I am a ****** up poet
A starving artist
A punk rock Elvis
Sometimes you just gotta go all out
Because your the king
Man
And you just can't help it

Van Gogh died poor
And alone
In a field that was his last expression
He died by his own hand
And it wasn't even raining
When it should have been

I don't even see myself when I look in a mirror
And you don't see what I see when you look at me
You see a smiling lover
Enjoying life though all the struggle
I live life as Pagliacci
A ****** up poet

I put on a great show
And I weep during intermission

Let's just face it
we're all living a lie
thinking we're something
but eventually we'll die

we'll be forgotten
buried in the ground
or burned down to ash
and scattered all around

Somehow even in death my spirit lingers
My tremulous spirit as the tassles on a purple curtain
My dreams which consume me are airy thoughts of substance
Pulled in by hungry fingers and engraved upon the stone
Once I was water
But I died that past life as something to make you drown
Next I was evaporation
The wetness that I left exposed to brilliant suns
Then I became the clouds
Your eyes are skies and I pass them in different forms
Last I became the rain
And as I fall from uncertainty your skin feels all of me
I cover every inch of you
I am the red dress that you wear
Still, bones are bones
And bones are brittle
They live by magnificent half-lifes in our world
And then fall into the ever expanding ground
Its not a meaning
Its just the feeling going around
Round as the circle I try to draw
An inexplicable bridge to cross the ocean
An impossible feat of engineering and imagination
And always in all ways leading me
My feet
My staunch and heavy heart
My hair meant to be one of the first sights of your morning
My skin, and sin, and my repentance
My liberation, my salvation
The way no one else can touch me
No one else can save me
And no lover ever lived
Could wear the red dress the way you do

Your coal black eyes
Burn my soul like fire
Feelings of lust
Uncontrollable desire

A queen of the night
Out hunting for a mate
When I looked at you
It would seal my fate

Hungrily looking at me
Like a lioness at her prey
Softly whispering in my ear
Here's what you'd say

You shall lay on the altar of the dead
There your life shall bleed
Draining every drop of your crimson nectar
Every drop I need

Passionately kissing me on my neck
Searching for a vein
Sinking your fangs deeply in
Feeling pleasure no pain

Making love to me under the moon
As I slowly died
I forever shall be your king
Eternally by your side

You wanted more
Even when you had it all
Your greed made you ungrateful
And you took your blessings for granted

You pushed your friends and family away
Replacing them instead with temporary friendships
Knowing they would never last
You made your relationships disposable
And tossed lovers aside

When you were told to get help
You couldn't swallow your pride
You didn't even go home when your mother died

You felt guilty because you knew she was sick
But couldn't find the time to call or visit
Because your schedule didn't allow it
You didn't try to make amends
You blamed everyone else

The last thing you took for granted was your health
By the time it was fleeting
You had no support left to give you strength
All you had left was your wealth
Everyone else had moved on
And already considered you gone

Even though you had it all
You tossed it aside
All alone is how you died

Shake the demon lover
in the effulgent post-Chelyabinsk world,
where death breathes you back
into yourself and backwards you walk
through those coupled images, so posed,
charged with feigned desire,
the lighting just right,
the angle meticulous,
smushing foreheads with golden rings
on your fingers.
You had a dog.
You had a crockpot.
A kid was on the way.
Shake the demon lover,
rip yourself from her arts district loft,
where the music is in French and always beautiful,
glide down the rusted rails,
cruise past the headshops, the pawnshops,
say the word Tuesday and wonder if it means anything
other than the third day of the week.
You shared a bed.
You shared a bed.
You shared a bed.
Shake the demon lover
and her words track you,
her text reads,
"Come over, friend."
And she calls you friend,
she shouts you friend,
she pants you friend,
as you end the affair for
the sixth, seventh, eighth
time, one last couch
**** and never speak
to me again.

Your skin,
A silk canvas
Wrapped around you like stars
That cling to the night.
Your fingers,
Lonely threads
Tangled through mine
To make our tangled skein.
Staring at your diamond eyes
The moon passes over,
Weaving heart beats and their melodies
Before it sinks back into memory.
The sun rises brightest,
Brighter than before.
You start to melt
And I catch you in cupped hands.
Holding you to my lips
I drink you in
Until your slip-quicksilver courses through my veins,
With every subtle sip.
Pooled between my palms,
I’ll pour you in the wishing well
Thinking of the thread count
Of our fingers laced together
And how the only things to ever match it
Were our drunk thump heartbeats.