Verse 1:
Why am I so disconnected?
My soul is screaming out to me in a passionate furor.
Sanguine and red hot flames are running down my spine;
I’m blazing through misfortune with opulent eyes.
I see death all around me but in my heart there is hope,
Time has healed past welts now the Lord shall cleanse me once more.
In time it has been revealed to me that the Lord has the sinew,
to fight off the eternal of death and the Cimmerian.
Eternity is all around me, your flames scorch me whole;
I lie on the bed covered in anxious goo.

Chorus:
High on octane, I float above cloud nine,
I have a heady feeling, and then I’m lifted into the Sun.
God has granted me the will to move on,
The Universe imparts to me an elixir to your soul.

Verse 2:
My spirit lies in front of me separated from my soul;
I’m an incorporeal being who no longer has a definite form.
                           You’re the one I long for and I know that you’re all I see,
“I truly wish that you would take to time to actually notice me!”
Why can’t you see that I would lock your heart away?
I’d store it in a chest full of my sacred and cherished dreams.
You’re my goldmine, the apple of my eye;
You’re that mellifluous melody chanting in my ear.
You’re a divine masterpiece and I love you with my eyes;
I wish I could eternally gaze upon you and make your beauty my muse.

Chorus:
High on octane, I float above cloud nine,
I have a heady feeling, and then I’m lifted into the Sun.
God has given me the will to move on,
The Universe imparts to me an elixir to your soul

Bridge:
Holy and pure is that pearl with your name inscribed,
Your name inscribed upon it and it befits my enamoring crown.
I want you to adorn me with your brilliant and glimmering gems;
Please complement my apparel with an extravagant diadem.
I love the eyes you possess, those diamonds that seem to gleam;
I desire your magic spells to fuse me with your soul.
I went insane for but a moment but to me it has been revealed,
That sanity belongs to the one who cherishes His dream of love.

Chorus:
High on octane, I float above cloud nine,
I have a heady feeling, and then I’m lifted into the Sun.
God has given me the will to move on,
The Universe imparts to me an elixir to your soul

Something like octane
distant
profane

It's a longing
believing in belonging
taken by the need
salivating from memories

Something like octane
burning
insane

Resonating shouts of joy
spark controversy
Bipartisan all of us beset
By greed for what we ***

Something like octane
charged
heart engorged

Where there's smoke,
there's fire.
This burning
is not cliche,
nor peculiar,
it's a natural
hormonal-thing.

She spins me
round and round,
makes such
sweet
lovely sounds,
sings to me
with those precious lips.

I am warm to the touch,
in a trance with her,
her dripping words,
her sensuous vibe
& I feel zombie-like,
she fuels my desire,
high octane mama.
Touch me.

I know what makes your burn
It's the dim of a moonlit night
and the saunter of lips up hills and valleys--
It's the crackle of cigarettes
atop our pleasantries
and the spill of sweet talk
made unchained by our mouths

To be covered in love until the following dawn
dripping drops of lovey-dovey morning dew...
To be terribly in love until the following dawn
drinking shots like doting lovebirds do...

Your rapid fire
Heart's desire
Is a high octane
Bullet train
Bouncing between destinations
At widely varying elevations
Stopping at mysterious stations
Where I experience deflation
In between these stops is a track
Where everything is black
And you attack
Until the merciful sun finally shines
You then say you'll always be mine

There are quick flashes of light
But also sick gasps of fright
And it's a big task of might
So the trick is to grasp right
When the speed of your movement
You claim to be an improvement
Creates fire extinguishing wind
So the flame you lit you rescind

Your ride was aridly adrenalized
Which is why I was penalized
In a poison prison incentivized
By your many mental lies
Eluding my sentinel kind
No love I find
Only tire marks
In entire dark
That lead to nowhere
While I scream no fair

You were an explosion of pleasure
Whose interest I tried to measure
Instead of being happy
I saw your train lapping
Familiar phantom spots
When emotions ran hot
Through my heart you shot
At a velocity I once thought
To be completely impossible
Proven wrong by bullet holes
And only lonely bullets know
What's inside my heart
They take those contents
To make me repent
Your speedy intent

That was fast
Smoking past
Things that last
Into broken glass
Until we were cut
By our rushing rut
I couldn't take anymore
So I sped to the door

you pulled my hand with such a slight effort, like you were taking a teenager for shopping, you were the girl with a sapphire bandanna, and your hair lacking composure, not ready to be stroked by the Roman ghosts, which for unreasonable tenacity have always created a war between your hobby and your will to die, and the peace treaties on the shelves of your heart have compromised with the guilt under your fingernails, and transposed to eulogies I always read from your lips when you said 'Your perfume smells like graveyard poetry festooned with dead roses', because this is exactly what you subjoined on the last line about your deceased father, you never understood the reason why i didn't want you to get in contact with my collarbones when we hugged, and apparently I wouldn't let you sleep leaning against the headboard as you told me about witchcraft and ancestors, you remember the skim milk we used to have? In the afternoons of hopeless radiance, when you reached for my ribcage, and whispered it was the only bulletproof jacket you'd wear if bullets had to fall in love with you, all this because we believed in the prophecy of 'us against the world'

All the pretty birds
perched on leafy branches
chirp to the waking morning,
“I am here. Where are you?
I am here. Where are you?
I am here. Where are you?
I am here. Where are you?”

And the puppy dogs
all starve for something
While the cats of fortune
laze about the alleyways.
But the pretty birds
all the morning long,
“I am here. Where are you?”

The tardy businessmen
and their non-fat lattes
squirm in BMWs,
Honking at traffic
with the most colorful swears,
“I am here! I am here!
I am here! I am mad! I am here!”

High-octane housewives
power walk the parks,
Gabbing. And the old folks
tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks,
Mumble to long gone loved ones,
“Where are you? Where are you?
Where am I? Where are you?”

But those ****** birds-
Those pretty, ******, little birds-
They have it figured out.
They know the secrets
to Happiness:
‘I am here.
Where are you?’

She breaths octane
gas polluting my heart,
and paralyzes my emotions,
love straining to restart.

Blue blistering toes,
pneumonia-driven prose,
she aches the bone inside of me
delivering a cold.

Moving towards
my aching soul,
she finds my
emptiness, tenfold.

Gaseous toxic dust
confides within my lungs,
her selfish evil breath fills me,
permanent distrust.

She drinks blood through
my straw-thin veins,
detracts my serenity;
swallows it all the same.

Disfigured masterpiece discharged
and broken on a hospital cart,
you're jealousy tears me apart,
I wait for the autopsy chart...

How's your heart,
If your heart was a tank of gasoline?
Is it full of rich, high octane jet fuel?
Or is it sputtering,
With only the dregs of several month old junk at the bottom?
Filled with iron oxide sediment and dirt?

Not much happens in these parts, he would demur,
As if he’d be asked in the first place,
He one of the dwindling few remaining in this dwindling town.
Nevertheless, he has seen his share in four score and change years
From the vantage point of his place
Which sits just off the corner of the Penoyer Road:
Boom times and bust,
Snowdrifts threatening to lick the roof lines of houses,
Boys running through the embers of fallen leaves,
Shirtless and barefoot on improbably warm October days,
Young men in hay wagons and rattle-*** Chevy pickups
Laughing and singing, confident and carefree,
Making their way to the old train depot down at Apulia Station
First step on their way to show the jerries or the VC
Exactly how Upstate farm boys took care of business,
Windows adorned by placards with a gold star
Illuminated by a solitary light bulb at odd hours.
Here and there, younger types have begun to dot the landscape:
Professors with a romantic hankering to get back to the land,
Neo-hippies with their own reasons for embracing the rural life,
Each in their tune walking about their yards
Holding keyboarded and wi-fied replicas
Of that which Moses carried down the mountain,
Their fixer-uppers or double-wides adorned with small dishes
Pointed forlornly at the horizon in search of some satellite supplication.
While he has seen enough not to be too ******* sure about things,
He suspects that complexity and contentment
Rarely walk hand-in-hand,
So he keeps his needs simple enough
To be met by the ancient radio
(Huge, wood-cabineted shambling thing,
More attuned for Amos and Andy than All Things Considered)
The three-checkout grocery in Tully,
The Morton-building sheltered family practice over in Cazenovia
(The squalid, sooty skyline of Syracuse,
Split by six lanes of high-octane madness,
As remote and slightly terrifying to him as Mars itself)
As he has learned enough from thickets of trees
Which all but shriek with torrents of crows in September dusks,
The subtle changes of stream banks
Tinged by the stubbornness of frost on early May mornings
Or blanketed by the pig-iron forge heat of July afternoons,
To know that there are sufficient and possibly necessary limits
To the places where two legs or four wheels can carry a body.

Airwaves awash in the new gospel barrage:
calling forth the neighbourhood hack,
Abe Lincoln toon in towering hat,  
the corporation is coming -
will you not
collaborate my friend?

Everything good that you ever dreamed of is here:
Marbonite floored flats with self-terraced roofs;
The swankiest of cars, in imported hues;
Your arm candy drools,
now, brands, bigger brands!

All in your grasp, now, in community gates
shut safe as society decays.

Skies spitting frogs? Pestilences amass?
Listen to the Gospel according to Bane:
in the desert, smell octane. Hallelujah,
everything we make, from watches
to headscarves - your underwear is cheaper
sourced from the next so-lala-land.

Forget your sources tiny of incomes varying:
Bakers, cobblers, tinkerers, we also have
a uniform for you. Oh you rustic
tradition-bound bandy bumpkins!
Abandon your alleyways, and
welcome to the ghettos...where

What you eat, to where to retreat:
we cure everything from heartache to panache.

Wash away your sins in wonder medicines;
Waters can part, yes, see how the Pharoah
is disarmed; Big city dreams, dream
global manna beams. All that is needed for
salvation, is a little bit of classification. Are you
left-wing or right? Center-left or center-right?

The powerdrill tearing down edifices
resonating through noon. A crane arm's shadow
hovering high by the moon. Tablets from skies
now proclaim the new gospel for the land,
the airwaves are awash
of the miracle of Witwatersrand.

The corporation is coming, to a store near you:
Amen! Will you not, then, collaborate, my friend?

Dying days
I'm looking for a way out
Feelin' like a ghost
Itching for an overdose
Action
Reaction
Action
Reaction
Strike the match
Hijack a limousine
Dying for a taste
High octane gasoline
Action
Reaction
**** satisfaction
Read my lips
Nothin' to live for
But the eight ball
Nothin' to live for
Gonna burn it all
Dog bite
Distraction
No satisfaction
Stayin' numb
Action
Reaction

Fresh Direct

Exit

I used to sleep
With pen and paper on my nighttime table.
Nowadays, my iPad tablet rests upon my chest,
Not only does it keep me warn,
It takes my poems from within, Fresh Direct,^
Edits, credits, and delivers them to your door,
While I'm still sleeping.

Which is why they come at all hours.
It is also why they call them,
Love's Labour's Lost saving devices.

Refill

My woman, my number one fan,
Grabs her pillow, mashes her face
Into my iPad warmed chest,
Without asking permission,
Thus fulfilling her mission critical.

Restoring the balance, refilling the tank
With high octane mystical, thru skin umbilical,
A first edition of the day blended mix named,
All's Well That Ends Well.



7:45 am
July 14th, 2013

Andrew Gn

Probably the most prolific Singaporean designer, Gn graduated from the renowned Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London and the Domus Academy in Milan before joining Emanuel Ungaro in 1992. He launched his namesake label in 1996, establishing a fan base among the Parisian high society and A-list celebrities such as Jessica de Rothschild and Sarah Jessica Parker for his luxurious fabrics and exquisite embellishments. Gn was awarded the President’s Design Award in 2007 and is stocked in all the major continents, with his atelier based in the Le Marais district in Paris.

Ashley Isham

The other Singaporean high fashion designer to hit big time in the international circuit, Isham established his namesake label in London in 2000, and is a show fixture at London Fashion Week. The label is known for its sharp, contemporary tailoring and high-octane glamour, and is a hit among film, TV and music stars as well as British royalty.

Aijek

Self-taught designer Danelle Woo creates easy-breezy, ultra-feminine pieces in sustainable fabrics. Aijek is stocked at multi-label boutiques in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Latin America, the Middle East and the United States.

Depression

The neo-Gothic ready-to-wear label’s stark, minimalist designs are stocked in Hong Kong, Belgium, Japan and the U.S., and counts celebrities like Adam Lambert and The Black-Eyed Peas as fans.

Sabrina Goh

The feted Singaporean designer stocks her easy-to-wear pieces from her namesake label at multi-label boutiques in the United States, the Fred Segal store in Japan and a London-based online store Not Just A Label.

Max Tan

The avant-garde label features experimental silhouettes and a contemporary artistic flair, and is stocked in Europe, the Middle East, San Francisco and Taiwan.

Benjamin Barker

This stylish menswear brand founded by designer Nelson Yap in 2009 now has two stores in Melbourne and offers custom tailoring as well. It also offers shipping to Australia and New Zealand via its website BenjaminBarker.co. .

In Good Company

The well-loved minimalist label with unusual silhouettes fronted by designers Sven Tan and Kane Tan is stocked in Hong Kong at Kapok, at various departmental stores in Jakarta, Indonesia, including Sogo, Seibu and Galleries Lafayette Jakarta and in New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane

383 small block, double-**** heads,
fuel injection, supercharger
a midnight cruise
flaming hot licks on black lacquer paint
street lights blowing past
That’s chrome, baby.

That’s chrome.

Road signs, blue eyes, blonde hair,
cherry red lips framed in a billet mirror
long legs hang under
a plaid mini-skirt straddling
a 4-speed.

That’s chrome, baby.
That’s chrome.

Exhaust fumes, tire smoke,
high octane fuel, perfume
waters both mouth and eyes
Detroit steel never smelled this good
Red fingernails dig denim at 5500 rpm.

That’s chrome, baby.
That’s chrome.

Chrome bumpers, chrome grills,
chrome smiles, chrome thrills.
That’s chrome, baby.
That’s chrome.


© 2010 C.T. Bailey

I'm not gona take my life.  
Cause it's not mine to take.
It was yours which you gave.
Now this burden to bare is my fate.
My hearts filled with love.
Slowly gettin drained.
And its gettin refilled.
With all this pain.
What they are refilling with is high octane.
Wish i could sell my soul.
Just for 1 happy day.
Too bad i cant..
Its not his to take.
Wish i could sell my soul.
too bad i cant..
Cause thats not a deal i can make.

Entombed in chrome, steel, and speed,  
Humanity slays the night  
With headlights,  
Banshee engines screaming  
V8 defiance,  
High-octane ghosts in the exhausts  
Bellowing spectral smoke,  
A motorized mausoleum  
Driving away from nature  
And slipping into darkness  
In the midnight heart  
Of a graveyard city.

It's blood I see,
high octane energy
escaping me.
I shall bleed away into
another day but
only
to see more.

Go to war, the posters scream,
an adventure turns into
the worst kind of dream,
seeping through my eyes at night,
a tunnel
with no end in sight.
It's blood I see,
high octane energy
escaping me.

Today I am a crumpled can.
I am a satsuma left to shrivel in the sun.
I am a star gone supernova,
I implode, cave into myself
With a kind of sick brilliance.

In my holocaust of thought,
There is no peace.
There is only war.
There are only battles to be won.
I am no longer allowed to lose this race.

Normally my veins are filled with blood,
But today it is octane and oxygen
Chemicals clashing and consuming me in flame.
I am luminescent with disease.
My skin glows bright with fear.

Inside my skull, something is raging.
I keep my head down, cast my eyes to the ground,
Concentrate on forward movement.
I cannot think for all that sadness and fear.
I didn't know my eyes could hold so many tears.

Today, I am a crumpled can, a satsuma left to rot.
I sit on the sidelines and wait for my walls to give in.

the love I have for you
hauntingly beautiful
you make my heart a raging storm
then a calm stream after a storm
you are my tornado, a hurricane
******* away from feeling normal
your love feels like a breeze
you provoke my emotions with ease
my match,  I am your octane
let's turn this spark into a fire
I am scared but this is what I truly desire.

methyl (1R,2R,3S,5S)-3- (benzoyloxy)-8-methyl-8-azabicyclo[3.2.1] octane-2-carboxylate

Cahn Ingold Prelog

Whose rules are these? Press
on my lips boy, fill my face
and my hands with love.
Fill it up with confetti
little pink hearts that flutter
like Eskimo kisses or snowflakes.

Chop it doll. Link my elbow.

I'm so in love with a boy
that doesn't even drink -
I wonder if he loves me too.
He doesn't.
I wonder if he knows
that without him I'll get in with the ******* crew.

I know the chemistry of it. I can read the IUPAC.
I can breathe the molecules
I can taste the bad decisions I'm making.

I eat junk food and drink too much
€3.99 Revero
so I can stomach bad things.
Your saliva swims in with the bile.

How many times have I puked
behind cars
or old convents? Too many.

How many boys have I loved? Too many.

Anyway,
uni is finished soon.
I'm going home. Home again.

Shine on, homeboy.
You're my fast-paced resonating crust; whirlwind overdrive; distinctively soaring fuzz thrashing against the walls of sound.
High octane stoner rock god up in the skies of a means to an end, yeah I'm the one. Stay
gold, for austerities shall never outpower us. Thy soldiers will rise, lest they have outpowered the flames. And then you will
inhale the smokes of my dope and you
will stare at the vacant road where
all the relentless nights come; wolves out.  
Death match
is pretending that I'm alright and
the world's fine as it is.
Check mate, I have never seen you alive. Always on the
run but never with a reigning
head on the clouds. Things grow
obsolete and I have learned to
be a seizer of all things gold—
today I
am the indestructible master
of war. But homeboy,
what am I without your distorted riffs and
solemnly poignant lamentations. I
am irresistible and indestructible but you
are way more than that. I
would love my favorite dopesmoker
beyond words; standing up on the mountains that envisage
voices of hollow forces. So tell me,
is it that I love(d) the ones I don't deserve or is it that I love(d) the ones who
don't deserve me? Today I
heard about you and the fact that
you're leaving the underworld— the world that has caressed and nurtured us dearly. You said it
was over. You loved me so——
that you would prefer cutting the streams of our days than having the
scythe of death disintegrate
us apart. It would give a
foretaste of lifetime
desolation, you said. If you were
the only one who had to die faster.
Bold as dead, I am.
We both will shine on because I
was brave— and I fought for what I believe in. But, again,
you're way more than that.

just a few more moments with I and I, just a few more bounds, the world really isn't about me at the end of the day, no, the world functions as a system, where there is pull and push but at the end a ravine, stuck and unstuck out of time, the perception, from the highest points and the lowest, girls, men, women, things, animals, eating up their own souls for the cold dip into the lake, we try our best to communicate, but voices are chordless under ice, we do what we can to make it better, a bit more kindness, just a bit sweeter,


I'd like to
slow down

the right type of distraction, any distraction, conversation, another....interpretation

another book, tell me should should should or hear or hear or feel
another way, another outlook, another ending

my restless bones bound for ******, for mud, for roller coaster, for high, octane fury, some sort of a blazing high lighter fluid disaster, tossed into the fire, and imploded in seconds, check to make sure there are no parents

the principles that brought me thought at one point now churn in uncontrollable dynamic

I'm not sure if there's any going back

at this point...

i remember these two particular catchphrases uttered from english lips in the early 90s: the burqa? satan's postbox; and the other? jesus is coming: look busy.

i have to admit it, jazz sounds so much better,
and i'm sure if i was writing this in
the 20th century, jazz would have abhorred me,
but more so the beatnik poetry-jazz fission,
like some godfather of rap of something -
still jazz sounds better, and even though i was
partially raised on classical music,
point being, when *batman forever came out,
i didn't buy the soundtrack with U2 on it,
but instead the elliot goldenthal score -
notably for the song fledermausmarschmusik -
times were tough, we still used to play
with action figures and were the puppet-masters
in those days, rather than monochromatic
in smartphone wizardry...
                and i remember this one woman working
in our price asking me whether i was
sure i wanted the classical score of the movie,
rather than the soundtrack: and i said -
well, d'uh!
   but i can't contest for loving classical music
more than jazz, esp. not during these "detox"
weeks... jazz is just that: a cough medicine,
a paracetamol, something akin to beating
egg yokes with some sugar, until a pale canary
foam forms, and then you place it on top
of a black coffee, with some whiskey to boot...
i'll say this, these "detox" weeks are best
done during the autumnal / winter months -
just enough sunshine to make a 32+ hour days
bearable...
           what time is it? almost 3pm?
that's me crossing the 24h threshold of being
constantly awake...
            by the time i hit the whiskey this evening
i'll be heading into the 32nd hour of being
awake, straight...
            but i love these prolonged days,
the sort of days that merge into nights that then
somehow merge into the high octane morning
hours, notably looking at schoolkids pass my
house in school uniform...
         you should have seen this kid (who i was)
and his first time in regent st.'s hamleys...
  it was like a scene from big -
  once he spotted those batman action figures
his cheeks turned into bright luminescent
beetroots...
                   prior to that it was the joy of
playing outdoors, throwing marbles
into a dug hole from the distance of 2 metres,
and there was also the bet: 4 marbles a game,
5 marbles go into the hole and the winner
takes it all...
         and what about plasticine in the game
of kapsle, placed into bottle-caps,
and flicked around in a maze drawn on
       the pavement with chalk?
girls? hopscotch...
                                but we used to gang
up as if the utopian version of the lord of the flies
and head into the woods, and bake us
some tatties in charcoal of a fire...
            we used to look out after each other...
obviously some of the kids from my childhood,
last time i heard: became violent criminals...
but that's beside the point,
  when we were young, it mattered that we
had a group ethos: no one is going to be left
behind... stealing gooseberries -
  that would make these overly sweet sour-sweets
taste like honey drizzle over oats...
but that's the great thing about these "detox"
weeks, i get to experience 32h days,
   half a day, the entire night, and the entirety
of the next day, and about a third of the next night...
even if you asked me how i managed
to stay awake for so long and fail to even
powernap for a quickie 15 minutes,
       i'd probably sooner inquire:
so, what's the secret for those quickies you wild
kids have in the domain of ***...
last time i checked, she just perfected
her ******* before we were breaking up -
she tightened her lips...
        ah, i know the youtube hysteria of:
telling personal things to strangers -
    i get the argument -
  but unlike the medium of youtube - writing
still has the aura of:
as one stranger unto another -
          there's no greater sense of privacy,
as the privacy without a muzzle-guard of a dog...
it can be rather intimidating, to find that
however personal your content is,
   it actually entrenches your privacy,
paradoxically...
                    don't ask me how this happens...
i guess that: if your "privacy" is merely
an intricate web of lies... i guess you'd really
want to protect your spidery-ego as much as
possible...
                  but when you state your privacy
among internet profiles - glass people in glass houses...
(who the hell puts up these profiles,
what's there to talk about, on the date,
when you already have an a priori picture of a person
and their interests?) -
   once again, i don't know how it happened,
but by revealing my private life in "public",
i somehow managed to turn into
a right ol' hermit...
                      and unlike the youtube mentality:
i'm still a stranger among strangers,
       maybe that comes down to my ability
to talk to old men on benches, randomly,
while having a beer and a smoke;
don't mind homeless people either -
  give them a cigarette, ask how they're feeling,
and never bothering to ****** them
about the ethos of work, given that
so much of "work" these days is exactly that:
"work".

driving down the street
weaving through cars
and people and cars and people
the **** AC is broken
and the heat is oppressive
melting through reality
down to white lines
on asphalt
and all roads lead toward madness
windows down
the whole world
drags
and *****
in the summertime
some *******
speaks salvation through
tin can speakers
unexpected absolution
nineteen ninety-nine
for a limited time
and the heat makes it Christ
through the static
and the birds don’t sing
it's so **** hot
or maybe they just
want Christ too
the red nissan ahead
billowing with bumper stickers
and *******
brakes too fast
all these ******* people
all these ******* roads
and all roads lead toward madness
the whole world is in on it
sweating and spitting
suckling away at our high octane
addiction
3.69 a gallon
can you feel the buzz
Christ has left the airwaves
and now its life insurance
a happy guarantee
once your gone at least you’ll be
worth something
but probably nothing
on these roads toward madness
the trees bend under the weight
of the sun
stars explode
and no one notices
except the dead
staring forever upwards
and i’m almost there
almost there
men in black ties
woman with car seated children
screaming their own obscenities to the universe
kids blasting music to erase
their own depraved silence
the list of offenses
goes on and on
everyone on the road
got to be somewhere
got to do something
or else nowhere
nothing
with the sun bearing down
closer closer closer
burning our throats
tick ticking towards
that sold out salvation
act now or you’ll miss
1-800-holy-ghost
tick tick tick
the line is busy
the cars arent moving
the heat has gutted my soul
tick tick tick
the dead see it and maybe
the birds see it
but no one else sees it
tick tick tick
as we strugggle inches
down the street
so hot
so incredibly hot
stars explode
all roads lead toward madness
and its hot
Christ is gone again
all roads lead
Christ is gone
toward madness
gone.


tuez-les tous, dieu reconnaitra les siens

hidden from view for the most part
out of reach of waggling tongues
and the high octane fuel
of physical companionship
all the gossip and scent of humans
I find you my muse my faithful

When eyes can't look to you to answer
The subpar common english greeting
    "How's it going"
And the only uttered response is
    "Peachy Keen"
With that wavering inflection
    the "eeeeen" continuing
        an unnatural length of time
What they are really saying
Is that they are fighting a terrific battle
A struggle-filled battle
Caused by
    their own neglect to admit failure
    not wanting to acknowledge
        a life turning out...not how their eight year...or seventeen year old optimism expected
And the untold spaces between their quick high octane
    awe-inspiring
        and beauty-filled social media posts
Live longer bouts of dejected dis-coloration

And none of it is real
And the collapse of this dis-ingenuity may have been fueled
By terrific loss
But it's impending collapse
    (if they survive)
May just awaken the truth-soul itself
To finally come out and say "hello"

a wall has been erected in front of me
“new construction, do not pass”
right now it is made of bricks and mortar,
but in the past it was made of wood and bamboo
I have slaved away, day and night building this wall,
a barrier,
in front of me
because I would rather look at bricks than my own reflection
this wall protects me from my greatest fear, which just so happens to be myself
myself, particularly, in love
I spent months constructing this wall
slathering between the cracks all the food I haven’t eaten
painting on all the brick the words I should have said
and tacking pictures of myself in different positions of aching:
curled beneath blue sheets,
inhaling scents of a ratty sweater,
and so this wall is a reminder of who I become when I fall in love
and I have been walking around, behind this wall, with contempt
with ease
because I can laugh and engage and smile behind it
but no one falls in love with me
and I fall in love with no one
right?
until…
you
a six foot small framed high-octane energy bright spark sees me
he saw me
looked through me
past that wall
an anomaly
before I felt my bricks burning at the thought of another looking at me
and the mortar oozed out when a stranger’s arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me closer
and I boiled over and erupted
and I frantically built that wall right back up
stronger mortar, rougher brick
and continued along,
I have braved the inevitable
I was free from love
yes, finally
but you:
who forget words when I speak
who challenged me to a thumb war to feel my hands before my lips
who wants to make me smile above all else
you are a rarity,
you are air finally entering my lungs,
you see me
you’re chipping away at that wall so slowly
but I am so afraid
before, if someone showed me any sign of love I would leap into their arms
I yearned for warmth and space and heat and rush
I drank bottles of truth serum and I spilled it all until I was empty
this wall never existed
but now:
when you asked me when was the last time someone told me I was beautiful, I cried
and when you told me you wanted to know my past without judgment, I cried
and when you said how you fell asleep looking into my eyes and looked into them hours after yours were closed, I cried
and my chest keeps swelling and sinking and pushing
and it is because I feel as though I am so tainted that you shouldn’t want me
I feel so much; I am a walking hurricane
I breathe nothing but fire
I no longer see stars at night
because I want love more than anything
but I am so deathly terrified of it
this familiar coat of all feelings; a patchwork of combined thoughts
I’ve worn it so many times before that it has ripped in so many places
it’s lost its shape
so I pinned it to the wall
but you,
you stood on the other side of the wall
at a distance, where I kept you
and you took the smallest hammer
and began chiseling away at my brick
and I panicked
because you said I was beautiful
and you loved my eyes
and you see through me
but I stopped myself from building it back
you see through me,
past me,
I should let the rubble surrounding my feet be a reminder of my strength instead of a weakness,
a break,
demolish me
break me into pieces until I am surrounded by dust
you should see all of me
tear down the wall.