to the girl with saturn for skin:

God, how I miss the subdued glow of the History Channel sign behind our heads on that girl's Harlem rooftop. It is so fucking cold up here, without our bulky winter coats, but we've got our alcohol to keep us warm, and me and you are chain smoking off the side of the roof, screaming "I LOVE THIS CITY." this city where our faces blend with everyone else's on the F train, it's so wonderful to keep to myself. And back in Brooklyn, that loft bed saved my life when my drunken appendages collapsed all over it after too much dancing. or in tiny dorm rooms, we have to squeeze to fit and our backs remember in the morning. in that screaming city, i am so happy to stand next to my best friend, noses and lungs and stomachs full, eyes wide and laughing until it's too early to stay awake. Now in my own city, sleepy and sorry, i need her to control my head again. last night in the comfort of an abandoned stairwell, i cried my fucking eyeballs out, but she was on the other end at 3AM to knock them back into their sockets. i love her, and i love her city.

Here, this city makes me sick. The broken brick sidewalks are so silent when i drunkenly stumble home at 2AM without her or the necessity of a metro card. And in the mornings, this city welcomes you too easily into it's sweet arms, it's so kind i can't control myself. my hands are worn and bleeding from dragging this pen across paper, and my legs ache from walking as fast as i can from his apartment to mine.

I'd cut my feet open to get back to that school where we chain smoke and fall asleep at 6AM if i could.

damage control.

i am stoned, and worthless. today i will fill my head with smoke and drown out all my common sense while you leave me here to invite her inside. this is damage control.

i am stuffed to the brim with absolution like a 15 pound turkey on thanksgiving. in a few hours i will fill my nose with more common slander and go shot-for-shot with the tallest kid in the room, but my eyes will be searching the floor plan of this apartment to find you. 'cause i'm wondering if i run off with this redhead girl, will you be there when i come back or will you be undressing her in the dark? my throne has been capsized, and here i am, seeping into the grout of this tile floor, i am a mess of hair and pills and from here you look like someone worth saving.

that mattress belongs to me; my intestine are the coils of springs, my brain matter is the stuffing, and the sheets stretch across it's perimeter like my skin. i will bury myself inside the plaster walls until i am ready to come out and let go.
"You are holding on because this is comfortable."
Yes.
But i will run every red light to get back home. this city, my hands. every night i fall asleep in a bed too big for one, and every waking morning the sheets bind my hands and feet, and when my ankles struggle to break out, i am gagged back and restrained by the pillow case and the dreamy color of your bedroom eyes, i must suffer in silence.
"TELL HIM"
i don't expect him to understand.
this morning i flew off the fucking handle and into the grime below. face first, all the clouds above me change to rain and then to shine, and my eyes can't handle the strain of all the cumulus clouds. i am hypnotized by how cheap this is, you can't love me and you won't turn around to face me. i am owed that bland honesty.
this time, i've gotta peel off all my tissue and blood from the closet door where it splattered, and i'll put it all back to together peace by peace. because when i fly solo, i fly so high.

baby, did the cocaine get the better of you again?

when i closed my eyes, my eyelids played me pictures, little moving pictures of girls like my sister. that's how it used to be, before the trap she fell into; it was an accident. when he came in, he brought in all of this snow, and after that all i saw was dark. and my sister never shivered the same again. our parents didn't really notice, but i remember them yelling about what they heard in her bathroom. dad was drunk and mom was just trying. i just had my plastic trucks, & when my sister opened the door, he opened up his stomach and she climbed up through his small intestine, then his large, and swam all around in the bile of his liver, finally settling back down in some big artery that you need to survive. i don't know if she's come out yet, but when she does, she told me she'd call me from the pay-phone on grant street. she told me once when she was living there that his eyes looked like gemstones from Africa and his hair was like a panthers. "purple?" i said. but she told me yesterday his eyes looked more like dirty seafoam and his hair felt like mayonnaise. when she caught him with his nose in the flour again, he told her that it was her fault, and she believed him, a little bit. but she wrote me a letter last night, it was addressed to me. it had my name on it, in her big block letters. like the communist manifesto, it said her hair's gone grey and her skin's fallen off, so i asked her, "baby, did the cocaine get the better of you again?"

I want it, it is you.

"Somebody put me back in school, I forget everything. I used to know how to leave the boy behind without having to watch him go, oh."

I am so very confused, so very uninspired, so very uncomfortable. Without a plan, I've got half the mind I should. Without a kiss, I've got half the confidence in you I should. Without you, I've got a better chance. And lately I'm so tired that I can't even see.

6:15 A.M

i'm wide awake and you're barely listening.

was my body not the skeletal version of your own?
how i wish i could write like i used to.
if you'd like me to stop trying to lose, i will not.
perhaps i can't do it 'cause you've inspired me less,
because i have not yet been hurt.

is it masochism to wish for pain, if it means creativity?
perhaps i am wrong: if i take the reins we will surely fall.
i only want success for us, but i only want you to destroy me.
this battle is hardly worth fighting for if i can't make up which side i'm not.
like comfort, you spread over me and keep me quiet.
like indecision, i will not make it.

everybody here's got somebody to live for.

a reminder of how much you have given yourself: this is your inspiration to change, to breathe how you once did; in harmony with mind. like pen to paper, take this like a promise to yourself; you will go backwards.

can't you stay here?
i cannot.
do not trust me.
i will not.
fall hard, or fall fast?
i choose isolation.
keep me close.
i hardly think i can.
cry.
how?
what do i do?
you leave.
is that what you want?
hardly.