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Black widow crawling up black vines,
expedition to your collarbones.
Crown of thorns pressed
against barbed wire
but neither of us bleeds.
Widows web resting
inbetween the lilies
adorning your hips.

If you glance southward,
a stabbed jester is crying,
bleeding out onto the meadow
surrounded by red wildflowers,
while the sun is shining bright
and the birds vanish into the clouds.
He's been like that for a while, I
doubt he'll ever stop. Or die.
"But don't worry!" he says,
"It's okay, it didn't hurt".

Black widow crawling up white flesh,
along the moths and butterflies,
across the imps and critters
landing just below the
tribal sigils planted
atop the hill.

Black widow is
squirming and writhing,
the two of you dancing in
splendid synchronicity. Flamenco,
with that reddened, swollen shell of yours
which I so deeply revere for its elegance.

In this tender moment,
the stars are immortal and
the moon faintly shrouds
the city in bone-white rays
of tragic incandescence.

Black widow retreats to its web and
the moths and butterflies have
gone to sleep now.
Rest easy, sweet
Hedone
Much thought, that I've invested
into the disposal of my fleshy, mangled hull.
Exquisite cadaver, worn and tested,
infested with maggots, fattening themselves
on marrow, digging through my skull.

Take your pick upon my passing,
most I've shared my plans with.
All you who know what to do,
though it might be a minute.
Those plans were made in dire times,
expectant of winter's end in a blink.

Strap my sack of bloated meat to
a float, equipped with fireworks and gunpowder.
Light the fuse, send me to sea, make it rain.
Feed the fish, marvel at macabre shower
of total annihilation and colors of
bliss, rainbows and proud refuge in
endless abstract nothing.

Grind my bones into dust, feed the earth,
grow your plants and inhale my essence.
Satiate your curiosity, save a finger,
fry it in canola oil and do tell
what I taste like
once you're down here with me.

Pick a painting on my skin,
it's yours for the taking.
Frame it, jar it, keep me around.
For the curious occasion that
I rise from the ground
and observe some patches missing.
Stuff me with wool, embalm my cadaver,
set me up in grizzly stance.

Whatever you do, don't mourn me.
I've seen the nature of this world,
enough for seven lifetimes.
Mourn the fact that
we lost one more degenerate
but don't mourn me out of love.

If you feel so inclined then
mourn me out of spite
and take a clue from Thomas,
same as I decided
to rage and not give in.

My plans have changed, I'd
like to stay around. But
should the void ever find me,
read this poem out
and take your pick
upon my passing.
Make my exit
strange, massive, morbid
and wonderfully loud.
Focused but with ease I sit
in a spring-cushioned
armchair coated in
soft leather, dyed
a rich bordeaux.
Cigarette in one hand,
Negroni in the other,
Joint prêt sur la table.

The Ouroboros woman lay
across from me on the
méridienne.
Our eyes not breaking sight,
we're opposite anchors.

Pegs pulling
piano wire.

As the smooth tapestry
of her milky skin is caressed
by one wondrous instrument affixed
upon her slender forearm,
with extensions most
sensual, the other
one implores
herself in
glorious
fervour.

Joie de vivre,
as close as you
can get, at least.

A tenebrous passion.
As thunderous as brief.
Adieux mon cœur,
ma jolie,
Élise.
Frightening! I appear to have forgotten
the art of turning your stomach
inside out. How curious but
not unexpected. I've been
wildly out of practice,
I admit.

Earlier in life,
when I strived for skin
and bones to be observable;
I've been known to,
here and there,
partake in
flicking the bag.
But mainly I just starved.

The frequency picked up when
the alcohol became cigarettes
and weekends became blurs.
Drinking pure spirits was
a sport and despite my
frail body, I was
a champion.

One time when I was fourteen
I drank two bottles of
cheap whiskey and
slept for two days,
vaguely submerged
in stomach acid
and a little bit of blood,
courtesy of my esophagus.

And then the opioids came
and took me under their
warm, sterile wing.
Since I only took the pills when
the clock struck twelve,
I'd withdraw daily
and sleep.
The price was sprinting towards the ceramic and resting my head on the cool rim
Nuzzling my grey pal before spewing
bile and stomach acid thrice
every morning or scratching
my head and pulling out
fistfuls of hair, waking
up on the floor more
times than I can
truly remember.

I did that for two years
from fifteen to seventeen
with little to no breaks.
When I woke up one
morning, with my head
propped up against
the wall and a puddle
of thick, black gunk,
moved along the
rhythm of my
shallow breath,
warming my chest.
I brushed the blood
off my teeth and
went back to sleep.

Every now and then I
break my streak, mostly
in weak moments when
it's difficult to stay and not
take my leave. But it's
never more than a day
because it stopped being
a relief, now more of
a reminder that I'm
doomed to remain
clean. At least in terms
of opioids, now I mostly just
smoke **** or drink
a little bit too much.
I remain a work in progress.

So I guess I'm out of
practice. But it seems
like that's a good thing.

— The End —