And there she was
A rough scab on a smooth perfect knee
With a chalky cigarette between bony fingers
Chipped red painted nails
Matching crimson accenting glossy white walls
She knew she was dreaming
Because of the ****** sun in the middle of the room
Chapped lips crack with scarlet, staining teeth
Surgical gloves reaching out from her beating heart
Held in by pale marked skin
Needles pricking gums, calling upon beads of ruby
Incisors and canines fall out one by one
Heavy tongue tastes gory wine
Indifference and apathy sistering one another
Stitches hold right-handed fingers in permanent crosses
Though an opal ring falls through
The shattering crystal lights the room ablaze
Intangible flames lick the ceiling as it rises and the floor sinks
An ever-expanding room flashing over and over in endless continuity
Like a repeating reel of film catching on fire
And then she was gone

Upon a tumultuous street, a notion alights,
It hastens in haste, then averts its gaze,
My heart's echo descends into a crimson abyss,
Upon the ocean floor, it drifts away.

Your name, I called, yet emptiness replied,
A bloom of yours, I drew, withering away.

Life's lines extend before me,
To choose, where your love resides.

This ritual unfolds each day,
I peer within, a melancholy abode,
Where my heart, a vantablack canvas, remains.

:: 12.02.2023 ::

His name is ingrained into the fabric of our flag,
yes, the one you see there, waving in the December air,
with waves that glisten not from sun but from wind,
through the water turned frozen they fail to despair,
"My, oh, my, it's Washington Crossing the Delaware!"

Yet an intrinsic sense of nationalistic pride
exudes from the ink that tattoos this canvas,
the genesis of a nation they had taken for their own;
though, as truth becomes told, our pride seems to fold,
and the ink in the portrait begins to fade in color.

Still, on he trekked, though frigid and cold,
as hills bleached in snow began to unfold
potential Hessian retreats scattered across the beach,
a visualization of a battle bounding to unfold,
a strategist adept in war, in honor he was cloaked,

too determined to fail now.
But here we sit, in contemplation and wonder,
pondering the juxtaposition of privilege and patriotism --
how deceitful corruption now riddles those in charge,
empty promises as true as the navy blue

of the oils that stain this worn, cherished canvas.
Its memory lives on in the minds of many made here:
those of us who bleed the good ol' red, white, and blue,
and those of us who hide from the ones who tattoo
their whispered words into the portrait of our being.

Our quilted nation is laced with crimson,
a tapestry of history hidden from the young;
woven threads of variability outline the margins,
a picturesque vision of what could be; a voice speaks,
"Perhaps our future is just across the Delaware!"

~
Or migrated pod
       Or fleeing refugee
            Or corban
                  Or carbon dioxide
                       Or yubitsume
                            Or van Gogh's ear
                                 Or black Friday
                                      Or lazy evening at the carnival

                    (Tomorrow has already started)

Or free range
     Or gated community
          Or breast exam
               Or storage crisis
                    Or fallen leaves
                         Or germ warfare
                              Or temporary file
                                   Or permanent wave
                                        Or thigh gap
                                             Or physiognomy
                                                  Or soap made of heroes
                                                       Or multiplanetary living
                                                    
(There's a floating graveyard between this world and the next)

Or logical fallacy
     Or irrational number
          Or elementary analysis
               Or college guess
                    Or cardiopulmonary resuscitation
                         Or extrasensory perception
                              Or ten fingers and toes
                                   Or a dozen eggs

                  (They say there's strength in numbers)

Or fifth floor, corner room
     Or high as a kite
          Or bellwether
               Or mingled with bells
                    Or police sirens
                         Or loitering around in silent films
                              Or rule of thirds
                                   Or tombs of second-hand kings
                                        Or face in the rain
                                             Or pareidolia

(Otherwise, at first light you might be smiling...)
~

I.

All I can say is that it is a hum
Reverberant, droning, consistent
Quiet thrumming along the surface
Stirs me awake and then it fills me with
Ichor and I sip, sip, and sip (until I'm drunk).

All I can say is that it is a hum,
Quiet droning, a hushed whisper,
Loud screaming inside the head,
A piercing headache, sometimes a discordant wail.

II.

You sit on the porcelain lip of the tub
Hooded eyes lowered, your fingertips
Pressed together like the steeple of a church

I think: Yes, this is what Renaissance painters modeled angels after. Your skin is like a rose-tinged alabaster, your cheeks Suffused with blood. The painter took a measured time with you.

"Do you honestly think you'll be okay on your own?" You ask.

Silence, she greets you.

III.

Hasn't my mother violently
Ejected me from the nest
I'm only a few months old, a nestling
Wings awkward and clumsy
Beak agape for masticated food
(I'm not ******* ready yet)
Ejects me
Her beak threatens to pierce my shell

This is dejà vu.
I've conversed before
Different room, different domain,
Different speaker, a sicker listener
I'm as sick, sick as **** now

Mind, she hums, crescendo
Crescendo high like a choral piece
Orchestral, and this is resplendent
Everything is gleaming
Your face encased in a soft glow
Halo of light
Your face, cherubic,
His face, Romanesque, was sculpted like a Bronze Age statue.

"Your mother didn't give you the right set of tools. My mother at least gave me–" he falters.

IV.

I remember calling the ex 28 times in the span of 2 hours.
The policeman, he counted.
Thrashing on the floor, weeping like Persephone must've in Hades, like a fallen Mortal reborn as a minor goddess
Stripped me, he did though, of my wings
Avian feathers streaked with years-old blood

My tears, why yes, they're bleeding rivulets.
My ****-brown eyes alight on the bleach
Yes, sweet death

"Stop calling me. I'm ******* another ***** right now," the ex says.

V.

Memory is so faded,
Plays like a scratched and worn cassette tape

Mind is a-humming, humming, my mind is
Orchestral choir, church choir, Pentecostal
Now, I eat ichor, ravenous, now I am Closer to God and she is a woman,  
Draped in funeral attire
She weeps, soundless, a Seer

"I don't know," I say.

"The med isn't working," you reply
Cherubic face shifts and morphs
Melts into soft glow light,
One with the halo, is the halo

Nothing makes sense, everything else does too. My mind races, cassette tapes
Whirs, skips, images flash, I weep
Weep like Sisyphus
Eyes spilling rivers of penny-tinged
Crimson, sanguine ichor

One day he'll taste it and hate me,
Loathe me, the jade-eyed serpent
Poison-fanged
I'll clutch his scales until my fingers are Cut, welts, mottled bruises, fading scars
I will be punished, am punished
The illness, the eternal Boulder on the eternal hill, it rolls and rolls, my mouth agape

I await my cyclic fate ordained by the Higher God

VI.

How many men have I lured into the chamber?
Drunk on sweet wine or mead?
Petrified into osseous
Their gazes failing to avert from my Penetrative stare?

He was an errant General, beautiful but stupid, his mind a one way road, his temper unpredictable and flighty
Oh, how I loved the duality of him
We philosophized
Theorized on the Gods
Laughed at their follies
Wondered at the mysteries of the universe, Her deep annals

Oh, how I loved the physicality of him
Tight, corded muscle, his back like a Wound spring, Bronze hand
Grasping a silver sword

Hark! His rounded shield is lifted, my hideous reflection stares back at me
My eyes, widened, the cup of manna Clatters, soundly in the chamber
Reverberates
Bounces off my throne of skulls

How many men have I–?

VII.

"Can you honestly say that you can take care of yourself?" You ask from the place atop the lip of the porcelain tub. Your hands, a steeple, a church spire
Perhaps, you are a lesser God, perhaps we are all falling Lucifers, wingless, blinded by vengefulness and betrayal
Perhaps, he too is–?

"Am I an infant to you?" I ask.
The headache splits
The pain demands, claws at the side of my skull, dances across my nerves, liquid iron on my tongue

Because when did I?

Oh, Sisyphus you weep! You, who slaughtered so many!

Oh, Medusa, you wept, you beautiful serpentine harlot, you *****, you–
The choir is a strong crescendo, Ascending, ascending, ascending
Lowers like a thrumting and heavy bellow
Deep, rich, and full, timbre

"Everyone, all your life has said you were crazy, but I don't think you are, I–"

VIII.

The tapes skip, voices garbled, muffled, Indiscernible and distorted
Mind shrieks, lower now, quieter now, Barely audible, a fading whisper, your halo Recedes, soft glow dims

Your hands separate, the steeple, no, the Spire collapses.
Held breath hitches,
Serpentine tendrils become wisps of hair, Cloudlike

We are lesser gods, not quite mortal, not quite divine

The itch demands to be felt, protests
And I, I scream endless into a dark chasm
My voice, it does not call back to me
It does not–

"I don't know."