La Brea (Was Too Quintessential For Us Anyways)

The roses bit their tongues,
and tasted blood without water.
They would have screamed if they
had the gallantry,
but they never would,
and neither would I.

If I had an ounce of courage left,
I would have told you that your track marks
looked like a f*****g cross-walk,
you hitch-hiker, wannabe Jack Spicer,
there were tar pits within you too soft for La Brea,
but too obtuse for peaches.

The rooftops in Torre Lapillo
still cover MY tar pits,
My hands still pinch themselves in beats like Cassady,
my lower lip isn’t ever going to be symmetrical,
but butterfly wings didn’t mean anything beautiful

To anyone.

I shouted out to the rubber wind,
my words coming back to me in
the dehydrated blood of roses,
and when I tried to ask the birds,
they soared,
and when they soared,
the clouds wailed--
the sky is a f*****g coward.

But so am I,
and I am no softer than a ripe avocado,
no more glittering than the trees at the end of August,
no quieter than roses,
no more beautiful than a torn butterfly wing,
my scars are no deeper than yours,
and when the trees decide to uproot themselves,
we will both fall to our hands,
and wince as our apricot skin tears,
and pomegranate seeds
adorn our ordinary knees.

La Brea was too quintessential
for us anyways--
It made us feel unoriginal,
it made us feel unsafe,
dangling from charm bracelets

with crystallized cheek bones
as frogs fell
from the f*****g sky.

 
The mountain-tops pulled out
and pulled on
their coats of timber
stained with cum in the winter.
Not all kisses
led to sex,
and not all sex
led to kisses,
but how do you explain that to 
the clouds,
that were the hands
in front of the dawn’s face,

shaking with her first almost-orgasm,
and how do you explain that
to the roses

trying to be the

last documented virgins.

We were cowards,
unknown,
We felt cliché,
anonymous,
letting the roses
go skinny-dipping
in our tar pits,
because
we.
felt.
stuck.
living in the suicide state.

Our city wasn’t an interactive pornography,
but it was
always wet,
and opening itself
up to us,
waiting for us to climb out
of our tar pits,
and open ourselves

the same.

Author's Note

unfinished

Reviews

[Pax]

wow, very impressive work... speechless!

[Andrea]

Wow!! This is so powerful and some amazing images, and the emotion just drips out, anger, self loathing, fear, hurt... I really love this.