In all these disparate faces,
Amidst the crowds adjacent, a stage stood,
A stage meant to give praise to rock gods who ascended so beautifully.
Deep bellowing soul-crushing bass drums echoed,
Electric war birds screeched melodic songs,
And the vocals rang down like testaments.
We were in attendance at a sermon of heavy metal,
Surrounded by other worshippers in otherworldly convivial cheering.
Until the last song, the last lyric,
And the lights went from neon spectacle to incandescent boredom.
And reality returned, parasitically devouring the dopamine.

Burning bridges
Playing lyres
Monkeying around
****** every Saturday
There’s plenty to go around

You stole her dignity,
Stole her dignity,
Let it all burn to the ground.

Spoiled in riches,
Games for the wicked
Bloodshed pagan vs Christian
Apollo swallowed pride,
Showed you where you’d fall
You dressed in your best
Held another ball.

You stole her dignity,
Stole her dignity,
Let it all burn to the ground.

In the quiet of your storm
Do the voices carry through
Conscience singing psalms
While you let the devil hit his groove.
No false movements, calculate
Must find prudence, lies enumerate

Play me a song,
Sing me a tale
As you steal her dignity,
Steal her dignity,
Let it all burn to the ground.

Fall into me
Like autumnal piles
We can watch as verdant rows
Turn to varying embers
Touching soft fertile ground
Snowing death upon us,
In the sweet scent of post-harvest growth.

Here among the rain-stained,
Rank in mildew and petrichor,
We can sit on fungal-covered logs

Laugh under late afternoon meteors
As the crepuscular pink and purple colors
Dress the sky with glittering Toole
As we sit fireside, cider-drunk
Reminiscing of all the summer days gone by
In a hazy daze as time passes in less than straight lines.

We could kiss like sweater wool
Clinging statically in electric pulse.
So fall into me —
Like autumnal piles
And stick with me for just a while.

Fearless and ferocious
This little tiger has moxie,
If I’m not careful,
Watching for the details
Going to my coffee *** like a thirsty gazelle,
He may just pounce to bite me!

Proud lion,
Standing upon the cardboard mountain
Eyes darting to passer-byers
As he sits tall

BUT WAIT

"What is that?"
A flick of his tail
"I must attack"

And he does,
Chasing himself in circles
Dizzied until he flops flat,
And concludes his dance
With a little spell of a nap.

What a silly thing,
My tiger, lion, cheetah
House cat

I promise I’m not trying to tear you from your energy
Shadows dancing in you like your enemies
A matinee of all your memories
Ping pong nerves trying to tear you out of me
Still beating despite the scars etched in effigy.

I still see you when the lights get low,
Glad you haunt me even I can do this on my own
Got a few demons on my shoulder keeping company.
I’d give you my soul but it’s out on loan
Signed documents to give me closure
If only for exposure
Penning my words a one way discourse
Discussed in my disgust, but who am I to bemoan?

I’m just traveling on distant shores,
Sinking to the bottom,
Losing myself in lore
Pretense in my pretend
My fiction is makeup over the real
A bruise concealed
But the truth revealed is my pain is raw like a bad tooth
Exposed like a nerve root
Play violin chords in my heart strings
And watch as I dissipate.

Do you still see me when the light gets low?
Do you know I haunt you when you’re on your own?
Glad to keep you company
Spare me a moment for your sympathy
As we mourn in morning light
And give me the night, the night, the night .

I crave you like serotonin,
Breathe in your pungent, intoxicating scent,
As it fills my senses, leaving me breathless and yearning.

My stomach churns, signaling the onset of desire,
Your absence feels like the neglect of a lover,
And I implore you with outstretched arms,
To embrace me once more.

I need you like blood,
Circulating through my veins,
Pumping an endless stream of energy,
A source of focus for a lion hunting.
I yield my strength to surrender with weakness,
To know you, to touch you.

I find you in fine ground, brown, powder,
Nestled at the base of a round, cylindrical container with mesh windows,
Covered by a closed dome roof with a small hole for puncturing,
I place you in the harvester’s hole.

I place a kilned clay rain holder under the dripping swell,
When I press the blue button,
I unleash you like a monster,
And I become the hunter.

The blackish-auburn rivers flow hotter than the summer sun,
Dispelling into the ceramic,
The aroma ensnares me,
Overwhelming me with emotional attachment,
With impatient tapping on the flat marble.

Each last drop of you,
Shockwaves of adrenaline,
Shooting down my spine and back to my brain,
I grasp the thermos,
Add the Arctic soldiers,
As I pour you into the field of one,
Undone, but cooling your temperament,
I add the oat milk, diluting your melanin,
Revolutionizing the way color works when you beg me to stay.

Caramel sweeties,
Tangled in your bitter,
Swirling into a harmonious mixture,
Tasteful, perfect, *******,
I am forever yours,
In life and beyond,
My truest lover.

Iced Coffee.

Soft, milky white, creamy,
Rippling with the tides’ collision,
A heat envelops me,
Dripping with sweetness,
I’m parched, yearning for sustenance,
Sustained rhythms, syncopated patterns,
Ripping through the night sky,
Carried out in falsetto, sung praises,
Affirming every sequence,
Clenching with squelched wrenching,
With felt panting of lost breaths,
I stand upon the precipice,
In parallel with this blissful moment.

May we expire this little death,
Together as we sink to catch our breaths,
Enshrined in silk and Egyptian cotton,
Entwined like ivy vines,
I’ll be yours if you say you’re mine,
We can tangle endlessly,
Lovers at midnight,
Sweet like caramel,
Stuck to each other through thick and thin.

She is of silk and honey,
Spin her webs to tie me down,
Let her explore spaces and realms
With gentle fingers, and hungry kisses.

Illumination,
Not only lighting my way
Opening the pathos for my ethos
My memory is on full display.

Feel the course of knowledge
Coarsely exfoliating my pretense,
Cognizant of the folly—
Of never seeing through to the end of the show.

Illumination,
Not only chases the shadows,
But shows off my deep scars,
Rooted systems of traumatic plants
In a garden, I hide behind secrets.

Sacred thoughts,
Priceless feelings,
Caught in vine-riddled ramparts
I can’t be bothered to open a draw bridge
Can’t trust that the enemy isn’t calling from inside,
Chasing me like a phantom,
All my pain in tandem, nerve death like a bad tooth.

Illumination,
Not only a granter of knowledge,
But a memento mori of a past life,
Reminded of innocence at it’s last rites
Buried so far beneath the core of the world,
I’d explode like a neutron star over and over
To relive a single moment over.

Illumination,
Illuminate all that is dark in me,
Warm me with your cruel heat,
And make a better man of me.

If there was a lasso
Big enough to reign the stars
I’d hand you these diamonds
Painted in your twilit skies,
We could create a galaxy,
Our love so planetary,
Shapes of clouds temporary
Could never articulate in artistry
The way you move so heavenly.

We could cry together,
Rain down on the meadows,
Fill these riverbeds with all our sorrows
So we can see it create life again.

We could smile brightly,
Casting light to chase the shadows
Bloom these vibrant colors
Feed the verdant grasslands
While we touch down on hilltops,
Knowing it’s just a slippery ***** from here.

Even if it ends,
Like apotheosis crashing down,
A calamity to rip our heart back into two,
When everything is a Goya painting
Crude and dark without hope or meaning,
When we collide like marbles,
I’d still hand you the diamonds in your twilit skies.
I’d cry for you to fill your riverbeds,
And paint by numbers on your gardens.

Simply simplistic,
Simping like a simpleton
Hoping you see the flowers I grow
Are a color wave symphony,
I sing to you in silence,
I write to you with brush strokes,
Hoping you catch my thoughts
Like a medium, do you read me like a meteor?
Striking quickly over your horizon?

I’ll bring you a bouquet—
Of diamonds in your twilit skies.

It is so easy to get lost in the ether
Floating in the thick of doubt
Or contrived little demons poking holes in confidence.

I tether myself to the wild,
Breathe in verdant meadows,
Covered in vivid colored petals,
Tickled by butterfly wings and busy honey bees.

I am anchored —
To the orchards,
To the ancient oaks
Whispering knowledge through shaken branch
And shaken leaves under a zephyr breeze.

I am renewed in the river currents,
Water splashing, dashing along my dirtied palette
Cleansing the soot and sulfur,
Refreshed by drinking her endless waters.

It is too easy,
To let the past be a shadow
But I chase the sun,
Basking in the glory of it’s conflagration
How it warms and bakes olive tones to golden browns.

I am safe within the cornfields,
At home within the caves and waterfalls,
Unstoppable amongst the arboreal giants.
A timber wolf, howling at moonlight
A blue jaw calling in the distance,
A boy healed from a world of pain,
A man has grown to shower love on nature
A father who watched his flower blossom,
A man who didn’t let toxicity ruin wonder
Imaginative, in the ways to create.

A new day comes,
The light cascades
I coalesce with the green,
One with nature,
One with life,
One soul,
Anchored,
But free to roam.

In the heat of moments,
Where incandescence mirrored flame
Dancing marigold shadows on alabaster skin,
Flush pink rosy cheeks greet with ruby red lips curled
A quaint smile, in a quiet Manor.

Quiet manners,
In succinct hungered eyes
Staring into permissive lashes
Batted from sapphire pools,
Lively looms of auburn Toole
Shading cherub roundness of her French features,
Obstructing beauty that begot but a heavy sigh.

Pallid cold fingers,
Reach to swipe the silken veil,
Close to her heat, she’s radiant
Sun-washed white, Christian pure.

She offers her hand,
Like an hors d’oeuvres,
She encourages the beast,
With tiny begs and pleads.

Fangs descend,
Parasitic hunger contends
With romantic candor,
Need not to soil sentiment,
He won’t be rude or offended.

A kiss,
Chilled lips touch throbbing wrist
Tongue teasing the riverbeds,
Sending them into blued shivers,
And then a pang rang through
Screaming at the synapses,
The sinew snap of the epidermis,
Snap pea in its clarity,
A rarity in her giving so charitably.

A lashing flick,
Twirling like butterflies patternless flight
Suckling the honeysuckle nearly dry.
As sapphire eyes slated to drained gray pearls
Slinking frame bracing on the shoulder of a chair
She smiles still, given fanatically
She loves with majesty and anima.

He kisses her like a long goodbye
A farewell crept upon phantasmagoric moments
Splashed as vividly as neon paint along black-lit canvases
Her body pocked with punctures
Polka-spotted chic in tapped keg kinesis.
She yearned to join his side,
Like some corpse bride
Under the guise of sanguineous wines
Forever entwined,
And who could deny it?

But he did,
Hid behind chthonic masquerades
And never wishing to see the day
An ageless love betrayed his fragility,
A heart that ached so eternally
Tragic in their symphony
Played out in hungry morsels.
The immortal who loved a mortal
And her spectral haunting,
In every drop given.

She smells of lilac and lemon
A side note of lavender and honey
Immediately parched, parsed for words
I am hungry.

Her voice was breathy and melodious.
Like the songs of robins or sparrows,
Caught in a cacophony of words —
Bouncing along my ears, popping like ticklish bubbles.

I am lost in her,
Like a labyrinth,
With each turn I take I find myself
Finger trailing more curves,
Finding my grip along the creases of soft skin.

A simple smile,
Feels like I am ice facing the sun —
Melting in an instance
A puddle of wet, watery mess
Caught formless to her elegance.

Our lips meet,
Magnetic attraction,
Glued silken colored contrasts
Ruby red, and pale peach
Collide as tongues joust for dominance.

She tastes like
Cantaloupe mixed with salt and caramel,
Wild berries in yogurt,
Savory, sweet, fruit like
Intoxicating like margaritas or too many appletinis
I’m floating on weak knees,
Captivated and drunk from her radiant being.

And as the night passes,
And the dim lights shoot aflame,
I am there as her sensuality flows like an artery vein
And I dare to bite in, and drain her for a while,
Aloft lost in her like a wandering vagrant
She’ll take me home, and treat me like all the other strays.

In a whisper
Is how I’ll go,
Further drifting
Static as snow.

The less that they know,
The more honor I’ll keep,
Dragging my last thoughts
Into an endless last sleep.

Don’t break the glass
I don’t want to wake,
No matter the violence of your shake
Let me rest, let me stay.

In a whisper,
The last words carried
Kissing your ears by way of zephyr
This is how I’ll go,
Further drifting,
Static as snow.

As dreams start to fade
Replaced with the infinite black
Silence echoes memories
Like ghosts haunting holographic.

Catch the syncopated beats
As my heart drums to a stop.
A beat for your heart strings
Now play the music to send me off
A reverie of soft melodies
As you lower me, under the oak trees.

In a whisper,
Under canopies
Is how I’ll go,
Will you remember me?

Illuminate all that is dark within me,
Bioluminescent pathways leading to a wishing well.
Cast your farthing and close your eyes,
Hear your wish through your lungs,
Breathe it into the mana waters,
And see how in me lies the arcane,
A world tree in nerves and blood,
I take root like a tooth,
And sow for you in a garden—
Indiscriminate truth.

I don’t need to own you,
When I enter the room
And you drop to your knees
Like Sunday worship.

So instinctive,
Mouth agape and tongue extended
You need with a neediness that paints your eyes with greed
Emeralds shining up at me

And who am I to deny,
Such a good girl for me?
I agree, you deserve a treat
So stay still while I feed.

Drink me in like a crackle of fresh air,
Water in your bloodstream
Pumping through your veins.

Hold me like a memory
Apparition translucency,
Stuck in a head bobbing reverie,
A constant thought aching at the brain.

Read my heart like an open book
Chapters writ in braille,
So you can feel me in every word to scale.
Carry the weight like glutton
Holding the depths like mountains.
Straining with the heaviness of a world
Perched upon tired shoulders.

Let my voice kiss the crook of your ear
Hear me like a songbird,
Chirping incessantly all the things you wanna hear;

But heed my battle cry,
As a ****** of me crowing
Is a battle axe hewing foeman in the distance
Protecting you like a visage
An image, my goddess.

I’ll be a vessel,
To hold you in close
A home for your greatness
Allow me to be your host.

Sip of my wine like it’s vintage aged
Play my heart strings like a harpsichord
And I’ll join with the violin.

Candle lit, while warming by the pyre.
Won’t you open me bisectionally
And show me your desire?

We coalesce,
I feel you surrendering
As we levitate endlessly
Effervescent fluidity,
Where do you begin and I end?

Does it even matter in the end?
Coalesce with me.
Until the words we speak
Become reality.

I’ll love until I am dissolved
A ghost in spirits you drink to
Salve
A memory you hate.

If you utter my name,
I shall manifest as an entity—
A horned wolf crafted from obsidian shadow.
My reddish eyes will dart through you,
Consuming your light and leaving you with only endless onyx.

If you dare to reach for me,
I shall corrupt you, overriding your DNA.
I shall consume your soul like a cannibal,
Invading your spaces like a parasite,
And you shall become my vessel.

If you sing my praises,
I shall repay you in broken dreams.
I shall reveal that blood is merely wine,
As you sip from tapped vines,
Renewed  with a steeled spine,
Forever  twisted and turned—
mine.

I am the wolf, hungry and insatiable,
A demon with a slicked tongue.
Some perceive me as an incubus,
Capable of misleading you into darker deeds.
I shall ravage your body while you beg me for mercy,
And when the day is done, you shall seek release.

From my dungeon,
I shall emerge into the streets,
Until you find an emptiness in need.
Speak my name, reach for me, and sing my praises,
Until I come to efface you, nameless.

Do you want to see the sunrise over the sky
Like tangerine orange splashed against a sea of peach and lilac?
Well I know a place where we can watch the moon flirt with the daylight
Just take my hand, and I’ll guide you through a wonderland

Where we can see the stars,
Bloom from the verdant stems
Pink and white spread wide,
And we can touch the petals of its points
Feel the dew drops hydrate your fingertips
Once we go through the thick of this

Watch the peonies open their bloom
Fluffy maroon and white beds for bees
As they sit so beautifully,
Ants resting on the eaves of leaves
Pleased by their workmanship to please
Eager eyes in your gasping maw
So surprised, to see this in awe
Well I surmise, you’ll love the way that the colors gleam.

Here where dahlias dance
To the very brisk of a morning breeze
Perfect symmetry blossomed in telemetry
We can count the layers, lost in a labyrinth
Amazed by the scent carried by a zephyr
Ticking the senses, and yet there’s more to the journey
As hydrangeas in blue and pink flourish,
Bush cover for arboreal critters,
Grasping seed and nuts to scurry off into the umbra.

But nothing brings me clarity
Nothing screams sincerity
Quite like the tea leaf rarity,
Of the conclave of peach colors swirling
Timeless in a capsule of a lover’s first gift
A painted, watercolor masterpiece,
Pink layers over yellow, and white,
Shades of coral and purple highlight the light
It’s in this decadence I could eat the petals
And in recompense maybe I’ll bloom as pretty too
As we end our morning glory
Under the thorn-capped bushel
Of roses, ala peach swirls.

The gold in my crown is covered in black
As it drips down over my eyes
In the distance I can hear the sound of their cries
They’re calling for me in impatient patterns
Scattered in feathers,
I’m slathered in shadows
Murky waters up to my knees
As the black is covering me.

Can you hear them?

The black it coats over my skin,
Chocolate over vanilla limbs
Tar painting the ivory of bone
As I sink into the night alone,
Out in the distance I can hear their cries
Impatient as their feathers fly,
Drowning into the sea of shadow

Can you hear them?

Out of the fog,
Into the rain,
Black as the night
Comes clinging to my frame
The ****** cries.

On the sinking night,
I can see their faces
Calling me as we flee
Into the sinking night.

Can you hear them?

Caw-aww

I hover over this space,
A cliffside from a peak of happy
Knowing the roller coaster tracks led me
And there’s only the drop-down
Facing back with a gradual distaste,
Knowing time can’t turn back
As quickly as it’s spent,

I want to levitate.
Float here forever,
Be as still as Everest
Bury my head in snow-capped weather
Freeze this moment so it doesn’t spoil
Keep it still so I won’t chase it -
As quickly as it’s spent.

Don’t let the wind sigh,
Don’t let the cool fingertips of a breeze
Push upon my shoulders,
I’m clumsy, and easily led Into the fall.

Painted in black as the abyss calls
Running through my light
Choking aura, bludgeoning happy
I want to stay right here,
Hovering, gently spinning
Reliving the feeling left upon my lips,
Silky, soft, sweet and succulent
Taste it again, as quickly as it’s spent.

The tide relentlessly steals from the shoreline,
Leaving me here, sun-dried with Eden’s vines,
Yearning for a day when I’ll be called into the ether,
Deeper into the abyss of my own death,
A tombstone for my ego.

The tide repeats,
Tearing into the sands and erasing the tracks that led me back to this home,
Destined to collapse like a lung when truth punctured like a spear,
Deflating my dreams in a sigh that echoes across the horizons.
I drown in shallow waters,
Floating face down,
searching for my ego.

Deeper I fall into sacred waters,
Shrouded in darker blues that color me in nothingness,
Allowing me to start over.
Bioluminescent coral leads me to a corridor I’ll spiral into,
Bathing infinitely in my own shadows,
Halting eclipses while redefining my ego.

Love could have been a salve,
A life raft to lift me from this hell,
A distraction if only you knew me well.
But I can’t control myself,
Lost in a night loop,
Playing the same songs,
Caught on this **** raft,
Tied like a martyr until the tide comes and it takes what it wants.

Further down in the depths,
Sacred lullabies sing me off.
I only wanted to save you from yourself,
But as the sleep washes over,
I’ll search forever in my dreams.

This world is corporatized,
No longer human we see only brands
And at hand is the sanctity of all we ever had
History honored is now history be ******
Voices spent focused on idiocy have become weaponized.

Splayed halve
Spread wide,
Honey pooled within a pitless center
Pinkish flesh glistened in wet;
The perfuming scent of her glistening nectar.

I’m drawn in,
Like a magnetic force,
Adrenaline rushed through my blue-green ravines
As eyes affix to the soft fuzz,
As lips press to the hooded split
Giving it just a simple kiss,
Hot breath over cooling droplets
Mix with perspiring anticipation.

My tongue escapes, traces her shape,
Lines of lapped lashes lapping lavishly
Tasting the sweet fruity juice mixed with honey
Sweetly savory, delightfully sticky
I’m always famished, she feeds me when I’m hungry.

I circle the center,
Invade the pool like Normandy
Blitzing my ballerina tendril
Water polo sports, diving deep
To drown my maw in decadence.

I growl, as my stomach grumbles
Needing more, no longer humble
Succumb by glutinous greed
Imperative to life, as if without this sweet treat
I would be famished,
A third-world denizen in desperate need

She is everything to me,
As my tongue dances like an ice skater
Tripling twirls and gliding circles
Lines of perpendicular or
More in particular designing shapes and letters
*** emojis are written linguistically
Like braille for the unseeing eyes
In languages, only the deaf can prescribe
As nectar waterfalls sweat from her fleshy ripeness
And honey pools like placid lakes.
Face wasted, beard slaked
I looked at my plate and then I ate.

Daydreaming under neon luminance
I’m dancing through dark spaces
Where the light divides lines
If I touch, I wake
If I wake you fade.

How can I wade through space?
In the waves of time misplaced
When every time my eyes close
I’m seeing heartbeats strobe your face.

When can I travel beyond the path of reason?
When am I more than a winged insect to your fires?

I’m swimming
Into the purple and blues of this room,
Finding the beauty and reason
To bring you back to me,
We are like the roots of a forest
We tangle endlessly.

So let me sleep,
Let it be a token of my release
You’re a drug I need,
I’d die of withdrawal if you depleted
And if it’s a worshipping you need,
I’d break the pattern,
Submit to you as you have to me.

Whip me with your leather,
Tie me to the bed posts,
Do with me whatever,
I don’t want to lose this,
Need to feel my purpose
Spotting you with love bites
I can see you clearly in the low lights,
So as my eyes close won’t you come home?

Nothing is soothing in this silence,
No static in the ears, and no waves within the canopies.
Nothing is stirring beneath the verdant cover.
Stirring chitin remains still, and not even a spider dares to tap on her limbs.
Something inexorable lurks within the fog, watching.

There must be something in the water when the mist rises in toxic cover.
Dead fish float like chopped logs from arboreal slaughter,
Skeletal deer prance with an urgent need to flee—
As the shadows morph into tenebrous forms.
Limbs outstretched, they choke the light from the sun,
And colorful flowers rot in their bloom.

A billow of smoke creates a room, walls of fog closing in on him now.
No escape from judgment as it approaches.
Hear the scrape of the scythe on pavement cutting,
The echoes of the ****** calling.
Deeds and sins replay in a cinematic recording.
When peace was offered, he did nothing.
Cold, invisible fingers catch the nape of his neck,
Grasping this wretch as the time comes.

Oh, there must be something in the water, where his ego lies and dies.
The metallic smell of old blood pollutes his senses,
Iron-laced perfume gathered on mildewed, moldy linen.
Red spots from his transgression stain his clothes.
He kneels in the shallow water, gargling black water to express his confession,
But it won’t top the procession.
It’s coming through these closing walls.

Nothing is soothing about this silence,
No miracle befitting to save the ******.
Brimstone and sulfur scents assault his senses as the fiery gates open like a welcoming parade. Fingers reach from the depths signaling charades as the reaper leaps and slashes away.
Welcome to Forever.

You’re just another, something in the water.

Why has the night become synonymous with all the ways I wish I could paint by numbers,
Cross the stars to trace your face?

Could I be so certain that the dark contrasts that bleed our canvas wasn’t tainted by the depths we’ve dove?

When the ocean of our souls pulls us under, who would light the fire?
As the light faded to a pinhole,
Could we even see the monsters of the deep,
Waiting with open maws to swallow us whole?

No, it’s the night that takes its hold.
As the taillights streak down country roads,
I know you’ll find a way to signal me home.

Be my liberty,
Be my dream.
Find me in your melodies,
a concert of screams.
I want you to know the me,
no one has seen.

Beyond the cusps of our black mirrors. The night has become synonymous with the way we tangle endlessly.

I need you like oxygen,
Want to drink you down like the freshest spring
Mesmerize my sight I don’t want to see another thing
Unless it’s those diamond eyes,
Sparkling refracting lives
I’d spend just to come inside
Find my way home in the fabrics of your soul
Oh, I’m on my way home.

I need you like adrenaline
Bring you mountains if you’re feeling too short on your molehills
We can fight until the sun comes up
If it’ll make you riled, and let me see your wild
I don’t want to hear another thing,
Unless it is the way you moan,
Cooing warmth up my spine
I’ll take you there, make you mine
On my way home.

I need you like you’re ******.
Want to feel your kiss enter my veins
Subdue me with your lips
High from the way your tongue fits
Swirling around connected like an interlock
Singular soul, pneuma, so spiritual in your touch,
I’m thirsty with my lust,
And I’m on my way home.

I need you like oxygen,
Breathing you in
As your scent tickles my senses
I’m hearing colors, seeing sounds
Found my forever space within your heart
Oh, I’m on my way home.

It feels like a blade twisting in my stomach,
And I’m swimming like a shark fin.
I’m sweating from simple tasks and can’t hold a conversation.
Lack of sleep is catching up with me,
And I’m left with a zombie shuffle and raccoon eyes.
If it’s my time,
I’ve resigned myself to it and found solace in a life well-lived,
Constantly transformed.

Why is it so cold when your fingers touch?
Why can’t I feel you on my tongue?
When did the magic lose its spark in the way you used to hold me?
I would do anything for one more dance in the rain.

Open me like a letter,
Spill your fingers over the contents,
And let me say the words that stay hidden,
Locked behind the space of fear.
You won’t find them kissing upon your ears.
I need to know if you still see me.

You’re an apparition to me, translucent,
Passing through me, taking all my life force.
If only it could make your lies work.

It’s so cold when your fingers touch,
And as we kiss, I cannot feel you on my lips.
It’s like loving the air as toxic as it seems,
Choking me as I fall between the seams of reality
that there is no fae to guide you back home.
And I dance alone.

If you close your eyes and immerse yourself in colors,
What shades would define you?
Perhaps carnation pink, robin’s egg blue,
A dark violet, or a wine-flavored maroon?

What would you paint with your limbs?
Authoring an impression upon the splash,
Creating a crude broad-stroke portrait,
Highlighting temperance,
Or showing something beyond the surface of spackled acrylics?

Show them vibrancy,
Like neon under a black light,
Or dark and *****,
With bokeh bubbles and lush verdant forests.

Take to your inkwells,
Lay out the papyrus,
And calligraphy fancied letters, or scribbled jargon.
Speak the words to grant you power,
Stain the dotted lines with your truth,
And tell secrets kissed between the pages.
Show the world you live in!
You are alive!
You matter!

Let your hands take clay and shape golems
Or vases to hold perennials.
Create characters in heaps of it,
Scored and kiln-fired,
Showing them statues yet seen—
Modern marvels sans marble.

Nothing can stop you,
You of stardust and magic,
You of survived tragedies and missteps,
You of overcome travesty, health scares, and suffering.
You are an artist, the truly free.

A voluptuous, scrumptious, and delectable
Drawing of hunger, an insatiable hunger.

Hourglass-shaped,
Her waist pinched,
Designed to be held by sturdy hands,
Dancing dainty fingers trace
Ample mounds of bountiful, bouncy hills, topped with soft pastel pink rounds
That draws hunger, an insatiable hunger.

She lies upon a sea of red silk,
A stark contrast to her white,
Like wine and milk. Thirsty, she yearns for a taste.

Her thighs parted like petals,
Revealing the delicate blush of a dawn-kissed bloom.
Carnation pink petals glisten with clear morning dew,
Perfuming the room with intoxicating poignance,

Emerald eyes call to the distance,
A reward for his resilience.
He takes his time to crawl,
Like a hungry wolf stalking prey,
His tongue slashed through gently parted lips.

Pressed thick upon smooth, slicked pedals,
He tastes hints and echoes of her nectar,
Finding little kisses pecked to find her hooded specter.
He flogs while lapping sloppily,
A butterfly to a flower:

Draining,
Drawing patterns, 

Writing love letters,
Breathlessly.

Until his hunger is met with fullness,
And she lies spent, wrapped in red silk,
Drizzled upon her like a garnish,
Strawberry cheesecake.

We misbehave,
On the world stage
No accidents made
As we embrace
Stubble caught in your lace
Let the light fall dim,
As the colors bleed and fade.

When the crowds aren’t watching
Won’t you strip for me?
I want to see that pretty white maw
Grin like a starving wolf before taking a bite of my raw
Take a piece of me with you if it'll help you stall,
But I want every inch of your skin exposed
Won’t you show me what you never show them all?

I want to know you behind the dermis,
I want to feel the grooves of your scars
I want to walk a mile in your vermis
I want to know your thoughts
Trust in me, as nothing could ever harm us

Tracing fingertips along your lips
But am I touching a soul that sings for this?
Can I reach into your anima,
Hug the you that hurts the most
Could I be a healer?
Am I just snake oil wrapped in silver?
I want to see you naked,
Show me what’s under that porcelain pachydermous.

I want to be your provider,
A secret whim, secret insider
A sung hymn, wrapped in you like a spider
I can cocoon in this web we can stay in bed
Tangled in linen but I want to go deeper,

I want to see you weep from the things left unsaid
In the times you can’t get back
In the words you never read
Tickling the sorest soars on your back
Let me take these daggers,
Discard them with condemnation,
I want to see you naked…

We twist and twine,
Like lovers divine
But I know this time
You won’t get to hide.

So let's misbehave -
On the world stage
Everyone watching from their seats
We give into the pageantry of expectation,
Who cares anyway?
They’ll never see you the way I do.

I was once a victim,
Beaten until I was compliant,
Compliant enough to hurt another—
my mother.

I was once a victim,
My innocence used up,
My core torn from a father I could only adore.
What is hatred to a child, but fleeting tantrums?

I was once a victim,
Slipping in my drink,
Strobing long batted eye blinks,
Her heat driving down on my forbidden rod.
She told me if I didn’t, I wouldn’t make it home.

I was once a victim,
Two days before the altar,
My fiancé souring sheets with a friend who stole everything from me.
Everything bled into colorless ravines of distrust.

Victims are strong,
Not for what they have endured,
But for what they become,
Superseding the cyclic nature of dirtied deeds.
They find solace in cautious optimism, defining strength beyond measure and measuring only by their own successes.

There may be no angels soaring high or a guy in the sky,
No balrog of the deep depths or adversary king on hell’s high throne.

But demons are real,
Whispering echoes,
Phantasmagoric memories cast upon the mind by way of
scent, sound, or touch, until the rush comes to **** us up.

The truth is,
even a hermit like me is never alone.
We victims can form like Voltron,
Together joined to heal and change the story.

A wise woman on the tv once told me
“There is no fate but what we make”

Reckless little robin
Flying through the rain
Don’t you fear the lightning,
Ringing down heaven again?

Shiny little coat
Feathers drinking cold
How you float along the streams of a zephyr
Like a finger gliding past a tear.

Upon the perch-
Watchful puffed, shaking off the wet
I admire from afar
How not even the cold slap of rainfall
Can cause your wary little crown to fret.

Little robin -
How I admire from afar
Wishing we could converse
In a cacophony of chirps and tweets
I’d ask you advice for on braving the weather
You’d ask me how to hide beneath the sheets.

Chaos in symmetry,
Lost in a mirrored labyrinth,
Kaleidoscope hallucinations,
****** me within your petals,
Sickly red, mixed with your dark maroon skin.
I am awe struck at your very presence
Unmitigated perfection,
Daring me to slaughter.