my immune system is M.I.A. 
i lost her somewhere back in the waves
after the walls caved in,
gravitating toward each other

in a foreign place, now
i miss her, california, the sun and the sand and the sex
under helicopter search lights
in parks, behind trees
bare ass slapping
while the moon watches
and we make love like planets make stars

it's too damn cold
to strip down to our bones
in missouri's winter breeze

we must settle for a bed
a car, couch, floor, wall
(walls)

and hope to god they don't decide to move i(o)n.

i dream of long pearly teeth
fangs like his words, arranged
in perfect symmetry

they draw blood like the sunrise
against my skin
reminding me of california
and the pacific tides,
how they consume
all negative thoughts
but leave you
capsized on peril sands.

i dream of ways to catch the moon as i fall
out in space, dissipated and raw,
afraid of those long pearly teeth
made up of his words, piercing two perfect holes
in the side of my slender, olive neck.

they draw blood.
(i'm alive)

bare trees blanket the skyline now, stretching
thin limbs to mars
waiting for me to spew something wondrous
but i refuse

i refuse to tell you what you want to hear
because you beg and plead for it
because you say you need to hear me profess
something lively, something hollow
about the way your face shines
at night, with the covers pulled tight
around your neck

they say to live like you're dying
to lie and lie and lie and lie
but have you been with the wasting?
you won't find wild life there,
only sad depressed expressions
and eyes pleading for false, fiery words. 

instead, i bring you biased honesty
about the way your cerulean eyes (always cerulean)
make my heart palpitate
in ways doctors can never understand

and how your lips move to form dreams and sentences
made of golden thoughts, philosophy and brilliance

how you keep my feet moving
every day i can't bring myself to meet
another damn sunrise.


(this is all you get in 90 seconds... had to stop before i was finished =P) 

i try to write their story, our story, my story
the one about death, love, and war
illusions of the mind
controlled by the heart

i wait for the words to arrange themselves
into something spectacular, but they jumble
into a mess of hope and letters
smeared across another wasted page

and my characters look at me with confusion
as to why they are no longer speaking, feeling, changing
why i now hide myself behind 90 seconds
of pointless poetry
instead of bringing them back to life
before they die again. 

so i lie to them, to quiet them, giving promise
of one day going back and carving them into something beautiful
memorable, something real and alive

like the pain i feel inside, every damn time
i sit down to write
their story, our story, my story
the one about death, love, and war
the one that reveals how

the mind believes what the heart wants it to.

some nights my mind is too fatigued
to give the creepy crawlies much emotion

they try to scare, scare, scare
as i lie perfectly still and watch
his paper skin turn to hair and teeth and mean
mean sounds
as my lungs implode into a mess
pandoras chest
chest
chest
chest

of repetitive failed attempts to keep
keep breathing,
echoing
past present future
grasps on what could be reality

but in the morning, it's just me and lost dreams
sinking into swollen bones and yellow, egyptian cotton sheets.