Hey I know
you're the
listen to the whole album
type
but can we skip this song?
It makes my arm slashes
seep through the bandages
and I know I'm supposed
to be over that memory
by now
but the truth is I'm not
and besides we've got
a long road ahead of us

Those mass factory
farm dairy cows
lining the highways
hardly look happy
like in the ads
I heard they smack them
with forklifts
and speaking of which
Are we almost there?
My pain pills
are running out

Hey if we spin out
of control
and only one of us
survives
I don't want to go
through all the
saccharine fanfare
of a funeral
You think you could just
toss me on the side of
the road
and torch my corpse
with some gasoline?
I'll leave a note that says
it was okay.

I feel this inhuman suffocation
when I step out into
that officially sponsored
fog machine artificial haze
to start the music blaring from
speakers that don't say a thing
Spitting throat lumps and grinds
lurching like scary monsters
controlled by raving mad super creeps
hiding behind walls of
electronic lies
and vinyl appropriations
committed to automation
in
beats making stage cages swing like
stray lanterns filled with
questionable electrocuties -
wild tarts that can't be broken
but you can stare all you want
at
Black-light-blemish-broken-razor-testimony
obscured with slashed fishnet and
splashed neon body paint
Move to the wavelengths
going to grave lengths
as
my dead beats facilitate this
Deja Vu machine world
of
backdoor audition submission
courtesy of half massed scrubstep poser pseudo-players
and maneaters planted on dance floors
Wearing short skirts low cut shirts
high heels long hair and plenty of
emotional baggage
and
I find myself feeling somewhat sorry
and guiltily enticed by the decadent
conspicuous consumption and sinister
seduction I cannot escape
until
The song crescendos and I slam an invisible hand
into the wreck chords
from now until the end of rhyme
I want to stop the whole thing
but this is what I signed up for
this is my punishment
so
with reluctant crossfader switchblade hands
I scratch the noise back into the air
and out of my head
because
the
beatings
must
go
on

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.

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

She was a cautious razor blade saint
with silhouette paint spiritual advice
casting her scarred brow wisdom through
phantom streaked watercolor caress
She spoke interpretations of waking dreams
in harbinger binge drinking remorse
abandoning masks for midnight unveiling
of fingernail abrasion secrets
She taught me to dance unabashedly
although she knew not a single step
She was everything

Late night exhausted
eyes strain like a lamprey's mouth
Serrated and menacing
they tell me
"Rely on abstraction.
Just feel numb
obscure
and forgotten."
My face was pristine
when they sacrificed
my cheekbones
but my throat bled
profusely -
It's odd but I figured
you would understand
right away
because you're just like me -
A smeared watercolor disposition that
sees the rivers run red
and the roses go grey
I know they dragged lines of
clay across the lining
of my stomach
so life tastes like dust
Beyond that
- Mystery -
I followed your footprints
across the mud caked
shore
but they provide no
answers other than
the assurance that with us
it was never about
increased distance
or how long we've spent apart
the other arms we sought comfort in
because our spirits always call
to one another
Most things in this life
are numbed
obscured
and forgotten
But the bond between us
is sustained
Kept hidden in that secret place
reserved for things
that never die

The shrill thrill **** of young blood ills makes the hill
become a valley of death writhing desperately in hands
too often dragging queens through the mud
all along the botched towers leaning and glaring
without caring
Instead intent-on
restricting oxygen with crass observation
only ever offering tasteless insincere apologies as afterthought
Alone and easily overpowered
clouded crowd-sourced asphyxia overtakes
just enough breath left
for recorded tied down violations
with faint traces of ****-shaming-victim-blaming
cat calls free-for-alls
and “don’t it always seem to go
that you don’t know what you’ve
got” ‘til it’s slammed shut stolen
and swollen gutted-paved-depraved
by gentrifires stoking those immolate night advances
and god oh god is it really too much to ask
to feel safe on my own sidewalk?

I have reserved
audacious and capricious things
for you
things I do no wish to let linger
I have reserved these things
in hopes that you will return

Watercolor forests time lapse
in their creaking ancient rings
We're smearing their earth tones
as the sawblade sings
Grins of snake oil drilling
seeping speculation
on massive scales
Rigged justice with financial backing
even as the prepaid system fails
Golden ratios and timeless cycles
failing the fickle expectations of
fiscal years
But you should know dead
money tastes awful
on a trail of tears
Captive nations petrified
in amber waves not replaced
Borrowing fallen feathers
to hide all we've faced
Dialed down the stars
To depict time as
a definite place
our fragile Axis Mundi
fallen from grace
But how do you find a voice
to speak for the trees
When you’ve been living
in skyscrapers
slums
and SUVs?
As bloodshot tired eyes fail
you've gone too far away
If we meet between the rows
what's left to say?
Brief clashes of red
then long fades to grey?
Am I your keeper
or am I your slave?
Your strip mauled *** toy
to plow and pave?
If you miscarry what was it
we even wanted to save?

You know the cemetery but
I know the grave.

-
A lone azure flower
growing from the center of the
cracked and muddy earth
struggles as the downpour pelts it
Saturating and uncaring
threatening to uproot and smother
it in a watery grave
-
The vision subsides
but the roar of the flood remains
the waters careen recklessly
enveloping
the gorgeous
the profound
the defiant
and
the unconventional
each one it swallows every
bit as precious
as any lone desert flower

Hyper reality
torched our dreaming eyes down
to charred empty sockets
and you should know
Like all the nasty swirls
wormholes swallow everything
because they aim to please
There is no what if
as it is apparent
we will -
in increasingly reductive fashion -
eat it all up
:remade rebooted recycled scrambled
deja pay-per-vu:
until
void
conquers
all

The number of universes
she had traveled was infinite
She couldn't stop thinking of you
in any of them

And like an enveloping
transmission
with increasing frequency
you have become the only
thing I want to hear
You have always been
best in show
for mixed media
and messages
and now
I can't help but wonder
where this path you
are leading me down
ends?
Will this develop beyond
an ethereal blur wisping
through my everything and
anything?
And how was I to know
you would become
the brightest part
of my day?

Christina Snowcrash feels eternal suffocation in a landslide
of murky river rumor mongering
and forced black out make out fake out insufficiency
from her choke out black and blue Valentine
All this tragic **** abuse
deals a million miles of bad road damage per second
because everyone else can see
Christina Snowcrash is a starry eyed constellation prize
crashing and burning brighter than
supernovas blindly raging gracefully
She stands her ground with her loss
but we're all praying for the day
she stops his predatory bending and breaking
as she dots her eyes
and crosses her tease
and lets loose tear smeared makeup
breakup bullets
aimed at diminishing returns
on those blood diamond investments
and involuntary commitment
Let him burn for a change and trash the ash in
fretless regretless release from prison bar bedroom brawls
with a loveless lost cause phantom
no longer worthy of the best times of her life
because Christina Snowcrash
deserves better than this

I am
a smeared
scrawled out
conquered chalk outline
on an incinerated
cinder block wall
To be washed away
in seconds
without a second thought
Like the last beams
of a dying son's light

Our love is our reality
If reality carries on
after we are gone
Does our love die?
Does it wither in a void
along with our other memories?
I hope not.
I hope it haunts the hills
outside of town where we used to
sneak off
I hope it lingers in the breath
of those who dare tread
on our graves
I hope it floats through space
wrapping around the stars
to become abstract dreams
in the heads of hopeless romantics
I hope it inspires them to tell a tale
they hardly understand
but feel intensely
as we did
when we were real

A surprise gasp pulls forth the deceptive
chill of the nighttime desert air
Caught off guard even after five years
yet still in love with its unexpected curiosities
set against the immaculate
gleam of its unbroken night sky
It is momentarily forgotten
that all we've built beneath these heavens
is fleeting and miniscule in comparison
and that it is only a matter of time before
these aging and neglected structures
collapse into the desert's mysteries
but in this moment
we can be every bit
as infinite and grand

Nestled gently in
hushed lullaby desertion
Beneath tangled barbed spines
of the briar
The dreamer stirs restlessly
as deluge reigns
from the agonizing existence above

We pause to rest on the hilltops just before
the afternoon gives way to evening
While her young child
crawls innocently across the grass
A tiny cherubic visage silhouetted by the slow flare
of the summer sun enshrining the scene
She tells me
that even with these things
that bring her such intense joy
the darkness would not relent
It was always there taunting her
just beneath the surface

She tells me she wants out of these panicked strain eclipses
tugging cantilever protrusions through heart chambers
The worry of writhing sickness murmuring like scorned blasphemers retreating to cimmerian shade
Incessentally dominating
the pleasant moments of her life

I could not offer any reassurances
other than to say
Perhaps these moments
must interlace
forever woven together by
the passage of time
that we are blessed and doomed
to walk alongside them simultaneously
And that just as light and dark
are separate parts of the same day
Our experiences
are just different expressions
of a magnificent existence
on an unstoppable wheel.

In a haunted dead fall
anchored by the more inspired
of my heartstrings
and the more hidden
of my hidden things
you reside

I used to be obsessed with the idea
that the stars we saw at night were
mostly already dead
Like everything was as lost
and as inevitably hopeless
as I felt I was
But this turned out to be another legend
Most of them are still there
and won't explode
for some time
and maybe I was disappointed
that the universe
wasn't as dark
as it appears to me.
What I like most about you
is that you
can turn things like that around
when you explain
how we're made up of materials
from some primordial
atomic cataclysm
that sent particles
in a billion different directions
until they reformed
and made
the sun
and the stars
and the planets
and that the entire spectrum
of our existence
was brought forth
from these events
and
I should consider myself lucky
that the universe
went to all that trouble
to make you for me.

Looking back I wonder if
I was a silent player
looking on while you were
held down and tortured in those
abduct taped conman confessionals
he was so fond of
Because the way I remember it
you and I were always standing
on the same corner slinging hope
while the smog encroached
but maybe you were disgusted with me then
like I am when I think back to watching
the scar strangled manner you were
loyally subjected to
I stand captured
Resigned to billowing abstractions
brought forth in my less callous moments
Looking out at these slurred flickers  
shackled and swinging in a nine to five iron cage
wondering if you would even let me out
if you held that key
in those perfect imperfect hands
I always longed to hold.

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

In frozen terrain
with ash set ablaze
we stand together
through chilling nights
and searing days
Two forlorn war torn refugees
cribbing messy illustrations
of listless ****** creeps
hanging out on the back balconies
watching aimless graveyards
where cyber-gridlocked dissidents
reluctantly go to die
But we remain
and through the strain
the wrong side of history stares us down
with viper haired stone sober gaze
We ignore their judgement
and thirty pieces of silver
and instead scrape together
fists full of dollars and hopes
of change
to guard against
their pointless mutual choke point
when they absurdly perceive
our attempted dignity
and fragile windowsill garden
as signs of sinister takeover
Even as it all collapses at their necrosis
riddled feat they
diminish and return
Assets freeze and insults burn
threatening to bring forth
the death part
of that 'until death do us part' line
before we ever had a chance
to make that pact
Still
in the grim twilight of anguished
frostburn soliloquy
whispered by a tired world
begging to expire
You will always be
a godsend
and my reason to survive
against the fury
of a planet besieged
by endless storms
of ice and fire

It is only the sweat drenched
fever murmurs
of shell shocked honest ones
that can
and will
fully explain
the powder burn residue
and necrotic psychology
of what they have seen

Darling?
Don't read into it
too much

When I put out my stale headache cigarettes
in your ashtray
and I put out in that
tainted-with-cheap-*****-cracked-lip-kisses
way that I do so well

Then lay my head down
next to you
on your
worn-out-*****-box-spring-no-covers-only-refuge
and you feel secure
like everything lasts forever

Keep in mind
that old adage
that's as tired as I am
about keeping friends close
and enemies closer

And hey
Darling?

This ain't going to end
with one of those awful deus ex machina
dream wake ups

This isn't the dream we're living
so let's make the best of this disposable outcome
get some sleep
and do it all over again tomorrow
in that
over-indulged-but-still
unhappy-first-world-prison-paradise
kinda of way that we do so well

-From discarded poetry found in the trashcan
of Fiona Eris Strand

Drug company antidepressants for breakfast with
feelings adrift at the corner of
Armageddon and Vine then
four cups of plundered coffee beans
bring heart poundings against that
swollen old surgery scar but hey now I'm
finally able to focus -
Ignore throat tissue issues that
issue forth acidic ******* bile
to navigate
mirrored command lines cut in
neat little rows -
They tell the machine what to do while
music blares and
****** I wish they'd
stop playing the ******
version of Blinded by the Light
for once -
Agitated and hurting -
But intrigued -
Like watching the jaws of life
wrapped around a car crash
you can't look
away from and
sometimes I just want to go
back to yelling
"Go **** yourself!" at everything
but it
didn't do any good then
why would it now?
An old friend's chaos algorithmic
paintings bring strange
comfort from mass media assault
and pepper spray -
Recall he was dead set on
a jukebox demise but maybe he realized
following linear models of
progression will
derail when spun
across time as a wheel
that breaks the back
of all who push against
it but that doesn't stop
hired guns from hitting
heavy pipes
in the park
after dark
and it's all over now baby blue
because I can't stop thinking
of desert roses even when a thorn
adorns their last names -
If you figure any of this out
let me know because I sure haven't -
Welcome to my stream of consciousness -
Fishing off limits -
You already took the bait.

She pulls my head toward hers
her lips gently part next to my ear
sensual
intoxicating
irresistible
and murmuring seductively
she says
"No honey, it would not
be a good idea
to rob the pizza delivery man
when he gets here
because we gave them our address
over the phone".

This is the kind of poem I wish I had
an old rusty typewriter for
so each disgusted clack crack and punch
hit like your shatter jaw swings
But this will have to suffice
and
yeah
okay
fine
It makes you feel better
to put things
in such a stark black and white
that ugly gaudy stale whole-half-truth you
claim to love
then
yeah
okay
fine
All the ill forgotten pill hurts were all my fault
and we can pretend all the long scarlet letter
scratches you carved on my back were
from someone else
So burn my name to the ground
and put your cigarettes out on
my pictures
and all it will amount to
is your last denial
of all I had to give

X.

We should pick up some
flowers

Why

Because that is how they
did it in the old days
fresh flowers on the table

Roses

Yes roses

Then I will pick some up on my way home

XI.

The roses died again

I did not say I would be very good at keeping up appearances

Oh

A touch of Synthetic Blue
drips
down our tear battered frames
before it catches on
a match made in hell
Becomes an oily
twisting
saffron cold flame
Redefines love
as a pact to collectively
fall apart
Redefines hate
as a pop cultural norm
As it smolders
strife imitates art
Another massacre
Another overdose
Another malignant mass media circus
and maybe now
you understand
inevitability


*Synthetic Blue is a registered trademark of White Spider Pharmaceuticals, a division of the White Spider Corporation, and is used without permission.

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.

There is an ember
burning brightly
for you
In the darkest
most secretive regions of my heart.
When furious dark tides crash
high against the waterfront
Leaving me soaked and shivering
That ember cannot be doused.
When violent squalls roar across
the barren landscape
Forcing me in
all directions and pelting me
with dust barrages
That ember cannot be smothered.
When the earth’s clashing faults
trembles and shatter
Threatening to swallow me into
its monolithic abyss
That ember cannot be crushed.
When the fires lurking behind your eyes
leap forth and envelope me
in their silent rage
Immolating my very being
They will leave only a pile
of pitiful ash…
…and an ember
still brightly burning.

Smeared interpretations caught up
in inversion mirrorball bathrooms
defying those punched up dust down reassurances
from
punk rock goddesses
emerging and
cutout of vagrant tunnels
Cast out by demagogues
spinning bottles determining fates
Falling to sidewalks falling from grace
no longer saving face from
a future washed down with the last call
This is how is all goes down
This is how it dies
Standing on the edge of a forever
that is all too quick to end

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?

Hiding behind screens.
Sealed from the world.
Connected/detached.
The next best/worst thing.
Our precious intellect...
Our fleeting consciousness...
Boxed on a chip and stored away...
Hidden and safe...
Our stored binary dreams.
Malcontents under pressure.
Until they find the box.
Press the button.
All is consumed in flames.
We hurt the ones we love the most
and I love all of mankind.
Woe to an empire of blood.
Woe to an empire of blood.

There is a condemned shack
on the bleeding edge
of this cracked mud cake prison
Rusted copper pipes snake out
into a murky puddle
holding the last cold drink
before setting out
I feel the ragged heat beating down
on the raw skin
of my hastily shaved scalp
The proud swing of flowing locks
cut off in shame
and thrown into angered fires -
Forever sentenced to wander
in tattered coated
highway robbery squalor -
Machete duel personalities
with blood crazed bandit gangs -
Hunker down on the edge of
gravel voiced pits
mutilating the rock face
in search of bitter roots
to replace the ones severed in
excommunication breakdown
I know
With you
It would be exile
Poor
Dusty
Hot
Banished
Marked for death
But nonetheless
we would sustain each other

I choose exile
with you

You call me
a piece of work
and a piece of trash
but
that would be putting
it way too lightly...
Lowbrow
down low
and never coming down...
...I'm a ******' fabulous
piece of fine art.
Here's a part about
the way the sky looks
today
so I can wrap this trainwreck up
and pretend
to be deep.
It looks clear and blue. What a disappointment.
Fin. QED. Mic dropped. Bombs dropped.

It's not that I don't appreciate
the glorious struggle of this life.
But when I'm crowbar hopping until I can hardly stand up
guilty of smashed in windows and foggy afterglow afterthought
I can't help but wonder
how I can be anything but off the wagon
when they've been circled to fend me off?
They want their stereotypes?
Fine.
I'll be the station wagon burner of their suburbs
but even if they're entertained I don't want their thanks.
I reserve my thanks for being alive
for being allowed to rise each day
even if my thanks are abstract marks lining
my arms.
Sorry if this is disjointed.
I'm writing from the heart
but shooting from the hip
with those familiar revolving killers
slung low on fun belts with
the chambers of my heart spun
until I'm dizzy.
I've always been an avid subscriber to chaos
but I can't deal with this disorder any longer.
I know that each and every one of you
are precious and dear to me
but I can't break away from the oubliette of
my dreary words.
They're like my alchemical dependency
burning dread into gold.
I give thanks to know you
even if showing it is difficult.
I'm a barren mined strip.
Now I'm discharging thought heavy metals into your
water supply and I can't help but think I'm
poisoning everyone.
I've been a misanthropologist all my life
discovering what makes us so awful at times.
Now I just
want to be a sincere apologist.
I need you more than you need me
and I love you.

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? '

I run my fingers across razor sharp hints of frost
The first signs of cold
sliced across trees by raging violent wisps.
Thin slivers of blood shimmer down the crystalline
coat of winter desolation
as these wounds gleam with crimson vengeance, cruel and empty.
Spatters of angry, scarlet disappointment gathering
in the pristine emptiness of this icy wasteland.
I do not feel this, I am numb to it.
To me, it is a gentle lock of your hair laying across
the soft rise of your collar bone.
I feel the passionate burning fire of your breath against
my neck.
Still, I have questions that these lonely trees cannot answer.
I lay down in the cold,
entangled in their ancient, deceitful roots
wishing they would provide me with answers.
But they only stare blankly
their sap laden mouths frozen, gnarled,
and silent
These are questions only you can answer.

Freezing rain drizzles
off of my apartment roof tonight
I'm afraid of driving on sheets of ice
and I've only got six hours to go
I should be asleep by now
The numbers on my clock are an
irritatingly sharp red
and they stare at me all night
reminding me that they run things
Not sleeping is one of my hang ups
I have this bad habit of leaving my coat
on the floor
so this isn't my hang up
because someone
usually hangs it up for me
Although I'd feel like less of a burden
if I hung my own coat up when I come in
from the freezing rain
so I try
They know I'm just forgetful
so they don't get mad
They think I'm brilliant in other ways
which is comforting
Sometimes my hang up is wondering
if I am at all brilliant
if I am a good person
I run my fingers along all my old scars
and fight the urge to make new ones

the true
conquest of the bourgeois
is the
scalding envelopment
of this bathwater
and how long i can stay under
before
i have to face the blank slate

I will always be captivated
by the way you were framed
through the rain streaked
windowpanes
of a tenement refuge
known to only us
A blurred recall
of dancing snapshots
disordered laughter
and tumbling tangled locks
Your rhythmic constrictions
rendering speechless
damnation
as hypnotic passion
erupted from deep within
the universe behind your eyes
In those moments I understood
that I am cursed
to remain
a permanent fixture
of this crumbling
overdrawn quarter
I know now
that you
are something mysterious
powerful
and ancient
You have been here
long before me
and you will be here
long after
I am dust

We could not comprehend the horror lurking in our future
Deceptions behind the mask as emotions shift into phantom pains
Left unattended and feeling for hints of barbed spines
raised under our flesh
Flaying the remains of innocence and revealing a labyrinth of unending agony - a rolling thunder that snares in violent spins
as we beg for it to stop
It roars
It hurts
but most of all
It knows
These roulette curses dance across shocked faces
finally left forsaken for not living up to unattainable expectations
Left longing for genuine affection
while the cravings are predictably portrayed as ravenous
You should know by now
the longer
you wait
the more
flesh this
lunging bite
pulls away

I painstakingly cut off my
fingertips
screaming as I dug out the
microprocessors
so we could live
free from their scanner
grids
The whir of drones
overhead
provide an ironically
soothing white noise
as we spend the night
huddled together in a ravine
The truth is
I'm not afraid of
them finding us
and launching
our firebomb execution
so much as I'm
afraid
you might want
at some point
to see other people

The rain has gentle hands that
smother out my claim to flame
as I stand with a soggy borrowed cigarette
in one hand
and one of those expensive uptown
coffee shop drinks in the other,
their daily grind keeping me awake
but ultimately coffee rings
hollow, insufficient in fulfilling
my constant half-empty outlook.
I'm resigned to bracing myself on a street corner
watching traffic lights
flash and cars streak by obscenely,
wishing I could get by on good looks
from everyone moving past me
but I know it's all just an allusion.
Always alone in the big
city but she changes that,
she's sensual but odd
like the smooth shielding
over the wings of a beetle
if you can stand holding one
long enough to touch them.
I raise my face to the sky
and she washes away my
hazy carbon monoxide exhaustion daydreams,
letting them bleed into corroded rain gutters
All those curve bald face lies and avoidance tactics
dilute by her storm fronts until they mean nothing.
You and I?
Well I can't figure out if our daisy chaingun
romance will ever
be more than hollow points fired
across each others brow,
but I know no matter how hard
she pelts me in torrential downpours,
the rain always answers.

In the half-life half-death
of cold capsule prison cells
The shaken but unstirred synapses
of my sedated frantic grey matter
are left cruelly seduced into dreamstate contemplation
Forced induction into comatose hypersleep
all systems shocked and slowed
Reduced to internal monologue
debating tranquility and frustration
captured amidst nurturing seas and predator skies
Life support machinations online
so that I must deal with life offline
My interlude thoughts in full control
as they run amok
through the living dead dreams
forever frozen and framed
in iced over glass
floating through the black nothing
of all encompassing space
alone