it's the shiver down your back.
the background screaming, muted,
but shrill in your shivering heart.

the shouting across corridors,
echoes along corridors,
silence aside corridors.

not creaking doors, no
but ones that shut and never open again,
and the others that stay open forever.

not vengeful spirits,
but broken ones, beyond the point
of saving, broken ones that can't save themselves

broken glass may line the red carpet,
fire may eat at the walls,
frost may gnaw at your digits

but never waver.

Don't be scared of being scared.

and yet again,
they've added too much sugar

it boils over, pink
and bubblegum,
artificial reality,
plastic face

but behind the masks
of dazzling white teeth
and teacups

lie the lies,
and the yellow black
shadows of teeth
and bitter, bitter coffee

how can a minute feel
so, so long?

and how do lifetimes
disappear in front,
right
in
front

of my eyes?

once, it was like a knife
grabbing at my insides,
cutting up my thoughts,
my heart, my mind,
a clear line of chaos spliced
into this line of fire

now, it is but a teardrop
left uncried, sitting on my
eyelid, a muted feeling
that rings harmoniously
through my soul.

like verbal diarrhea,
a poem is belched out from
deep within my inner workings
of the factory, ink-stained and
torn

sometimes i wonder if the title
is just a bright pink bow,
resting atop a pile of
trash.

but what good is a
fallen flower
except to be stepped upon
crushed under your
unwavering soles
of courage, bravery and
anger

i gift you this corsage of
lycoris radiata and
poison ivy,
and may you wear it till
the flowers fall

and crush you.

it's the quiet of dawn
and the silence of dusk
that makes the day.

it's the unheard whispers
of the moon to the sun
that makes the night.

it's the unsung valor
of the invisible heroes,
the flicker of fire in
cold eyes and colder rooms.

and it's the unspoken words,
like whispers from the moon to the sun,
like the muted winds in the morning skies,
like tiny sparks, so alive, so bright,

that give life.