walking behind you two on a lower east side-walk battling the day's leftover heat, the others trailing behind have no concept of (our) history, how one of you kicked me out of your bed as i heaved hysterically rocking myself back and forth on your floor, and how the other told me to wear a skirt and give him bite marks as we tossed and turned on his dirty sheets, and how i fell from grace into each of your mouths and how you took all of it and spat me back out and how, yes, i'm still (yours) here.

she spins vinyl on her eyelids and offers the room a sultry serious nico gaze. we're all trapped inside our geometric heads, our crooked backbone daydreams, yet she casts spells, she tries to see through us, to borrow our inner brainwaves for her own use. chalk marks on the ceiling and nicotine pulp between the wood planks, duct tape on the doorways and hunger pangs in every other nook and cranny tell her: take us back to the early days. she is the moon's heartbeat. the accidental downpour. she hits her head on the drainpipe on her way down.

i am completely out of words today. somebody, call me baby. somebody, please ask me for my middle name (for i have none). my mother says i was very small and quite precocious as a child. i didn't have a baby face, but an older one, and i stared at everything inquisitively, studying people and their own faces. i spoke and walked early and adults were generally amazed. i was a picky eater and hardly slept and very serious and imaginitive and talkative, i'd like to think i'm still this way. somebody, snap my photograph. somebody, collect my broken teeth.

i am completely out of words today. somebody, call me baby. somebody, please ask me for my middle name (for i have none). my mother says i was very small and quite precocious as a child. i didn't have a baby face, but an older one, and i stared at everything inquisitively, studying people and their own faces. i spoke and walked early and adults were generally amazed. i was a picky eater and hardly slept and very serious and imaginitive and talkative, i'd like to think i'm still this way. somebody, snap my photograph. somebody, collect my broken teeth.

i dreamt of the cancer spreading its pristine wings inside you. there wasn't much time until impending darkness took over, unfolding itself like a cloak to render you invisible. i keep envisioning you backwards on a bed; not in pain, not on drugs, not stuck with pins or full of fully blossomed cells, but i placed my outstretched palm on the fibers of your flimsy tee-shirt and, in sleep, tried to heal you, tried to fling your posioned energy away. i cried and apologized and you gave me a look out of the corner of your blue blue eye.

my aunt cannot remember how many anti-depressants, anti-inflammatories or anti-psychotics she's currently taking. elixer, effexer? she hurt her hip taking laundry down the stairs the other day. she has no pancreas, no appendix, no tailbone, none of her real teeth, only a hint of her old nose and eleven brightly-colored tattoos. her oldest daughter, dead at  eighteen, stares down at her like the mona-lisa from somewhere beyond visible colorwaves. sometimes they dream of one other across the valley of empty-space and the ghost of my aunt's distorted memories makes her soul burn and her swollen heart bleed itself dry.

i can't stand to see his cheshire-smile in photographs, with sunglasses that turned blue in the light. they planted a tree in his name and plan to dump the remanants of his 6-feet-4-inches in the deepest part of the pacific (per his request). we sing songs, smoke joints and bake cakes in his reflection. i can't stand to replay our conversations in my head, how i cried to him, showed my scars, how we snuck downstairs while his girlfriend was somewhere outside, lit sparklers on my fire-escape. we didn't know how much was left to say or to do.

i have cramps. i trace stars with my finger on the carpet. i don't have a carpet. i get sleep paralysis. i open my eyes and scream but nothing emits. i keep cutting myself on the same leg, at the same spot, in the shower. i killed my phone and sacrificed my tv. i eat cereal for dinner and godard for breakfast. my meridians have gone hay-wire, short circuits, mix-mashed atoms. i have thin-lined scars on the insides of my wrist. i write backwards and slouch my shoulders. i light matches. i crucified ken dolls. i lent out my breath.

my short-term memory is shot. we strongly encourage recycling. can attention deficit disorder describe the dancing ballerinas persistently in my head? transfer is available to the 4, l, n, q, r and w trains. does insomnia instigate the inability to perform basic motor functions, or my inept means of differentiating between wake and sleep? verizon wireless 411 connect, for english press one or stay on the line. "you'd forget your goddamn head if it wasn't attached." please watch the gap between the train and the station. does depression determine my net weight? drink 8 glasses of water per day.

she handed us each a plastic wand and bestowed upon us super-powers. i was invisible. i grew ten years older, with her long hair and long legs and pretty hands. i walked along wooden planks, waved my wand at air and trees and sky. nobody could see me. she locked the sliding glass door and spent ten of her teenage minutes away from us. laura fell on the patio. she opened the door and rocked laura back and forth in the livingroom chair, holding tissues to her tiny leg. i crept up behind them to watch. nobody could ever see.

the cabbie and i talked cars and evil bosses; his was yelling over the intercom and i couldn't help but empathize. my sister got herself an infinity symbol tattoo; she seems to take over every thought, habit, desire, and masochistic tendency i myself, a full year older, have already disowned. today is our stepfather's birthday, but i left his gift in new york city; waiting restlessly on the floor. our dog doesn't look out the window anymore; her ashes rest on the mantelpiece, alone. the anarchic sunlight hits the bathroom's bottomless sink in a way i've never noticed before.

the fallout shelter may someday prove a good idea. she widdles away time in her beverly hills cliche churning out daydreams and solving celebrity crossword puzzles. the door to her patio is never locked and we au natural new yorkers merely climbed over the fence and went on in. she takes pills for this and that unfounded necessity and nonchalantly hands me a pair or designer shorts no longer in style. i'm confused. the bombs are falling over our heads as she cooks brita water for dinner and bows before her flat-screen teevee. didn't she used to be a brunette?

think positively (they say), drink a lot of water. take your vitamins. eat fruit. brush your teeth. brush your skin. brush your hair. don't smoke. don't stress. don't slouch. take the stairs. chew slowly. use condoms. stretch. sleep. detox. no sugar. no caffeine. no refined-carbohydrates. combat appetite. i have: 5 excess pounds to lose. yellow-y teeth to whiten. split-ends to cut and a seemingly archaic hair-do (which has matter-of-factly grown itself long). sensitive skin. zits (o my). raw cuticles. dehydrated cells. some cellulite (o dear!). hormonal migraine. tmj. ibs. "sluggish" metabolism. sleep-paralysis. depressive-tendencies (no-yes-no). give me some-more advice, go ahead.

we might have been inside a painting. glass walls enclosed the field and every building within. cartoonish blue drops, from a giant sprinkler, watered the hill, where cardboard houses sat jampacked beyond. on the other side was a large barn. the sky was deep blue and violet; i wanted to take pictures. i ran off in the rain alone and found a bag of gummy-bears, but accidentally spilt them. when i ate one, my stomach hurt. lukas found me with dyed-black hair again and gold-sparkles on his face. they were out of soymilk. i wanted to kiss him.

words fall off cliffs inside my skull and bump their puny heads on the edge of my tongue. i can't get them out fast enough; i can't sell my soul quick enough to compensate. it's like i've always proclaimed: i'm a word girl, it's not my fault. excessive use of commas, overindulgent-metaphor, surrealist-imagery, stream-of-concious babble, irridescent-syntax; my tools of the trade. i wish i could draw, illustrate every phrase and waking dream. my imagination is bloodshot. my mouth upside down. i saw a green-lit firefly and a neon ATM sign yesterday, but how can i express the static, the sounds?

everything and everyone exists in a story with nearly infinite plotlines and overlapping dialouge. the omniscient, manic-depressive narrator sits cross-legged with his decaf coffee and ripened banana, planning the next climax. with ballpoint pen, he creates every superfluous character and idiosyncratic episode. all of the actors in this story, even those merely personifed, interweave as he, our narrator, intervenes. one day, you might just get a chance to read the hefty novel, but then again, only he decides. it contains some noteworthy-tragedy. some mastermind-innovation. some very beautiful-mistakes. when, the narrator goes to sleep at night, new ideas splinter every dream.

when he smiles, i notice the gaps between his teeth and want to crawl in. i like him better when he frowns. i adore the side of him that hides under longsleeves and arm-cuffs. i want to sit on his blazer like the buttons (of eighties bands) he wears. i want to hang on his ear like the safety pin stuck there. it's all in the bones, it's all in my need. his ribs. his wrists. his knees. we tumble around, sit on the floor, stare and empathize. once, he thought he was huckleberry-finn. once, i thought he was me.

the lonely insomniac watches rain pummel the neighbor's balcony and resuces her aloe vera plant from its grasp. she needs to rewrite the history to get back to last summer and feign sleep on the outdoor couch....while you're still there. or the summer before, when you lit sparklers on the fire-escape and tried to light coins. or even the summer before that, the first time you two met...and she pinkie-swore before you knew her last name. where did you go, really? wash over me, sing me to sleep, i'm afraid i'm afraid of the static-rain. the endorphines crash and kill.

the only cure for your advanced-cancer was death. last night, i sat knees-up on the couch, in the dark, with your ghost. my camera and i made our way, slowly, through all of the upstairs rooms, waiting to catch you. i took pictures in the mirror, but you didn't reveal your (new) self. jimi hendrix, eyes half-shut, on the kitchen wall stared me down; he saw it all, he'd been here the whole time. and your band performs your songs without you to wring your neck with the microphone wire and fill the stage, fill your lungs, fill the room.

a photograph i took of her 3 years ago-head down lighting her cigarette, curls falling onto her shoulder, blue bra-strap showing-is tucked into his night-table drawer, next to the condoms. there's another photo in a picture-frame, pressed down flat on his dresser. he looks into her eyes the way no-one's ever looked at me before. i am "in-between girl"...truth be told, i was in love, too, with her scars and short-laugh. i am the girl who sits back and lets it happen, if only to see what he's really like. i grow under skin like gravity: i pull, tug.

i am merely here to observe, while my migraine gets the best of me. i sleep, half-heartedly, alone in the bed that used to be spencer's, before he passed on, and is now occupied by shawn. i wander the floors, picking up photos and studying old faces, searching the records and cords and guitars. every now and then, i see myself in reflections, mirrors, and think: who is this? what am i doing here? where is the black hole inside? we all fade, and grow mold. my skin is cold, and i'm nothing like the girl i wish to be.

i sit in the corner like dust, as you play keyboard like my father. july is splitting me up, further and further from everything, everyone, i was. your feet are dirty-black, the sunlight traps itself in melody. i wish i had more than words to describe this....he slept in that bed for a month, and couldn't see. i can hardly hydrate my bones, i can hardly engage...all i want is another chance with you (and you and you and you too); i want music to emerge from these energy-inefficient hands....and he typed his every dream onto paper; caffeinated-mornings. bass-lines. smoke.

i lay outstretched on the grass by a wisconsin-lake, wondering why i take myself (and all of you) so seriously...our fates interweave and (dis)connect the odds and ends. i eat peanut butter with pretzels for dinner and listen to the same song over and over, trying to hear the way his extinct voice sang it. let's all come to terms with the bad-timing and make the most of his tragedy, right? i'm hungry for more..i wanna sink under the floor, i wanna sink to the bottom with you (and sleep with the fishies). your laugh still bounces off every wall.

i miss you (and you, and you, and you) already. my planeride ruined the illusion of heaven, as i searched the clouds for your face; mere wisps of air we unapologetically pass through, even if ghosts exist somewhere...i miss rain when it's dry, winter when it's warm, summer when it's cold. i miss hiding in the closet, sobbing myself to sleep. give me another reason to tear my arms apart or down sedatives 'til i can't breathe. where is the logic in this? i am not a brave girl. i'm not a once-over either. break me/take me or get out.

hey wait, i need another bandaid. i write the same words, same phrase, over-and-over 'til they bleed themsevles dry. my brainwaves travel overtime. we're an odd collective: criss-crossed, mis-matched, cross-wired, oddly-connected....i'm ecstatic at the prospect of crying on proverbial shoulders. in the parking lot, one of you held me tight, saying "it's okay," as the other offered his fleece to my bare skin. you know, i wear the same boots everday, and they're bottomless. one day, it'll all make sense(?); we store energy in our spines and tall-tree-branches too. oblong-prisms dance on your wooden-floor, and you all glow just so.

late-nights, i'm left to my own devices...i'll walk the streets of nyc hoping to catch side-glances or car-rides, basking in ovaloid glows of 24-hour-florescence and stepping my soles into grim-puddles. other nights, i curl cat-like on the floor, or inside the bathtub (ashing the water); do dishes at 4 am, feed the aloe-vera-plant salt. we all fall asleep alone. we're all lost in our precious-little-heads with memories churning nervous stomaches. my irridescent-cerebrium works overtime, and i'll down tylenol-pm now in lieu of opiates. a few nights ago, i fell asleep in our dead-friend's-bed with you(and his ghost)keeping my blood warm.

"it seems like some people have to die young, like it fits them or something." i saw his face today: some guy perched on his car. i had a dream, the other night: he and shawn cross-legged on my grandmother's lawn; he wore a colorful skirt again, hiked up around his knees. i walked by, barely glancing down, and they looked up simultaneously. we all caught eyes before i scooted off. that night he died, i dreamt i passed him by, as he lay with his boys in a dark field. yesterday, in my living room: i heard (him) whistling.

she pulled a bar-chair into the middle of the floor, while the band played (dan with bandages safety-pinned and electrical-taped to his skinny frame) and sat with her shaven-head down, spitting. she'd spat on the cockroaches outside, too, and said she had heatstroke. long, pale limbs, sharp jagged bones, and a pout that never subsides, she posed for photographs, all model-esque. fresh scars piled up on her inner arm, while white-tape criss-crossed the other. she threw her bare legs on dima and kicked someone with her boots, crawled up on stage to inhale the smoke-machine, and then scampered off.

i cried because i knew it wouldn't last outside his room. did you know i took a picture as he combed his cat with a toothbrush? did you know, i'd fall asleep to his voice in my headphones? i don't want to leave....his story shoved inside your drawer. when you kissed me, were you curious, him trapped inside, the two of you aching to get in (again)? i don't want to scrub you from my bones or fingernails. the words took shape in my gut...i tape a little note to your(his) wall as you leave, half-hearted smile scraping the street.

day by day, i forget what i mean to say, or do, or write. the synapses short-circuit, and last night, he and i watched a documentary on insomnia and fell asleep, in seperate worlds, on opposite sides of my bed. i counted his earrings(five). i need an antidote....pills sit like fat lumps of clay and fossilize. i am having a moment inside of another; recycled-oxygen in a glass fishtank. her lizard turns brown when its stressed, and she breeds crickets. i remember birthdays, always, and memories...newly formed thoughts slip through my bare-hands like sand, permeate these rooms like dust.

the whole point is our smiles; our sun-signs too. you laughed and said, "you're still wearing socks," didn't you? i'm always cold (remember?), i warmed myself under red-light and dragged a blanket from room to room. my bones creaked, showers stung, bloodcells lay limp, time sped up, and the balcony nearly threw me off. i said, "i want to be invisible (like you);" my muses are disapearring ink, and the couch has been cremated. how can i say, i miss hiding under the dismantled piano that sang nothing, and -we- are one and the same duct-taped wallpaper, cardboard-dreamachine. creation.