I yearn for the freedom of a bird, soaring high above the mundane,
Yearning to break free from the constraints of the grounded world.
When did the spark of imagination flicker and die?
Leaving behind a monotonous existence?

I long for the carefree days of carnival rides and cotton candy,
The thrill of the wind stealing my breath as the roller coaster swoops down the track.
I remember the awe-inspiring spectacle of fireworks,
Not the passive indifference that once filled me,
But the vibrant colors that danced in the sky,
Not muted and mildly annoying.

I crave the excitement of skipping school,
Feeling the rebellious spirit coursing through my veins as I run up and down the halls,
Instead of the tiptoeing and begging that now characterize my days.
I yearn to experience the fluttering of butterflies,
The nervousness of a first kiss,
And the pit of my throat clenching with the fear of asking a crush out.

Where did that innocent anxiety disappear?
When did imagination succumb to monotony?

I miss the simple, crude drawings I used to create world-building,
The comics of my own design and mind,
Characters rich with backstories and lives of their own.
Now, I struggle to put pen to paper,
I wonder if my words ever truly resonate.

Do they understand me?
Was I ever truly understood?
How I wish I could start over, grow in a way that doesn’t **** my garden,
But there’s no rewind.
I could wish on every four-leaf clover, but that’s not enough.

As I watch them fly overhead,
I can’t help but feel a sense of envy and longing.
I yearn to be them, carefree and clinging to the freedom that seems to elude me.
The air rustling through their feathers,
Taking me away into the ether is a tantalizing reminder of what I could’ve had.

Through the shine of the window
As the sun teases the flesh of her hero,
She stretches upon the mattress,
Annoys him with her lapped kiss
All across the face, begging him to rise.

Here at her bowl,
She wags and waits for his control
As he gets, a scoop full of her favorite yummies,
How she salivates drools with an ache in her tummy
My girl, she devours within moments
And then she sits, waiting for the moment
I submit, those doe eyes looking up at me

We go, the backyard retreat.
She gives her red flying disc
And I throw to the distance, hitting the fence
She runs with a thunderous speed
And we repeat until we both take a tiresome seat
And through her panting and unrelenting breaths
I see her smile and know I am loved,
By my most precious pet.

A moment of riverbank fog,
In the earliest morning,
Before the timid sun rises over the horizon,
Aghast from the surging push of a breeze,
Watching the tall grass sway like fingers out car windows.

The musk of Petrichor and Dew
Pervades every olfactory nerve,
Invading taste and thought like an intrusive guest,
Submissively I drop to my knees,
Bowing to the bountiful grace she bestows upon me.

As the waters clear,
And the sweet mandarin orange paints the sky,
I am comforted like a swaddled babe,
Perfect and clean.
Unlimited in my pursuit of peace,
I am burdened only with impatience,
Blessed with the soothing effect of her touch,
Awash in the company of the ancient groves,
Enthralled by the emerald city as her Vedant kin call to me.
From clay to bone, and back again,
Gaia, watch over me, all mother.

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.

Imagine the infinite loneliness
Creeping through the veins like polluted streams
Toxic waste pumping at the heart
A factory of misery sending spore plumes in the air
That is the kind of vile vermin preys on children.

The kind of people who
Can’t prescribe to society,
Finds clarity only in disparity
Desperately needing that attention,
Hopeless in the attempts to feel anything but indifference.

Addled by addictions
Blaming them for maledictions
Tormenting with words and eyes forever on the prey
Pulse of their finger tips bleeding in anticipation
Dreaming of ways to act like a year long krampus
To any child who speaks up against the abuse

Sick loners,
Even the roaches scatter and leave
A company of one,
Seething breaths heavy heaved
Derelict hygiene, paralytic intelligence
Caught in a scheme to ruin innocent things
Because do unto others that has been done unto  them is the motto.

Hurting others won’t heal
Finding no answers at the bottom of the bottle.
Maybe in the interim,
Bite into reality, now swallow.

But Gordon,
ODB told me to like it raw
So if I bite into a chicken thigh
And realize the rubber texture
Is because I didn’t deep fry
Am I just a donut to you?
Glazed and sprinkled or fruit looped?

We were chasing shelter when the sky opened up and wept for us amidst our adrenaline rush.
I found wetted hair a marvel,
As mascara ran like rivers,
And your eyes still resembled round oceans that I would lose myself in.

Street lamps, their orange incandescence resembling fires upon the puddles,
Created bokeh bubbles that popped with a splash,
Rippling the reflection.
Yet, I saw you like a newborn catching sight for the first time,
A vision of divine beauty in the neon nightlife.

We shivered and laughed,
Our kisses sealing the silence that crept in.
Music played through cracked apartment windows,
Casting a pale light upon us.
I took your hands and we danced within the tears of broken clouds,
A waltz made for those singing in the rain.

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!

If I could compare it,
It would be like kerosene to a flame, combusting when mixed.

A Fourth of July spectacle,
As bodies collide to thunderous applause,
And all the colors expand in the clash,
Like an explosion of blooming flowers,
Scented with our filth and sweat.

If I could describe it,
It would be carnal, unmentionably visceral.
How the grip of hair pulled back causes such sounds,
And pools of waves crash from your shore to the boat mast,
Begging me to come to sea and ride in your tropical waters.

We are a storm,
Fronts mixed until the twisting begins,
And like a cyclone, this room becomes ground zero.
Broken lamp shades, decimated sheets,
Bed frames torqued and twisted.
We are animals of nature, driven by a need,
Like an addict’s itch to scratch beyond the surface.

If I could, I would bottle it like a Red Bull,
Sell it to give others a taste of your wings,
Intertwined with the notes of my demonic horns,
Rooted with ginger and a splash of lemon,
And all the dopamine a depressed person should need.

It is that good, and you are a drug I could never quit.
A kiss upon the peach flesh,
Or tender lips, with just a hint of mint.

Chasing Sera Tonin
But she’s too far to reach.
Legs are gelatin, blood loss adrenaline
Need to feel whole again,
Call out with an SOS, there’s-
A man down needing his medicine.

There you go again,
Chasing Sera Tonin
Needle hits the record
Repeating the patterns.
Time slows to a stalled crawl
As eyes roll back and it feels like
Every atom is a bomb when the veins go
Exploding for a bit of her glow.

You’re a dope I mean,
Really look at you in that mirror,
Does it ever reflect a person you recognize
Or is the vision never getting clearer?
Chasing Sera Tonin,
Nasal passages cut from granules
Brain feeling the weight of -
Everything intangible,
Will the narcan angels flash their neon
Just to give you your wings?

Send out the SOS
Oh, there’s a man,
He needs his medicine

Chasing Sera Tonin
You’ll never catch her,
You’re a dope I mean,
And you won’t receive her
With polluted receptors

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

Well, you arrived at this place,
The light of day erased
With the neon’s red glow reflecting off your face.

She craves leather lined with fleece,
Her hands raised high,
Begging for release,

She craves leather with fleece,
Legs spread and dangling,
Honey pools flowing to the sheets,
In every crease and wrinkle, I see ravines.

She begs for pain
With pouted lips, and eyes that grin,
The flogger’s tendrils trace
The very curvature of her frame,
One slap against her breast,
A gasp as it reddens with a twinge,
She laughs back and then -
Another crash against milky skin,

Her petals bloom,
Parting with nectar drooling,
And the leather fingers trace the ridge,
A calm before the storm begins,
Tickling nerves like exciting crowds,
Riling up until the breath breathes loud,
She moans through her longing sounds,
And then the crash comes, to burn it down.

How she longs to feel
Something more, something real,
With the silicone breaching her opening,
Deflowering in her garden of sin,
She screams for more, screams for him,
Needs me more than she can bear,
Tells me where, and tells me when,
But this is just a game,

Her eyes roll back,
Her hips raise and thrash,
Legs shake and collapse,
Mind blank, a relapse,
As the screams quake
And reverb back,
She sees god in the aftermath,
As heat flushes over like a sunbath,
And the sweat beads cool,
As tongue expresses a need to lap
Water to replenish the rain that falls,
In her a waterfall,
Pulsating through it all…

She loves leather and fleece,
As she patiently drops,
Never wanting my release.

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

Behold this sand of time
As the shores of despair
Roll in to sneak it into the depths
Dark is the abyss of a sleepless dream
Where madness is one name away

Dare you speak it

Cthulhu

Wrap me in your endless tendril maw,
Devour soul from flesh
And discard the pickled husk
Let me fade away in shadow
To see your grace,
O’ Old one

Spread madness in a holy word
Eviscerate this world —
Feed it to the void and all its twilit chaos

And then I wake —
Somewhere between a dream and a distant realm
I will come as a herald,
To ring the end of timelines
To bind my mind to singularity.

My fate is my own,
Under the huntress moon,
Into the valiant sun,
‘Cross the diamond caves of night
And the blue oceans of day
I will not be misled.

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.

My dearest angel,
How you’ve grown
From a bean into a flower
I stand in awe of your bloom.

My dearest angel,
The light that bled the dark
Took away my demons,
The moment I felt your heart.

You are the spark that lit the lantern
For me to walk to guide you through,
And every thing I am I owe to you.

My dearest angel,
You are the pride of my soul,
The reason for living when none other is given,
I see you and find my control.

You are seasons and holidays
You are lemonade and summer parades
Fireworks and museums displays
All of me written within you tattooed on your face
When you smile I see myself,
My dearest angel.

When it just feels like one year
But 17 has gone and come,
From the morning I felt your eyes shoot open
I spent every day cautiously hoping—
I won’t ***** it up, and lose my focus
To give you everything I never,
Well I guess I’ll never—
Know if you could ever
Forgive if I have ever let you down.

So sing a prayer for me,
Let me see you open a gift
Like the one you have given
And know that I’ll be there wishing,
As the candles go out,
Please let me steal one more moment,
To savor the time.

My dearest angel of mine.

Sicilian:
Àncilu miu cchiù caru,
Comu criscìsti
Di na fava in ciuri
Sugnu ammiratu dâ to fiuritura.

Àncilu miu cchiù caru,
La luci ca sanguinava lu scuru
Purtava li me dimoni,
Lu mumentu ca sintìa lu to cori.

Tu sì la scintidda ca addumau la lanterna
Pi mia a caminari pi guidarivi,
E ogni cosa ca sugnu ti lu devu.

Àncilu miu cchiù caru,
Tu si l’orgogliu di l’anima mia,
La raggiuni di vìviri quannu n'àutra nun è data,
Ti vìdu e attruvu lu me cuntrollu.

Siti staggiuni e festi
Tu siti limunata e sfilati estivi
Mostra di fochi d'artificiu e musei
Tuttu di mia scrittu dintra di te tatuatu ntâ to facci
Quannu surridi mi vìdu,
Lu me cchiù caru àngiulu.

Quannu pari sulu n'annu
Ma 17 ha jutu e vinutu,
Di la matina sintìa l'occhi ca s'aprìanu
Passava ogni jornu cu cautela spirannu...
Non lu ruvinu e pirdu la cuncintrazzioni
Pi dariti tuttu chiddu ca mai,
Ebbè, penzu ca non lu fazzu mai...
Sapìri si putissi mai
Scusa si ti haiu mai delusu.

Dunca canta pri mia na prighera,
Lassami vidiri grapiri nu rigalu
Comu a chidda ca hai datu
E sapi ca ci sugnu vulennu,
Comu s'astutanu li cannili,
Ti pregu lassami arrubbari n'autru mumentu,
Pi gustarisi lu tempu.

Lu me cchiù caru àngiulu meu.