rrrrrr

and they're dropping like flies
and i'm holding my heart
and you can't lie
about my bloodstains being art

the rings around your cheeks
match the ones on your fingers
and every time he speaks
your lungs won't stop to linger

watch yourself sink into the ashes
piling on the dust
mama's words will sting like acid
because she's calling it lust

"it's getting easier"
you say
"you're getting sleazier"
"okay"

looking down at your shoes
like they'll save you
they can't save you

looking down at your shoes
but i can't save you
he won't save you


--erin

basilica

you're walking around asking
the wrong questions
because people are always talking
about my red heart

but i'm thinking about my lungs
and i think they're pink
and that feels more important today.

i'm a monument
and you'll be visiting for years.
taking your pictures,
cameras strapped around your neck,
arch support keeping you on your feet,
sandwiches in your backpack.
(everything here is too damn expensive)

marble smooth as i never was,
velvet ropes keeping you from getting too close,
but the gold glittering at sunset
is worth battling the crowd.

they'll turn me into collectibles,
miniature and plastic.
a piece of my lungs watching from a dusty bookshelf
with a smile they never questioned.

remember the color of the sunset.
find the sunrise someday.

your lungs feel like home.


--erin

sometimes, when you are a man

i'm forgetting my soul at the bottom of a purse
with red lipstick and a grey notebook
that's quiet enough to make me wonder
what it would say if i got around
to opening it.

my thoughts slide back down into a pile of
"gothic cathedrals tend to have rib vaults
and pointed arches.
romanesque cathedrals usually have groin vaults
and rounded arches."
"lady macbeth goes crazy because she focuses so hard
on distinguishing imagination from reality
that when her imagination becomes her reality
she doesn't realize it."
"i hate myself for loving you.
and by you i mean 5 seconds of summer.
i swear.
all my indie street cred is out the window."
"hitchcock usually gets credit for creating the accordian zoom
because of his application of it in vertigo.
this is significant because it is used a means
of character development and revelation."
and it all gets lost.

i'm drawing in the chipped parts of my
black fingernails like they'll redeem me.
it doesn't mean anything.
it doesn't mean anything.

i'm used to holding myself together like the arms
around my torso can keep the world
from falling.
my arms are around my torso but the world
is falling.


--erin



you wear stretchy pants in your room.
it's for fun.