labyrinth.

.-- .... .. - .


white.

and white, and white,
and my skin
has no color
anymore.




but the half black crescent moons
of dead skin
cells
beneath my fingernails

tell secrets of dust and
god's breath and
ten by ten walls that go

"break me, break me"
beneath my chin, cheeks, and
chafing lips.


my cot can barely hold my head
in the nighttime, daytime,

dreaming that
keeps us all awake.



tapping out the secrets of the living
and how they die quietly, in the dark


can't convince me

that metal bars
smell anything like the sand
when it's raining.




.-.. .. --. .... -




i find a place of rust and damnation.

they tell me to call it 'home',
but i hear things like the sounds
of spiders walking;

the floor is wet and when it stops,
i think maybe
they
drowned.



no one tells me my name anymore;
they say some little girl
screamed it too loud when i was
being bad.


she's gone now but i still
don't have a name these days

they call me by the sounds i tap
into the walls.

the man shaking in the bed next to mine
hears them and
understands.


the lightbulbs flicker and i tell
them it'll be alright, i sing them a lullaby
and they go to
sleep.


i hear grown men crying but
it is not for the
spiders.





.-- .... .. - .






I hear a
humming-bird's throat catch
in this florescent forest
of different shades of

the absence of color;


he speaks into me of
pretty red dresses on the day of rest
and silky nylon ripping through
greedy palms,

the horrible twang of her speech
as she stands up in an oak lined room

and points him straight to hell.




I know the burning place.


it was where I kept my guns safe
and nestled between her woolen coats,
business suits.


and the high heels, muddied from
a night out
she
thought
I didn't know about-


how her hair shined that night,
in the glow of the lamplight.


the motel sign ringing clear and true,
and begging me to shoot.






.-.. .. --. .... -






if it not for the mocking birds
and her finding peace in the burn of her throat
when it was filled with
liquid asthma,

maybe you wouldn't have felt
so alone.

she wouldn't have stumbled in
at three a.m, ripping at her crucifix
and  paying your rent
while you sat up with the t.v
muted



you could've kept playing your
guitar strings
with all the wrongs chords
and she'd look at you like you
were a child

who didn't understand how
you can love something
wrong.


but i know how it feels to be damned
for thinking you have younger hands
than you
do.








did she pray in mary's name

or did she pray in yours?