She bleeds ‘all tragic steam work blasted mists
‘All hobbled clamped free fall for ‘all seasonal depression slump
She’s ‘all death knell cramp urgency and held back suffering kneeling
on kitchen floors ‘all like boarding school broomsticks lessons
with ‘all that theoretical **** the ***** save the man type
schlock shock rhetoric shtick
so ‘all I’ll be is her savage heretic wagon burner page-turner
on the hot coal back burner ‘all boarded up sealed shut in the walls
until she calls
Expecting me to be 'all combat ready
‘all back with a vengeance
while her thrift store hazard suit groups and droops
‘all over my haphazard dream sliced hang nailed hangover hands
hiding ‘all derelict style while between the sheets confessional
gets voided by social media air raid sirens
bringing me ‘all too close to rocks and crystals
and who ‘all needs another pathetic apathetic
junk punk when
‘all and ‘all
I'd rather die for you
because
I just can't live with myself

She often told me
she hurt
just below the surface
of her skin

I was so young

I thought that might mean

she had the fangs of a wolf
growing in her hands

I always wondered
when I held her
late at night
while the

winds howled outside

if it was actually
them
calling her home

and
she would bare those fangs
to tear my

heart to shreds

Burnt out on
a legion of increasingly mobile devices
for a legion of increasingly immobile people
Antisocial networks and a friends list
of listless friends
But what judgment is justified
while staring at square screens with
increasing intensity
and begrudging propensity?
An information ******
that can't get a fix
for all that's wrong in their world
Let's start to run a shutdown command
march away from the heat of indifferent ****
pull away from those fright emitting diodes
crowding a fiber opticked off planet
With nothing better to do
No plans that aren't metered in Gigabytes
We can topple their towers of babel
and towers of cable
And the night sky will shimmer with thousands of stars
we never knew were there

This is how I wish to remember you

The steady rush of mountain creeks
guiding us along almost invisible paths
that shimmer slightly overhead
The two of us tumbling
through tall untamable grasses
growing as wild and free
as we hoped to be

The wide eyed wonder of youthful
innocence as we take in
the majesty of obscured sunlight
gracing the thick overgrowth
of the forest floor
The trees trembling as they
share whispered secrets
people have long forgotten


The two of us here
Where there is only the simplicity of tradition immemorial
upholding our primitive dreams
Perfection contained
in a vanishing instant
Ancient testimony
that there is more
than just what is seen
That in the end
We are never alone

This is how I wish to remember you.

We are condemned to
pass by
in the smudged opacity
of bygone oil lamps
It is in these clandestine
exchanges -
Between pulsating nettle
stings in lightless anguish
just behind my eyes -
I steal treasured glimpses
of your timeless features
painted in
faded sepia tone depiction
of war torn Soldaderas

Lips carrying traces of shellshock
Eyes that speak
of barbed wire carved laceration
and coiled braids telling the story
of combat

As we sneak past the ruins
of failed uprisings
We defy this sorrow -
this separation
with a slow
sensual brush
of fingertips
across each others palms
A substitute for our
unrelenting passion
that must carry us through
until we meet again

The flat desert terrain melts together
when you’ve been driving all night
sliding through twisted canyons filled with nothing
but rugged gray brush and ***** sand.
Even in complete darkness the desert air is still hot and dry
every breath harsh and dusty as it’s drawn deep into my lungs.

We round another of the endless corners on this highway
the engine of our rapidly aging vehicle shakes
as it soars along this empty stretch of nothing.
She sits quietly
almost comatose
blankly staring forward
with occasional slight smirks of morbid fascination
each time an insect smacks the windshield at
breakneck speeds.

She used to love hanging out of the top of sunroofs
letting the breeze flow past her body
dancing
my obscenely beautiful angel.

But we are long past that now.

When we met we were that couple
everyone knew
would be perfect for each other
but horrible for everyone around them
We did all the awful things most people our age did
but no one would have pictured us on this path
On occasion she shoots me hateful looks
silently accusing me
of ruining our perfect romance
with weakness when confronting the things
we've done.

At the edge of the horizon, a downtrodden motel
our destination
and tomorrow's headlines.
I don’t say anything to her
I just nod slightly
For me this is a matter of survival
because without her I could not survive.
Vague pulls of morality tell me this is wrong
but I remind myself my morality is reserved
only for her
Morality is for people that have everything
and I have only her.

We select our target by the cloudy glow
of a left on television that will muffle
any sound
The flimsy door splinters against the hardened sole
of my combat boot while
her hardened soul howls with tragic insanity,
and as my angel's wings grow black
the grisly screams are lost to the sweltering desert air.

Abscess blockade burrowed
to the jawbone
dream ruptures
infectious screeches
threats of gangrene
mainlined syringe residue
drawn back-blow back-cross bow-shot across the bow
racing thought
restless night shade swollen eyes
mud caked dispossession
broken promise treatment
crack in
the pavement
things fall apart
lies upon lies upon lies
and
she says
'While I'm at it,
I don't really want to talk about it.
Can't I just use you,
to only tell me nice things? '

The ethereal plane goes silent.
Pilot decides they are too tired to fly.
Decrease cabin pressure to decrease cabin fever.
The cousin of my cousin who is not my cousin cannot engineer a solution if not given proper tools.
Cavemen can use simple tools but are adept at clubs if you injure their hearts so let’s call a ***** a ***** we know diamonds are only rocks but forever is simply tomorrow repeating.
I can’t see what’s in the cards beyond that.
Even worse is to look at the present you gave worn each day.
Standing still a painful reminder.
Best to keep moving.
I'm in a precarious juxtaposition.
One move and the King is toppled but the Queen reigns in this game.
I shall grant our enemies no quarter, this game is free of charge.
The truth is the true blue you doesn't know what to do but the blue blood in you
requires more upkeep than that and you'll deny it until you're blue in the face.
That's enough blue clichés, especially when I'm seeing red.
Fell trees for the fires or gather the ones already fallen.
It doesn't matter, you'll still
wear multiple layers to get through the knight in shining arm morbidity.
I keep all your sugar coated spiders sealed in jars.
I'd rather they not bite me anymore either.
Outside appearances mean little when one wears so many faces.
See you on the flip side but remember on the inside I'm dying to meet you again.
I am jumbled.
I'm mixing my metaphors and metaphysics.
They promised adult supervision but I can't see clearly without glasses.
I'm like a deer caught in the dread lights.
I'm under cardiac arrest and I've been coaxed into signing a police state meant just for you.
How can I be held responsible for the consequences when everything is out of sequence, doesn't that leave me only a con?
Paradigm shift has occurred.
The door to my heart is closed.

The pregnant sun
lurches forward
crashing across the
nocturnal horizon
lovingly delivering a
a new day
At night she quietly agonizes
Understanding that
the flaw of
entropy
dictates she will eventually
eradicate
all life depending on her warmth
And what mother desires to outlive their
children?

I would scale the highest
most decrepit radio towers in the world
the rusted metal crumbling against my feet
Risking electrocution and the constant threat of falling
as I rewire the ancient spiderweb of cabling
so I can hear even the faintest transmission of your voice
I'll clutch a stained and faded photograph of us
The only remainder after most everything digital
dies out in flickers of dormant transistors and dissipated binary
I'll protect it from acidic rain and the grit of persistent dust storms
So little resources left in a continent of incinerated cities
yet this picture of you and I is all I will need to keep moving
When I finally find you
I will fight against all impossible odds and potential ends
I'll walk entire burnt out highways with you just to make one last stand
I will carry you across these deserted wastelands and returning forests
To show that even after the bombs drop
My love belongs to you

In the murky clots of consciousness
between sleep and awakening
we clung to an icy overpass railing
spitting down on graffiti camouflaged
train cars as their charging rickety
boom carried our uncontrollable laughter
toward destinations unknown
Our spirited tenacity was matched only by
turbulent winds whipping us into submission
Forcing us to brace ourselves to avoid getting
swept away
You tumbled backward off the slick rounded bars
of the overpass rail
and bit your lip so hard
I thought you would need stitches
but you kept on smiling as the blood plummeted
dripping all over the tracks in a sanguinary frost
Feeling arrogant and invincible
like two avante guarde dog soldiers
we marched past our old urban battlefields and
grimy fast food cattle fields
closed in on a ramshackle bar
and drowned our taboos and inhibitions in
foam drenched pitchers until we closed out that
ramshackle bar
We gleefully stumbled
wearing hazy street light halos
back to the
duplexed squalor of my doorstep
Sloppy kisses stained with the scent of
cheap beer completed the night
as we tore into each other and
made love on that ratty creaking mattress in the front
room
All I had at the time to rest on
was that ***** old bed
and you
until several months later
when they confined you to
pristine hospital beds instead
Intravenous deceptions and false hope blood tests followed
but even with all the motions of our modern medical drama
we couldn't avoid you getting slowly swept away
I regret never having the strength or honesty to visit you
just as I regret never telling anyone about you and I
I go hang on that overpass railing sometimes
remembering the knock-down-drag-out-reckless perfection
of that night
knowing that my agonizing love for you should
have been something I proudly proclaimed to the world
Now the trains carry away my atrocious wails
as the weight of my shame
nearly pulls me onto the tracks
and spills my insides in sacrificial testament
to all we've lost

Through all my phase shifts
You have been my constant
Still
I will die alone watching the stars

I remember
we would retreat
to the isolated solace
of our bedroom
Quarantining ourselves
from the strain of existence
in that murderous crushing
outside world
As we engaged in
things both metaphysical
and physical
I would rest my head
on your chest
listening to the enthralled
chambers of your heart
and if
my mind would not
quiet
you would tell me
'Be still.
Be calm.
Do not rely
on the words of
others.
Tell me something
in your own words.'
It was only in the comfort
of your utmost attention
that I felt at peace.