When the rain falls,
Washing away the caked-on dirt from your face,
The thick of your web fails as the silk drops from the weight,
And I can breathe again.

Free from the venomous barbs and guilt-ridden limbs
That poke holes in my skin,
Free from my vital force being drained,
No longer a mere husk or cask
For you to tap and drain the crimson liquid,
I am no longer a dinner tray for your demonic maw.

I won’t be suffocated by your vice-like grip darkness,
I can’t be held down by the dimly lit specters,
I won’t save you from yourself,
Since you only wished to drown me further.

I am free of it,
Falling onto verdant paradise,
As the sun ignites my soul ablaze,
I can live again!

I’ll disappear,
Like a caustic wind,
Pestilent, killing growth
Bridges made of vines divide
Greener pastures die, wheat yellow brittle
And in the blink of an eye
I fade away, ethereal, lost in the expanse.

Far out of reach, the stars betray
Misaligned, I can’t trace your face
Lost in the splendor of diamonds
I’ve blinded myself--
Flailing like a flickering flame,
Effortlessly burning for you
Endlessly searching the cosmos.

Brackish waters,
Consume me,
Pull me under to the bottomless
Floating in the deepest depths
Indebted for the moments stolen,
All I see in this infinite is a silhouette
Staring back in an umbral effigy
Will it feed my lungs oxygen
So I can breathe you in one last time?

We romanticize the dagger piercing,
Ripping tissue and muscle to find,
My heart lacked a cadence,
Syncopated, arhythmic.
Moribund feelings mourn love
That you stole like a hoarding wyrm,
Smaug smelting until the smog
Cast me in the molten gold
Plated for your pleasure

Arctic cold,
The skin has gone rough
Eyes bored out and reddened;
Anger steeped like a Sunday tea
I’ve been granted a chance,
Seize away humility.
And chase the storms that married me.

A cyclone wedged inside a typhoon
Bedded with a knife wound
I’ve carved my heart in the shape of one,
A valentine unsent in the place of your scent
I smell of smoldering flesh
I am of the lingering dead
Swamp bathed and doused in kerosene
Can you see my devotion now?

As I dance alone,
Under the starlit nocturne
In a sea of flames!

I write with uninhibited passion,
Drawing inspiration from the depths of my wounded soul.
The scars etched upon my chest,
Like riverbeds carved by a relentless force,
Serve as a constant reminder of my struggles.
My heart races like a war drum,
Creating a rhythmic cadence that resonates through the pages,
And reaching the very eardrums of those who dare to read the scriptures.

I write with the grace of a healer,
Smoking sage and smudging against the ramparts of my own mind. In this act of purification,
I strive to cleanse the filth from the membrane of my thoughts, allowing them to flow cyclically like filtered air—
Clean, pure, and easy on the chest.
I take deeper breaths, allowing my spirit to soar.

However, when praise is bestowed upon my efforts,
And the inkwell dries, I become chary of their accolades.
To captivate you in awe, I must bleed upon the page,
Pouring my heart and soul into every word.

Wash over me,
Rinse away the sin,
I don’t want to be this,
Tired of the running,
Hoping the light never touches,
But I can’t keep circling the drain,
Encased in shadows,
Deafened by the refrain
Of my own voice dithering,
Trailing off into a distance.

So wash over me,
Shower my life like a wet hug,
Acupuncture raindrops,
Stabbing all my demons,
Exorcising my inner heathen,
Wrapping me in with roses,
Thorns picking as the blood exposes,
Need for your healing waters,
Pouring from angel eyes,
Weeping for my soul,
Crash me down like Zeus,
Tell me I won a prize,
Reprieve for my sad life,
Singing truth from all the lies.

Wash over me,
Let my sweat bead away,
And the cold cause a shiver,
So I can shake off the pain,
I want to live again,
Grow in your garden,
A snake eater in a new Eden.

If love had the power to heal,
I would press these lips against your flesh,
kissing away your wounds.
So that you could become the mantis and devour me anyway.

Goodbyes were never meant to be a pause,
And I give none as I hand you the gauze,
Remove these tendrils desperately latching,
Leeching my light like a parasite
Para-social soul eating piranha
Gnashing and gnawing on my temperance
I’m no more a possession than you are artwork.

My bags are checked,
The skies bleed with oranges and pinks,
The clouds part to guide a pathway
Calling all gates.

My mind is full,
Not enough space,
Baggage not claimed
I lack the overhead.

My patience was tested,
Poked through my protective vest,
Warned that I would fly further than the Perseids,
A flash of light in the lumbering dark
And you would rather dance blindfolded,
So don’t ask for truths your teeth can’t chew
It’s painful, and I mean it down to the root.

Set me free,
And watch the dream
Dissolve into something beautiful
Hope again, despite crashing my plane
And endure another day.

Phantom,
In your ethereal realm,
Alone in your deepest thoughts,
Do you remember me?

Phantom,
Show me those pretty white claws,
Tear into my chest and write out the contracts
Spare the clause, I’ll applaud
Knowing I’ll serve love like a cause
A refugee amid war,
Where the roses cut with their thorns
I’d bleed out to chase you down,

My eyes search in the bleeding pallid rays
Cutting through canopies -
Dancing upon the umbral silhouettes
Hoping that magic can make you appear
Tell me you don’t feel anything anymore
That it’s all a fantastical dream wrapped in fiction

Reach out to me, please, with your diaphanous touch
Soothe my unattended storms
Make the space between you and me less impossible
Where I can taste the air where your lips tease
Please take me with you.

Could the see-through glass
Weep a little for me one last..
I’m trying to leave it all behind
But we are like vines -
Twist as we twine,
Why can’t we tangle endlessly?

Phantom,
Tell me when you wake,
Do you even remember me?

So many more blue eyes in the world
Scrolling through their rolodex
Consuming dopamine one thumb up at a time
The slang is commonplace, replacing native tongues
The hair is the same on every dumb limbering drone
Conversations sound like e-speak read aloud in an open mic
Except that the audience participates in every false interaction
As plastic as the shoreline after spring break.

Thoughts are collective in a hive mind
Crowdsourced down to their brow line
Manufactured obedience in obediently serving for that last drip
Dopamine drips in the form of a click.

Awkward silence on the subway,
If it’s not on TikTok, they can’t say
Words shift into a balloon animal display
Twisted in knots, unable to hear clarity
But can walk the dog like a yo-yo trick if it bottled sincerity
Because these blue eyes are strained and strange
Locked into a perpetual gaze into the bottomless aether
Searching for the next fix.
Dopamine drips in the form of a click.

Cliques of cliches
And Temu personaliites
A carbon copy of a copy copying copies of something copied.
And the beat goes on like an arrhythmic heart
No worry for when the pressure rises
They’d rather have a stroke than see the OH in Cheerios
Because it’s not sweet enough to find the ordinary
When you can dine on lucky charms and chase rainbow fairies
See they’re stuck, them, and they, ze or zur -
Needing that dopamine drip from the clicks

And as I watch devolution
These zombies are tethered to their thought pollution
Parasitic in their dissolution
Walking these streets with their strings tugged by the beat of filters
I know I could never be a screen ****** apparatchik.

I want to twist with you
Like a helix creating life
In every little death,
Sinking deeper down your depths
Until we pant and chase a breath.

I want to feel your heart
Syncopated with my own
Sweat lubricating the friction
As we collide like carnival bumper cars.

I want to hear you scream,
In lost tongues conjured from hoarse lungs
As you find god in the crash upon your eager shores
Praising to the lord like a good nun,
Better pet, when the leash is tugged.

We connect like candles to a flame
Pouring hot paraffin on milky white skin
Catching an exhaled sigh with a well placed kiss
Stealing breath and stealing your soul
While we tangle under a pallid dim moon,
Devils in our delights.

Another bottle down,
Hoping it can distort truth
Maybe if the mirror’s fogged, it can’t reflect
Can’t show him the middle-aged wreck.

Another chug of warm swill,
Hops molded, no bubbles, flat
Looking at baby pictures and a bag of teeth
Mummy left them, he feels the pain in his jaw
Maybe with another swig, he’ll be rid of it all.

Father watches from his sick bed,
Colostomy bag overflowing,
The excrement covers the scent of shame
As eyes barely raise to see his progeny

No he’s clicking the button to call the morphine
Drips entering to send him to a new dream,
Unable to stand the sight of his kindred,
As the boy that became a man, indigent.

Bryan takes another swig of clotted wine
A Merlot collecting dust upon his desk,
The keyboard is crusted over, white film, flaky
As he tends to his perversions, hoping a spark can awaken

On here he can be anyone,
But his lungs fail to inflate fully
And the liver shrivels to a freeze-dried remnant,
It’s only been minutes, but he shakes
Begging with forgiveness
Needing something to wash down the pittance
One more swig’ll do her!
Another drink to soothe.

As father watches on,
Glazed eyes and singing Aussie songs
He’s ******* post the catheter bag
Flowing yellow rivers down his bedside

Dreams fill his head,
Hoping Bryan dies,
So he could mend and heal,
Watching as he sips forever,
With jaundiced, glassed-over eyes.

If he could write it,
Or murmur sound
He’d say he was disappointed
But all he does is frown

While Bryan,
Consumed with trauma
Caught in his self-made prisons
Drowns in a sea of sick
And cheap bourbon.

Forever a child in a man’s husk
Daddy’s little burden.

While thoughts escape
Like water evaporates
There is enough moisture
For my massaging palms,
To grip the pink putty,
And shape your perception.

If there is art in sculpting
The very nature you see statues
Staring back in awe of your philosophic tangents
Wrapped upon the senses, as you can taste words
And hear flavors, while seeing sound
As I play maestro.

Does the soothing touch
Pinching and pulling clay
Release enough dopamine
To unfurl those brows
And turn a frown into a grin?

Can you feel the synapses fire like pistons
Grafting new sensation
Causing involuntary motion to feel like an ordinary choice?
Does the gift I’ve given in the foresight of what was
Now seems so prolific as I change it,
Sculpting you, molding every secret
From you, like god, malleable mud
Into a fire kiln vase -
And break you just the same as terra-cotta

Is it in your chemistry?
I wonder as I’m choking down
Tears scorching my throat like an acid rain
Hoping to bleach your name from my recesses
Built a bridge past the swap of your defenses
Tried to massage your heart without pretenses
But you burn me down.

Do you feel anything when you immolate
Everything sets you off like a hair trigger,
Bear trap my mind and clamp down while you drill deeper
Pour in your toxicity like a waste dump
And set it all on fire.
I’ll be the embers to dance at your command.
Ashes drifting like autumn leaves
Snow down in a distance like a winter dream.

Is it in our chemistry?
Do I excite you to ignition
Gods envy the way our bodies friction
But you believe the fiction,
So I’ll weep for an ending,
Burning my nerves as the acid’s etching.
Retching flames like an allergic fire eater
Your conflagration rings around me.

Are you the pallid horseman
Can I be the one to the blow the horn?
I’m weary and ready for an ending
And you burn me like white phosphorus .
Can we mix and tether,
One day coalesce
Solvent in your trepidation
Waters deeper than the ocean.

Is it in your chemistry?

I’d cut you out
Toss you to the starving wolves
Let them pick apart your lumbering mass
But even under your mask
You’re insignificant at best.

Leave you to your own
Let you fester despite your growth
Because no matter what you do,
In eyes that stare back at you
In all that you stir and stew
With propaganda songs,
And protesting vigils;
Assembly halls full of sycophants.
When the lights go out,
You’re all alone.

No you see the truth is:

All that you are,
And could ever be,
Is benign.

Your tongue makes a precise incision,
Words like a scalpel, cutting with precision,
Bypassing my systems like a jewel thief,
Grasping hold of my heart.

Are you a bard or a thief?
It’s hard to tell the difference—
When you play my strings like a guitar,
Out of mind, yet in tune with the violence.
Your eyes direct like storm clouds,
Twisting my image until it suits your need.

Just make a decision—
I’m exhausted with pretense,
Starving for substance,
Why is it that no one replaces what they take?

And if I were a bodega,
I’d stock only the finest farewells,
So you couldn’t buy happiness,
While pawning my world to the highest bidder.
You thought me caramel, but I tasted bitter,
Spoiled long before you spun a web.
I’m not dancing to your tune; the music is dead.

Stubborn steeled reserve
Grit stone and colder than an ice storm
It’s taken all these fine lines
To curve you into shapes
Tracing fingers along the surface of a smooth face

You keep with your attrition
Battle me for eons
Trample our traditions
But I’ll keep my hands hewing at your ramparts
Until I can see your soul flowing like a river
And who would dare tear your heart from me
If you had the axe, my love, would you hew into me?

Stubborn, but you’re folding
Like a bad hand at the table.
I’ll wager myself for your honor
If you could bluff me with your silence,
Knowing inside there’s a violence
Magma rising to the surface,
And cursing through your words shipped
Erupting from your tempest temper

Is that hard to see?
That these carpenter hands
Bend to the curve of your structure
To make art of your luster,
A statue maker worshipping Athena
Now hew like a great oak
Let me fall away,
Tell me that I’m nothing
When you’re weeping in a steadfast free-fall.

Little laddie was a baddy,
Broke the rules -
Missused daddy's tools
Chucked rocks at fools
Watched as brother rocked a squirrel
Brother socked a loser
But mummy wasn't a soother.

Tooth fairy principled
Knock-Loose discipline
Lost tooth hits the porcelain
Another root dug out
Pick out the weeds
And let the rot grow from trees

Laddie in a playground
Abandoned by the swings,
Inert babbling,
Whistling through the gap
Where his teeth once yapped

Aghast,
A wolf approaches
Jiggling a bag of mummy's teeth.

You relish the way I caress your flesh,
Kneading into your deep tissue,
Exfoliating with grit and ground remedies,
And brushing the cool, slick oils up and down your curves.

You share stories of saunas,
Describing how you enjoy the steamy sensation
As I lay you upon the rack, closing the hatch-
Infused with the aroma of oak and red cherry.

The enticing scent of your sweat fills the air
Creating a potpourri of aromas.
The sizzling of your songs tingle in my soul like a reverie,
captivating my senses.

Hours pass, and I, like a tempting man,
Brush your bronzed body to a tease,
Kissing with my nostrils to your sear marks.
As I feel your heat envelop my follicles, 
I’m consumed by a lustful desire.

Finally, I remove you from the iron-hot bed
And place you on the cleanest marble.
I stare at you, awestruck by your perfect brown and moist skin,
Dripping with juices succinctly.
You radiate such radiance, beauty, and temptation
That I can’t resist the urge to devour you.

“You’re smoking!” I exclaim, my hunger palpable.

No one mourns the wicked,
Not a single lachrymose face in the crowd,
No rainfall from the heavens,
No priest to eulogize or ask forgiveness.

Even the monotone wreaths seem brighter,
The sun shines proudly with its radiant warmth
There is no chill in the zephyrs,
Not even a murmur this morning,
They’re not even wearing black or a shawl.

No, no one mourns the wicked,
There is candor among the many,
Huddled ‘round the casket,
Casting their stones instead of roses
Take into the earth with fleeting retribution.

No one mourns the wicked -
As the ground trembles and trees shake
From the effusive cheers create percussion
A symphony of lost sympathy
As the tombstone reads.

“No one mourns the wicked”

…Barely      Breath.                    Lungs
             A                 Left     These.       God
                                         In                         Pl-
                                                             ­          Ea-
                                                             ­             Se  help me, I am too young to go_____

Your eyes spoke softly,
And I, abashed and shyly listened.

Suddenly, my lips part,
As I try to resist the pull of gravity.

“If I could walk with you,” I said,
“I’d like to steal some time.”

You replied with a pull of a tie,
“I’ll make you mine.”

Blonde locks adorned in lavender,
Blue hues piercing through the shade
Lashes batting like a strobe,
Captivating like a silent film.

This fedora dripped,
Melting from my careless hands.
I clenched my fists for a moment.

How simple words fall on deaf ears
When no one listens to the signs,
Just like we do.

Sing a song, bluebird.
I’m all ears to hear your lyrics hum.
Wash over me in technicolor.
I’ve dreamt of nothing better.

This scene is so noir,
But I see the light.
Sun hues, greener grass,
and thoughts of you.

Is this real or am I dreaming again?

Following the tracks,
I pick up the scent of everything that attracts hate.
The smell is pungent and bitter, like a rotten apple.
But I’m going hunting; I’m the hunter.

It’s a watershed moment when the villains rouse their cheers.
A paradigm is built from the ruins of fallen heroes.

They sing their songs,
Praising the things they’ve razed with their iron shackles,
Honed with a need to peck the bone.
They scavenge off the sick and mad.

But I’m the hunter, and I’m going hunting.
I follow in shadows,
Watching with purpose.
Should the city cry out,
I’ll bring the game.

Feed a future—
Full of the fruit of the garden.
Wearing snake skin,
I’m alive in the light of enlightenment.
And I’m a hunter, and I’m going hunting.

Night Red and blue neon
All that I know
I bled for this.

Drug dealer avenues
****** blvd
Watching the night life illuminate
Like bioluminescence.

Predators to prey
A missing person a day
****** in every crack in the sidewalk

Day after day
Night after night
Watching the worst use the streets for play

******* snow angels
**** addled tremors
Narcan for the homeless

This is not cinema
This is middle America
When the stars all shine
The creatures make their move