There’s no need for the world to be a circling vulture

-We’re already dead

The coroner gave us shirts and skirts

To flaunt while we lay here

So, let’s imitate dolls and dragons

Breathe fire while we lie with silicon

Line our lips so the audience is pleased

With the production

We want claps to last when the curtain closes

Make our caskets out of cliques

And finish it off with a bang

Flash grenade everyone’s faces

So we all just see ourselves

And the person next to us

Eyes magnetized to get fixed on

The little picture

So, let’s dress up, because

Funerals are fun if you’re faking making

Living overrated if you’re not playing the game too

Because we don’t like to be excluded, but exclusive

This—is reality house wives mouse trap

-Shoots and splatters ironically blind us

From knowing we came from the dust

Still trying to

Rearrange molecules to make us look like models

Mix up our particles until our

Dead bodies become the mud in murky waters

Let’s teach our daughters to swim with us because

-This world is a circling vulture-

So how about we just lay here

Let’s look good while we can

Because these coverings are for coveting

The coroners are tempting us with

Premeditated garment and garnish governing

With militia force they

Form our complacency towards torching the old fort

That kept us forward

With help we guide ourselves off a

Doggy-dog world course of action

Turning bed sheets into battlefields

When guilds turn fashion to faction

Fighting for victory in self-prophecy projects

Peace talks become compromising

Walks of shame into the next year

Through weeks of rebuilding

Standards we already milked

When we don’t know what our footing is

And we think its just getting our

Foot in

Pasting symbols on our bodies and faces

To replace that naked feeling

Of open flesh showing vulnerability

Alerting our susceptibility to circumstances we only encourage to encourage

Our nervous system to substitute ourselves

With someone else’s body

Before the fashion world bursts again

Coughing out the phlegm in society’s larynx

That’s covering our vocal chords with compliments

And insults

Before knee-highs come back

To cover bruises we got when we lost

Armor on our thighs

Our hearts will remind us

To stay shallow

To not eat our words

But only dig deep enough to bury them

Ribbons

Are worn like wounds around hair

To duplicate surrender flags while

We plead guilty to flash grenades after agreeing

To obey the punishment of not playing with everyone else

-The defendant

Dresses like no one ever said she was beautiful

So she made up her fiction with make up and

Flamboyant lipstick

Hot chicks make her jealous

So she tries to walk like them

Talk like them

Wanting to be remembered by

The guy she saw in between classes

That doesn’t

Even

Matter

She copies the peers she saw getting saucy while

They clamor about getting drunk

Getting fucked

And getting screwed up

To make herself believe she’s lived a little

When she didn’t, she only

Just limited herself to eye candy

And talking in gibberish

We haven’t had anything great to say

Since we gave self-conscious a negative connotation

A Gordian knot of conversations

Runs from the back of my brain

To my frontal lobe

Chaining me from believing I can

Legitimize reason

When recognizing the “bagness”

Instead of the bag

More often then not

As in, “what’s the meaning?”

Over-“what’s the matter?”

When I answer the latter

I only think of things that have the

Illusion of an answer-

Little details in molecules

In contrast to the mechanics of how they

Actually work

To sustain the Music of the Spheres

The universe has been spinning my head since

I heard it tell me stories with no end

Or a beginning

Only circles running in circles

The Spheres turning

Until something goes imperfect

-

And it works the way a trail derails-

When something happens

Unlike the way we planned it

It’s usually thought of as a failure

Discarded as a defective figure causing profit loss

We shouldn’t treat reality like Bernoulli trials

Lingering over what if’s

Or call time unfair when it doesn’t stop

That’s simply

Changing its title to suit ourselves

The introduction of style to life

Tailored to fit our perspective

It is

What it is

How many times have I referred to the term “primitive”?

We’re making more problems

To stop our minds from halting

Progress being productivity

Productivity being processing until it is not what it was

We are factories

Humans

-

I only now began to fill my belly

Feel it getting fuller while

Fetters foster rebellion in my gut from this

Gordian hell of a knot spreading south bound

It has got me talking

-

The question is not

“What”

Its “why”

If everything is only what you think it is

Does that mean evolution can escape?

Wait-let’s rephrase this

Well what makes the clock tick?

But what

Makes it

Do that?

Click to another time

When primal was primate

And we were all “bumpin’ uglies”

Carrying every possession in hide wraps

So human

So vulnerable

-

I know we always talk about mammoths

And Lucy

But look at yourself

You’re lucid

Communicating in intricate ways, but

Who knows what “loose” is

We just call it that so we don’t have something else

To confuse

It with

Like men

And women

(Girls still grow like they used to)

Made of flesh and bones and

Soft spots

We’re not as humane as we have been thinking

Should we embrace it already

Or stop eating meat?

I’m not meaning to jinx things but

I don’t think the Gods will follow us here

We made them

And we can make them stay

Faith

Starts

In the brain,

From the psyche

To the physical

We all still grow

Like we used to

-

Tell me

What’s the point in a species

And what really is the absolute value of meaning?

Like what’s the point in a diet if you’re just

Substituting the same vitamins for

Fats and the back of your eye lids

We are all dominoes

Being flicked

Our essence is there, but the action is fleeting

-

A dog

Chasing his tail

Won’t try to label “failure”

It cannot occur if there is no

Expected value after the catch

You just did

Or you didn’t

Who cares how you did it

We’re living

Life is a lawless breathing space in nature

It’s a lot more broad then laughing

Like dreaming

The possibilities are endless

What you imagine is a mirror to what

You’ve been mimicking

Imitation

Is how babies learn

Turning humans into symmetrical shapes

Some will break, but we all work the same way

Some will just play differently when faced with nature

That doesn’t make it right

But what is right but a wing?

This far off thought of not being in existence arrests us

Not conscious

But calling out for a God

To come calm us

Because we rather say we cannot see

Then say a piece of wood through a saw

Creates saw dust instead of souls

The only common sense we use

We neglect to reflect on in times like these

-

The desk moves because you push it

You can think all you want

But the action is actually the catalyst

-

We are restless

From our brain

To our gut

My dad asks me why I got a tattoo and pierced my nose

I tell him

“I gotta look at myself everyday,

Don’t you know that gets boring?”

It’s between a manicure and Netflix

Maybe I’ll be entertained

I’ve got five times as many books as I can read

Still trying to learn German

-And when I eat

I like to season everything

So I put a story on my arm

And metal in my nose

In hopes that

Maybe I’ll be complacent this time

It’s hard to see that coming when

I’m suffering from

The cricks in my neck

From looking up too much

I am Astrophil for my constellation 

Maybe I’d be complacent this time

If I looked through life

Living in a telescope

It looks a lot less like a cluster-fuck in the cosmos that way

 I’m still not pin pointing 

What important 

I think it’s due to

The universe being made up from irregular steps in a pattern

Like the one I took the first day I walked

Or that time I started to spell words out

I thought

I was born for this

 _

Now I can’t count how many times

I’ve written this poem then thrown it away

I’m merely

Making lines so I can erase them

Tossing apologies and words back into the dictionary

Where someone can better serve them

-How many times

Did I write this before I decided:

“Maybe this is good enough”?

I’ve got to stop asking myself

It’s almost saddening to see

How hard I try

Mixed with how little it looks

But it keeps me from having to lie later on

If I’m asked:

“Ya got anything big in your life lately?”

-Maybe not in a while

But I’ve got a telescope

I could show you how small the stars look

So we could both be deceived

 _

It’s interesting to how easy it is

To make ourselves think we’re somebody

When we

Are just bodies

A shell

And there are billions in the ocean

So ask me:

“What makes you stand out, Dani?”

 _

It’s the form I’m taking

From a raging sea

You can read these ripples like each wave leaves a parable

Over powered by a crash

-It’s the sand dollar

That isn’t actually worth anything

I know you’ve seen stars shooting

Or the seaweed crowding all your sand spots

But did you ever think

Maybe they just wanted to get out?

You’ve got me,

And I’m wondering 

Where my heartbeat went

And everything is not what it seems

When your hearts been spent

-Give me an hour 

For all of your dreams 

An hour

Oh, what do you think? 

Am I asking much?

Crimson just needs to know when to stop.

He doesn’t

—Stop himself 

There is no break in his apathy

And seems gradually

More complacent 

To slur words 

Instead of clearly speaking

While brushing the sandy 

Texture off his tongue 

From building a tolerance 

For callousness

—He’s forgotten what soft pillow talk is like

But know he’s too 

Smart for this

But can’t control his lungs,

Or his impulses,

Or his love.

He’s alienated

But the point is

I don’t think he ever gets lonely

Yet still believes he’s alone in everything

Even in his home

And his faith

In his own coil

….

..

I’ve heard 

In a little room

In his chest

There is an alarm

To remind him what

Time he’s in

But he,

Likes to snooze

Every morning

Instead of moving

And drinks his coffee slowly

And only smiles at her 

When she talk too much

She noted this,

Because Crimson never knew when to stop her

Or give closure 

Or when to wake up from 

Indifferent daydream feelings.

…

..

Knowing him

Is seeing red

-The culprit

Snatched by the hand

Of a convict.

They’re not finding a point in 

Irony

When it both 

Heals and hurts

.

They were a wound 

To a walk

Slowing all progress 

She said,

When she rubbed her feet

Against it, it felt like friction

But split like a paper cut

From cracking skin

Before letting it settle

-Their cups

Overflowed with their mix of bad blood

For letting it run

This way

For so long

So, she hasn’t had

A thing to look up to

Since her beguile 

Impeded her spinal cord

Consequently, 

Her head is constantly hanging 

To face the ground

She looks like if you mounted

A painted masterpiece 

Backwards on the wall

-Like when a face 

Is no longer used to display

How you feel 

But how your posture 

Reflects on how you walk

Reflects on how you 

Got that limp leg

In the first place

Reflects on when

You guys started acting differently 

..

..

Crimson

Treats commitment like religion

He

Stays the hell away

But time to time

Likes to entertain the 

Ease in ignorance

And ideology being 

A commodity to

Reasoning with the masses

On the subject of stability

But has no rational

Reason in being with her

So this,

Unfinished,

Un-ended

Piece of shit policy 

Of leaving doors 

Half opened 

To presumably be unlocked 

If decided on to come back

Is a trick

He uses

Unlawfully

And this,

Is where he leaves it 

It’s funny,

I’ve been starting to think 

Habits are my way of finding some stability 

-

The relationships with my vices

Has long since told me

You cannot simply fix a mistake

By reciprocating it

But by replacing “X” with some other value

My vices-

Them-

They parade on my back

Bearing weight, but making me unconscious

To the emphasis my mother put on

Knowing when to wear shoulder pads

-

Please, tell me

How to wipe up blood drips with gauze 

When every time I try patching wounds

They bleed through onto paper

-

It’s unfortunate,

That showers don’t wash off delinquency

I’ve been dreaming of hanging all my faces

On the coat rack inside my door

Just to say I’m finished wearing them for comfort

-I remembered there was a cause when

I realized

My bedside table is full of empty promises

From being caught up in 

The lightness of speech 

I put them away at night so they

Don’t keep from me from sleeping

-

Catharsis, my dear, has been sneaking into my bedroom lately

It’s been scaring daylight into my night terrors

I cannot distress this any clearer

-

My mouth

Has acquired the stench of silence 

From vomiting up eggshells

Empirically, 

This means I should not eat what I walk on

Or tell you only what I am fond of

This quiet conduct complex is

Irking me to release some sliver of perspective 

-

Since I am finding it easy to stand where I am

I will say this:

“Tell me a stone has never been capable 

Of comfort”

And I will show you the wailing wall

I’ll tell you enthusiast will return to the rock

Because they know it won’t fail

And in the event that it falls

They will rest assured visits 

Were not in vain

-

I see it shows

You cannot claim anything

By simply planting a flag in it

But by the essence you create therein 

Attempt to slide your skin over every crack

Encompass the whole monolith 

And breathe in

Everything

The fillings

The feelings

And reform yourself

Gretchen is taking an apple

The tree, flourishing

And she, wandering her eyes

Had something fixed in her vision

The crow, 

Sitting on the branching thoughts of her conscience 

Suggest:

“Apples are not drawn to you,

They are obeying gravity,

And if they did have voices-

I still don’t know if they would speak for themselves

-But you can just tell the ones that are dying to fall.”

Shake it off, Gretchen. 

She’s been wondering,

What it would be like to lean

Slowly-but surely-

Over her third floor balcony 

And just——fly

And why, some of us still decide to

Walk across this rock we call Earth

Tracing pathways blazed years….and years ago

While everyday, 

Someone leaves their problems on the ledge

For someone else to manifest in

Did we start to labeling as a way

To make us aware of concerns for

-Blindness

-Cancer

-Failing

We’ve been playing pictionary with our addictions

Drawing out every clue of what we could be

(This has become a pissing contest)

These things are not deficiencies

They are instances where we lack what others have

-Like discipline

And mythological immunity

She can’t even stay on the same track anymore

Gretchen, your beliefs are

Constantly wading in the shallow

So weary of encompassing waves

When you could just believe  

For one moment,  that your feet can take you anywhere

Use your internal locus of control 

To pull yourself into more than just an ocean-and-

In the event that you begin to sink

Chin up swiftly, Gretch

Because you will be drowning in the most 

Undelightful of demeanors

-Surface every emotion 

To know what it’s like to be [exposed]

Cherie, nobody can hide their humanity 

And to try is the same pool of suicide 

You are dipping toes into

I ask only that not strictly you,

But even the lonely need to

Try to fight instead of 

Flying off the third floor balcony-

And if you thought praying helped

I would secure a rosary around your rib cage 

And wrap doctrines around your chest

To show you

Only your own reasons can imprison your beating life box

And

Your own spirit is your beloved entity, not your enemy 

-We are as valuable as diamonds that are mined 

From the filthiest depths of hillsides

And muddy, drying river banks

We all came from what seems to be nothing

She’s on another page again

Gretchen is still skipping through chapters 

There she goes speed reading 

She didn’t study herself enough to know

A plot, is not always a grave

But her mistakes that rise and fall until the resolution 

-She relates so much to the tide 

By D.Swagg

I stood civil by your side

For 12 years

Before I knew there was a war

No one could pull off wearing religion like you do

Putting on rosaries like they were jewelry

Squeezing every bit of life out of the beads

Nuns making vows of celibacy in their nunneries

While you

Sit in a box taking confessions as if

Hail Mary’s were being sold for raffle tickets to heaven

I would pet your dogma

But it always shed on me

So much to where I couldn’t see my own thoughts anymore

Covered in hairs of hypocrisy

While liars thrive in the heat of glory

I’m not sure if this is the same story I started out reading

It was years ago

Father, I inquire

Are those just Halloween costumes

Or are we really wearing orange jumpsuits?

Daddy, I don’t think the stable life suits you

Do you remember years ago, you said:

“I’ll always love you”

Then said the cause of death would be me

I didn’t mean to drive you crazy

You should know

That I faked it that time I prayed in tongues

And if I had no more breath left in my lungs

I don’t believe I’d walk through fire

I am carbon, not a pillar of salt

Who else dare not exalt thee?

These beings you call demons have been rummaging through your things

Scaring you into believing you’ve seen them

It was years ago that I wanted to paint you perfection

When you lied and said I could do anything

Dear Jesus,                                                     

I was wishing for something better than Winter this Christmas 

 Homie trust me
Nothing is worse than knowing your beautiful
But your treated like an ugly duckling  -Tech N9ne

What inspires me?

Drugs,

They inspire me to

Be wild.

Make me

Eccentric

Drugs

Scare me

They

Formed me

Into me

After

Drugs

There is no better feeling

Than drugs

Being stoned

When its sunny outside

Speeding up

When everyone else

Is slow

I am

superwomen when I

Take speed

The world becomes

My playground

When I

Turn on

Tune in

And drop out

I am

At large

(2009)