NEW YORK — A personal trainer accused of stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death wrote feverishly in his journal about her and their troubled relationship during the months before her brutal slaying, and even penned some angry poems and songs, including one called "The Killin Machine."

A Manhattan prosecutor read the excerpts Tuesday to the jury hearing the case against Paul Cortez in an attempt to prove he was obsessed with Catherine Woods, an aspiring dancer who had turned to stripping to pay the bills.

Cortez, 26, is accused of stabbing Woods 20 times in the face, arms, torso and neck on Nov. 27, 2005, after she tried to end their relationship. Manhattan district attorneys point to his bloody fingerprint and bootprints as evidence that he was in Woods' Upper East Side apartment the night of her murder.

His writings about Woods, whom he met in 2004, revealed a fixation with the 21-year-old and a preoccupation with her job as a stripper.

"I wanted her to stop so that she would heal and love me without boundary or pain but she would never stop. It's like tryin to stop the rivers downward path in the summertime with your bare hands," Cortez wrote in early 2005, after Woods was allegedly drugged and raped on the job. After the incident, Cortez wrote, Woods began distancing herself from him.

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"How well deceived we lovers allow ourselves to be — I wake with sadness in my heart everyday for the loss of Catherine Woods," the journal continues. (EXCERPT )

Woods' parents, who traveled from Columbus, Ohio, to attend the trial, listened somberly to the excerpts from the audience. On the other side of the aisle, Cortez's mother sat with her head bowed and her eyes closed.

Lawyers for Cortez objected to the admission of the excerpts in his second-degree murder trial, arguing unsuccessfully that the selections could be taken out of context unless the jury read the entire journal.

His lawyers have said that Cortez will take the stand to explain that he cared for Woods too much to kill her and constantly urged her to quit her job at Flashdancers, a strip club in Times Square.

As 2005 continued, Cortez's entries became more optimistic, if not hopeful, that the relationship would improve.

"Beautiful Catherine, love of my life — how can I make you understand this erotic subjection to lusty men hurts you more than you know — I see that you would rather choose them over me," assistant district attorney Peter Casolaro read aloud to the jury as Cortez sat expressionless at the defense table. "All I know is that my heart is broken because we are not together." (EXCERPT )

By October, however, the tone of Cortez's writing became sinister. The prosecutor read a poem called "The Killin Machine" as an example.