I will take you deep inside of myself.
From the tips of my fingers
to the metal in my bones.
From the ends of my unkempt hair
to the most primal facet of my reptilian brain.

You who have seen the world for what it is
and not run away.
You who see the world for what it is
yet smile in the wind and the sun.
Show me the world in which we live
and I will show you the home I forged in hiding;
it is not spectacular or brilliant
but it is a home few have ever known.

I will take you deep inside of myself
and show you everything
so long as you hold my hands and heart
and tell me what it all means.
What it means to be a cynic and a lover,
a stoic and a lion.

Under bedsheets like rabbits do we crawl
with innocent eyes
far away from the words and shadows
of our illuminated world.

Under bedsheets like rabbits do we escape
from the blare and blur of suburban streets.
Streets with blinding light
in which the constellations suffocate
to shine.

The infinite possibilites
of the infinite universes
of the infinite this
and the infinite that.
So much to discover
and revel in,
the moon will never set
but will hover, golden
over the ripe horizon.

Under the rabbithole of bedsheets
do we find a world where the stars smile back.
Where a curleyheaded girl soaks her tired feet
in a slender river
for even just
a few moments of beauty
and passion
in our world composed so wholly
of streetlights and shadows.

I am filth embodied,
spending my time
communing with mold and cockroaches,
spending my time
sitting in filth
because filth is home.

I do not feel *****
I feel just fine.
There's month old dishes in the shower,
rot in the fridge,
toenails on the table.
And it is home.

Filth is not good or bad.
Love is not ***** or pure,
it is two naked figures in front of a grimy mirror
marveling at their comfort.

There are no masks at 4 in the morning,
it is impossible to conceal yourself
under such insomnia, such tire, or such intoxication.

This is why we leave our beds where the demons stay
to go to house parties where the 'normal people' play.
Because the masks begin to suffocate your face
and you'd give anything for anyone to see just a trace
of honesty in your life
built of formalities and lies.

The drinks set in, the feet lose traction,
children groping blindly for meaningless interaction.

Why is it
that only after the bottle is empty
and you won't remember anything
and you won't regret anything,
that the world is worth destroying?

I know that you are my father,
forgive me if I don't sound empathetic.

But I can't wait for the day
when I pick up the phone
and am solemnly informed
that you choked on ***** in your sleep
and finally left your family
alone.

Another day, another bottle.
You've killed your family,
it's time for you to die.

...And so the sun sets again,
the thoughts come creeping in.
Stars, stars... how dim they seem
on nights like these.

When the breaths cloud the air
and my feet step bare
on the cold streets.
I've never felt so weak.
Never felt so bleak.

Out of gas with nowhere to go.
Out of hope on a frigid road.

Perhaps there's another world out there,
where the steps don't seem so futile
and the words are less painful.
Perhaps there's another world out there.

And though these thoughts
are as painful
to me
as a thousand snapping bones
shattering on concrete.

Though these thoughts
are as interminable
to me
as the burning stars
which supersede time itself.

Though these thoughts
are as constant
to me
as the setting of the sun
and the rising of the moon.

Though these thoughts are all of these things
to me.
I can't help but stand in wonder
as to how, why,
and for what reason
I am so sad, always.

Perhaps there is another world out there
where life is worth living.
Perhaps there is another world out there.

Perhaps...

I will gather myself up
from this scrap heap.
I will, with great care, pick up myself
piece by piece.
From the broken remains
of a tired life
will I become new again.
Not whole,
no! never whole again,
but close.

I will gather myself up
and give you
what is left of me.
Even though I don't know
who you are
yet.

You wouldn't want me anymore.
I've changed
much for the worse.
Same old sadness
but much worse.

Same handsome face,
teeth worn down deeper,
eyes grown darker.

I don't laugh as much.
I don't talk as much.
I don't smile as much.
I smoke cigarettes now,
I've seen the inside
of the county jail.

Even if you think you want to see me,
I promise you that you don't.

So cramped in here,
I can barely breathe.
The facade I've given to
the God I abandoned,
to my loving, naive parents,
to the authority we're all forced to pander to.
My facade, it is crashing down.

Oh, how did I get here?
So smart, so handsome,
so handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser.
No more time for poetic formality:
****.

**** **** ****.
This is the kind of ****
that belongs in a ******* Kafka novel.

I remember, even minutes ago
I sat safe and content with the illusion
of freedom.
There is no "home" anymore,
even there is not safe.

These thin wrists were not meant
for handcuffs.
These fingertips were not meant
to be printed in ink.
This mouth is "real pretty,"
or at least that's what I'm told
as I enter the cell.

You,
We do not talk anymore
and I know that you don't want to talk
anymore.
And I understand, I guess.
I can't really blame you,
can I?

After all, I left you with nothing
but unanswerable questions
and seemingly infinite tears.
So I can see why
you do not want to hear my voice
anymore.

But, you, do you remember?
The laughs?
The quiet nights alone
needing nothing but each other?
I was only happy when you were happy,
you could only fall asleep in my arms
or wishing you were in my arms.

What about the parks?
And the late nights?
And the whispers?
The skin, so much skin.
Passion rang through us
and we reverberated a tireless song
of contentment and ease.

And the fights weren't that bad,
the nights alone weren't terrible.
I didn't make you that unhappy
until I made you miserable
as I walked away forever.

You, do you remember those halcyon days?
I wrote you poems,
you made me a crown of flowers
that wilted hanging from my rear-view mirror.

And as the days go by in which you
resent and yet again resent me down to my soul.
I will hold no bitterness towards your name,
and hope that, eventually, you can do me the same.

Feeling thankless,
but what can I say?
You've given me a body
that's falling apart
and a mind
that's not doing much better.

The Fall leaves are rustling,
forming some sort of poetic image
I guess.

All else has failed...
Those who insisted that contentment
comes with perseverance
have lied.

All else has failed...
It's like sitting idly
waiting for the world to end.
There's nothing better
or easier to do.

All else has failed...
Panic attacks and crying spells
on the ***** carpet.
Sweat dripping from meaningless *******
with a girl I tried so hard to care about.
But could not.

Those big words that makes us so unhappy....
I spent so long learning them.
Searching for bliss in my own intellect.
Everything I have learned
about life and love
pushes me farther from it.

I wanted to fight the darkness
but instead fell inside.
And those big words won't help me escape
because I can't say anything.
And they can't hear anything

Nothing is real anymore,
All else has failed...
I'm losing my ******* mind.

And so, what now?
The room lingers
waiting for something
(anything)
to happen.

A silent echo
endlessly reverberating.
A sound left to linger
like that particular snap
of a bone cracking in two.

....But this is so much more painful.
There's a scar on my arm
from when they drilled a titanium plate
into that broken bone.

You let the silence speak for you
(as it tends to do)
Quiet tears convene on the bedsheets.

Oh, please say something.
Say that you will be okay.
Tell me that you are not broken.

I do not think that I am worth breaking from.
I do not think that I am worth crying over.
I do not think that I am a monster
but that is up for you to decide.

Oh, love, please say something.
Say something.
(Anything.)

That silent echo
that endless reverberation.
... I can feel your heart
snapping in two.

But I am no surgeon.

No, I am that dying oak tree
in your front yard.
You climbed it higher and higher
unaware of my emptiness under the bark.
You climbed me higher and higher
happier and happier.

But I snapped under the increasing weight of your love
and watched as you fell from me.
You snapped in two and landed
on these bedsheets
where you can't stop crying.

Love, say something.
(Anything.)

Just like the dark blue bottle
you shattered when you were drunk
yes drunk, far too drunk.
Claiming to be sober and failing
like a bird with a broken wing
pretending to fly.
Yes, just like that bottle
with the shards scattered about the floor,
I stepped on a small piece
and watched the blood drip out
as a part of you became embedded in me;
I was disappointed when the bleeding stopped.

Just like that ******* dark blue
incandescent bottle
that broke on the kitchen tile.

You've made us blue with fear,
blood dripping on the floor, red
red like the anger and the blood and the bruises
of everyone around you.

Just like the color sadness that is blue
is you
drunk along alive alone
surrounded by the blue shards of bleeding glass
that used to be the ones who loved you.

We are told to be happy
told to be healthy
'Go to the university, son'
to be handed intelligence
'Make some money,
marry a pretty girl.'
Force children into the world
to do as you did.

Live in a nice house
for the rest of your days.
Sit outside and watch your happy
healthy
normal children
play.

You'll hardly hear the whimper
of the sparrow
caught in the teeth of your
purebred black labrador retriever.

A bird with a broken wing
expected to live a life of flight.

So frequently do we hear
of the intoxicated eyes
with nothing behind them.

So frequently do they face
repudiation
from the isolated introvert.

They can't see straight
they can't think straight
they willfully walk the line of self destruction.

These eyes swirl around me,
and here I stand:
confused and fascinated.

A brief feeling of at home:
surrounded by eyes
as empty as mine.

I know that you are alone,
quiet, and without a hope for tomorrow.
You've heard the same songs over
and over and over again.
You've had these same thoughts
over and over and over again.
Pain takes its toll with repetition.

I know that you are alone, tonight.
Your friends and lovers are not here.
(Where are they? I do not know,
but they are not here.)
Silence is overwhelming,
the crickets and lilies are your only friends, tonight.

I know that you are alone, tomorrow.
I know this because it never ends,
you pray for hope but hope never comes.
Time will not fix you tomorrow...
...or to-morrow or to-morrow...

I know that you are alone, every day and every night.
You are alone in the crowd
You are alone on the sidewalk
You are alone in the smoke.

Yet, in some strange fashion,
you are not alone.
While you sit alone in your quiet room,
while you lay alone in your cold bed,
while you cry alone on the bathroom floor:
others are dying alone
too.

And thus:
we are not alone because we are alone:
a mountain of bleeding corpses all bleeding together.

The word interminable
is more than just a word.

Interminable is watching the sunrise
from a sleepless bed.
Interminable is staring at the ceiling
for hours searching for answers
in off-white oblivion.
When your life is just begun
but cannot seem to end quick enough.
When you're happier surrounded
by smoke and strangers
than you are alone.

Do you know interminable?
I think you do
It's when you wander the streets
going to work
going to school
going to live
and the air screams
the sun flickers
and no one is saying anything
but no one will stop talking.

Interminable is the sadness
the confusion
the overwhelming yearning for silence or something graver.
And you know that that too shall pass
that you're not always so sad.
That you've got a laugh able to warm hearts,
but what does it matter?

Why does it matter at all?

Days weeks years of happiness
are but fleeting moment.

But every second of sadness
is as interminable
as the weary days and weary ways
of the burning stars which supercede time itself.

Hope isn't a smiling face
among a dismal crowd.
Hope isn't the light at the end
of the tunnel.
It is not that thing with feathers
for there is no soul for it to perch on.

No, that is not hope.
Hope is when the crows
grow full from the carrion of
a dead lamb, and rest.
Hope is when an old man
dies in his sleep, and stops feeling
those years and years of pain.

Hope is not in your heart:
hope is the time after the noose tightens
and before you fade away.

The illusion of significance
Branded on the faces.

The present tense is past,
time and time slip and intertwine
alone along this barren stretch of
burning nothing that was
our Summer.

Brief laughter echoes weakly
but the smiles stopped singing
long ago.
Winter won't keep us warm
because we'll never forget.

It was not in the eyes that one
fell for the other
but in the silence that our love
grew and died
like a **** in the paraquat.

Smiles fall to the floor,
crystal countenance
cracks quietly,
tears heard by no one.
drip drop drip

Age serenades the young,
old woman searches the sky
with screaming eyes.
tick tock tick

The sound of love ending
at night.
The sound of bones snapping
under starlight.

Awake begging for sleep
like Romeo in the tomb.

I just realized
that I forgot the color of her eyes.

I feel sleepier already.

Poisoned memories rot through
my veins.
These dreams are incomprehensible,
a shaky bloodbath. I am the antagonist,
committing atrocities I'll instantly forget
and forever regret.

There are horrible thoughts welded into my bones,
I am forced to carry them in
infinite tire.

And even though these plagues
are as inexorable
to me
as my abyss-jade eyes
(which will love until
they fade forever)

today, I cannot help
but stand in the sun

and thank myself
for remaining alive to live this day.

I hold your hand despite your heart
being held by another.
I kiss you with care knowing that
I am but a brief distraction
to a much greater
much more devastating love
than mine.

I take this burden in quiet contempt,
what am I to do?

You’ve marked me as yours
but you are not mine.
I’d tell you that you are beautiful
but you’re looking away from me,
at him.

There is no way around it:
you are going to hurt me.
I can feel it in my bones the way
birds know of a coming storm.

I do not know if this will end
in love in the end.
I do not see a happy ending
(but I hope I'm wrong)

....And as the sun rises onto
another glorious day
where we two are alone, together
I will take the pain when it comes,
and cherish every smile you give me
until that solemn day.

That final moment
where the lights flicker
and the stars fall.
That final moment
where the world ends
leaving us
hand-in-hand
withering away.
That final moment
where love is not enough,
oblivion creeps
ever-closer.

Was it worth it in the end?
For one final moment
together before we
fell apart, bleeding?

That final moment
where my voice bursts
trying to call you back
but, with blood on my hands
and heart,
fails.

Down to the last drop
of the dark-blue incandescent bottle
lies peace-in-the-chaos,
a welcome break from the weary world.

this taste that burns is all i need
as the bottle drips down farther
and farther

lost
      unreal
cannot stand but willing to strike
                        cannot speak but screaming
will not remember
              not remember what is going on
                                                                  what is going on?

until it's empty
and the world is worth destroying.

Your mind and you are
to me
the songs that heaven wrote
but could not sing.

As Prometheus runs East,
Light leaves and the Underword emerges.

it is too dark to see the wilted flowers
strewn about our lives
and in the eyes
amid the smoke and tears.

It is night and I am alone.

The weight in my eyes increases
turn turn take the stair
into the house so dark and down
(the Door chuckles as i enter)

The eyes that stare --
those big words that make us so unhappy --
the illusory pain -- ever-so-persistent:
all those that make death so appealing
are somewhere.

...But they are not here,

I breathe out smoke
and watch it fade into the Stars.

We sat close, huddled for warmth
in my freezing abode, a lone candle
lighting the room. Hands
with a mind of their own move
and caress
and cannot help but hold you.

We shared our worlds
and painted our faces
and laughed like children.

No one saw us and we were happier
that way.

I remember your voice as you read me
your favorite poem:

"...Of human love,—renounce for these, I say,
The Singing Mountain’s memory..."

And your brow furrowed as you
listened to mine, looking for some
hidden message in the words that were not mine:

"...Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves..."

We smiled like we used to
(before we forgot how.)
We told secrets we didn't know we had.
And nothing felt wrong
or ill-at-ease.

We slept most of the night as one,
holding each other like we couldn't let go.
So close that my skin was your skin
So close that we smile, and kiss, and smile, and kiss...

...And I woke up with sweat on my skin
and a tremble in my spirit.
Reluctantly knowing that it was too perfect for reality.

You are gone and never were.
Today is ruined without you to wake up to.

Time does not heal, only tears do.
I lay awake and think of you,
too prideful to break down or cry.
A rip in my bones too deep to die.

I meander the Earth with heavy eyes
(you do not let me sleep much)
My body could collapse at any moment
(you've made the days heavy as heavy)
Food and wine taste of dust
and I do not love but lust.

All of this is due
to living a life with you...
And time does not heal only tears do
but I will never cry for you.

I will live a life of misery if it means you don't get the satisfaction
of my sadness.

athought interrupted is lost
ohwell it lacked anything compelling
anyways.

but it's them not us
andusnotwe
and him not i

but it's summer not spring
and the earth is too
hot
because too many tears
and too many screams
heat the earthforwhat it is and notwhat we need it to be

The leaves are falling but no one is outside.
The roots are withering but no one is underground.
That man is crying but his smile hides the tears.

My world is asleep tonight,
all the people and things
that make me feel horrible have fallen asleep.

I guess it's up to me
to do their job,
until they wake up.

Recovering from exhaustion only available
after nights and nights (and nights) of dreamless sleep
and sleepless dreams and mourning pillows that hold
more tears than we'd like to admit. Recovering from night terrors
only possible after decades of shameless meandering along
a rocky shore of somniferous hyperactivity.
Hide your fires no light will find you here.

Wake up, feel the sweat drip from your brow:
your heart is racing and you've no clue why.

Life is burden when sleep is terror.

i could not speak and i could not feel
and i saw your eyes among the stars but it hardly
seemed appropriate to nod and I knew I had lost it
but what is life but losing it
i do not think that i want this but i am laughing
so I must but how can I discern between no

i do not sigh and i do not breathe but i can feel my
lungs rattling do you know do you know maybe but it is
of no concern i do not care to

i do not expect to remember this how can i do not
have fear you are smiling guide me scorpius guide me
i do not expect much i just need to stop falling
upwards

these steps take themselves i stand still
and the streetlights slowly pass me

I am well aware that my lines lack an audience,
that the words of others are more beautiful
eloquent, passionate?
than mine: I have accepted that.

It is within my capacity to write about how
lost love, flowers, sunsets and cigarettes
evoke deep emotions within me.
I can write
that Great God will guide me through darkness
and I will find happiness in the end.
I can do that. More people would read that.
Perhaps I could get an audience
that way.

I'll keep my ambiguity
And I'll keep my countenance.

Disregard these words (as I know you will)

No one hears the cry of beating hearts,
No one sees the nightmourner,
desolate and quiet in its misery.
I have not read a poem written by a Shadow,
I know that they haunt us all the same.

Do not read these words I fear you'll read more.

No one heard the voices and shrieks that night
And no one knew and no one cared to know.
Yet it happened still the atrocity.

Her echoes are in the air still,
No one can feel what she felt.
You wouldn't want to.

You wanted the world and I complied.
Crafting a globe out of paper and wilted Daffodils;
you were under the distorted vision of Love
and could not see the fault lines and inconsistencies
that make it both real and unreal.

I apologize for when it crumbles --
as I know it will.
I know your smile will fade --
there's nothing I can do.
Nothing.
Nothing in the pseudo-world that will permit
you to remain happy.
Because I am no Atlas and I am trembling
under the increasing weight of a fabricated world.
I know not what to do and you cannot see.

I am sorry:
The world is falling apart
and I will be a casualty in the wreckage.

"Every inordinate cup is
unblessed and the ingredient is a devil."


The sun has set and the switch between
lives is applicable.
We are all dead tonight. Frozen
in a hidden world far away from
innocence and frowning faces.
Far past the sun and far past
plastic cups and lost inhibitions,
lost in a torrent of ecstasy:
we transform into beasts.

Beyond this and so much more
Beyond undeserving smiles and lustful pursuits
Beyond "no regrets" and spilt drinks
And hollow laughter and moonlit faces
And spins and joy and misery and
And
and this, and so much more.
I will never grow old... I will never grow old.
*And let me the canakin clink
clink

'Pandora left all but hope,
I watched the world unfold from out in a cage,
it was quite beautiful until I lived a life there.

The world I see is not the world I live.
Dare I to choose a life sanctity?
To repudiate the winelife and sit in silence, pure?
I will find pain in both worlds.
Might as well have fun in our misery.'

There are some nights on this earth
when it is easier to ignore the signs
forget the laws and forget the composure.
Some nights ask you to smile
and it would be rude to decline.

It's very easy to forget
how heavy the days are,
sometimes.

We have these nights to remind us that
we try to smile and nothing comes out.
Nights in which it's easier to sit alone
and wait for the world to end
than to try and hold a hand.

Sometimes I wonder
if not all nights
are some-nights.

There are some nights
where joy must be squeezed out
or cracked like an egg --
elsewise it will sit, stagnant:
taunting.

Let the memories flood your mind
and stand in horror at what you find.
On some nights every recollection is
a needle jammed into your cerebral cortex.
Do not fear these nights for they are always.

The world turns and night turns to day
and turns to night and turns to etc.

An old man dies in his sleep,
a flower withdraws into its stalk
the fires subside and guide us
through this oblivion.
She wants him.
He wants to die.
They pass out, one by one.
Words fall to the floor
and sometimes -- if you're lucky--
the humming of insects and streetlights
enfolds every ripple in your brain
and you feel our concrete earth
remind you in a low tone:
'Everything is fine, status quo.
You will live another day.'

There are some nights on this earth
that are almost worth living.

Sing we for love and idleness,
Naught else is worth the having. -Ezra Pound*

Today, there are no words on my lips.
Love has no surprises and life no pain.
The faces before me refuse
to invoke grief or any whisper of hope.

The dying oak tree in the front yard creaks
and whimpers and begs for peace.
It has witnessed the years and taken
them in indifferent solitude.
I do not think it wants to live
this solitary life any longer.

Under its rotting armor a fragile sign of life.
And just beneath that thin layer of green vitality
lies years and years of death.
I should hope that it heals or falls to the ground.
I do not think it wants to live
this ailed life any longer.
I know it will. I have not the benevolence
to chop it down.

I stare at the flora of branches,
the sun tries to emerge from the clouds:
it cannot. It sheds a tear of futility.
No one hears it, though.

I think of the days of childhood past,
where the laughter was abundant
and the smiles genuine
and the tears flowed without any hesitation.
That was a long time ago.
An innocent version of myself climbed
the branches and appreciated the
tree's fortitude.

I wonder,
can this dying oak support my weight?
Have I grown too much or has it died too much
to climb it?
Have I died too much to climb it?

I disregard these thoughts and continue:
Deadweight swings on a lowly branch.
I fear it will snap but I continue to hang.

It does.

I fall to the ground and appreciate the skinned knee.
The only pain available
on such a lifeless day.

I had a dream, which must have been all a dream.
Because we two never parted
and we two never cried,
we were neither living nor dead,
but we were happy.

There was a world made of needles
but our skin was too hard to get stung.
As we walked arm in arm through
the faceless crowd, we smiled.
It felt nice.

The Sirens sounded
The world fell apart and landed on our souls.
Even then, no pain was found.
And that was nice, too.

We walked in a stiff waltz
the music was a death rattle.
I found a wilted flower
and hung it on your arm.
You found the knife in my side
that I keep hidden from others.
The blood was so beautiful,
a glorious fountain.
So I wore it on my lapel.
We looked nice.

For a blurry split-second
the world was real,
and oblivion made sense.
Which was nice.

These thoughts grind my teeth through sleep.
These dreams make waking up a gift and a chore.
Morning injects me into reality
Like a vaccine: a deadened virus that will keep you safe.
I cannot stomach this infertility,
Not yet.

I am not what I am
The eyes of those who pretend to see:
As benevolent as a mouth full of razors.
The mouths that I always want to kiss.
The lips that I always seem to pursue.
The cuts that I always pretend to cherish.
The ancient lust shakes my blood.

And I am forced to embrace nostalgia
as She and She and He and Then penetrate my mind: a time long past.
What is memory but a slideshow of regrets?
Every word becomes a mistake.
All triumphs a fleeting matter worthy of none.
Eviscerate my joy and live in its corpse.

It is April and we are frozen:
Stuck in a world we never knew
In a love we thought we felt
A life we never lived.

Entering this house is the last twist of the knife.
You're breaking my soul upon your eyes:
No birds sing.
Life isn't very long.
Even roses wilt.
It's rude to stare.

High on sidewalks and streetlights,
The sun has set: will it rise again?
What is to become of this,
My darkness?

There is no clock tower here, and
My full moon is setting too fast.
Day will come, day will come.
Feeling too much or nothing at all.
My heart races and I've no clue why.

And I will come home, to a sepulcher
Void of all light and screeching like the Storm.
I lift the knife to my side,
I look at you, and I sigh....
These thoughts grind my teeth through sleep.

It is April and we are frozen:
stuck in a world we never knew
in a love we thought we felt
a life we never lived.

Remembering time past.
Hell, searching for lost time.
Idyllic maybe
But
Flowers wilt.

The idle wailing
of Sirens and Daffodils
Allows me to forget:

Nostos holds Algos.
Scylla, Charybdis.
Is the future come yet?

Every word becomes a mistake.
All triumphs a fleeting matter
worthy of none.

Eviscerate my joy and live in its corpse.

Who among us has not?
Well...
Well, what?

Specificities fall to the floor:
we are what we are.
Nothing more.
Nothing more.

Tears refuse to fall
Or cannot help but remain.
Tears or notears, poison all the same.

The walking Shadow:
relentless in its crawling means.
What of Sound?
What of Fury?

I hope
I hope
I hope....
I hope your eyes bleed until the light pours out.

“O thou invisible spirit of wine,
if thou hast no name to be known by,
let us call thee devil!”-William Shakespeare*

It's cold outside and colder in here
Under the surprising privacy
of a blaring crowd
I gleefully lose myself

Put on my pseudo-smile
and talk to my pseudo-friends.

Maybe even forget it.
Forget that I feel like a set of floating eyes
Forget that we're all mounds of flesh and hair
Forget
Forget you all

My eyes are brick walls and fence posts
And I am opening the gate to all in sight
I watch my ethos come crashing down
with every increasingly true glance
of yet another Siren.

Only under the blare and blur
of that frozen house
Could I have ever mistaken formality
(or the lack of)
for some sort of kindness or legitimacy.

I've nothing to say to you
but my mouth keeps moving
I've no joy to give to you
but my face keeps smiling

Curse the fate of the hidden one
destined to reveal himself
under most forgettable circumstances

I didn't remember much,
but let us be honest:

when the sun rises
(as it also does)
and your burning eyes long
for lost innocence and vitality

The air will pulse and the room will echo
but I will be gone:
and I'm taking your memory of me
as a parting gift.

What is this pulse I feel?
Stark, ever-present, the tumor with which
life is sustained.

The sky today is remarkably dismal
raindrops along the sidewalks
which I cling to:
not out of reliance --
but out of need.

The world is a bleak gunmetal grey
The Promethean fire of our reluctantly naked sun
cannot even bear to expose itself today.
So, it hides.
It hides like we all do.

What is this pulse I feel?

It hides like an introvert at a party
who escapes himself
into the blare and blur of a horrid
solidarity of bottles and children
and the illegal activities with which
they so complacently cling to.

Hides like a man in a pin-striped suit
who is concealed under white teeth and
leather lounge chairs and contemporary
architecture.

Hidden like child at a shopping mall
whose mother is almost attentive
as the child hides in a clothing rack
and screams:

"You'll never find me!
You'll never find me!"

And the mother realizes that her
child is gone
And the mother finds her child.
And the child never realizes
that he will never escape the eyes
of those whom he doesn't want to see.

The child may want a mask but masks never conceal effectively --
and if they do they're uncomfortable
and press against your face and suffocate your skin.
And it's easier just to let everyone see you
than to be an isolated mask amongst the ranks
of autonomy-hungry deoxyribonucleic acid.

What is this pulse I feel?

The child dies in a car accident several years later.
Oh, well.

And so, I am here --
the world is sullen and steel
as the raindrops fall upon the sidewalk.
It's as if the world is a graveyard
no one dares exit their shelters to
let the cold Truth gently fall upon their faces.

What is this pulse I feel?

The water falling from the Sun's shelter
answers my question:
"You are a raindrop, you fall from the sky
and land, cold, onto these concrete streets.
You may distinguish yourself amongst the other molecules
but you are all Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Your identity is nothing.
You are but an off-key baritone singing in a chorus.
The chorus is an ocean;
the aggregation of all human water molecules.
What's one drop to do?"

This pulse I feel?
It is one of billions, and it is indistinguishable.
I cling to the sidewalk as I step further --
hands in my pockets, stepping further.
Step.

I hear the abyss calling.
It takes the form of falling rain.