Nerves

they squirmed like worms
but i swallowed them like pills
and washed them down with 6, 7, 8 #9s
dissolved them and drowned them
until their final shiver shrank
and what poured from my sticky mouth
filmed in froth and foam
was everything all inside-out
lured from the damp den
by a lean so hopelessly magnetic

and then those dark and delicate dancers
dripping blindly across ribbons of cream
as the train rumbled in the night
waltzing with my frenetic heart
they were spindly obsidian ballerinas
that pinned me breathlessly leaden to leather
in a gaze so furiously electric

that was all that it took
to be secretly tangled all pink and warm
nestled like newborns
under airy linens
and chocolate down
and the burden of secrets
while pipes yawn in the metallic chill
while bleary-eyed little orphan blinks into her mirror
and the rest of them slumber
in their beds so utterly unknowing

Tattoo

The hooks fell from the wall to the ground
and from dripping bowls floated
cacti so stereotypical
and puddles blossomed pink and yellow

the cheshire cat grinned
maniacal above matchsticks
black and burning on skin
between buttons and buttonholes
and behind vacant irises

my thumb rubbed the scales
of shoulder shimmering dory
such a permanent blunder
and your face met your hand
and your knees met the floor
and you said you didn't like it either

The Thin Black Line

the orange smoldered secretly
one of twenty
and the friction of crickets
swallowed the city noises so far away
the milky blue
of negative seven
feathered with
the trembling shadows
of negative eight
and with my forehead against
the chill of glass
my mind remained
twenty-six minutes away