[x]

In my bathroom againGod's in my bathroom again,

he's shaving the patches of his
beard and pulling clown-faces
at the soap. Last night

he held me as I lay in a fever,
made little screams, kept
the hot tongues from my face,
the mushrooms from my
spine.

He says his old girlfriend
tried to drink his blood, that
it messed him up
for a while. He says
it's been a long time.

God looks sad, jingling his
teeth at me like loose
change. The clicks of my
heart make me sick;
folding his pyjamas

would be
the kind thing
to do.

seabonesyou told me to walk on water
but all i did was sink to the sandy bottoms
of the salty sea.

the brackish water stung at my eyes
and filled my lungs,
seeking refuge in the spaces between my ribs.

i remember barely breathing
wet inhales and slow exhales of the briny sea
through slightly parted lips.

my heart was lost in a century-old shipwreck
found through the haze of floating sand
granules that looked like dust in sunlight,
fingers wrapping around wood and forgotten memories.

i wondered if this was death,
ocean water pressing down on the hollows in my chest
world moving in slow motion through teal colored lenses.

you told me to walk on w

scatterfalling leaves scatter
chattering of summers past
at Jack Frost's first breath

Don't Kill For Mea thousand blood red
long stemmed roses in their prime
sacrificed for love

InconsequentialSuch an irony, to be so close to you,
so accidentally intimate. So sad those costumes
we had borrowed, disguises for those who
otherwise might have recognised our shades.

If only the moment had supported
the depths of our hidden agenda, if only
our potentiality had exploded around us.

As I departed you proffered your hand,
I felt your transcendent smile. You
turned your back, for your next assignment
was closing in on you. I walked away
as the door was closing behind me.

BrailleI see your scars
and they're beautiful

if I could read braille
I would tell your story
to all the world
for inspiration

I see the beauty
of their war crimes
because what didn't kill you
makes me fill with pride

to survive is half the story
God be the glory
that strengthening
comes from the marrow
so life is made
& sustained
in the bones

blood is life

and with every stripe
you gave life
so my love for you
is born

I see your scars
I sense your flaws
beauty is for the queen
that have been through wars

and how wisdom
is not for the innocent
because redemption
comes from being guilty
of living life.

I see your scars
and the beauty
tha

I took offMy day off.
I stand in sunlight
without asking.
I can watch it being day.

The mud is soft and cool at home.
I'd bury well without a casket,
I’ll be a naked pill for earth.

I build a garden box from wood,
smash my thumb.
Red bell
peppers;
too late for lettuce.

I had a premonition
I would live like this.
No one will remember me.
I’ll forget by Tuesday.

On Waitingnothing seems worth writing anymore

yet all my bones are coiled in anticipation.

I'm a poet lost, ya know.
And all our stars, they're leaking
oil and pizzazz. Something
grand is building in my marrow.

The quiet hoursI long for the quiet hours;
two in the morning and your breath upon my skin,
all softness in sleep
where our jagged edges meld into
blurred lines.

Insomnia
because I am glued to you
and I don't know if I'll ever look away long enough
to sleep.

Here is where we fit
puzzle pieces
into the gaps between our fingers,
yours and mine.

because the ones who came before had weaponsi eat insults like grapes, a burst of
flavor a pop of green. i am supposed to
zip up the sagging gape of my grievances.

i should look at a man and see a man, not
the target he might notice on my forehead.

a long livid line of men and none of them
gentle; ones who could brand an animal, but
not nurse it through december or earlybirth;

who have looked bullets through me and
seared their marks puckerugly. when they talk
to me, i pretend i am someone clean because

i imagine they consider me dirty. the eyes
of them are hot wax poured smartly over
the puncturous holes on my face. and so you

shock me aghast as a pearlplucked oyster
with your r

16The moon renders a highway
As the trees paint the spectre,
You sit with a stillness — unnatural;
You listen for the twigs to snap.

My pulse is a bird straining
Against a cage of flesh.

Splits lips upon starsMorning
splits
open, like orange-flesh
cradled
in a palm.

I tuck consonants between my
lips/
draw moon-craters in my eyes; I make wishes
upon stars
that are too far away to realise and hope
that somehow things will
change. Yet

the sun is still a mere hole
in the
sky.

Remnant of a RequiemI. I don’t want to dream anymore.

II. There’s the distortion of stardust and twilight spreading inside downtrodden lungs.

Somehow, the sky had learned my secrets, and it has forced me to bury its body in my system like a funeral despite the fact that these hands have scratched its constellations back when they were bare remnants of dust and gods and ice.

But all these brittle bird bones could do was nothing but fracture an expanse of glass and grind the fragments through broken teeth

[and I couldn’t weep openly.]

Who knew I could drown in my own ocean?

III.

IV. Maybe I’m still sober, or maybe I’ve learned

expectationI am not ready to grow up,

but dissonant chords, memento mori,
and the date of my birth
clamour at my senses
abusive, aggressive, morose -

I wonder how other people
put childish notions away
in order to be polished,
in order to be sophisticated,
in order to feel the same

and
I wonder
why they want to.

youi dug him out of my ribcage &
drowned in bleach and flames
to rid myself of
the dreaded devil's hat
that seeped from my pores

this wasn't about him.

this was about erasing the blemishes
he left
and making my own

but you said my new freckles
spelled out your name with
connect-the-dots
across my shoulders

and i began to question
how you would sound
gasping
around such a shoulder

but oh-
i have only ever been the gasping
not the gasped

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Taliesin EssenceI am spindle-limbed of sunshine,
a coral spiral-armed galaxy
forever absorbing your nebulae.
In the cover of darkness
where gravity does not let light
(like secrets) escape,
we can share our honest stars
and our acid scars, and make
jars of all this clay.
We can mold a new creature together
that has a supernova for its heart;
we will let it devour us both.
I am this invertebrate thing that
has crawled from the safety of its
shell; allow me to take refuge
in your shadow-dappled places.
Allow me to tender-pray in the sage
and the cool sound of your voice
that has made the aqua chamber of my dreams.
You have brought back so ma

IndigenousI think of you in rivers,
in warm braided rainbows
that tie themselves
around me and flow away.

Looking into these little
alcove altars filled with
part of you is like
cliff-diving.
I take the plunge and
find myself immersed in
a mobile, marigenous
colt of your singing
that lives on sea foam.
Thus riding with Pegasus,
I will forget why I
checked my coat at the door
and proceed to roll naked
in the clover because
I heard it dispels glamour.

I find loveknots in my insides
and imagine that they are like
your fists in bedsheets.
They are geographic whorls
that fill me with leylines
and keep me dancing
in the dawn.
They

OctopusI bare no bitter page for you,
unless it is true.
I am swept by the world that is
an offbeat symphony, composed by
a master of dischord with a masters
in pathology and a bowl of rice
for breakfast. You see, when rice
and rache are both dishes best
served chilled, that is, as cold as
the doppelganger of me, we find that
under all our best microscopes, our
eyes are still just weeds for our
faces. Your eyes are beautiful weeds
in the maelstrom of stars that are
the soles of your feet. Walking,
walking, we tread upon the graves of
too many ants and sparrows. Will we
write elegies for them, together?

Please answer this song

Two-SpiritShe is a broken children's toy,
apparently manufactured not-quite-right.
Daddy smiles when she cooks, buys her
tools sometimes, but never speaks.
Mommy will buy her skirts, but never
enough workshirts or neckties or boxers.
Neither of them laugh when she stares
too long at the women in love scenes.

She tags along with the children
much older than her, smiling at the
pixie-girls, and crying at home.
The willow boys show her their teeth,
and she learns to climb trees from them.
They teach her how to walk so that
her steps will not be heard.

From the time she was born, she sings
everyday, and sees songs
written in the sky.
Some

The Big SeverHe is a dreamer, card-trick, drag queen.
Everyday, he suppresses a need-
he stifles his weeping, only barely
smearing the mascara on his face.
His paranoia and his fear drive him
to carry bubbles of self-loathing
with him everywhere he goes;
the acid melts everything.
The judgements and rejections
have turned his best stars
to ashes.
He looks at the world through
eyes disguised; disgust is the name
of the game that has beaten him
into the dust.
His long, shaven legs are little
covered by the flambouyant leopard
skin skirt; it better resembles
a loin cloth. And now, see:
the youths he buys smokes for
at the su

Trappingsdeep velvet shadows
rhinestone-studded cloak
far above sleepy eyes

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Concentric

by *indiana-w, Mar 2, 2013, 1:03:56 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Bullseye
concentric rings
of black and white
where the world pins
people-butterflies
to the wall for a collection
or exhibit
the pin
in my forehead
gives me a migraine
and the label
outside my box reads
"queer, pagan, neurodivergent, liberal, fat, druggie"

but inside I have different
concentric rings,
an oak tree inside me
with layers that say things like
"loves beauty"
"likes to run with dogs"
"smokes medicinally for chronic health problems"
and
"survived many abuses"

The butterfly-people
in the natural-history-museum-zoo
of the world
all have concentric rings inside
telling stories
but they are not black and white
or set in binaries and absolutes
they are many colors,
beautiful wings and eyes
wrapped
in layers

Concentricby *indiana-w

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

I appreciate that this isn't written right xD I'll edit it when I'm sober I think.

The Artist has requested Critique on this Artwork

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*alapip Mar 11, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

congratulations, Indi, on the DLD!

=DailyLitDeviations Mar 10, 2013

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by DLD (Daily Literature Deviations) in a news article that can be found here [link]
Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article.

Keep writing and keep creating.

=TwilightPoetess Mar 7, 2013

This is lovely. I really love the metaphor you carried through this, and "butterfly-people" is a beautiful image. Excellent work! I'm adding you to my

*indiana-w Mar 7, 2013 Student Writer

Thank you so much!
Very flattered

=TwilightPoetess Mar 7, 2013

You're welcome!

*archelyxs Mar 2, 2013

*indiana-w Mar 6, 2013 Student Writer

:hugs:

*alapip Mar 2, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

good for a fav already, Indy.
if you're not satisfied, surely worth
the time to polish to your satisfaction,
maybe to a DLD even...

pip

*indiana-w Mar 6, 2013 Student Writer

Thanks ^^ Do you have any suggestions?

*alapip Mar 7, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

after reading it a couple more times,
i actually don't, Indi. now, i like it
even more!

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Concentric

Concentricby *indiana-w

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