demon711

[demon711]

“aw” i sigh

to the red faced squalling step father

cornering me in my dreams

“I am not broken…”

and then im awake.

I am

re-writing the byline of

my story and I’ll bring

you with me

all the doors don’t open

I learned that once

I got here

but the sunset,

he always comes back.

just like our shared peace by

mutually assured destruction

though we both hate each other

for the petty reason of

not being able to touch her;

actual innocence.

they are the only two lovers

I’ve never had to fear-

you and me.

fear is a root.

it starts

somewhere small like a nerve

that didn’t develop right then

it digs deep

wraps around

every molecule of brain.

it sends Shock

after Shock until finally You

are laying face down on your hardwoods but it’s OK.

it’s inside your head you’re

actually sitting on the couch.

you are all hard Would

and won’t

and that’s OK;

it will take years.

years.

but one day you will realize

that. it. is. okay.

to not be

remarkable.

All you have to do

is live with her and

there’s no need to

write her a tragedy to live through,

this time.

[demon711]

you never made a sound

as the kitchen sink overflowed.

you did that for me.

you know that-

running water is the only way

i can think anymore.

the only way i can make

the words line up into a truth

that i can pretend is new.

our clothes are wet.

your baseball shirt clings

to your abdomen and it’s like

we’re suddenly standing in the Acropolis.

but you are something more than rock.

marble couldnt cradle a body so sweet.

sometimes im afraid

the tap will run dry, but

i’ll always be safe in

your unconditionality.

and that was the first time i knew:

i wouldn’t go anywhere

your light didn’t touch too.

[demon711]

i stare at the full moon

still.

last night was the blood moon

and i’m bleeding;

as promised.

i scream at the moon.

i’ve been screaming at her for years.

i want to pluck her from the sky

and scream more, learn answers-

save myself.

why, mother?

why must i be tried by fire

every single time?

we know i will survive it.

i always survive.

i’m a cockroach of

a woman.

am i still not pure enough yet?

do i not deserve a quiet, happy life?

am i doing this to myself?

i get no answers.

she stares back at me-

beaming.

suffering is duty.

duty above all else.

i am exhausted

but love; i am alive

i am

i am

i am

i promise us both,

i am.

[demon711]

peter pan

grew into a man

though his head

will never get past 18

and it’ll never wake

from rockstar dreams.

he can have beautiful babies

with a girl that reminds him of wendy

but even she’ll leave to be a mom

eventually.

won’t she?

so what does a 30 year old father

do with a mountain of cocaine

when he only has to be a father

every other weekend?

trick question; all of it.

i was so careless with myself

when i tried to be what you wanted.

years of tides tossing me

into your rocks

instead of your arms.

they were always busy holding

a thin, wallpaper sheet of a girl.

now my body breathes in air

instead of trying to inhale water.

sea?

i was never a siren.

i’ve been a girl this whole time.

just a human girl.

i was your little sister’s best friend.

you made me a villain at 15

because my body gave you ideas.

you were ashamed of it.

worse- you blamed it.

and i loved you.

fat girls can’t be rockstar girlfriends.

im sorry your will is weaker than your ego.

no amount of acid you drop

can fix the other things

you dropped too.

[demon711]

im exhausted

[demon711]

Installation of William Adolphe Bouguereau's   “Dante und Virgil “ (1825)

[demon711]

a used condom

a worn teddy bear

beneath,

sits me-

crying as hard as i ever could.

[demon711]

being loved by an alchemist

is holy fire.

it is a burning

bush.

it does not burn when you touch it

but you see the flames licking

at your skin just the same.

[demon711]

he traces the lines on my legs-

he doesnt ask questions.

people that have had

no choice but to

rebuild themselves

have a magnificent

way of finding one another.

of having their hands fit together

like broken pottery pieces.

but even i cry too much

for the sweetest man in the world.

my grief has become boring.

that’s real tragedy.

[demon711]

ash and plastic gallons of water.

power outages every other Tuesday nite.

the color of the sweat-stained asphalt outside the 7/11 around the block from your oxy-dealer’s mom’s house.

a gallon of cookies n cream ice cream.

a boxtruck of someone else’s feelings has jack-knifed itself inside of ur esophagus suddenly.

throwing it up would feel so good.

they say 90% of accidents happen within a mile of home.

i wonder what its like to be so sure of your destination; your key fitting into the turning lock- then not existing anymore. a house becomes a home; a home becomes a shrine; a shrine becomes a televised special on grief.

consumption.

grief is a lot like cold sores.

mouths hurt;

pus n scabs, all that.

sometimes they heal.

still, nobody wants to kiss u.

grief is a lot like bulimia too.

people forgot how to touch u; things that didn’t matter before, do- everything

has feelings and there’s nothing else in u so u gobble em up.

youre so hungry to feel something besides

trapped.

thats called “empathy.”

maybe not.

i push my plate away-

im not hungry anymore.

but god,

im still starving-

for touch.

for the sickly sweet drip

of that gas station candy

that you bought me,

and

for something fucking different.

[demon711]

its eight fifteen in the morning.

i sit alone,

surrounded

by living things.

when i was 21

i was ready to die.

i loved living hard

but i broke

too many windows

when doors slammed

in my face.

my fists started to hurt.

living soft comes easier.

i think of other’s more.

i have a forest in my living room.

i learned that

growing pains happen in all things.

[demon711]

the unbent mind and the twisted form

when they started to ask

i told them all that-

“oh my boy was a surgeon.

his hands designed so perfectly to

slit open bodies and sew them back up.”

but the truth is

people are like mirrors-

each time they’re pulled apart,

it gets that much harder

to remember where all the pieces go.

[demon711]

oooooo she learned to rhyme (badly)

i say

“ive gotten better now”

but i wake up every day before 7

hoping this world will be less jagged.

that today just might be pleasant.

but what i really mean is that

i dont feel so wrong

that injections

felt better than being

in the driver’s seat

of this broken body;

if only for a second.

i always listened when you said

a grown up lady should stand up straight

even through the worst of pain.

but i was never good at that anyway.

i watch sunrises with the windows down.

i barely ever think about jumping out.

it must be so hard

to watch your golden child

throw herself to the ground.

pulling locks of her own hair out.

but you don’t have to tell me

how badly i was behaving

while theyre still pulling

the stitches out.

i said i’d learnt my lesson this time,

you didnt believe me so

you tied me to you with everything

from barbed wire to twine.

with everything you know.

you tell me how scared you are

of dying

and leaving me behind-

like i wont know the difference

between smiling

and crying.

but still you tell me

to move on with my life.

that if bone can heal

then so can i.

i pour hot tea down my throat,

remembering when

even whiskey didnt burn.

when i could shove a dagger in

my thigh and then turn.

with me, there will always be ritual.

you say a hard day’s work

will do more than a therapist

but that doesnt really apply

when i cant make myself

get out of this bed

or get these images

out of this goddamn head.

why can’t you just be proud

that ive cheated death too

many times to count?

that i kept breathing

even when my heart gave out.

that when it finally came down,

i picked falling in love

instead of dying young?

that i put down the needle and picked up my head.

all the statistics say

i’m only 1 of 10.

i owe you so much

more than money

and my blue eyes and my bad knees

and even though i love you,

despite every stab wound,

i know i have to leave to live.

i want that 1 in 10 to stay me.

see, i finally found the person

that deserves me.

he looks in my eyes and he sees me.

he knows the brightest and the darkest

moments of my history.

things that hide from my own memory.

he holds my hand while i fall asleep,

and i realize i want to build a real family.

not just a badly painted facade

of what you think that means.

of whatever this hell is that is forged in me.

i promise-

i know-

we’re going to be happy.

[demon711]

i think of my brain

thinking of my brain.

it is chambered like

the barrell of a pistol

and you managed to stick

your finger between the metal.

why’d you go and do a thing like that?

at least i was never cruel.

[demon711]

a farewell to harm

I. all my fingernails broke off in your flesh like

10 small daggers stuck in beautiful stone.

i never wanted to stay, but my hands became

excalibur and your body was the loveliest granite

that i’d ever been bruised by.

II. i wrote my letter on your back in lipstick

the same color as your blood. you read it backwards

in a mirror and swore it was the weird angle you held your

body that made your chest hurt. 

III. fall in love with a girl. a girl that has no claws and

laughs at all your jokes. a girl that doesn’t ask you to hold

her at night, because she has no fears of running away

in her sleep. say her name like a prayer instead of a curse.

IV. i want you to think of me in all the ways you think of

the hunter’s moon. cold and brave and always

second best. somehow closer to the stars than

to your world.

[demon711]

I. fill a bath with bleach; sit down with all your clothes on. you do not shave your legs because you know what will happen; what always always happens when youre alone with yer own skin.

II. if you have learned anything at all. you know that the blood is sacred and when it washes down the drain, it will get stuck with the tears and clogs of yer ratty brown hair. the blood deserves better.

III. think about getting clean long term. about being celibate. about every person’s fingerprints imbedded in your skin. think as you would if you were pure. but pure girls don’t have holes to fill. why would they? nothing has been taken from them yet.

IV. when you tell him you have to leave, do not think it’s romantic when he begs you to stay and pushes you into the doorframe as you’re walking out. do not fuck him. you know enough about this game. this isn’t how you fight anymore. at some point blind hope becomes ignorance and it’s time to figure out the difference.

V. you wanted to be thrown down. you wanted him to make you cry and your knees weak with fear. you wanted to feel real again. and when he asked is this the way you want it? you didnt answer. but you know truth: you didnt want it this way. no. you didn’t want it this way. 

VI. remember: when this is all over, you’ll be here still. you’ll pretend like you loved it when the sticky sweet rises in your throat. you’ll pretend that you loved the screaming animal in your chest. you won’t tell a single soul how often you tried to tape its mouth shut. 

VII. you won’t tell them how it screamed for help once your own mouth was taped shut. you won’t tell anyone that you could’ve saved yourself if you really had wanted to, because you know that you’re lying.

VIII. belong to air.

[demon711]

he hurt me bad 

i burned off my finger prints on the stove

i ate nothing but his old fingernails 

i cut my tongue out with a butter knife

he hurt me so bad, but 

i hurt me worst.

even when i don’t win,

i win.