100 Stories Down

It's not even warm here

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I had

I had that dream again last night

where she’s alive, and he’s around

and you are what I’m looking for

I travel every home I’ve ever had.

Ones so crisp and alive that I forgot they never happened. That this downstairs lit gold with pre-dinner warmth radiating into the surround trees was just a momentary glimpse. We never lived here. This was never our room. We never looked down ten stories to the snowy city streets at night. Never was there a Christmas with a tree out on a cold wooden porch. We never lived these places. So why are we here?

Why do I feel like this? So nostalgic and longing for this place? For who we were in this place? Before I could ever imagine you as anything different. Young. Forever.

Mine. Ours.

And then I wake and remember we never lived those places. I wake and feel relief you are gone but only because of what you became. Dream you is old you. That’s why I feel that way.

The warm nostalgic breezes.

One complete unit.

Not scattered like now.

And she’s alive and back from the moon now, telling me this is what happened. She has the texts saved in her phone and shows them to me over and over again while I cry. But I’m being selfish. She’s only allowed here for the night, and I am keeping her from her grandchildren. Only 12 hours visa and then back to the moon. She relishes the confusion between you and him. Laughs at me when I mourn the wrong one. When I chose which moment in a dream to stay in and it’s with you, back the way things were so long ago- and mid kiss it’s him and he’s here the rest of the dream. The dream I didn’t ask for and that I can’t get out of. No matter how many roads or city streets I go. No matter how hard I try to see your face, his shows up instead.

There’s an hour left in Christmas and she’s laughing that there are no presents for me. There are never presents for me. Not anymore. None of these are my home anymore. There’s nowhere to go anymore. I want to leave and wake up now. But then I leave and wake up now, and no one is there anymore. None of these homes are around anymore. Just daylight and bedsheets. Just a waking nightmare that’s forever now. This is the new forever. The one without you. The one without anyone. And I just want to go back in the one with you. Or with him. I just want to go back to someone.

One hundred stories down

Quarantine fucking with my whole head

2020

[onehundredstoriesdown]

They say the earth is so quiet now

that it has risen itself from the dead

my chest is so still now

that I can finally hear a heartbeat

It’s been so long I didn’t recognize it

Thought it was the pounding of the fists

of all the words I swallowed instead of saying them to you

the rhythm of resentment and regret, fighting one another to the surface

war drums of the things you said to me that went right though my skin like bullets and planted themselves inside me like weeds, choking any happy memory of you, curling and crushing Polaroids of your face in the California sun

sixteen horsehooves pounding the road built of my backbone, four horsemen for each year I slept beside you, recalling the lightning storm between my teeth the first time you laid beside me

a long-conquered heart, memories riddled with the pox of knowing, a hungry ache between my legs- a white horse named for the day I began to die inside

A dying proclamation of the creature we once were. One born in the summer, under stars and streetlights in cities now barren.

A pair of small fists, a prisoner alone with your name scrawled on the wall 1,460 times

No, just a heartbeat. A solitary heartbeat, a sonar in the night, waiting to hear yours answer the call

A deafening silence, an agonizing pause that never ends. Just a single, solitary heartbeat.

The only one left in the world.

©️One hundred stories down 20fucking20

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I wish there were a better word for home

something precise and illicit

something that you had no choice but to react to

a word that travels like lightning on gravel roads of synapses fusing sand into glass in the back of your eyelids every time you closed your eyes

a word so swollen With “home” that it storms across the city with clouds of screen doors and tree forts

with hallway carpet and beige wallpaper it would whisper down the fields in a dark wind that smelled of dirt floors and blankets

a fire hydrant breathing for the first time in months

something that would weigh more

matter more

be more

Because the only word I can find that fits the shape of you even closely is a wispy and watery “home” and I am searching for a better one but

I will not sit here and tell you what you already know-

(that you are the smell of laundry and coffee you are the clear gold that lingers around sunlight through a cold window you are the warm beating heart of my bedroom I always know where you are in my sleep and I don’t even have to try)

they say “you can’t make homes out of human beings”

but here I am, living my second winter in the cave in your chest

in the warm and the dark the blue sad light that nobody else sees you in the time that nobody else knows you in? frozen in gray morning hours skin on skin

maybe it’s a lost word out there it exists-

I just haven’t heard it or understood or seen it yet

you say that we are something that isn’t love or friendship but something else

a word you just haven’t heard or understood or seen yet

the word you’re looking for isn’t “home” either

“Home” doesn’t get the noise the street and the memory

that you are a house that I take with me and I am never cold

you are a mirror that doesn’t Lie

you are a shrine Of my Favorite things

you are the living and breathing of home to me

©one hundred stories down 2017

so you know, cut me some fucking slack

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I’m so tired I feel like there is nothing left but I’m still afraid of the end. It’s a recurring theme.

[onehundredstoriesdown]

This collision

is a reaction

it’s electric and

synaptic

And it crackles

along your arms

down to mine

A repetition

of attraction

It’s supernatural

and I’m actually

not just along

For the ride

opening arguments in the front seat of your car

cross examining everything you said to me at the bar

Closing arguments echo off the buildings

As we fight on the way to the car

the way back to the car

our way back to the car

my back against the car

pressed up against the car

On the drive back to my place

you’re deep asleep in outer space

and the highways black as space

on the drive back to my place

This collision

and attraction

just pick me up

and tell me things

One hundred stories down 2020

[onehundredstoriesdown]

they tell me it’s safe to

write again

as long as the words

are sharp and the

stitches tight

keep it clean,

keep pressure on the

bleeding

and don’t let up

don’t get sloppy

don’t daydream

about the life you had before

or the wound will open up

and swallow you whole

pack it in with gauze,

that day at the beach

with the dogs

don’t even look at it,

that weekend in the city

when he broke your glasses

and had to buy you the new red ones

work faster to close it up

wrap it tightly and don’t mess with it

no matter how badly it itches

you cannot survive any more

blood loss

keep the music and dancing inside

your veins for once

where they belong

keep his hands in

your memory

and off of your skin

where he leaves bruises

and thick bloody rashes

a sky full of scars

between your legs

keep applying pressure

for days

weeks

years

until your last breath you will

always be keeping your fingers around your wrist

to keep yourself inside

and keep him from

getting in

it’s just the way it is

the odds were stacked against you

and your mother did nothing

to protect you

so work faster now

and don’t let him pull

at your strings

or your buttons

or your zippers

or all of you will come

tumbling out

and they will never be

able to put you together again

©️one hundred stories down 2018

[onehundredstoriesdown]

You haven’t noticed I never say good night

when you’re sleeping next to me it’s only a matter of time

you get there first waiting for me in your sleep

And I join you as fast as I can, and meet you in my dream

where we are ghosts, haunting a battlefield, white dress, black coat, a sweet cold eternity

You wait in the trenches, or in a city red with memories

A waterfall inside a church, a bloodbath of our enemies

Your mother braids my hair tonight, while mine sews a dress of silver light

A bride fit for the fog that slips down past the tree line

A cathedral made of giants skulls and lined with silver feather pine

The children of your mountain ghost

A haunted winter northern coast

A cabin we share like little kids

A ceiling made of whales ribs

Bare feet rubbing together in the cold

if we hide in here, we will never get old

I’m sorry for waking you while you sleep

I’m sorry for burying my face so deep

And crawling up beneath you

a secret passage underneath you

To the cabin in our woods

to the city ruins that stood

above us as we sleep

my heart in your hand

for you to keep

One hundred stories down 2020

[onehundredstoriesdown]

it’s a zipper pinch late Friday night

corset cinched one more inch

I don’t need to breath alright

How many drinks until

you think I’m as pretty as everyone else does

How many more shots

So you can blame the feelings on the buzz

it’s the booze talking

and holding my chin in your hand

it’s just the lighting

that puts your heart in your pants

and you can’t tell the difference

and you become your other you

I admit I look for him sometimes

when you say I smother you

when you’re cold and mean and dark

I try and find him, a familiar face and heart

but he’s buried so deep inside

only booze and sex can find him

a fleeting full moon midnight carriage ride

a daybreak coffin

Do not open

Dead inside

A vampire novel I’ve read so many times

I warn myself and repeat the rhymes

that this isn’t real, this is only make believe

your arm around me, hand in mine

Is only smoke and peppers ghost

and dirty barroom mirrors

One more shot until you love me

Two more blocks until you fuck me

Three words that you’ll take back

For the the fifth time, if were keeping track

but back to slurring, stumbling, back to hazy

hundredth time you’ve driven me so close to crazy

distracted teeth and tongues and lips

no better bedfellows than your hands and my hips

a heavy pulse rock, heavy yes, heavy maybe

anything to hear you call me ________

you sleep alone Im six feet under

I’ve dug myself in another

a plot, a row, a graveyard full

and wrists numb from scissors dull

One Hundred Stories Down 2020

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I wrote this for the times you’ve lit up bright to bass. Your face alight with lyrics you felt you’d yourself would write. Right on the money right on the nose. Knows you inside and out

somehow the beat knows your soul.

We are at the light at third street. The red light and your eyes meet. And I have search for a pen so I can write this first piece.

It won’t always rhyme plus I’m no good at rhythm. No church and no religion while we’re at this intersection

Oh baby, bear with me. Just bear with me and then we’ll get on with our night

It’s just I can’t help but notice this light that shines in you. It’s been ten years together and yet how you seem so brand new.

So familiar, so worn in like the lucky t shirt I stole from you. But still baited breath. On what youre gonna go do next. Waiting and wondering how you keep it so fresh. Like a first date heartbeat. A Saturday all-night back seat.

Shit I got ahead of myself again. I’m sorry but you know you mess with my head. You’re the source of at least half my crying and a good percent of my lying. How I pretend I’m not around just so you and I can skip town. Count down until the next breakdown. A shakedown where you hold my heart ransom. A handsome arrangement is all you’re asking. Tasking me with holding it all together. Keeping you together. Keeping me together. Keeping up your blood pressure.

But still I wait with baited breath. Honey you will be the death. Of me, of you, of us. Still a first date heartbeat. Stole your shirt and your bedsheets.

I see neighborhoods in our sleep at night. A home under the California sky. A mile in your smile to a corner apartment and both the kids in kindergarten. A rose garden and undergarments.

Forgotten drawings and 3 am yawning in your car while you blare the heat and the beat of a song that made you feel young. We keep each other young. We stay until the song is sung and our clothes become undone. How many years now have I seen our bodies disappear until the morning sun. And I smell your skin in the grey in the quiet in the sad. I pack it up and put it away in your bag and wait for you to wake.

Wait on baited breath. Honey let me catch my breath. My arms are tired and full of death. So I wear your sweater to hide the evidence. It’s irrelevant isn’t it. All that matters is you’re

waiting with baited breath. Baring down your mouth on my neck. Just like the first date heartbeat. Pounding like the rhythm of the song you played for me on 3rd street.

©️ one hundred stories down 2019

For your stupid ugly ass. TQM.

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I want to scream.

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I keep trying to write about it

and just as the words get to my fingertips

instead of spilling out

they scream against the inside of my chest

and spring eternal in hot tears and cold sweat

and you sleep through all of it

How do you sleep through all of this?

How have you slept at all?

©️100 stories down words ©️SouthBayBaby art (both me) 2019

[onehundredstoriesdown]

your room, lit only with the hallway light

the window open at night

it’s been two days since our last fight

and the street pours in

over us

like unfiltered gold

phosphorus

drunk and high

the both of us

neighborhood static

of radios and patios

your hands on my hips

in stereo

music on

and the dancing it brings

our laughter as it turns into

other things

your hand over my mouth

and your fingertips on

my lips

slipping in like rockslides

your cock slides

and we knock thighs

in between limbo

we fuck until gray lights

skim over the window blinds

entwined lifelines mine yours

and yours mine

if only for a nighttime

I gave up long ago on

lifetime

but the clock has spoken

and the spell is broken

you’re running from your own

memory

your own mouth in me

showering yourself off of me

and we pull these costumes on

again

they’re worn from all the lies in them

the completely different lives in them

the playtime faketime lets pretend

that you don’t hold my breath in your mouth

and taste me on your tongue for hours

that the time you spend the most is ours

and ours is the space so small in between us

and ours is the matter that always has been us

[mathishard]

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I can’t help myself but look at old

photographs of us

videos of us

social media posts of us

saved texts and screenshots

photo booths and snapshots

every one is different, the time

the place, the season

but one thing always the same

unchanging and unyielding

the way I’m looking at you

while you laugh or while you pose

how in love with you I am

the absolute glow

the smile so sincere

and the eyes locked on your face

my forehead pressed against your beard

my happy my happy my happiest

and I know that I need to leave

get away so far from this place

far enough that a car ride

wouldn’t bring me to your face

far enough to not touch the smile

and the forehead, to dip my feet in the

happiest

far enough for the nerves to die and

never grow back, too far gone from the

happiest

how can it heal if you keep

touching it

how can it heal if you keep

touching it

it won’t heal if you keep

touching it

I’ll never be far enough away

it’s right behind my eyelids

and at my finger tips

waiting to spill away

and force myself to see it

tell me

how can I get far enough?

to where your touch can’t warm me anymore

how can I wait long enough?

so my hips won’t miss you anymore

tell me

because I’m dying to know

I’m dying to know

I’m dying here slow baby

we both know baby

I’m dying here

I’m dying here slow

©️one hundred stories down 2018

[onehundredstoriesdown]

who needs to hear what they say about you anyway?

Who wants to hear the same old advice all day

every day?

He don’t love you

Don’t deserve you

this doesn’t move you

doesn’t serve you

then they all wonder why I’m MIA

why I’ve tuned out what they all say

what they all say

this is tired

girl this is old

he never sees

that you are gold

there’s nothing they tell me

that I don’t already know

I already know

he don’t love you

never has and never will

he just breaks and takes

and brings you heartache

And still

You don’t listen girl,

you’re so stubborn girl

We give up girl

It’s your funeral girl

But they aren’t the ones anyway

Not like how you are on the bad days

I know it’s not for always

but who wants to live forever anyway

©️one hundred stories down 2018

[onehundredstoriesdown]

I am putting a line

through everything

I used to be

until you don’t recognize me anymore

but every line

carved out

will just guarantee

something you’ll find a way to ignore

no just keep your words

take them back

I don’t want them

and they’re worthless anyway

I’ve measured them

against your hands

and against the times

you pull them away

I’m drowning in them

and you’re oblivious

to the overflow from

your mouth

and I hate that

the only way I can stop

the flood is to

fill it with the loud

[onehundredstoriesdown]

It won’t take much for me to haunt you I won’t need to take much with me

the salt from your skin has been tied around my Waist in a bottle for months now

and the compass I stole from your fathers bedside table hangs alongside it

I have crawled each night across hallowed ground at the edge of the pack so as to always smell your blood in the wind

and while you slept, I placed my name under your tongue and made you swallow it whole and now I hear it like a bell

and while you groaned, I lit a fire in your hips stoked by the friction of my legs around yours a burning beacon

I have spilled enough blood to be your queen and you have bound my hands and feet as my king

and our feasts are of the hearts of beautiful women the black wings from their temples and the honey from their thighs

a palace of velvet and star light of collarbone lamps at each staircase and breathing moss pillows our bed a forest floor where a fire burns between us and black feathers burst from the bloody blades of your shoulders

a crown upon my head bleeding red and blue sapphire and roses your hand on top of mine

a crown upon your head of antler bone and teeth Salt and metal My ghost around your finger

©- one hundred stories down 2016

[onehundredstoriesdown]

Just Give me something new to look at

I need a new skyline and I don’t care if it’s trees, or its rocks or glittering animated cities below

I just have grown exhausted of these faces and can barely fight the darkening of the corners come midday

I am tired of shoes and I am tired of lipstick

I want desert and pink moss and cold, or my own reflection blue in the window twenty stories up

I want a new drug one that doesn’t leave me dizzy or sad one that doesn’t leave your crumbs in my bed

I want a new face with cheekbones and freckles and perfect vision

I want legs that could kill a man, And hands that already have

I want a bag of cash under the bed and a handgun on the bedside table casually next to the pizza and gummy bears

I wanted your name next to mine but I guess this will do

there is more room to spread the map out on the bed without you in it

I guess

I took the dogs

All of them

And the truck

I’m not sure which you will miss more

But we are long gone no note on the hallway table no apologies in your empty bank vault no freckles or cheekbones

but the sky is turning pink and the forest of stars is calling us from past the desert and over the noise of the city

the devil waits on a patch of moss with a blanket and a bottle and a handgun

he calls me by my name

©- one hundred stories down