If I am wrong you may punish me now
If I am right may you be flooded with doubt.

All of the shining mad ones
With their heresies of reality
And other visions and other voices
Are not diminished
By the multitude of choices
That is their truth
Upon each waking day

They are woken by the howl
From beyond the first ear
And into the deeper mind
Where there is other language
And blinding colours of emotion
For madness has the purity of pain
That martyrs can only long for

                                           By Phil Roberts

when organizing my makeup collection
became the most complicated game of tetris
I'd ever played, I knew I was in trouble.
Organizing letters on a Wednesday afternoon
is the highlight of my week now,
and it's scary because I used to roam streets
like the wheels on a decade old Cadillac
begging for new rims and a paint job,
like a poor man begs for money on
city street corners. I am the cup he holds out
for the sympathetic woman to drop her
spare change into. I am only a fragment of
something greater that has not yet been reached.
I am sitting on porch steps waiting for the rain to fall,
because at least then I'll feel something, even if it is cold and damp and unforgiving. It will be better than
the emptiness of my head that has become clouded
over with Italian food, and even more Italian wine
I am a ******* statistic, a number.
I am mommy's one mistake that she didn't erase
from the page that is her life
she didn't plan for me,
so she didn't plan the escape route.
She loves me, but not because she wanted to.

I tell myself I'm wiser than all these women.
A soothsayer with a mind of diamonds, crafted by pressure.
Until I realize my mistake, a mistake you inspired.
I thought you were my only regret; only I don't regret you.
I regret how I blame what I have become on you.
Do you feel an invisible weight, or the noose that connects us?
Delusions pile up to create the pillars of my empire.
A crown of thorns, and a belt of testosterone.
I carry these keepsakes like a trophy, or fingers to a serial killer.
They are proof I have won this war, it is a war that festers only in my mind.
I have sacrificed my flesh so you can never claim the pride of doing it yourself.
I lay in sheets with my head spinning, the smell of sweat and **** nestled in the pillows.
I smirked as I repeated these words to myself, "Here's to you, love."
My body became accustomed to these ritualistic sacrifices, and revenge vanished leaving only a bittersweet taste in my mouth.
I long for the day my body surrenders my heart, when my soul and body finally meld and my thoughts don't stray to you.
For the day my lips utter a name reverently instead of an empty moan.
Eventually all I can hope is for this man to cover these scars like a tattoo; a tattoo of ivy twisting until they reach the depth of my soul.