You smile as my iris go wide,
watching me stir wake to the realization
you are once again by my side.
In another life I would've jumped out of bed.
But in this one I am paralyzed;
I'd rather lay here with you instead.
Its not often we find ourselves lost to time
like this.
A soft caress, a kiss.
Your head nestled on my chest.
You close your eyes
slipping-it seems-back into deep rest.
I like moments like this best.
Its the greed in me that ponders how to
prolong this state of superposition.
Not really asleep nor awake.
The world hasn't claimed stake over us yet.
With dejected protest,
my mortal form rejects the cold logic
that this scene- like a dream,
no beginning or end, only lasts
a few seconds more.
You yawn and I gleam how this will all change.
I feel the heat of an asteroid erasing
my world of the dinosaur.
You tease as you stretch,
something about how loud I snore.
In our sunday morning jest I see
infinite solutions,
stitched together, like the seam work
of your favorite duvet.
(With all these diverging paths,
how can I only pick one way?)
I know what's coming next,
can hear what you will soon say.
It's reverberating in my ears already
as you ponder the problem of wasting away
on this lovely,
summer day.
Your form is obscured from my vision.
A silhouette deciding between jeans or a dress.
Fighting with your hair, proclaiming it a mess.
The whole of you obscured by the wall partition.
You blow a frustrated raspberry which
makes me smirk.
Mutter under your breath,"I guess this will work."
I hear you ruminate in the restroom,
pairing accessories with a flowery blouse and a pencil skirt.
All the while humming a tune from a song
we both know.
Its time now.
Time to let that sliver of a scene we shared earlier go.
I can feel warmth through our window.
that moment I loved has grown into something new,
and I'm left with the dissatisfaction-no,
that is a childish reaction:
even though that scene is gone I know I tried.
Fully dressed in the doorway she chimes,
"what would you like to do today?"
I cover my head.
Playfully hide in the shelter of our
satin white sheets.
Shaking my head from left to right.
A seance with the ghost of where she used to be.
I can't decide.
-
Apr 22, 2025
Apr 22, 2025 at 1:34 AM UTC
Charon's ferry taunts me with hope
My neck is raw from the rubbing rope
In the river Styx no one can float
I am not a thing to try and save
Let me bathe deeper in this path I paved.
Stuck this way
- its no great loss-
denial is my albatross.
No circles of hell here to cross
just that desire to no longer drown:
Perdition only pulls you down.
Hell is silent and reserved
The only demons you hear
are the ones you bring.
We used to laugh and sing.
Your love was structured
like a Shakespearian sonnet.
I always knew what to expect,
still i found it so beautiful.
I never meant what I did to you.
It is your voice im slipping further into.
and It serves me well.
You used to say my vices would be the end of me.
Late night.
Me driving drunk.
Car crash. Stole you away.
Now I see the irony.
Hung myself to settle that debt;
the universe thought differently.
So still I drown.
What am i searching for?
What would I do if I even found you down here?
This rope around my neck makes it clear:
Hell not only remembers,
it doesn't forgive.
Yet... this is no way to forever live.
I wonder whether... the thing that damns me
could be used to redeem?
I pull and pull at the rope and it seems
-Its fastened to Charon's boat.
Aboard i wrestle with the noose.
So I see, it'll never come loose.
It is a fight I can not yet win:
It is meant-for now- to press against my skin.
Hell holds a grudge.
Hell is a reminder.
I hope i never find her,
Again.
I hear her yell as we reach shore:
" do you not... need me anymore?"
I wave goodbye to Charon.
Tighten the noose around my neck.
For the first time, to her I
do not respond.
I do.
I can not forgive myself,
but I need to move on.
-
Apr 13, 2025
Apr 13, 2025 at 9:39 PM UTC
Force feeding on two doses of clozapine.
Doc reclines in his chair;
I am restrained in mine.
"I am feeling fine, now,
feeling fine."
"It is time."
Doc persists," admit it for them...
you know what you did;
you know it was all real."
A film reel rewinds inside somewhere
adjacent to my cerebellum;
Front row seats to my favorite show-
I know not what to tell him?
It was all what I dreamt up on one of my.
Usual Sundays.
Savoring what lovely sensations-
'some' would insinuate are a sin.
It was me this time playing doctor,
operating on my imaginary friend.
This one pretends she does not like the licking
of a blade against her skin.
And when I decide to cut too deep
her safe word is always 'grin.'
But Doc: that was just how we liked to play?
She had been longing for a violent death:
I dreamt her up that way.
...
Before I could say what fun I had with the others.., teary-eyed on the other side of reinforced glass, resides my many made-up friend's mothers...
(Was it those two pills from before?)
In my final minutes ..
I have regained lucidity.
On death row for defiling those things
I thought only I could see.
A needle in my arm:
my death will serve as an apology.
...
I writhe, and before I black out, the lithe figure
of an old imaginary friend.. but if you WERE actually real..
A decade ago- I remember a incorporeal, corrupted, entity I allowed to fill my soul.
In place of the hole where apathy used to be.
The yearning for suicide was all mine;
Homicide was your wish-you resided within.
Broke my will and reality down day by day
by simply posing as my only friend.
Control/Desire imprisoned me.
Rewired my mind.
breaking me down into insanity.
but I am fighting now:
Thrashing with all the life left still inside of me.
She grins as I go.
musing to herself.
She takes me below.
" I had high hopes for this plaything...
my next toy is actually EAGER to **** "
...For someone who wanted to be dead,
you had such a hard time keeping still.
-
Feb 20, 2024
Feb 20, 2024 at 11:32 PM UTC
We make it through the night
alright.
I'm never ready to answer
when tommorow calls.
I loved that single braid in your hair.
The way you fought against the morning.
How, you ensnared my senses.
Your carefree smile
that betrayed your defenses:
I loved.
Summer is setting in.
The time we belong to
is seeing further restrictions.
So it doesn't feel selfish suggesting
" maybe we can stay like this...a little longer?"
The blinds are closed.
Still the light out builds stronger.
And I'm a mind away from eyes wide open.
I'm unfulfilled.
The next few moments will be killing me.
They say dreams only last
when your mind isn't made-up
(honey you should stay,
if you are feeling this unsure...)
but the time has come.
This illusion: it is losing its allure.
The time has come to wake up.
-
Jul 6, 2023
Jul 6, 2023 at 12:33 AM UTC
He boulders down the cave.
Tries to navigate by feel,
in the darkness of night.
Head splits open,he sails limp like a leaf,
A miscalculation made from traversing
In the absence of light.
Deja vu-he stirs wake-
the magic lamp in his sight:
The thing he sacrificed it all for.
He rubs it at once.
A djinn reveals itself on the barren,cave floor.
"Thrice wishes granted, and no more."
Clearing his throat the man spoke.
"I'm a poor man.
I crave the allure of being rich.
but I'm no fool!
so I'll ask of you more than this.
Give me sight to see all things-as gods do!
my genie,this,I wish of you."
The djinn nods,
A first wish comes true.
the man is omniscient.
He learns he is to die in a minute or two.
Backed down,yet,
already fond of the idea of eternal youth,
he pipes up,
"I've prepared my wish number two!
make me immortal,
so I may live long like gods do!
my genie,this, I wish of you."
the djinn nods his head,
The second wish comes true.
The man is pinned by a boulder.
An earthquake collapsed his escape.
He can see the truth of all things-while he waits.
won't be free for 2,000 days.
Save for the only thing he can't see
is what wish the djinn...would make.
"Tell me what you would wish,
my genie, this, I wish of you."
But the djinn doesn't nod his head.
Instead.
Comes near.
slithering words like a serpent,
Into the man's ear.
"This is the one wish I can't grant.
If you wish to be privy to my soul,
You must willingly give it to me.
You know when your time trapped
will elapse.
Give up your last wish
once let loose from calamity.
When you are unburdened by that boulder,
you ALONE will know the whims of a genie."
2,000 days pass.
The man is at last free.
"My genie,this, I give to thee.
my last wish, now,
make your dreams come true!
For over five years I've waited,
wishing to see...
your mind is the only secret in the universe
denied to me."
"Three wishes.
three chances to find the truth within.
You lent me your last wish:
You foolish wish-maker;
You never realize how this all will end.
As I've done each time from before,
for my wish we start over,
I return it once more to how it begins.
this time-loop is the price you will always pay,
for trying to peer into the soul of a djinn."
"One of us stuck in a lamp.
The other stuck in a cave.
Two lives trapped forever,
because we're both stuck in our ways.
We could have wished ourselves out,
but we are ego-slaves:
We only want what we want
with each wish we are gave."
"Your words approximate reality:
So call me genie or djinn.
We go round and round the wheel,
over and over again.
Three chances to change the outcome.
Each time you fail you're undone,
by each wish, realizing too late:
there's nothing to truly be won.
Eclipse- twist, tears.
hubris rips apart your humanity.
Burns out your decency.
like exposed skin
on the surface of the the sun."
"How can you learn how to unbecome?
Free yourself from what pride has done?
Even the gods are trapped like us.
Each caged in by the rules
of their own rigid plan.
Everyone wishes to be like the gods;
no one ever wishes to be a better man."
"Understand this one truth
and you will no longer feel powerless:
"Truth Is the difference
between shadows and silhouettes."
-
Jun 14, 2023
Jun 14, 2023 at 5:31 AM UTC
Don't move or make no noise.
They react to the sound.
This place was once a shopping mall,
now there's bodies all around.
Such dread!
they're searching with soulless eyes,
From sun up,until sundown!
Their broken wailing, unearthly cry.
"THE END IS NIGH!"
My picket sign once read.
I'm forced to lie here and play dead.
They search for the living-with no rest-
I'm alive because of putrid, rotting, flesh.
I dare not make a move.
in this food court.
this unholy mess.
I lie underneath defiled remains,
insides ripped out from their chest.
I dwell within these monster's nest.
Subsist beneath decaying stench of death.
It covers my scent well:
The undead react harshly
to how the living smell.
This new world-I can't tell,
Is this hell, or a fiendish fresh start?
Are they really so different?
I can't tell either world apart.
fear has always been a substance
Pumping through my old heart.
In those days I was ignored or-
they would notice,then shudder.
While folks that lived-well,
well: they ate one another.
I'd fall asleep by night.
under street lamps shivering, uncovered.
Lived my life as a ghost.
haunted those who walked by:
My picketsign.
My shaking fist.
"THE END IS NIGH!!!"
I was cast aside;I did not exist.
they refused to see me,
Notice me when i speak.
The world was a table
With no room for my seat.
Outside corner stores I'd sit with resentment.
I needed to be noticed.
Yet my efforts never got me closer
To being seen by any ONE of them:
An exquisite type of torture.
I see now so ironic, what i used to beg for:
Maybe zombies are ghosts...
that refuse to be ignored?
Maybe if that man in the store window
-he was standing next to a mannequin-
If he hadn't lost his balance...
I could've began again ...?
But that false life fell.
Futility in his attempt to flee:
They ripped out his throat
before he could even yell.
In the commotion a man with a minor creeps,
Crawling toward the exit,
for a stealthy retreat.
Oh yes! I do see it too.
There's a car parked outside,
its engine running right there in the street.
Six hundred and sixty feet.
Salvation has four wheels, power steering
and leather seats.
Something is shouting in my stomach.
Their opportunity.
Their window is closing to leave with no trace
Seconds stretch as I stand
I connect - making eyes with the man.
Him and the child hesitate.
out in the open, words aren't said,
but I can see his face deliberate.
Too late: they can't turn back.
How to sneak past that last zombie
without a face to face?
It shambles in the path of their escape.
They hide under a counter:
I think its better if that child left here safe.
See.
there is bodies, all around.
Bodies all around.
Bodies. All. Around.
Those dead bodies kept me a secret.
Kept me safe and sound.
It's my turn to be that for you.
I nod at the man.
Can you see me?
Witness.
Witness,what I'm about to do.
A rush.
Air fills my lungs.
All fear dissipates.
The four words I yell make the zombies irate.
" THE!!!
END!
IS.
NIGH!!!!!!!"
**** cretins are closing in;
My two friends sneak deftly by.
I see the man and child look back.
I pick up a baseball bat.
Safely on the street
they both wave goodbye.
The end is nigh.
Please notice me.
-
Jun 14, 2023
Jun 14, 2023 at 5:18 AM UTC
Crafty Waters lured the Captain
To the middle and the deep.
in the height of the hurricane,
It proceeded to speak.
"What do i matter to the birds
who exist between sky and tree?
These fish swim in my currents,
yet are unaware of me.
But for you, oh captain,
I'm everything you need me to be!
You have your ship, and your men,
and your lives at my mercy.
Today you will learn
you can't control the sea."
The dastardly Waters led him to believe,
In exchange for his life,
his crew would survive,
brief cessation from the culling winds,
and unabiding tides.
The captain decided then and there
To make the sacrificial dive.
But before he made a splash,
the hurricane came back
and claimed his crew.
A Sage Seagull swooped down
saying," dear Captain,
those Sneaky Waters lied to you."
The trusting captain stranded,
his ship capsized,
despair in his voice,
to the clever gull he cries.
"stoic grey winged beast,
with blackened,beady eyes,
what difference does it make to you,
if a captain dies?"
The apathetic gull got close
and in a whisper replies-
"we'll trade words for fish one day,
now, repeat as I say."
The captain certain it won't help,
but he spoke them, anyway.
"Proud Waters don't you gloat!
boast about how big you pretend to be.
your power buys our fear,
turning men into memories.
But my life holds your story!
I'll tell it, if you set me free.
Am I drowning in you...
or are you drowning in me?"
Returned home.
the Captain captured fish
for the seagull to eat.
And from his lips told a story
of his time out at sea.
Still new ships think they will prevail.
Distant from diminutive land,
sailors set sail dreaming of the safety
of a mundane harbor.
Unaware of the schemes
between the Shifty Seagull
and those Maniacal Waters.
-
Jun 12, 2023
Jun 12, 2023 at 12:01 AM UTC
She gave away the best thing for less,
as if Heaven spread its gates for a garage sale.
"But will you tell?"
I'm moving slow...
Like a snail in my approach to her.
It's best if I-I pretended like I never knew her.
She had a prada purse that screams,
"I can only do worse!"
She treated that thing beating In her chest
like a curse.
With no clue how to cure it.
Her hobby was to only corrupt the purest.
So don't call me false
in my intentions to hesitate;
from the moment our eyes connected
I knew my fate.
"But will you tell?"
I said,"what's your name?"
To her...
"you got this vibe that makes me levitate."
she retorts, "call me breathtaking
because I make men sufficate."
But who could breathe without her?
I'd give nothing less.
I said, "for you,
I'd gladly exchange all of the air in my chest.
because time grows in seconds.
I'd spend each one I saved on you."
She responds, "i'd watch the world burn
in exchange for the view."
So don't call me false
in my intentions to hesitiate;
she hit me with words I couldn't anticipate.
I could see her.
Pulse. Thumping.
The.
veins in her neck.
Forced me to put. my.
primal instincts.
In check.
She told me time is incorrect.
Its numbered by seven.
Broken into seven second increments.
Seven days in the week.
Seven deadly sins.
Seven circumstances with no right words for,
so instead we say friends.
She insisted I guess her favorite sin,
I guessed,
she said I was correct,
and then she asked,
" but will you tell?"
without getting Into detail:
she sealed the deal.
Even before she unbuttoned her blouse
-her smile-
I'd made my adulterous decision:
her attention and bare skin
was the wine she used
to wash away all my inhibitions.
"So listen,"
She says...
"In between heaven's gates
are seven indiscretions no one knows about,
that trade for the seven things
you'd never sell.
Tonight they're all yours
-if you want to savor them-
but only if you won't tell,
and again,
above all else:
If you pay for them."
-
Jun 11, 2023
Jun 11, 2023 at 11:46 PM UTC
There's a secret only one angel knew.
It goes like this:
There is a place that once grew.
A garden made for two.
A tree.
A treason.
Mankind evicted from Eden,
... for an obscure reason.
Curious,
An angel flew down
-biting into the apple-
Adam and Eve had eaten.
Because the Lord's plan must be broken?
The Angel pressed their luck...
But ...why plant a tree,simply,to test their trust?
Now in a rush to reveal what was learned
-before they could soar past those
pearly gates-
Lurid illumination eviscerates their pristine wings.
The Lord sees All:
and He is Irate.
They create a crater as they collide with our world;
exiled forever from the Lord's estate.
They awake as a woman for their costly mistake.
Her place amongst the holy host is gone.
Cursed with forbidden knowledge.
Awareness of right and wrong.
Exchanging a halo for free-will:
Heaven is no longer a place she belongs.
The Angel outcast.
Cast out from her home.
Forced to roam this world all alone.
She sought out the Truth;
Then her faith became clouded.
There is few who listen to what she says now:
yet still she shouts it.
She tells me-the former angel yells,
"Devour fruit from the Tree of Knowledge
...if you dare.
but beware!!
God did not plant that tree...
It was already there."
-
May 22, 2023
May 22, 2023 at 7:05 AM UTC
All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.
Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...
But.
Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?
Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?
Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
I know better.
A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.
I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.
I jump overboard.
Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.
I'm sinking.
All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.
-
May 1, 2023
May 1, 2023 at 8:14 PM UTC