I burnt the tip of my cigarette into my
Tumbler to **** two habits with one stone.
Though the **** coughed its last sigh and polluted a decently-priced
Rye, I don't trust that the addiction died.

Tipped my finger to the 'tender to fill a new glass,
Struck the flint to the tinder, a tobacco mask.
They poison slow, but the effects are fast.

You, like these habits, are in the past,
Waiting for me at the bottom of a flask, swearing always
"It'll be the last."

I'll take you as you are, whether the
Tides have turned towards warm,
Tropic waters or ****** this ship upon
Jutting rocks too close to shore.
As you are, coming or going--
Opening the door or slamming it so
It breaks off the hinge and falls in splinters to the floor,
Piercing fragile fingers that try to mold
The fragments to the former whole.
As you are--when the dark makes you quiet and
Your eyes burn like fire or the
Love wells up inside you,
Breaching dams,
Gushing violently to swallow all in beautiful fury.

Speak no more
Utter no more sentences
Vague, and context devoid through
Glass electric fixtures.
Stopped communication via
Frozen gears and halted processes
Dead progress, mutated metals.  
Sing no more, no more notes raised
Upward bound towards fleeting skies
Reigning over all we were.
Love no more, see no more
Begone like the invisible microwaves that
First created and ultimately possess you;
That zapped you full of life and color and now defy you.

Childhood toys now antiquities
Smile from the nightstand with
Shining eyes that glitter like hope
Before it has gone stale.
There was honesty in innocence, when
The mundane kept me content and
Restlessness sought no solace in
Tailored lies.
Fantastic epics were lived, not perceived and
Imagination was solid, not the
Amorphous, ambiguous pile of mud
It has become.

Phasing out
Conversations stretched like
Sparse cobwebs, where
Spiders tread with cautious
Care along exhausted fibers,
Stressed more with every step.
Weathered from passing years,
Paint, once bright peels in flakes
Like dead skin from steel
That bound it
Strong.

Disembodied sequences of
Messages, coming in
Intervals between minutes of hours.
Fragments of information flung
Through tangled webs and into my palm,
Waving with letters through a
Glass screen.
Always in my hand or pocket
But never besides me.

All my life--
Memories in seconds,
Beats per minute
Have led to this exact moment
In which, now, I'm living.
Weight of hours
Accumulating
Concentrating, and compressing
Self and being.