Conversations Among the Ruins

Yeah just shut up and bop
your head to that stupid kick
drum where nobody gives

a fuck about what parts
of your life were lived and
died over in the past.

Crawl through prysmic
glass shattered sand -

cover the mess with a white
napkin or a six thousand dollar
suit paired with a dumpster

of a tie. Find the ocean

or don't find the ocean. Just
be mindful that the tides
match the rhythm of your
breath and both

are coupled with
the magnetic pull
of the moon that so many

believe they've never
touched.

Don't be afraid
just act positive with a
drama mask for those

sinister candy eyelashes.
Stop considering

what you've already
overcome and brush
your hair like it's all a

fairy tale and there isn't
a world where the world
is for sale on Ebay.

Are you getting
what you deserve?

Or are you getting
what you deserve?

How hard are your ears
pressed?

Where is your
mouth?

The neon glow
of the subway

makes me
dizzy. There are
too many

colors like
putting colored

food into
my body will
make me that

color. The stress
of eating things

like chicken,
because of the

life of captivity
the chicken lived/ no

no meat is so
much easier

then the stress
of my job.
Of the word
love.

Better than the
stress of rent
and

insurance,
license plates,

a fire alarm going
off six times today,

four ambulances
called on separate
occasions,

caught in the
midst of
seventy grand and
a man on a

war path.

I sit straight at
my desk. Charming
the hell out

of anybody passing
by, so they just
keep
walking.

I allow
zero

to see any element
of phased. I just

think of what
couldn't have
ever been

and walk out
of a Subway

in a panic
over a

sandwich.

I was in
electric
blue lizard
boots

and a lime green
tinsel wig,gold

mirrored
glasses,

black bathing
suit and a

six yard shawl
of gold and
aqua sequins.

Walking
around
the Loop

in
November.

"You are
Stah." He would
hiss at me.

He taught me
to put Christmas
lights in

obscure vases
and he taught me
how to be a

mannequin for
the wedding
dresses he would
stitch up

to my body.

I never
asked him
so he never
told
me.

We just hopped
those city
streets,

a cloud of
perfume and
laughter and

a desparate mis
grip on
reality. He

was one of
the only
to walk those

alleys with
me. Day in
and day out,

we would find
windows to paint
and books to

read and he
would paint
my nails

with lightning
bolts. He knew I
collected

vintage compacts
and would always
slip a new one

in my pocket
where he would
first crack

the mirror.

"If you line
your drugs
on these
mirrors, you

will mess up
the time of which
they are from.

It is better
to break time
then to alter
it with chemicals."

I never
asked him
so I

know why
he never
told me.

But I saw it,
him dying.

Right before
I calmly

turned
and slipped

out of the
room.

Don't get me
into your heart

I am glitter
rat poison that

gives out
one thousand
vouchers for

pain like rainy
days. In the clouds

Where is my mind/
fuck. Wait. My sottered

wrist hurts
on this key pad.
Because I am
glittery

rat poison
magic. It took me
six spellings

of poison
to spell it
right.

I am too
much throw me
a wedding and

throw me up
into your own
rotting flesh

in the morning,
when I promised you
I'd only be

expensive powder
that covered
your flaws. As long

as I'm thinner
I guess/ so yes.

I can't sort my
head theres
a sort of a

gold brick of
fear to
sell off in

that. To the
candy lipstick
in a vintage
store

where I fell
into the shelf

and shattered
every container

to the floor/
are you worried?

I don't want anybody
to worry for fucks
sakes

I've lived through
so much shit that now

I"m finally living.
In a dress made of
un lit

bottle
rockets.

That might take
me everywhere

or to nowhere
but under

the dirt
coating my
boots.

So pass the
match and
pass me

out in comic
strip bubble gum
stories of

my
truth.

I actually
need to leave
the house

right now.

I don't know
why, but I

love
you all. Each
and every
single

one of you.
And myself
and my life

and all of those
hearts
that I watched

bleeding
my glitter
too.

I smile in his
direction, my
heaed cocked and

turned to the
black
and white
checkered
floor. I'm not
sure
why I

woke up in
Barstow
last week.

Sick and
obsessed with
tattooing an

all seeing
eye
to my left
wrist.

I think maybe
I need a fourth
eye and it will

be the first of
many pyramids
of ink
on my

skin.
Tonight I
just smile
at the floor,

thinking of
every possible
thing
I won't be able
to do

because of my
wrist. Antoinette
always says

"You are
going to fuck
up the dresses
you will wear

someday." Maybe
it's reckless
abandon; who
knows.

But I am happy
in this tattoo
shop, in the
neon lights

wearing old
dusty
cowboy boots

and a

white
feather
boa, having
a day

where for
dinner
I
marker

colored
paper plates

with a child
in a hot pink
wig. I am

on the
edge
sometimes.

In a leather
chair, feather
boa, and a
gun

burning
my smiling
flesh.