step one: create an atmospheric barrier between yourself and others, fill it with auric spikes, like the black fence encirling the haunted house nobody wants to go near. become the whispering voice in the hallways, become the creak in the staircase, and sink into it.

step two: disengage the emotional counterpart in yourself, be the intellect or be nothing. be air, undisturbed. when they walk through you, only be still.

step three: do not be tempted by the scattered sweets they drop behind them to reel you into their cage, do not eat what they give you, do not be hungry for anything, do not crave nourishment where it cannot be found.

step four: do not fuss about your hair, your skin, that machine you are in. exist simply and softly, do not turn on the lights in the morning if you don't have to, do not speak, and that is important. though they will dare you, do not ever speak, for they know your replies and have only fire to stuff back into your throat.

weeks were spent prying you open with a crowbar, with a scalpel

wire hangers in all your doors

when i finally got inside

the car wouldn't even start

take me nowhere cowboy we have already come so far

the boys will always win because they have fists

and if we cry too hard, too much

they can shove them in our mouths

spit in our hair

trample our dreams

destroy things without consequence

fear a great fuel, a great devil they welcome

and tango with

fists are stronger than feelings because there is no time for such

distasteful, factless,

imaginary concepts

such wastes of space, such wastes of time

i danced with death all night

and woke up in his arms

now everytime we kiss

the edges

of life

grow

soft

-e

r

i built a fortress around your body

when i realized that's all it was

i spent years asleep in a cold desert

waiting to be awoken

waiting for your moments of clarity

those sweet miniscule pieces of time that stretched on and on that i took in like oxygen, like opium

i started to fall out of love on september 18th,

all morning i stared at how the lights made rainbows on the

motel floor

i wanted to chain-

smoke cigarettes all day and watch

those diamonds dance

while our love rotted away, unseen

in the corner of the room

my sanctuary now a crime scene

though there was no blood from the kinds of things that were murdered here

those colors the only thing left in your wake,

the only truly beautiful thing left

i am a hotel room, a refuge to many but a true home to none

i am the rack of coats, all of the pockets turned out

i am unmade sheets

i am old curtains, worn from looking outside

i am the bible in the drawer, my significance long forgotten

i am the light that doesn't work as well as it should

i am the television set missing the remote

i am the complimentary notepad with no notes

i am mass-produced framed artwork, lackluster and faded

i am the armchair with questionable stains

i am the heavy darkness at night, the feeling someone is watching

i am repetitive carpet designs and tasteless coffee

i am the morning, an almost-hot shower

i am an empty hotel room, a refuge to many,

but a true home to none.

we were trapped in there for so long that the hand on the clock forgot the direction it was going

that still sameness, over and over

that void, our voids, never being filled, and i tried

to cover them with beautiful things but the walls screamed

“lies, you’re lying, you are not in love and you never will be”

i formed habits i never had, sleeping pills and 42 proof

i just wanted to close my eyes for a while

i just wanted to be held for a while

i never knew what you really felt like, a piece of glass between us

so many times i broke through, but i always paid the price

my fingers bled and you’d build it up again

so i grew comfortable on the other side

we have been ghosts floating next to each other in here for eternity,

but each too immersed in our own death, to notice

are you so very hardened by life that you cannot love?

you lived and died in that tangled southern wilderness,

the branches reached out to you then and they

still reach out to you now

you feast on knowledge of the men who have passed,

wrote down their minds in great big books

but you have yet to be wise