Dreadful creatures dream beneath my eyelids
Hiding all their ugly sultry layers underneath my skin
Naked weeds against a green backdrop
Trying to be beauty
Sincere purity cut and pasted between them
As if to void the emptiness they drown in

But I'm drawn to them
My nighttime lovers
Most hated friends
Haloed in a scene of meticulous paradise
Eyes drawn up
Mouths pushed out wide
As they try to fit the whole world inside

They aren't the love I sucked up
The kind all wet and sticky on my fingertips
The kind that sometimes cuts me slightly
But never undeservedly

Still I close my eyes
Breathe smooth and rusty air
Into a world where sense is worthless
Try trading it
You'll find it like lent in your pockets
Forgotten and sad reminders of imperfection

These nights are the kinds where mothers kill
Heads roll across a parking lot
And teachers lean close for decomposed kisses

My teeth fall out of my head onto the carpet
Singing show tunes and plotting

Twice
I've seen a man who I've hated
Shaken
Wanted
To pull all my needles and all my thread through every inch
Of his glowing little body

I've heard the music
I've played the keys
People are always singing something
When their tongues and cheeks refuse to speak

Last midnight he didn't remember me
I'm not sure if I was depressed
Or relieved

Four dreams ago I sat with her
She didn't notice me
And now I believe in prophesy

If life were a number sometimes I think I'd be 119
An omen
A backwards emergency

Instead I just go to sleep
Where they all know me as their own dream
A whore
A victim
A picturesque photograph
Unlucky limbs sticking out from beneath the rocks
Fingernail paintings gripping the table

Or
Most likely
Their own bad thoughts
Perfect and hauntingly sad dreams