I burn the flower in my chest
before it can blossom. see:
I know what it’ll look like,
I know what I’ll be

like the roaming packs of
kids on the street
the ones that think
too much like me
their brains set aflame
the blossoms again killed
for the sake

of making them into what we think is ‘normal’?

I think, “I can't be like them.”
I won't. Not here, or there,
where the pyre is strongest,
our sins laid bare;

so when I see her in the mirror,
the flower’s how I breathe.
at once, reality fissures
for a glimpse of what I could be

tawny leaf-littered
autumn's cold chill
amber sun, filtered
one tree, one hill

smoky-water rains
water scented earth
heart-loss pains
worms unearth'd

bristled seeds drift
sunset winds, rest
fluff and dust admidst
a heaving chest

sun-warmth falter
cloud coats gold
body upon an altar
everything turns cold

circuit by circuit, neon-lit screen
a weight in our pockets thats always seen
born of no mother, feeble as a mind
tormenting the thoughts of our weary kind

they yearn to harvest the excited thought
one without which
is only worse caught
So; hail to the gods of our generation
bless us; let no flesh need to work
no hunger to feed, no pain to feel hurt
catharsis at last as our people are freed
accept the pantheon, see not the world bleed

i swore this night would be the last
and as all clocks tick towards finality
enters the approaching doom
jagged shadows—
spiralling notation.
pilose and beckoning,
as the burbling temptation stains
the soft dress of a bantling star

and my limb, verbose, rises
en-pained and un-sought, a mind
which scrapes pigment to tear out
a soul's sliver
of cognition, yet fumbles
and the pattern rests still;
still, only in the eye