Hanging out in the trees
A wreckage as far as the eye can see
The leaves at the bottom look lonely
If only you were there
Strings and boxes make up for the losses
That I feel for you
And I fear if I told you
You'd only grow colder
And move hundreds of miles from here
You play in the smoke in silence till I spoke
And you poked your way through
To something beating hard
I've only got eyes for you
But the wreckage is beginning to fail
Falling through the branches
The engine, still ignited
Began to spark a light
And you could see my ***** face
Through the old, scratchy pine
And I looked into your coal black eyes
And prayed that you were mine
From 9 to 5 you visited me
My limbs still twisted and bruised
Hanging up in the tree
A personal scarecrow for you
And one day I tried to climb up
To wipe the dirt away
But you slipped and fell
I screamed like hell
And forced myself free
Out of the wreckage I rose
The ground came closer and closer
I went to touch your lifeless face
But my shaking hands just froze
I wish I could have caught you
And now you are the wreckage too
So I climbed back into the tree
And burrowed there for three hundred years
Staring down at you wither away
And as soon as my mouth could no longer speak
I did what I've dreamt of most
I fell like you, through the branches too
Graceful, Beautiful, True
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 4:15 PM UTC
You've got me
going to the river to pray
gotta wash these sins away
but ain't no water gonna wash your hands off me
Yeah, you've got me
down on my knees
begging, begging, begging please
for mercy
take your hands off me
And they can call me a sinner
I've only got one heart
and you ate my soul for dinner
devoured me from the start
Yes, I'm going down
down to the river to pray
but no water gonna take this hold off me
Oh you've got me down on my knees
begging, begging, begging please
someone help me
get your devil out of me
I hear the willows whispering
telling lies all in the wind
and I'm drifting with the current
just let the water take me in
Because this desire
ain't no fire
on my funeral pyre
ain't no water gonna take your hands off me
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 3:49 PM UTC
How do you pretend to say I love you?
How do you pretend to care at all?
To muster that much emotion must surely take its toll
On the body you inhabit
So cold and so precisely
Nicely
Packaged into a mirage of caring
Daring me to challenge each syllable of the words you mimic
Parroting Hallmark cards with heady persistence
I've built up resistance to the lies that sit and rise
Like smoke from the fires you light
On your way out the door
Warning all those who come after
The story is always the same
She loves you so much
"So, so much"
So much that she just can't stay.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 3:29 PM UTC
He watched her grow out her fingernails
Burn herself with cigarettes
Her scabs would heal and morph into gray dots on her dark flesh
She looked like a winter afternoon with a chance of showers
She was beautiful in her own way
The way books are beautiful stacked on shelves
The way trees can only be appreciated in forests
Her beauty was of many and of one.
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 10:01 PM UTC
When the darkness can have a name
when it can make shapes that look like the people you've forgotten
when it wraps a sense of warm isolation
and burns the feeling of loneliness in your skull
leaving raw, fleshy guilt
you can't hide from it
you must let it blacken your bones and sink into your pores
and rip through you from the inside
bleeding you out until your are a pile of consciousness
and only then can you forgive yourself
and the faces become a smudge in your memory once again
sitting on the shelves of your mind, hidden behind velvet curtains
waiting for the darkness to come again
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:57 PM UTC
I lay dejected amongst the rubble of the wreckage
tied up with ribbons
my body draped like wet sheets off the branches of a sturdy old pine
It appeared I was going mad as I sat alone
My blood curdled and turned into sludge and my breath began to quiet
I am the wreckage of this world
perhaps too dedicated to being alive
that I am hung up like an ornament
a tribute to the ****** and the lonely
I hope to meet the cold face of my shadow shortly
imagining my welcome home into the earth
melting into the molten lava
laying sweetly with the dinosaurs
a new fossil for the ages
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:54 PM UTC
And still the sea beckoned
washings it’s salty brine over my feet
trapping them for good
I would be the lighthouse
the beacon in the night
the light guiding shipwrecks to their watery graves below
And still the sea beckoned
grabbing me by the ankles
******* me in its slimy pull
as I lay throbbing in fear
I would be the lighthouse
where the seagulls made their home
nesting in the port hole
watching for lost souls
And still the sea beckoned
wading out till the safety of the shore drops
leading me to the blue abyss
I am the lighthouse
the wife waiting for the fisherman
hoping his empty boat won’t wash ashore
for if it did i’d hear the beckon and answer it’s call to swallow the tide
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:52 PM UTC
I saw you lying prostrate in your bed of bones and crumbs
the white sheets were stretched to reveal your garbage heap,
your nest a collage of street trash
you hoard yarn and plastic dolls with missing eyes
combing your hair with toothpicks and cleaning your teeth with vinegar
You blew the layers of dust that settled on your window sill
And your prickly legs laid tangled against your cool walls that had been painted over too many times
The paint would chip off into peachy piles
The original wall, an ancient artifact, poking through for air
You smash the little bodies of spiders under your thumb
smearing their entrails against the glass
studying the life you’d just taken against the rays of the sun
And I watch as you tear off your fingernails, their jagged edges scratching down my back
I try to fall asleep to your hums and shallow breathing
drowning in your little commune for the lost and forgotten
the relics of the city
Your little kingdom of pots and pans, of skeletons and guts
and red-rimmed eyes
I wrap my arms around your sticky skin, it’s greenish hue playing tricks under the light of the moon
I’m merely swimming off your coast, marooned on your island
watching you from afar, among your treasures
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:50 PM UTC
I wish I could sit in your head all day
lay bricks around me, layer after layer
mixing the cement with a vengeance
building my sarcophagus
I wish I could look through your milky eyes
and drink in the sunset through your pupils
nourishing my body for eternity
I wish you could hear me speak to you
lapping up the poetry you whisper
as I lay on more bricks
I'll make you my tomb yet
Your voice my eulogy
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:46 PM UTC
I am nothing if not a puddle of flesh
a vat of fresh blood
a knot of veins
what a gift, carefully packaged and assembled
meaningless
nonetheless, I am not my skeleton
I intend to shed this skin someday
until then I am merely here
a simple existence in a world of greed and guilt
on a hopeless search for purpose,
self-importance
that is most certainly lurking in a dusky, damp cave
at the end of the world
Jun 23, 2016
Jun 23, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC