it was the greatest
a fairytale in front of my very eyes
theme park joy and bubblegum
my favorite destination was you
with your arms wide open like angel wings
patient and kind, never filled with pride
as i weeped on your shoulder,
yeah, i might have seemed cold,
but i didn’t mean it

you were ruthless
cut my wings just to prove your “innocence”
you’re a flute playing hypnotic tunes
but i’m not amused
with your faking and pacing and erasing of me
at the party when you stopped talking abruptly
and left me standing on the porch by the lamppost that moths were glued to
shivering in a state of paranoia
hearing the droning sound of voices unfamiliar
from the curtained window

perfume stuck in your hair
our promises float in smoke rings around us
it’s the holidays and you look as handsome as ever
i borrowed your sweater
and it feels like a warm hug
your nervous laugh, it’s so wholesome
the candlelight bounces along the wall
what would i ever do if i lost you?

a mirage of you
i sat on the docks
december rain poured on my back
an ache never soothed
a pathetic ruse of a love you tried to convince me we had
an empty fireplace
the moon a distant creature, she reaches out to me
but it’s violence and anger and blood on my sweater
you stole it, “control,” you wept
i lay in bed so afraid of the morning’s first breath
just nightmare fuel left

trust in the palms of your hands
you told me you don’t wanna leave me
it’s summer sunglasses weather
love you forever
in hazy afternoon smiles
your forever wild child
alive on the porch in the breeze
drunk on liberty
in between a quick kiss on the cheek
what a lovely rapture
intensity, love me, your silk shorts and pillows
you make me angry sometimes, but just for a while
you’re always apologizing for your wrongs
so easily, so selfishly

the thrashing and pounding from downstairs i hear
there’s a window pane and there’s not a single speck of dust there
a hush and covers going over my head as the stairs creak from a weight under them
it’s so quiet in Heaven
so silent in my reveries
but soon covers are pulled
legend of
cruelty  
lended itself to me
voice cracks and wine bottles broken
i shouldn’t have made the point to correct you
out of turn, out of time
always tears in my eyes
holes in the drywall  
trusting you is a mistake maybe i was willing to make
was it my fault?
it must be
it’s so cold in this room, so unfathomably freezing
but it’s summer; the time for believing
the time to find reason,
but i’m just a shell of a man with no guts to fight back when the pressure attacks
like a shark in the water
a bear hungry for flesh,
a lunging beast
beneath the undergarments
there are bruises and echoes that don’t show themselves
how could they?
no one would comprehend how fires diminish with enough wind

you’re overreacting, it’s just a simple scolding
let’s go on a ferris wheel and see how you just need a bird’s eye view
you’re the reason i wake up to chirping and coffee mugs and salvation
you’re the reason the day is bearable
to someone like me, how could you leave me in the dust
on the side of the unforgiving road?
i will be a rain puddle if leaving suits you best
you’ll never be happy
without me
over and over,
find a lover,
then they disappear behind the grocery store
you’ll never find satisfaction again
doomed to wander and wander and wander
but i am right here
with my arms open wide like angel wings
i’ll give you the strength to fly, just stay or there’s no point to do anything but—

“will you just listen?” stays my internal monologue
“if guilty had a soul, it would be yours.”
a worn down heart, so low in the ocean
i still will lift the blame from your shoulders any day if you desire
if it hurts you to realize the pain you caused me
it’s a black night and it’s cold, so terribly freezing
i can’t see life through the windshield foggy with rain
what am i if not a ghost in the dark of the night, looking for others like me
who cry in secrecy
and hide their nerves in scratched up arms?
what am i if not bent like a willow to your whim?
who am i if not alone in my own sorrow, begging to be yours, even when i want to be as far away from you as possible?
so easy to forget me
in story, you would have been kind to me
living in harmony
live for me, never laying a hand on me
but anger won you over and wrecked you
are you just as lonely as—

swallow me up in the flames of the fire
betrayal’s cold, but it feels so warm
around the embers
valley submersion
no ask for coercion
i stared at the midnight sky hoping it would burn bright
and ache my bones
to rid of this contempt
to rid of this distaste in my mouth
from your cruel intentions

the devil’s in the silence
in the rush of an arsonist
the devil has a surefire way
of making it gray
of bringing the ire

the bitter lick of the wind
a butterfly flees from the milkweed
a woman is crying,
a man’s bad at deciding
upon that hilltop, as it slowly burns
he turns in his grave
stupid mistake
to singe the small oak trees i grew from my labor
i’ll do you a favor whether you’re a skeleton or a ghost
no one knows

back then we were fighters
hands held instead of lighters
gleaming eyes and joking goodbyes
the house by the water
the transient sorrow
waltzed like a ghost under my bed
calm and collected
now brazenly fearless
relentless ruin in ash crumbling kingdoms in my hand
you left me dead
in the garden
a mysterious labyrinth
blood rushed in faces
scalding heat in the churchyard
i burnt every remnant of you
in hopes of forgetting you

it’s in the burnt wood left behind
the trace of evidence in my mind
the spirit of you lingers

never meant to break you like you broke me
with eyes full of hatred, ferocious fire
i believed in the magic we had
the lasting fever of love
embedded into our veins
you must not have gotten the memo
to be doves above the flood
i can’t blame you for an escape plan
racked of pain  
you were treachery in disguise

masked as a partner, now a liar
with the blame carried on my shoulders  
a dormant volcano made active
with the intent of annihilation
flattening lands with lush beauty
hope has four letters, but it’s impossible to believe in
always on the tip of my tongue
i have pushed beyond repair
almost clinging to the idea of you
still alive, real and believable
why do i fail at keeping—the things that matter most to me?
almost like i’m on the slow road to redemption
but my resurrection continuously forsakes me

it feels like freedom, almost cathartic
there’s fire in me
a phoenix, a bird of rebirth sits deep in my stomach
waiting to fly away

that hour is black
it is the hour to singe clothes, arsonists
the hour to burn houses and towns

that hour for children
to bolt from their swing sets for cover
the hour to board up windows

girls with guns
pistols in sweaty palms
deliberately weaponizing silence

that hour is red
a baleful war fought with ****** fists
sanguine faces flushed

that hour for isolation to prevail
to spread and slither into the crevices
the hour to bathe in ***** waters

cleanliness is seen as abrasiveness  
shadows of girls with guns
vile offspring with foul mouths

that hour is emerald green
months fly past like moths
roots sprout with intensity

that hour for desperation
the hour for skeletons to roam
piles of revengeful bones

the flies are swarming
on corpses

the hour is black in shadows
red in ****** waters
emerald green in dying beginnings

we spent our summers in a daze made up of sugarcane and promises lost in the wind
the heat soared above us, free and untamed
we didn’t ***** our fingers on the thorns
we swung till the sun pierced our skin
sunburnt and snakelike peeling specimens
we danced in the ashes, a feasible effort
baked in our button-ups,
American flag wielders, Jesus lovers
half deceased in a pile of audacity
dresses on girls with the actual embodiment of the word
we were outright outliers on the brink of independence
we were broken, but we felt like stained glass
a beautiful portrait of veneration
they showed our faces to the president and he sighed with relief
some days we laughed until we got sore
under water fountains and jet blue skies that made us forget our melancholy
and sometimes we swore we would never speak again
the sun was burning holes in our soles
we breathed in the smoke, it felt holy in my lungs
we regretted to regret if we would ever lose this charm
but i guess we all figure out, you have to pretend until you’re gone
we were still indigo sparks in the Fourth of July sky at midnight
we saw the statue as it beamed for opportunity
and we smiled back in common courtesy
i even showed my teeth
in the summer we were folk songs
word of mouth enchantresses
flying high above the canopy
we remember when the piano started to weep
the sweat on our brows used to slide down our cheeks
for sore eyes they would’ve looked like teardrops
though time has passed
through a narrow mindset
i still remember how the roads got wet on a Saturday morning
and the sprinklers quit
because their jobs were fleeing
it’s crazy she’s dead now
summer dreams only fade
we lost the look in our beady eyes
i missed the last train to freedom
hearing my name be called by you was like having my heart ripped out in front of me
but for summer she doesn’t recall such a memory
i would’ve loved to hold your sweaty red hand for the last time knowingly
as the season set and invited the breeze
for now it’s just like a reverie
a hazy afterthought
splitting through the atmosphere like a comet
it wasn’t glory, it was gory
the summer sunset stuck in our frizzy hair
we lost the feeling we chased for so long
behind an alley that smelled of redemption and cinnamon
an island lost in legend
a girl with loose intentions
whose fists fight hyperbolic battles
sweaty recollections of a faint moment in space  
a storm weathers
forgiveness is flowering in my palms
and we used to be so good at that

how was the picnic in the wide expanse of country land?
did you cry with your mother and beg her to agree with you?
the garden withers, the flowers wilt
beneath your callused hands

in the pile of firewood, what a sign to see
it was your jawline, sharp and refined
you bled from your eyeballs
blue, the color of your bones

fountain of truth is visited by you
you toss rocks inside, pennies and wishes
do you see the reflection of your firm shoulders in the water that tells no lies?
that one woman on the street corner gasped when you tied your hair back
but you gave her a reason to weep
twiddling your thumbs
you undermined your fragile expertise

you don’t get to be me.

you don’t get to wear my nightgown so you can smile pridefully as i bleed into my knees
you don’t get to use that vocal authority to silence my concern
you don’t get to laugh in spite of my own definitions, confined in your delusions, all happy and carefree
you don’t get to disillusion me into worshiping your inconsistency and make me loyal to your sovereignty
the sky knows you’re lying, the sky knows your smile hides piranha teeth
the earth knows your structure, the earth knows your mortality

you don’t get to be someone like me.

silky skirts and powdered makeup and sparkly high heels
you even start to consider how that makes me feel?
to feel undermined inside my own mind, inside my own fibers of being
twisted force, villainy, how does it feel to surrender to a falsity, a bogus claim, a nonsense meaning?
how does it feel to steal my countryside, my silhouette, my solid truth, my skin, my body?

you don’t get to be me.
you don’t.

even for a glimpse of a minute, when you think you’ve conceived it, it died
the freedom came crawling, came screaming, came then leaving, starting shooting profanities out of the barrel of a gun
you still pirouetted, ballerina in shoes too small for your foot
fireworks went off when you sighed
it’s powerful to sabotage the weak
it makes you the king of hypocrisy

you don’t get to me.

you don’t get to be me.

white lies in a tall cornfield
roll with fallacies in deep wet swamp with alligators
you punched one a few months ago, so hyper aggressive so ruthlessly

you don’t get to be me.

and for a second there, you nearly had everyone fooled
if i hope hard enough, that’ll be how it turns out
everyone will scowl at themselves for participating
adamant with fury, so much so that you burned down the village
resorting to pillage in a mysterious war effort
you don’t get to ransack my belongings and claim them as yours, as yours to claim, as yours to change
up in flames when a simple contemplation becomes your reason for existing

you don’t get to be me.

how sad is it that now my bones are stolen from my coffin to make room for the aspersions that you cast on me?
in decease, there is
there is solace in that

you don’t get to be me.

my skin has red blotches of scaly patches all over my arms and my legs and my face and my neck and everywhere
they dwell as if they own my body and i put a do not disturb sign on my door and i locked the windows and i bolted the door to the moist ground in hopes they would never return
i thought i evicted their jaws out of my property, but they return like an unfinished disease
these skin problems linger and travel like rockets around my disgusting body
multiplying, in deadly divisions, making me claw against my skin, feeling like the human kind of razor blades

and here i am, red and angry and beyond eager to get this over with

i’ve known you more years than you’ve ignored me

the clock ticks into the lonesome hours
hung up on a single midnight prayer
lingering on the lips of a bandit
the strange humanoid breeze stirring the silky curtains
swear i can hear harsh whispers underneath the sheets

elusive, like time
you racing along cemetery roads
rainy fog splashing quickly upon your rosy face
i see a lighthouse glow coming from the depths of your soul
it blinks twice, for help, but when i come closer
the sea turns jet black, with only the moon as a fickle witness
unreliable narrator, strung on the words i’m convinced are true

i remember the phone ringing and my feet sprinting to pick it up
now you hanging up on me instead of the line
the cord snapped off, a strategic static
six different rings and betting that it is you
on the other end,
but instead it’s just ghostly noises and faint memories hung out in the yard like wet laundry

i’m crying the bullets you shot into me
they come out of my pores, into my shaky hands,
and i lose every sense of my existence
it feels rare to belong, so impossible to fit into the correct puzzle piece

the floodwater so murky and enigmatic
the clock ticks and i start to hear your laugh
from the sky
it dives into the walls of this crumbling house,
singing as in amusement or sheer fear

devote my life to migration
moving to places where your feet have stood,
but it’s never permanent
the fire is almost so inviting,
gifting a warmth that no human being ever could
hot coals and embers, but it doesn’t burn
it feels like belonging.