Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.

Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.

Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.

Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.

Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.

Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.

This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.

Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.

Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.

On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.

A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone

Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.

I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.

Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.

Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.

Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.

Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.

So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?

https://youtu.be/q067Au9GA-g?si=VZC-v8SnXGx5xP-X

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a great poetry scene (and more specifically the Dayton Poetry Slam open mics) which ive recently started attending... last time i went one of the people who runs it asked if he could play the recording of this poem on the radio (which I'm beyond excited about) sometime in September (date still TBD)... bear in mind this was 2 weeks before my first visit to the psych ward and about a month and a half before my first attempt (since I was a kid), although im doing a bit better now. This is what I'd originally written to say beforehand (but got too nervous 😆):

This one isn't really my best or favorite but its definitely my most personal... I've struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings for almost as long as I can remember, tried to **** myself when I was 9 but wouldn't acknowledge it to myself as a serious attempt til I was in my early to mid 20s cuz I didn't get hurt... then it wasn't until I looked back on it and realized that no, I definitely was trying to (which is part of how I came to realize I have bpd since I shouldn't have reasonably wanted to or tried to at that age like I did)... unfortunately the feelings have never gone away, and although I haven't tried again since then I have gotten pretty **** close. It seemed like things had gotten better for a while, then worse, then better, then worse again... but I've been holding out for things to get better again and I guess what I'm really trying to say is just that so long as you're still holding on, things can get better again. It may not feel like it for a long time and the whole time you might be asking yourself if it ever can but so long as you're still holding on things can get better eventually (in ways we may never expect), but if you give up too soon you'll never see it happen. So just hold on.

Personality disordered,
untamed ardor explores
every river delta
and corner forked;
borderline morphs.

Formless torment disorients,
roaring torrent force
forging its course,
divorcing arboreal forest floor
into a gorge.

Clear mirror
gorgeously adorned
with floral orchard, adored;
stream looks on in horror, forlorn-
shore a formidable fortress stormed,
water waging war on
brambles, thorny swords,
and flourishing orchids scorned;
armored only by rain's discord
and fresh petrichor worn.

What am I between these driving
delusions of all my anxieties, aside?
When every moment is a revolt against
suicide and my steadying decline
and my internal monologue dissolved
into reminding myself why.
Who am I but ceaselessly unsure
of the lens of my own myopic, miserable mind?
Between the shadows stirring
in the corners of these drying eyes
and the alarming cry for predators nearby,
these countless confines multiplying wildly.
How often I find I am fighting my brain every second, all the time
my own excessive efforts led awry
as my uncertainties undermine.
But now all I know is I am finally
freeing myself from being so spine numbingly paralyzed
now that I've realized I lie
underneath somewhere within
the way of still waking up
from this frozen comatose demise.

Heart beat,
bruised bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath,
muscle fatigued,
toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.

Ocean's brine collides
and threatens to capsize
my entire island.

Wild tides violently writhe,
striving for sky highs,
waves and wake
annihilate horizons.

Darkness disguises,
only outlines
for tired irises
to try finding
while dilated
behind eyelids,
hiding nighttime's crimes
inside blindness.

But guiding signs smile,
morning's light shining
still reminded;
so sublime
when stormy seas I've survived
have finally subsided.

Feeling a dryness filling my sinus,
altitude ascending,
rising mile highness
in the quietness and silence.

Incline scaling side of
this piled detritus,
climbing mountain of vileness
just to see off this island.

Blindness fills irises
seeking lands and their tyrants,
kingdoms fighting
incited by shining diamonds;
but all eyes can spy is
skyline's vibrant twilight,
clouds bathed in violet,
stars aligned with waves
riotously violent.

Rain falls in sheets for weeks,
ceiling springs a leak;
from the weeping breach
the waterline soon creeps,
stream flooding in furious
flurry of worries, deep.
Innumerable leagues beneath,
unfathomable meters and feet steep;
wrapped in the blackest and bleakest grief
wreathing my neck, I can no longer breathe.
Stifled, I can plea and scream,
but this abysmal void eats me
like a parasite, a thieving leech
suffocating, siphoning my speech,
bleeding my body weak
until all that’s left in this sea
are clothes to blow in undertow
like shredded leaves
and bones to be part of some unseen reef;
into the yawning depths of this sleep,
death swallowing every secret to keep-
I close my eyes and hold my breath for relief.

Floods raze,
earthquakes shake,
locusts plague,
lost sheep astray,
and my stomach
is a knotted pit of snakes.

My pain cascades in waves
while you pray
to the angels
and patronizing saints;
it's not God's grace
testing faith
but a mind erased
as brain deteriorates.

It isn't fate
but a baby languishing,
afraid of danger,
drained,
trauma ingrained
so I must vacate
because mom
I can no longer bear the weight
of being brave
and maybe I can't be saved
but I can't stand
to see you in this state
and I can't stay
so please just remember
all the love I gave-
I love you always
and I'll take that straight
to my grave-
I never placed the blame,
I'm just exsanguinated
and i bet you'll never even realize
today is my birthday
so i guess I'll see you
at the pearly gates-
please don't wait.

Rain falls; licks, and tastes-
drips and drops from contours, traced.
Lightning's lash, electric laced;
anxieties anticipate
but under clouds bears no escape-
and here I find my fury: fate.
Twisted bouquet of buildings placed;
no windows, stares an eyeless face.
Hollowed husks commiserate,
though storm will wash and dissipate.
These diseased dreams lie dead, disgraced;
tombs for what I desiccate,
and blood upon this dead landscape;
but hurriedly, its here I haste
for fear of losing steady pace.

I was listless,
but my fist still twisted,
fingertips gripped
with arthritic stiffness,
grasping for
a gift misgiven.

Spirits lifted,
so my heart skipped its—
yet hands still slipped
with a vicious quickness;
ripped a rift across,
swiftly drifted.

Ill-equipped to fix this
vertiginous abyss
from my precipice,
til obsidian black eclipses
even the lips
that kissed it;
beloved blisses
left amidst
empty wishes,
beyond the reach of wrists,
which shifted;
crippled by what exists—
a distance.

Spring spent
as a sprout
bedridden
in sediment
then edifice jettisoned.

By summer
roots ready,
tendons threaded,
a frenzy of
appendages,
extremities extended.

In autumn
stem shedding feathers,
fallen flower petal treasures,
emerald essence surrendered;
amber bled,
blood letting red,
settling
in ephemeral orange embers.

But winter
December veteran
still remembers
fledgling seeds spreading
instead of this,
condemned
to frigid tether
then again severed
and unfettered;
sun's warmth,
tender benevolence and pleasures
if ever through
the coldest weather
and snow yet treaded together.

As dawn's fog yawns
exhausted jaws call upon
tomorrows and beyond.

Pondering somnolent solitude's
honest and solemn qualms,
the calm before
ancient eons old atomic bomb;
clouds becoming bells of bronze,
air a balmy sauna,
strands of photon blonde
don tree awnings
and lush bladed lawns
strong enough to rouse flora,
fauna frolicking along,
faults and all their wrongs;
summer sunrise,
curtains, drapes are drawn,
phenomenon a drama
of God's pawns,
audience applause
the crawling pulse
of this cosmic throng.

But chronology's period
more like a comma, pause,
as falling autumns quick bygone,
then a wave of frigid wand
and winter's frostbitten trauma haunts;
maudlin waters frozen wanton,
fossilized to icy ponds,
ossified swans mourn silenced songs
their unspoken sonnets
for want of
warm renaissance.

Wind bellows,
gusts choke,
ocean's gushing spray
a ghost;
fog in throat
a storm's smokey omen
then
supernovae explosions
of morose emotions.

Juxtaposed,
atop, afloat,
a lone lifeboat
rowing,
going coast to coast;
rain soaks,
thrown to and fro.

Cold, piercing, potent-
rosy nose,
hands exposed,
fingers frozen,
spirit comatose,
bloodied knuckles
bursting bones;
both broken open
and all so hopeless,
struggling
just to keep oars,
boards oaken,
devoted to
a stroking motion.

In search of a post,
a place to tie a rope
but I'm a skipping stone
about to slip below.

How do you prove an immunity to
a recurringly exhumed seclusion
when the noise of static, so intrusive when unmuted, easily confuses
and a skewed view produces only illusion's futile ruses?
Can't hands, seamlessly and when misguided, be abusive
from refusing their own bruises and contusions,
manifest and fuse into a multitude of misconstrued, misled misuses?
Yet I will argue choosing to humor the tune communicating through the intuitive music and movement that amuses-
what is heard echoes clues for harmony and hallowed union's
mutual congruence,
even in the crudest beauty and pursuit of human improvement and what we knew, uprooted.
Doubt, when reducing to delusions, always loses when refuted,
and though humility means fragile ****** included,
elusive truths all allude to an absolution through this-
what diffuses, what we keep, and how we do it the conclusion.

Tensions wind with
sea's rising tide
then curtains' delicate divide.

Tongue's unsung syllables rhyme,
body's language replying in kind
its secrets, inclined to confide
in human passions
humid, dripping liquefied;
sweetness seizes and slides-
a taste inside
where nectar, ambrosial, resides.

Blurring in a flurry
of your nerves and mine
as if designed
to collide then combine
for a time,
you and i intertwined;
lying supine, your
spine obliged to writhe,
legs around head,
softest vices tightly bind,
hands on thighs,
slowly grind
upon this throne you ride,
crown for the divine;
unifying flesh and minds,
higher towards sky
you climb.

Then knot untied
leaves skin sweat soaked-
satisfied,
described only by
a sigh.

So nicely
love like
a knife slit
siphons the life from me.

Just the price to be
unrequited,
like a vice grip tightness
strife will seize.

Lightning strike
ignites memories,
fighting
horizon's eve.

Island retreat,
my plight
in crisis
I flee.

Diaphragm expanded
like the cigarette burns on the empty wood floor
from when I left the mattress there and didnt care anymore,
started laying down beside the beaten, weathered boards;
these decades in the grains of timber grew towards-
I lie inert, my bones the weeping willow's withered roots now stretched forward
to sunlight creeping in the windows through daybreak's drunken disorder.
Dehydrated, tormented, and long tortured;
regurgitations reemerged, restless, pushed shoreward-
dysphoric dreams; no rest beneath intoxicated border.

Like a lonely rose
froze to stone,
heart hardened to marble
below a coat of snow;
barbed bones grow
labored and slow
but red petals
still radiate, aglow-
posed not quite open,
although not quite closed.

Warmer wind blows,
rain drops
clapping, lachrymose;
spring-lit spirit sprints
towards summer solstice, awoke;
green leaves,
emerald embers stoked,
emitting dandelion smoke.

Trophy bouquet meadows
of romanceless nosegay
and posy mosaic laying apropos;
seeds evoked and thrown
from my own torso.

Emotions
forwards flown
to almost certain vertigo
then swiftly sunk in undertow
from only breeze's uneven strokes;

No thing hallowed,
corpse bloated, decomposed;
worms hunger and burrow,
tomorrow sowing unknown woes-
soul harrowed as if I chose.

From atop lofty thoughts,
dropped off softly;
so often, I lay awake
turning and tossing,
internal monologue talking,
masochistic sophistry blossoming
as it ought not to be.

A colossal cloth,
silken plume,
ink blot shades of grey
spread, peacocking;
this offering of pebbles brought
a monument
to all of the impossible
rocking before toppling-
comatose and claustrophobic,
I can exert no reverse inertia
to stop this cacophony.

Anxious, fraught,
my worries stalking me;
distraught
and tense posturing;
I fought to hold,
my fingers taut;
knuckles knotting,
vices tightly throttling.

Locked between
clock's tick and tock,
every second,
hands painstakingly wrought-
caught up,
sudden and shockingly.

Crawling awkwardly,
clawing at the walls,
coughing from the noxious oxygen
of my own rotting sarcophagus.

Insomnia fostering this paradox,
mocking me;
sleep deprivation walking,
no elysian veil to cross for me;
my own exhaustion
the coffin accosting me;
awful volume of this noise
ultimately just grains of static
all for naught,
frothing
and washed to sea.

Tethered, fluttering wings shedding feathers,
panicking and fretting but never bettered or unfettered;
talons tremble, tremors tell of pain remembered.
Desire tightens wire’s hold strongest before severed-
clouds and claustrophobia weathered,
sails to shimmer under sun and kissing wind as one, together.

What was the catalyst,
and how long did you mask it?
How long were you drifting across this canyon's blackness til vastness
held your passions captive?
What happened?

I told you I'd have done anything
if you had asked it...
I actually loved you
and it wasn't just some infatuous actions.

But I just walked away-
it's in the past and time elapses;
I wanted to plea for you to take me back-
but no, I won't do that-
in fact I'll bury the casket.

Often the intensity of my emotions sickens me;
nerves diseased, tangled fray of countless neuroses
dragged through fragments of debris,
frustration’s fangs still teething-
bones betrayed, befittingly treasoned,
in suffering, seizing for reason.
Unrest, can’t relieve between tension’s jaws
starved ravenous and thieving;
symphony of knives all slicing,
incisions slashing, screaming.
Lost through leprous lesions, lacerated,
logic left hemorrhaging, flooding, and leaving;
broken blanket of my flesh bastions nothing but
absence for strands unweaving…
and yet I must gather ground by leaning on aggrieving.
Capitulated into the dark of evening,
for want of sleep and tomorrow towards reprieving;
surrendered into night for dreaming.

Like a window smashed,
waxing accidental cracking of glass;
canyons mapped as light refracts fast,
captured through snapping fragments and gaps.
Hung unintact, procrastinating its shattered collapse,
stress tracks have the last laugh
as paths from impact form webs and traps.
Gilded, a net of gold wraps as fractured attack grasps
before being scattered and blackened to an abstract mass of countless unmatching halves.
Tangled, travelling passions cast into a savagely scratched mask;
mouth closed, asphyxiated, and afraid to gasp.

Tip of my tongue, numbed;
words, unsung, heavily hung among my breathless lungs.
Trembling, assembling, three syllables still stunned;
through listless lips, slipped, stammering- stung.
Precariously, so perilously I plunge;
on precipice long perched, i freely fall, fast from.
Ephemeral and fleeting, my crumbled fear succumbs;
days ****** to darkness, now dawning sun's undone.

Daydreams-
scattered clouds
of feather down
radiating gold around,
lacing outer bounds,
heaven sent
and proudly crowned;
profound and renowned,
astounding throughout-
I bow, devout.

Drowsy, I arouse
raising brow
wondering about
shadows casting doubt
like a shroud.
Thunderstorm
announces with a howl,
sky’s wide mouth shouts,
with a sound devours;
growling gigawatts
of gouging power
on the prowl.

I cower,
loud as a mouse,
counting the amount
of seconds I allow
to slip by every hour;
scavenging and scrounging
to find a route,
I flounder
until I found
a seed endowed;
forged in drought
and valor.

Spouting fountain,
dousing the ground
in a shower;
unwound, this sprout
and boughs will tower;
a house beneath
its blossomed flower.
I build a mound,
even if I can't surmount,
my spirit is scoured-
and I vow this garden is ours.

Snowflakes draped,
landscapes of paper
froze opaque.

Vacating
sacred spaces
forsaking each and every station
seeking safest places.

Alienation shaping faces
of white dunes elevated,
night soon erases
fading traces illuminated,
lighted by moon phases;
glacier's pace excruciating,
frostbitten, frigid
in an aching stasis.

But I awaken from sedation,
summer's warmth embraces;
June not even undertaken
so I await and ruminate
in patience.

Your company's like nighttime sky over sultry summer days-
long arms embrace afar across the cooling humid haze.
The heat still broiled into pavement now evaporates the rain
but at its core, the asphalt molten, still sweltered and sunbaked.
I chain smoke my way through another five minute mistake-
again now in tens, I'm alone, still awake;
sometimes, shallowed breaths, then wavering, shake
and unresolved, unrequited, in between aches.

A new day breaks,
same ageless sun comes dawning;
its tender touch enough to stir landscapes lush and sprawling.
The morning’s warmth breathes life,
illuminating colors young and still crawling;
the frost of nighttime evaporating and slow thawing
awakens anticipations, dewdrops naked and still yawning-
a newborn alienation in the face of creation, left fawning.
Holding onto what it can while free falling,
ambiguous mist collects then forgets
what it reflects is its own longing;
capturing, refracting back,
confusing light diffused as itself when recalling.
Condensation grips, flips image and slips,
fights gravity and hangs there stalling,
and yet it is not prolonging its inevitable dissipating, dissolving
as indifferent heavenly bodies keep revolving,
dusk recurring and always resolving.

Perhaps all I can ask is that
I carve a path back to my apathy
although my atrophy's
divorce detracts from me
as my degrade is happening
and the capacity for happiness everlastingly lacking.
What is belief but misguided and
more patiently practiced blasphemy?
Yet here I am left with hands half grabbing,
for words gasping, I am practically asking.
Abandoned with no hopes left intact,
momentum caught in trappings,
vices snapping, I prolong a pain, adapting
and what sort of self congratulatory act is that, exactly?

Heart ache,
invitation to communication
breakdown I take,
stakes it’s claim in
vacated real estate;
warms after winter
with a shiver and shake.

Laying naked, awake,
my eyes on the nape
of your neck as you slept,
every breath held the depth
of a lake.

I stay;
mouth, a maw agape-
brain a cage no animal escapes.
All these words in mind,
I still can’t find the right way to say...
can’t we just lay around another day?
I know you can’t stay
but I won’t let the memories fade
and I would trade all the sun for the shade
if only one more night were made.

Weary gaze's attention
drifts between dimensions,
mind eyes' pensive lenses
pondering past tenses,
my five upended senses
blended somewhere
in suspension.

Memory's tender reverie apprehended,
seeking splendid spring times
sweet scented;
garden's greener entrances
no fences,
nor damage from
relentless tempests
long since lamented.

When did
rhododendron's appendages,
flowering in a tremendous energy,
ascending to a trembling crescendo
end in
sour fruits of limes, clementines, and lemons?
Tulips' two lips
now whispering a slender mention.
Who else had rose blossoms befriended but their bodies' ornamented thorny brethren?
Men, lent their every hands extended
left with wounds weeping,
wrenched asunder, rended,
recoiling resented.

Pen's river runs
in quintessence,
drenches in each sentence;
blood can't cleanse
despite dispensing in
perennial attempts
as if gravity's
contention depended,
gentle tendrils built
tall walls defenses,
stems became cemented,
and how long have I been
within this glen hidden?

Beneath the steep valleys and peaks of sheets she sleeps,
auburn strands against my cheek.
Legs entangled, heart beats sweet;
arms embrace for want to keep.
Outside, raindrops release, repeat;
weep and whisper their defeat;
crying skies on drowning streets-
but in retreat, we mingle, meet.
Somber silence speaks, complete-
in just a brush of touch,
so delicate, discrete.

Bathed in rain
tracing emaciated frame
til sun's splintered rays
broke through hazy days of grey-
clouds gave way
and you came
like a flame ablaze.

But by the time
summer cicadas sang again
your love had waned,
entangled embrace betrayed;
pangs of anguish,
despair, and anger
as your name changed
into a stranger's face and gaze.

Dull this ache of my heartbreak
to a wraith that hangs in the shade
until you fade away,
for all ive loved has been in vain
and all that remains
are sanguine stains
and the taste of decay.

In holy hollow, head reacts-
bodies, bathed in black, attract.
Shredded shrapnel scraps attack-
muscles move, skin contracts.
Hand advances, arm retracts-
concrete coma cracks.
Sigh in silence; stolen, strained...
In darkness, nicotine nerves still remain;
in subtle movements, we shift blame.
Unbridled, no refrain.
Consciousness in conflict, I cave-
but wariness stays, gained and saved.
In morning's mourning, mind a mess-
condemned in quiet, I get dressed.
To bedroom door, reason regressed,
from stitch of pain so firmly pressed.
Not a single moment's rest.
Temptation's torment, just a test;
in contrast, crime I couldn't confess-
though none to give, I've something less...

In **** communion with you
two bodies blooming,
fluidly fused.
Blushing, rouge-
human muse
illusion's hues
in but a glimpse,
a view;
maroon turned blue,
and like sweet honeydew
exhumed at the roots
feelings bruised
as you withdrew.

Wind sweeps me
off feet
away from
eden's weeds,
ankles buried.

Gaze momentarily peeks
overhead scenery
between steepest
seas of greenery
so clearly breached,
sun beams cleave
trees' canopies
as they breathe.

Grieving the reasons
seasons recede,
summer's heat retreats
before fall will weep
each and every red leaf.

Beneath bark
heart still beats
like machinery,
arteries bleed
and release debris,
branches secreting seeds
til winter's freeze
renders
timbers' limbs empty.

Arms that reach
for sweet reverie
of the breeze
but instead
creaking knees disagree
as body pleas for relief,
searching for
fleeting serene peace
in frigid degrees.

Featureless creature
seized by defeat
no safety,
plagued by diseased
vulnerabilities.

But time's slipstream
reality the
only guarantee;
though no belief that
letting go means I'm free
with nothing to keep
yet memories
heavily weighing down
beleaguered dreams.

So I still seek;
each piece of autumn
melancholy potpourri,
fragrantly reminding me
as I sleep.

Summer surrenders sunlight to snow, so slow;
in shades of yellow and red reposed,
autumn’s amber drove.
Into the cold and winter’s wanton woes
restlessness still blows;
despite the icy bite unavoidably exposed,
now a blooming green, in memory still glows.
Through longer nights and silent sleeted sorrows
by keeping close a wealth of warmth from yesterdays ago, I’ve borrowed;
I close my eyes today and dream, now of tomorrows.

Weathering the desert storm
pouring forth sand sharp as glass;
skin torn and muscles cut by countless thorns,
each one a mark left keeping score.
A violently dehydrated form
staggering in search of water’s shore
emerges from the static-
dry eyes sore, could have sworn...
but it was just mirage, playing waves of warmth,
dancing heat eating me like a carnivore,
bleaching bones below the sun to their very core
and yet I will walk until I can’t anymore;
searching for what I adore, knowing Ive seen and felt relieved by rain before,
towing my weight, dragging ever onward toward-
though corpse and carrion I am, the pain I must ignore;
each drop of sweat a loss I can’t afford.

Adjacent places in space,
alternating waves
and fluctuating states
encased in ancient clay
taking vague shape
creates and unmakes
its own paper maché face;
portrayed,
gave name, draped-
vagrant flame ablaze,
nascent and awake.

Into the fray,
blades flaying
flesh agape,
my skin scraped,
nothing safe;
I must leave no trace
and base no faith
in erased slate;
afraid,
higher stakes played,
will I pay?
No way to relate,
what could I ever say
to convey?

Earth quakes
cities vacated and razed
as heavenly body vibrates
reasserting reign;
tectonic plates break,
fissures snake,
aimless traipsing fingertips;
hastily laid basement's
pavement caves in,
labyrinthine maze
of narrow,
harrowed straits
dig my grave.

No escape from this cage, I pace-
my weight betrayed
limping and lame,
graceless skating
figure eights
pirouette rotate
as frame decays to waste,
body aches
with age and dismay,
lines tracing pain
I await the day
and for whose sake?

Chaste,
craving a naked embrace
to kiss on the nape,
just a taste
could stave or slake;
gazes trade-
sudden sun rays,
through clouds grey laced,
my eyes dilate,
invading the gates
of my brain.

Breath bated,
taken away;
fates interlaced
or am i only
swayed astray
by another wraith
that will fade into shade?

Emaciated,
to be slain by my own starvation
and hunger pangs?

Will circle of veins
be exanguinated, drained
as seedling baby daisies' chains
are spewed and scattered into May
in springtime bathed in sanguine rain,
by summertime a scarlet stain?

Will I be jaded
to a hue of navy blue,
will foray turn beige?

But I gave chase and prayed.

Escaping trachea
death rattle on my tongue
leaves a taste of vacancy;
can barely breathe,
these black lungs wheeze,
never sleep heavenly.
Born nakedly,
basic needs
became an aching grief;
never what it seems
no sanctions nor safeties,
all i achieve
is empty pleas.

Is it heresy
if a nightmare's just
how demons dream?
Hellaciously
faces scream
awakened by the smell of kerosene;
even atheist abomination,
disgraced and faithless,
keeps belief in satan
in this place of fiends.

Heart beat, bruised
bittersweetened, bent;
passion’s capillary action
relaxes then contracts again-
a seed beneath, muscle
fatigued, toils and spends;
roots, a web of arteries extend,
branching tree stemmed,
leaves shedding red oxygen;
veins shredded to the thread,
frayed strands bleed,
unweave and unhem;
rivulets spill, unquenched,
hemorrhaging hands,
their fingers search to mingle, blend;
a crimson cardiac attack, defend-
for a moment, pressure wavering, suspends,
then pulled back, we cauterize
and mend our loose ends;
every line a vine of growth we tend-
surrounding blossoms rose gardens.

Is this a muse
or more reasons for abuses?
Truly clueless,
mind exhuding a slew,
a room full of excuses
to continue
this stupid and futile nuisance.

Sapling seed of spruce's,
soil spews like vesuvius
erupting abrupt and exuberant,
earth quaking magnitude rifts.

Sprout shoots up
and exhumes it:
mute and fugue,
bereft of youth missed,
solitude's dirt entangled tomb lifts.

Roots, feuding for nutrients
desperate to consume it;
sunlit view askew,
tree grew incongruent,
boughs barren, fruitless,
few nectars and juices
soon turned putrid;
ichor oozes,
residue strewn
as autumn blew kiss-
how could I choose this?

Blue bruises bloomed
crimson wounds
cut contusions,
red rose petal plume proves this;
skin and sinew fixed anew,
akin to knotted, rotting bark;
subdued and losing, I withdrew
as deja vu gripped.

Branches bones
hand hewn and grooved
with last protruding tooth,
Ive pruned all
but that which can't be removed
once I'm through this;
after all I'm only human
in a wilting garden of quietude
who never even knew bliss.

Orange
dancing lady slippers
perform uncoordinated
reblooming of dormant orchids;
warm and cordial in
informal candor
but agoraphobic
from misfortune;
mourning and remorseful
over flowers wilting, mortal.

Daybreak aurora
portent of
sunlight to come,
but stuck northward,
scorching corneas
in torrid dysphoria.

Organism born
horticulturally
disproportioned
and poorly formed,
origin in morbid horror;
cerebral cortex
its own torture,
the mortician
orphaning the organs
from the corpus;
stored in morgue,
torched in crematorium,
vivisected immemorial.

Stems and tendrils incorrigible,
disorganized into
deplorable ****
of tangled discord
clumsily running its course,
corsage and bouquet
aborted in accord.

Important shortage
warrants foraging
for resources
hoarded by some
abhorrent lord;
crowning court this
monarch's consort,
sordid and immoral,
keeping score like some
sick and sadistic sport;
reinforcing order of what's normal,
stronghold cordoned to conform.

Pollinating
swarm of hornets,
buzzing orchestra
of wings in chorus
quarreling with silence,
their scorpion stings absorbed;
stabbed, pierced, and gored.

Like a tortoise
slowly inching forward, torpid,
morass forbids;
roots exploring floorboards,
divorcing into a gorge,
fingers blindly implore
contours of the walls
searching for the door.

But drawn and quartered,
blossoms' florid
and ornate frame contorted,
warping its own portrait;
assorted torment transforming
efflorrescent, metamorphic.

Dwarfing, enormous,
and soaring towards orbit,
forty story high
arboreal forest
flourishing before us;
gorgeous morning glory,
thorny laurel adorning.

Forthwith,
storming windows' glass,
bastille, and castle supports;
warring against fortress
though swordless,
never resorting to forfeit until
entire territory terraformed
into floral orchard-
fragrant and vibrant aura
rewarding victoriously.

In the dead of night it was like
we were the only souls alive for miles.
Contrasting dark, a flashing spark,
a passing flame igniting smiles,
twilight feigned but bright remained
in colors running wild.
Invading silence, each word soft violence,
a welcome for exiled
lingering upon your lips and staying there awhile.
But fleeting, momentary time
could not be reconciled;
these holy seconds’ sanctitude
decayed to dust, defiled-
each grain of sand from hourglass
swept slowly from the pile;
in morning, born from memory,
nostalgia and daydream’s child.

[City Bridges (5th draft)]

Indigenous citizen
struggling to stay civilized
amidst
monolithic visages,
stone-faced and stoic witnesses;
overhead,
gargoyles grin—
hideous grimaces
guarding ever vigilant.

Inhospitable city grid
dimly lit,
rain's residual liquid
slicks
gritty asphalt
glistened,
blacktop igneous
pavement glittering–
shimmering
in rigid obsidian.

Hidden within this vision
visits
solitude, unsolicited–
loneliness exhibited,
never fitting in;
island imprisonment
as bridges begin
quivering
above stygian rivers grim,
abysmal reflections glint,
swimming in viridian.

Water's
brim risen
to vertiginous limits
I see
flitting images
of cataclysmic collision
with frigidness
obliterating to oblivion.

A dismal wish
reminded by
a grisly glimpse
of figments vivid since
residual shiver imprints
from winter's winds
whipping shins
and thinning skin;
I cringe, wither, wince,
my eyelids squint–
but I still live, so
no longer motionless
my frostbitten digits grip,
limbs never given in
to blizzard's pins
or crystalline prisms–
I walk,
despite icy splinters
and misery digging in
my ambition wins.