How can it be
that after all
you're just another
stereotype.

For bringing home
new tricks
and when asked,
directly,
you lie
like the
******* *****
that you are.

And there's
no girl
in the passenger seat
to keep me
in my lane.

I wonder
if this gun
will ***
in my mouth
as hard as he did
in yours?

Maybe if I were to die
you would die too
and the world would be
a better place?

I couldn't get high
with all that guilt
if I were you,
either.

You aren't my type
but you convinced me
you are.

Then, when my guard was down,
you creamed your *****
on another man.

I love you.

You are
the only
woman
I will ever
trust.

I grew us a garden
at least that's what I say
but it was really my way
to show you that new things
can always grow.

Peppers, fleshy sheen
Jalapenos, green
Lavender, my eyes roll back

Your time signature
has changed
and there seems nothing
I can do to explain

Why the peppers are rotting
Why the jalapenos are dead
Why the lavender is dry and barren

So I roll my hand into
the dry, dead soil
of a garden neglected
and all the years we had,
like dirt,
runs away
through my fingers.

The brilliant memory
of the sea side
and your silhouette
so loved
it became my phone background in 2018
and hasn't changed since.

My ******* background
is simple black now
just like
my future prospects.

Separate phone plans.
Separate bank accounts.
Separate vehicles.
Separate homes.
Separate insurance.
Separate hearts.
Separate lives.

Separate.

Oh, you feel guilty?

*******.

Oh, you feel like you're getting
beaten up?

*******.

Oh, you feel out of control?

*******.

oh, you...

Don't you get it?

*******!

How did it feel to watch me,
trusting you,
oblivious
to all your crimes
against us?

You proved everyone right.

You proved me wrong.

Why won't this
volume go up
anymore.

I had you
in my bed
provided comfort
and safety to you
but you were *****
already
just too afraid
to admit
to your filthy ways.

She beats you to hell,
for months,
then says she doesn't deserve
to take one beating.

He couldn't understand,
it was so bright one day.
"Never forget, my child," he said
"Every flower fades."

Lay in the trash,
broken at the stem
so for better.

But they are dead now,
just another roadblock
along the way
keeping you from me.

To think,
I only thought we weren't
spending enough time together.

It would never be enough,
"I never thought I could do this",
she thought,
as she slid her moist ****
down onto his dripping ****.

"I'm not making it, I need help"

"I'm not okay, I need you."

"I need a hug and empathetic embrace."

"I love you, and now I need your love."

"Help."

"Don't play sad songs, please?"

Of course.

I'd hate to make you feel
guilty
for straying.

Poor baby.

I feel so bad for you.

I'll play
whatever
the **** I want.

So many words
spread across so many tears.
The days add up
to dessicated husks.

"I will walk through Hell for you," he swore.

"I'd stay with you even if we were homeless," she lied.

And how the moments add up.
How they take and take and take, sapping away like the hatred for the face in the mirror.

All of these thoughts melt
like the gates between her legs
now open
to his whispered words.

Have you listened to that song
and felt bad for yourself?

You ******* idiot.

How quickly
"I don't know if I can do this anymore..."
became
"I ****** a strange man
just to feel desire."

Well **** your desire.

You made a vow,
and we should work
on our issues
before you go
and take a trip
six inches at a time
into our destruction.

Is that
in the end
you're just like
the rest of them.

Gaze down I examine
the dried once-white paint
peeling away from
the wooden window frame.

I am abbreviated
in my stance
as the knock reaches my ear.

Who are you?
I know you,
I mean,
I knew you.
I knew you?
I knew you...

Sunlight catches the air

I realize it was a dream.
I was wake-walking
into that leaning
blue-hearted home,
whose colonial frames
bear the weight of guilt,
peering, leaning
into me.

I become nothing.

When my bed doesn't
smell like you anymore
When the bathroom isn't
cluttered with your stuff
When the closet
hangs half full of a ghost
When the kitchen
no longer smells like your cooking

And when all your smiles
fall off the walls
And my refrigerator
(so happy to have it)
screams at me with
newly bare metal...

What will be the point?

I want us to survive
the
heavy times
lost times
hurting times
sadness times
empty times
it-feels-like-there's-no-way-out times.

The faded indigo
that bleeds across the page
dampens all the hope
yet I will fight with all the rage.

I want us to survive.
I want us to survive.
I want us to...
I want us...
I want...
I...
I love you.

Maybe you should
be unloved
and empty
for the rest of your life.

Maybe there'd be
some justice.

Narrow ways, guild the asphalt freedom
wrapped in a steel bumper
ruining someone's day
with necessary body-shop work.

I've seen these steps before
felt this magnetism
been pulled so close
and here it is again.

Just
a
simple
step...
and...

Decision, vision, precision,
collision, scission, excision.

I've got oiled bearings of lead in my gut,
rolling through my intestines.
My mother's never cried quite enough;
I'll get some more tears out of her.

So cover my head in plastic,
pull that Velcro tight,
swallow down the pills
dissolving on the tongue,
dive off the building.

All
I
ever
wanted
was
you.

I watch the ticks tick away
seconds, to hours, and into days...
Scratching my eyes out
to get you to stay.

But time kills everything,
including this, apparently.

And so I can drink until
there's nothing left
(of me).

And so I can wet this page
until it melts away
like so much sewage.

But how long can I hold on to this?

I don't mean to you, or him, or any relationship or want of mine.

I mean to life.

I've got a gun in my mouth
no matter what I'm tired out
and this jar went empty
as quick as your love for me.

The cup
I have filled
with you,
is pouring out
leaving me
dry
and
dead.

Someday I'll see you again,
and that will equal all the pointless counseling and
therapy sessions that only delayed my inevitable.

All the things of life:
love
***
learning...

mean nothing in the end,
so why should they matter now?

Someday.

I look forward to it.

She pulled the trigger
blasting away all that was good
now null and void, ineffective.

The skull of love exploding
sprayed out and penetrating
the dry wall behind
like grenade fragmentation.

Now, there is no coming back.
Now, there has been a final solution.
Now, death permeates and infiltrates
the cracks made in the home
of all they had built.

You used to worry
if I would still love you
if you were a worm.

Meanwhile,
you were *******
another person.

To complain
about being attacked
when you put on your
wedding dress
just to ****
another man.

Some words from those most close
but nothing from the one that mattered most.

The one that could have filled the holes
he left when he left.

I've cut you off like an extra arm,
something useful at times,
but mostly just in the way.

And sometimes I look down at it
on Father's Day,
and wonder why
I ever let
you in.

So now I've severed my phantom limb
made your death in my life permanent
and with losing you from my life
I regain it.

You say you've
given
all the love you
have.

Every
last
bit.

And
Love contracts
Love cools
Love dies

But
Love relives
Love warms
Love grows

Love finds the way
like a grass blade
from concrete.

How
could this
be true?

This dream that binges
on my only source
of peace,
come true.

And all the times
you swore
that it wouldn't be,
have rotted to lies.

I was hurt
and trustless
from my divorce
and you
convinced me
I could trust
and love
again.

Then you
waited
ten years
and
****** someone else.

Strangled by feathers
purple fades to violet
and men run as fast as they can
to women who harden to stone
see,
when invisible mistakes
are made
the solutions are just as hard
to find.
Like returning from war (the shells! the shells!)
to an empty nothing
no yellow-flowered sundress
no fruited perfume (you are fifteen again)
no soul shaking open mouth
full of teeth...tongue...soul
like it could be your death
and you'd sigh away
smiling.

Picked away, again it bleeds.

How much until you are satisfied?

Will I be left alive,  
afterwards?

Will I survive this
calling rope and loaded chamber?

The things you'll never know
The things I'll never say
The things you don't understand
The things that are only for me
a dark window I look out
a dark web of onion layers.

I love you
Don't buy me flowers
I love you
Don't leave me romantic notes
I love you
Don't kiss me
I love you
Don't touch me
I love you
Don't come with me on my trip
I love you
I'm moving out
I love you
Maybe I'll see you during the week
I love you
I can't stand being around you most
of the time

All of the windows are painted with pitch.
Every doorway sewn shut with steel stitch.
Each body rots here - odor of decay.
Prison that holds ******* life in delay.

Along comes a turpentine brush - wash away.
Scissors that sever. The cords fall today.
Aerosol spray cleanses air in fresh bloom.
Star arrives. Now you can flee from this room.

She changed
and gave up on me
until I
gave up on us.

When you need
me too hold you
I am there.

When you need
closeness because you're sad
I am there.

When you need
me to use your body
I am there.

When you need
time with me
I am there.

But the opposites
are never true
and the weight
of your one-sided calendar
is
crushing
and
depleting
me.

"You're so lonely..."

So come home.

"All you ever wanted
was a stable family."

So, come home.