teeth

[mouthling]

pink pills, fast cars, eyes

like dying stars. i’m

up all night singin’ at

the moon, you’re

warm like the last breath of

summer gone

too soon. in dreams,

we’re dancing on

broken glass, too fast to

make it last. i wake

in your bed, memory of you

under my tongue like sunshine &

cheap wine. you, you, you like

a litany; you like a snatch of song. we

burn real hot but

we won’t last long.

[mouthling]

this heart of mine, this ticking time bomb, impossible to rely on, always read the  signs wrong heart of mine. this machine gun heart, this stall when it’s time  to start, this too twisted to use the pain for art. this untended garden in my chest, always thought it knew best, this black box left after the wreck, buried  somewhere marked on a map in a language that might not exist.

[mouthling]

|.

there are days i

feel haunted by my own ghost.

i’m on the wrong side of

twenty-five and i’m

still wondering

what kind of person i’m

gonna be.

at the bottom of the yard, something stirs.

in all my thoughts, i’m talking to you. look darling, i’m saying. look how the heart bends just

so, that it almost looks

like this will work. when the light

hits just right i can

almost imagine a future when

i don’t take flight.

||.

if i’m awake it’s half

past three. the world washed new, the crickets

screaming a litany of you

and me.

the moon, pulling the tides across the face of the earth like a sheet over

the body of a sleeping

child or dead lover

[mouthling]

walked into

the gaping maw of

the night, screen

door slamming like a dangerously hinged jaw behind him &

what would it be like, to

hear the music of his grin in the

moment where

a beleaguered heart

stops? in the

silence where you

could hear a pulled pin dropped?

im a westbound

disaster, 120 back

home. you’re above

me (like always) absconding into the relentless blue.

[mouthling]

you drape yourself

in his lies like furs, let

them keep

you warm at night.

all that beauty, all that murder,

just so you can stay tender.

you wear his eyes like

jewellery. his bruises, like

trophies.

you’re sleeping with

your makeup on. your lipstick

on his knuckles. your

blood on his hands.

you ask if

he’s happy. he says he’s

miserable. doesn’t ask if

you are too.

still you

let him cut his teeth on

your hipbones.

all this beauty, all this blood.

just for him to stay hard.

[mouthling]

you say thank you

enough times,

with ur body, from

ur knees it starts to sound

like sorry.

it sounds like forgive

me. like give me, give me. like

greedy.

somewhen, the rainier day

where u

want me. i’m

fleeing westward under

half moons like

the disinterested eyes

of god or

you, you, you

you, like

dried blood under my finger

nails you,

like an unsung song.

my hips aching

for bruises in the

shape of fingerprints. your

fingers in my mouth,

that bitter drip in my throat when

you want me most,

imprint of the gear shift on

my ribs and i never

wanted this.

[mouthling]

baby’s got a six

speed heart & heavy

hands. this

is a boy made from war, smile

like a pulled back

bowstring, poisoned

arrow for a tongue and you

left your armour in the backseat months ago. first time you

undressed for him while the city held its breath for you. same night

he made a battlefield of

your body. now

here he is

again drinking the

light from your veins like

bottom shelf whisky, spinning it

into ignorance,

into oblivion. baby says

your heart is hallowed ground, a

cathedral whose architecture he can admire from

the outside, but the minute he

steps inside he’s

ashes.

says he’ll have to find

other ways to be inside you.

[mouthling]

she leaves a flower

somewhere she knows you’ll

find it. a lone

pink rose, in an empty shot

glass & a note

that says nothing that means anything at all.

& she’s laughing when you’re

leaving with another man, like she

doesn’t care but

you hear the thunder follow

you home, lay

in bed alone, see

her silhouette

in every flash of lightning.

& you’re laughing

when you’re telling your

friends, like

the only antidote is to

make her an anecdote, like

you don’t keep

her on the back of your tongue,

pressed between pages

like petals, like

something to come back to in

a week, a month —

like there’s any time

for blooming now,

in this aching desert.

you hear cicada song in the

cadence of her hips.

she’s got a tongue

sharp enough to

cut open the sky.

[mouthling]

so you’re hiding

behind the short skirt, painting on

wings but

remaining flightless. collecting

compliments like

coins, finding yourself

outside

your own body, groping

your way back to it

in the dark. you’re asking 

“what is it you want

to do to 

me?”

you’re letting it be

done to you. you’re eating words

like pills,

sticking your fingers 

down your throat to

retrieve them afterwards.

you’re undressing in front

of the mirror and

wondering what you look like.

[mouthling]

she will introduce herself

with a name which once meant “paradise”

in a language so long dead that

history has all but forgotten it.

there she is, whatever she is:

this girl-shaped instance

of divinity, this

wayward miracle.

you’ve never seen her

cry but you’ve heard

the stories -

seen the storm clouds

gathering from a city away.

she does not offer

you absolution,

you do not

ask for it.

you worship at the

altar between her legs &

in true godly fashion,

she tells you

she can make you holy, a wholly perfect being, she can

make you anything you want -

except, darling,

enough alone,

for a creature such

as her.

but;

her holyfire touch has made

you blasphemous.

you dare to

disagree:

she cannot make you

anything - not holy, or enough,

no:

she can only unmake.

she can only take you apart

& leave

you scattered stardust,

a million pinpoints of

aching light lost

in the dark & then

she just

leaves you.

off to smite the wicked or

dream up new galaxies or put on

some lipstick or

whatever it is god’s do

when they have sated their

appetites for destruction.

[mouthling]

you remember

her in bursts of light:

the fluorescents in the

bar, where she buys

you tequila -

the way they make her skin

look carved of opal, or

something else precious.

the blue light

from the dashboard, glinting

off her wedding ring - the way

it makes it look like

plastic, like something you could

break

if only you could

make your fingers work.

when she asks

if you like pain, you almost

tell her

she’s so bright, it hurts to

look,

but you don’t. you just

look,

and look,

until your eyes roll back

until the light

she likes to leave on

while you’re fucking -

it blooms

like solar flares, like lightning

strikes, like

the world ending around you and

the only thing that’s real is -

that ring on her finger.

it doesn’t feel like plastic

between your legs.

it feels more real than

you ever will.

[mouthling]

i let all the plants die on purpose, covered the mirrors & wrote my own eulogy into my skin, i don't know how to not break my own heart. everything i do is a dear john letter to myself, saying; it's not me, it's you, or - it is me, and you & i can't exist inside you anymore. you're smothering me, darling. i want to love you, but you make it impossible.

[mouthling]

7:53 PM

the sky is bruised but not breaking yet. i am neither, or both. it’s hard to tell in the dark. am i left, or leaving? am i the cause or the casualty?

[mouthling]

think about mirrors, about reflections, about drawing parallels, and lines in the sand. think about the throwing back by a body of light without absorbing it. think about absorbing it. think about finding yourself in someone else, think about being stung by your own softness. think about the echo of your own voice from somebody else’s mouth, about the way it resonated in  your hollow chest, and how it made your blood run cold. think of it like poison, like a dose of your own medicine. think about antidotes, and how much hate you can hold inside of you before  it swallows you. think about you, think about mirrors.

KNOW YOURSELF

[mouthling]

i’m sorry, i can’t write about you yet. i can’t do it, because words are windows, and my heart is a house all closed up, locked tight like i’ve gone away except, i’m still here and you’re gone.

dear mama,

[mouthling]

say we are like oil and water, say we don’t mix but, baby,  when we do we collide like comets, we are a catastrophe, we make a mess, but somewhere we create something beautiful. say we are a rainbow in the middle of a storm.

[mouthling]

you hit me with

the age old, wasn’t looking when 

i found you.

jumped right into the deep end of you

& thought i’d stumbled across heaven

but you’re a devil in disguise, honey &

too charming to be good for me

left your lip prints on me at

midnight & in the morning

they were bruises.

remember all the times you

pushed me down the stairs & told

me i was flying, told me

i was the most beautiful creature in the cesspool,

put your drumbeat pulse to my ear &

moved me to dance.

6 a.m, 

you follow me home,

same thing every week.

close the bedroom door, dare me

to do something reckless.

you almost have me, but-

the sun is coming up, 

your spell is wearing off,

sorry to disappoint you, baby, but

crawl into bed beside me

hold my shaking bones like

you won’t be gone when

i wake up.