even think of them
Dreams that were sparked and sparkled while holding your fingers delicately in my palms
Staring into brown eyes that twinkled in a dimly lit room
Flickering remnants of candles that blew out in the wind long ago when I found my Tristan
Eyes filled with tears he'll never admit ever dropped down from azure skies reflected in amber gazes
Gently bestowed on me the way heartbreak sometimes flutters down from above
Grazing you ever so gently on its descent
Whispering soft promises of tender landings on down pillows

And I angrily demanded you drink to me
This ill-fated toast for two amorous lovers
That could never bring themselves to admit they adored each other until death drew them together

Remember
When we foolishly held hands during grade school?
Your hair was self-consciously spiked up perkily as if it was out to prove something to the world
And years later, you'd confess you'd never have taken that chance
Even though we both knew our feelings for each other
A flurry of fury and hatred and spite and … amorous thoughts
You're gone now, maybe forever, but you can still call me Isolde

And if I ever get a chance to speak to you again,
I'd tell you that I want you to grab life like it’s the last breath you’ll ever take and you’re choking
Because it could be the last time you'll ever be able to again
I mean- we only get one chance consciously at this sort of situation
So take advantage of the quiet in the room to finally let it all out

And find the girl that makes your heart stop breathing
And that lump in your throat start beating
That makes you want to recite poetry that puts Shakespeare and Donne to shame
And you’ll know she’s the one
When her face plays music that creates complex melodies that haven’t even been invented yet

Because I found my Helen days ago
When she wrapped her face in streaks of liquid gold
That surrounded mahogany eyes that glowed and glowered in the starriest nights,
Ruddy cheeks, summer's radiant blush
And laughs that pealed in the peaks of auditoriums
But since my feeble mind isn't capable of contemplating her in anything but a rational fashion
I resort to cogitating and comparing her to the most melodic sound waves
Forming perfect harmonies inside of me when she passes by
And grants me a whiff of her scent that sends me to my knees
I’d jump into oceans and swimmingly crusade across endless seas for a glance at her beauty
And I would take her by force like the last chance at life I’ll ever get to live
In the dreams she’s created for me
Gasping and holding onto that refuge;
That safe place she makes in her chest where the heart should be
Sheltering me between bosoms that hid lungs that never knew of sighs or gasps or breathing

And I will not be discreet
I refuse to bury myself metaphorically
Beneath lyrical escapades that hide my emotions from you ever again
So please
Because I know somewhere that you’re listening
Don’t be afraid to take chances you’ll never have again
Because tomorrow you could die in a car crash
The way it happened on May 5th
And every other day and you never even bother to realize
That it could be you
So I refused to title this poem the days of your death
Because this is a celebration of the life you led
That the rest of us could only wish to emulate in our wildest dreams
Chasing after skyscraper worthy intentions
Because metaphorically or literally-

Breathing but not thinking is no worse than a coffin
Being but not living no worse than being underground

And I know, because once, I lived as a statistic
Letting uncut diamonds in the rough slip out of my fingers
Becoming the quicksand numbers entangling our lives together
Digits after the digits grasping our hands
Interlocking fingers calculating statistics on abacuses that could have been our hearts
Dancing around the hopes we never realized
Because they’re so glorious and impossible
That we tremble to even think of them

a love letter to indie sub-culture

This …
This is a toast to indie sub-culture
and the entire teenage population
that tell me it's okay to sleep with people
if I justify my shenanigans through talk of
sexual liberation and post-gender philosophy
that transcends social boundaries
while the phone is ringing off the hook incessantly interminably
with calls from the boys that look like girls that look like boys
and the shrill screaming of the alarm bells in my head going off won't stop
so find the light switch
turn it on
if just for a moment
so I can see the exit through this mess
and find some light at the end of this tunnel
of regressive insights into my inner psyche

but "why would you speak to me that way
especially when
I always said that I
Haven't got the words for you
all your diction dripping with disdain?
Through the pain
I always tell the truth"

Now there's an anthem worthy of a mobile phone ring-tone
that trendy hipster teenagers can use
to answer their cellular while sneering righteously,
digits grasping technology while fingers dial numbers
to casual hookups while pretending
it means something so much more

and I'm too busy citing references to pages and pages
of analytical essays and indie music
to prove to you that I know more about
Proust and post-structuralism and obscure artists
that really sound like metal scraping on asphalt sometimes
than you do, because I am worried that you will judge me
if I say that it turns out I do like the shit that plays on the radio,
and no, I don’t care that it subjugates women because it’s CATCHY,
that I shop at American Eagle because I
am a middle class consumer whore
and proud of it

that you will deface me on account of the fact
that I recognize your self-righteousness
built on Darfur and social awareness
is really just a facade to make you feel better
about being white, rich, and privileged
in a modern pop culture built on liberal guilt and reverse trends
and hiding behind nebulous and esoteric ramblings
about how the big Other doesn't exist
and what we really need to do is embrace the fact that every action we'll ever take is inherently culturally imperialist anyway
so ... we just shouldn't do anything

But don’t get me wrong,
I don’t mean to cut you down,
So I've been busy pretending to be more in the know than you,
and whoring myself out to hipster sub culture with
pretentious, self righteous, liberal, ivory tower post-modernists
and guys I've known for less than 5 minutes,
and any girl that is willing to make out after a couple drinks
and academic publications that discuss
Palestinian Israeli relations and
Chinese militarization and
Japanese re-armament
to show you really,
I am truly revolutionary and open minded and knowledgeable
but perhaps you're right
that none of this is who I really am
But I figure I can hide that if I use words so big
You won’t understand them
I mean for god's sake,
I can't even pronounce nothin'
Pass that Nietzsche?

So here's a toast to all of you
that know what it's like to be dumb, scared, and privileged
in a world where things like having a place to live
doesn't mean that you won't continue to bitch incessantly
about how your hair doesn't fall the way you'd like it to
swoop dramatically across your face

This is a toast to the middle class youth
Who are disillusioned with the fact that they don't have troubles
This is a toast to those of you who have it good

charlie

You once said that my words were volatile to you
Not volatile in the sense that I am
Explosive, or expressive, or overly emotional
But evanescent, like a puff of smoke
And I thought it was funny that my words were so unique
You had to create a new definition that didn’t exist before for a word that had one
Volatile
That my words were volatile to you

But perhaps I’m dwelling too much on the little things,
Like your pseudo-intellectualism
Or the way you nuzzled my neck so gently
The way you found yourself wanting to see me
Because it's funny how you hold claims to chivalry
In your left hand and hypocrisy in your right
I can still hear your boots clicking down the hallway
But my cowboy rode into the sunset without me
And there will be no knight in shining armor in the morning


Volatile,
You call me volatile,
Overly explosive, or expressive, or emotional
Overly melodramatic or even mediocre,
And I have no justification for the things I feel
Because I missed the memo you sent out about logic overriding emotional impulses
Forgot to forward the email notification that you've never cared for any of my poetry

So peel back the layers you never bothered to deconstruct
Because you’re hidden between the lines that I wrote up
That you can antagonize yourself trying to decipher my words but ignore
The meticulously crafted multi-faceted and maybe even malicious
Three minute love letters to you that you’ve never bothered to read
These volatile expressions of emotion that you never bothered to find out existed

And I am colloquial and I am complicated
I am refined and I am un-adultered
I am that conquest you brag about hooking up with last night
Or maybe one of those that you have to cover up

Because I’m naive and I’m too young to understand
The complexities of the world that you tell me about
But don’t get me wrong, I am most definitely well-cultured
because I can recite John Donne from the back of my head

And I am melodramatic and over-emphatic and too much for you to handle
And I can spend hours and days and weeks
Listing off all the different traits I am
But my words will never be the definition you attributed to them wrongly,
Evanescent, or momentary, or transitory
Volatile

writer's block

I haven’t written for entirely too long
Staring at blank pages that form the
Thinly veiled outline of your face
Taunting me as you juxtaposed lyrics with writer’s block

And, when I lay my head on your shoulder
You smell of all things that are warm in the world
Of comfort, and belonging, and
Puke in the trashcan from a hangover

‘Cause somewhere
Between the too few words spoken and too many rum and cokes
We found ourselves able to express emotions we displaced on each other
The way that a poem never comes to you no matter how much you beg it
Until it strikes you in the head with a flash of sudden inspiration
And you’re shaking until you can wrap your hands around a pen

And wrap your arms around me
The way you swore you’d never let go
Because we were here and now
And you were scared we’d never be again
That you’d
Lose me when morning came

The little flash of humanity that sparks a line
That starts the cogs in your brain
Forming a three minute ten second piece that spills my heart out and
Returns to me in the form of your scores

Your numbers dialing home in my head
My sage
My saint
My spell cast over me
That you would bring lyrical inspiration
Showering me in eloquent promises of some magical effect on my verses
Swearing that my sentences would flow
And my diction would be pristine
My serendipitous muse painting me romantic visions of a quixotic saviour
Just over the horizon that never quite arrived
Because morning dawned on two scared human beings
Who really never knew each other
(‘Cause we were here and now
But we won’t ever be again)

I haven't found myself
I have not
Found myself
Amidst all this chaotic jumbles of verses in my mind
Searching for some penchant of truth and liberation from you
From the ghosts in my past that race behind me
Pounding on the doors of closets where skeletons still rattle close to my heart

I have not found myself
Searching for a replacement for you in my past
For you in my mind
This reality of you I’ve constructed that you’ll never live up to
Relying on other people to solve the problems I can’t deal with

I have not found myself
Wanting to see you as badly as I have tonight

Staring at
Blank pages that formed the thinly veiled outline of your face
Taunting me
As you juxtaposed lyrics with writer’s block

I am

I am the cigarette that you lit
The glassy night where the wind bit your face
As you inhaled everything that could have possibly been bad for you,
Culminating in amber embers
As you told me that you were leaving for the frontlines of war
For the real world

I am
That girl you leave behind
Before you leave for the frontlines of war
Of the real world
I won’t wait for you, I won’t
I promised

And you never bothered to realize
That cutting it off for my sake was for your sake
That numbing emotion doesn’t mean it goes away
It’s just displaced

I am
The daughter you left at home alone
The adulterous wife

And I mean
You can’t really blame me
Since you were never really there anyway
I just wanted love
And I found it in selling myself

I am
the news anchor at 6 pm
That broadcasts destruction and genocide
And statistics of your deaths and political scandals
Calm and cool and collected

I am water wars
Being fought on the wrong side of the map
Where Israeli children play on the side of the wall with lush grass
And Palestinians starve of thirst opposite them

I am graffiti on the bathroom wall reading
Free Palestine,
Israel, now only $29.95

I am
History written by the winner
The conquerer
The imperialist

I am
The comfort woman you found in the war zone
Give me food and shelter, I’ll call you john then never call again
Because there is no obligation to care about me, is there?

I am
A pathological liar
A living satire of the earth
A walking contradiction

And you never bothered to realize
The complexities of my chronological mistruths
That I fed you to cover up
My own insecurities
Was the same intricate cynical web of different personalities I weave

I am
History reworked
In the eyes of the marginalized
The left behind
The poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden speaking for themselves

Alternative modes of thought
Of the modernity and progress that exists beyond
The mainstream

I am
The America you never bothered to realize existed