sachalkhan

He wished for curtains, so that he could swing them closed like eyelids with tassel lashes, to keep the moonlight from invading his sleep-seduced body. (Crouched, head buried into knees, hands in weakened prayer.) They would frame the sunlit glass, (when the sun awoke, arms outstretched, translucent fingers that stroked clouds) with the silhouette of the city, faint and far, peering into the room, and the hand-print of a lover smudged into the color. If the curtains parted, he would glance down, and see the scratches the ladder left on the windowsill. Instead the tassels were made of rusted iron, and the glass was tinted black.

would he pull a maiden's hands, white, adorned with veins and cooling blood from swamps and running rivers had he been Poseidon's son? perhaps his grip would run through her fingers and escape like eels into her lungs, coiling like wet string dipped into mucus, and sleeping to the breaths, which ran faster than Atlanta, firm breasted, and golden-haired tangled in a rose-bed Poseidon laid to grow absorbing sunshine curls of a maiden plunged below.

on the roof simpering with the pigeons i throw sheen after sheen from buckets of paint; you do all the work getting in the way. awnings spattered like lips with the color of kisses shiver and move. and listen to this: the birds open their mouths in the rain spread one wing then another and lean out and over-- the river opens onto salt as the moon blooms like a coin in a fist; lovers part lips while friends part ways. the bartender peels a lime; the doorman pulls at the door while the waitress clears the table. i open a window, you open your eyes: work is making space. here and i have

"Baby." That's what he would call me: Baby. "Baby," he'd call in his don't-wake-the-living voice. (The knob turns and the door creeps open, the scent of him drowns the room. I stare into the splashes of darkness behind my eyelids and stay still – he has the eyes of Medusa, he is always watching, he has the eyes of Medusa, he is always – "Good girl," he coos.) "Baby," he would moan, crushing my bony wrists beneath his forearm. (Razor blades tear into my abdomen, or maybe it's my head. My screams are muffled against his chest, until I no longer bother to scream.) "Baby," he'd say, his arms like prison bars, keeping me in Hell. (Tears spi

Should I kill myself or have a cup of tea? I decide on the latter and I'm not sure why. Probably because I can. Life is a never-ending scroll of be-goods, be-happies, be-in-controls, be-okays, be-strongs and be-appreciatives. So what's another day? Just another day closer to death. Still, life seems incredibly long, don't you think? So long, it's hard to see the end and nearly impossible to touch – even with a knife in my hand that could easily skewer my heart, make it squirm and still like a dying nightingale – sealing its death with a pathetic squeal of almost-song. Life is pain and people in pain are a pain in the ass. Perhap