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absinthe Feb 2017
mad
it’s all a haze
i hope it’s just a phase
though these winter days
don’t feel the same.

i can’t ignore
the overwhelming way
i
miss
you.

the only thing containing me
is my eyes as they're rolling back
to see the silly name i gave you
when we were we
top the list of my
messenger’s screen

i’m certain i’m insane.

and certainly, i
would see no sanity
to claim vanity
in my extinct ability
to up and leave
i can’t leave

you.

so i only ask
you to stop
topping the list
my currently
rolling eyes
if they could see

would wish
they couldn't

see.
absinthe Feb 2017
it’s funny

my anatomy
my heart lying
inside me
beckoning
beating me
to beat
feigning delicacy

isn’t it funny
it’s merely a muscle
i feel it steal beats
my steel fists copy
it clenches and dictates
me and my existence
and like me
never rests
only
keeps
beating
itself

it isn’t funny
aren’t muscles
meant to provide strength
to shield me from emptiness
and disconnect me
from all these tissues
i keep rupturing
why the contrast, then
why does it do the opposite
does it beat me out of spite
knowing i take it to heart
and again when i find
dense napkins inside
and realize
that they never left
but the worst part
is the blood-red
     cherry
on top that i need.
bitter venom i need.
to be what i don’t know
i want to be. in a world
where i’m unsure
as to why it brought me in
or what it is that is
that which up to
i should be
living
which is that
that keeps on beating
and killing the same thing
it's expecting me
to be achieving.
i hate the fact
that heartless
i suffer
though if i could
i would love
with all my heart
the alternative
that is subordinate
to fraternal evil twins

because there is no
suffering
nor mourning
as that of a heart
not yet deadened.
if only the analysis
caused it the same
paralysis
as is
witnessed in my now idle mind  
that flatlined
when i realized

i was
birthed
exist
live
and will
cease with
the oxymoron
that is
weak muscle, me:
strong  
and hollow inside
absinthe Feb 2017
the old man goes to what
for the night
acts as his local diner, NoHo.

he causes a ruckus.
the surveillance lights
flash on.

he doesn’t notice this since
he’s too busy conversing
with himself.

all the others trade glares
these days, i guess,
passive aggression is strength.

-

she lays the baby plastic tray
on my table—the waitress
we briefly switch formalities

and she leaves
and he turns to me
and says

oh.
i would’ve said hello,
had i known.
though,
i thought i won't; assumed you’d glued
your earlobes’ holes with those phones,
like them all.

he looked away
to continue the interaction
i had so rudely interrupted.

and that's when epiphany crashed in
as i reached for the white strangers
i let sing and speak to me so often:

whose sanity are we to question
when it’s not he
who voluntarily hears voices,
but who speaks to himself
because our need for humanity
is involuntary.

-end
absinthe Jan 2017
feeling burdened—it tends to happen
particularly when meddling impressions run rampant
swarm circles in my hefty head, ignore the next exit ramp, and
let devils' advocates covet the cove i donned my dome once upon never

although i know this may be chalked up to intelligence
and subsequent ignorant claims that swear it's heaven sent
i swear it’s not for me. so tell all the hell-bent docents to leave
and let live my cognizance dim—to do what i can’t. to let it be.

it is what it is
and what it is
is it’s
excessive

i don’t need no informants
playing mentee won’t mend me
i’m torn sufficiently
far as i can see, it seems

don’t mentor she who beseeches
by way of screams and screeches
me and my strings are beat
by ****** and needless needles’
stitches and ventures heedless

i’m piecing my torn fabric
it’s grown so thick
it’s a feat, recognition
when simple addition alters
fact into fabrication

like my elation
in inebriation
guards sorrow
from knocking at my door
knocks my guard down
and has me floored

it hits my inhibition too
and i’m home-free
no guilt signaling
and i pull singles
i switch with tickets
i use to ticket my skin

no appointment
nor disappointment
walking in walk-in clinics
and sketchy shops
flickering the light
it sheds on both
my faces. i can face them
only with this double vision

i watch mark
as his sketches mark me
like stretch marks,
remarkably

in hopes of realizing on the double
the vision i envision into reality
he lets me let him put his hands on me
seemingly steadily
and we feel as our arms stretch

he draws me in
fills me ink
and vibrant me pends
his vibrating steel
and sharp pens
as they liven
my limp existence
reincarnating me instantly  

after sweet sleep
i wake bitter for some reason
feel dull but also sharp-ied
peeping the nonsense i let seep steeply
into my skin last night when i was peaking

now i can reminisce
on the pain of squirming
wallow over it instead, and
not the overflown gore of streams

and catastrophic waterfalls
that break through my largest *****'s walls
they leave what makes me, me,
with breakthroughs of which it can only dream

if only i can fall like the tears asleep
that crash and wave and overshadow my role
in turn leaving without desire
to turn over no stone
nor use any for stepping on
like the ones more close to normal
do coax

i do it all wrong
like they did me
i walk on coal
though from here
it appears
as though i'm an anomaly
only my sole seethes

when on the rocks
my walker, he makes me so strong
he lets me drink him from dusk to dawn  
he says he’d **** for me from here on
i love how foreign i am to him like heron

not the bird though it’s true
us three often see hues blue
we soar blue skies when our hearts fume blue
and they feel too sore like brews do
when they're too soft to heal each bruise or
make room for pain to grow and strength to bloom
so i walk on water as walker

kills me
he’s to die for
imploring in notes low
that i not stop, so i hop on
and once it’s well thought over
he can tell
overthinking’s my problem

i stand alone in the corner,
my core knows
all my o’s and woes
can be all gone
once one o centerfolds corner
and in comes the
coroner

who walks and rear-ends me
and e-r lose hope and leave me
when he cores me from his soul
and i let my breath roam

but he sends me
soaring over the moon
soon as he shows how he listens
and soon we both know
blinding luminescence

my eyes when they glisten
make all my mourning go missing
like the overthinking overkill
i hit when morning rays missile

and he curtails them at curtains
blacker than the blacklist
my man drenched
my nemesis in
deep sleep
with the fishes  

eventually, however
again and against my will, i endeavor
on reading the biography i penned
block my own writing
and let writers block lock me in
i get stuck on the same page
thought no force impedes
the power i home in my palms
nor my thumb's ability to thumb
through the page
yet i somehow flip it
and become my own victim

i did it.
it tells the history of tears
now extinct due to me overbearing
leading to drainage that came as
the very last bead beat me
for forbidding fibs
and calling dibs on *******

still, ringing in my ears
leaks empathy
for crocodile tears
trickling
as they salivate
over their next meal,
me

i swallow my tongue
not realizing fully
i’d just had my last meal
because they consumed me
quietly
with quibbles
and plots of consuming me
openly

ignorance is less so whats lacks
and with no inkling of doubt
worse in terms of that
which the mind keeps
then refuses to release
when need be
hence: me

after i head over
obvious traps
i let flash
atop my head

like clouds overcast
i’m convinced i tripped
on my own heels
like thunder that strikes
one man down twice
out of spite

but in spite
of everything, now that i know,
my eyes and i are drained no more
see, we’ve ever since grown more so
and metamorphosed
beyond words morbid

like those i anticipate
my gravestone
will go on
to hold

this is the reality of being kept cold-cut as meat
that heads *******, idiots, dunces, cons, and so on
those who bring forth obstacles that spurt in growth
inch by inch quicker than their thickening skulls

each time
the sage i pick thinks
my life needs spicing up, either
my screams of agony are mistaken
and my inseams nipped at the bud

or my spirits appear uplifted
and mistaken are my sorrow-filled tears
with joy-plagued wails,
each time
deep-seated sage seeds **** my green

lord knows that while i understand—to some degree
the world can’t come close or know what brews
in the disorganized chaos that is me intrinsically
i don’t fib when i allege that my angle isn’t deceit

nor right, necessarily
just dense as these
basins, wrinkles and dents
my tense cortex insists on heaving  

it would be obtuse of me
to anticipate that anybody
would watch my back
if not mine and me

it's all only a tactic
and i may feign obliviousness
to support this spinelessness
and keep it all in tact

insects fester
i feel each tentacle
extend incessantly
like these rants

they all ax my lumbar
no one's barred from my club
lumberjacks and jack’s slumber
i only lust after the latter

and jack's not all bad
he’s why my caps rested
soon as he hands it to me,
expressing the extent to which

i impress him
granted
my hands-off approach
that manages
to get hard jobs done
better than jills before

he’s a mild nuisance
when one of us isn’t speaking
but he promotes my irritability
with his attempts at weaving
our fingers together

it offends me
and all i long for
is knocking him out
like him and my neck's heart

or my kneecaps’ kneepads
the cap that’s my hat
can at last roll fast,
though no one should ask

i can’t say if i’m ok
jack ko’d my voice box
and i feel highjacked
but i insist, they insist
on the charm of the third

one i get him
like the lights, off,
that’s when i go on to hop off
tip toe off his tip top to get off
on the silence my mind writes off

none of it matters to me
mankind ramps up my love for luxury
the ivory warmth Mr. Browns rain
all over my cold windshield
puts me where i love to be

without them,
antidepressants
would depress and hail on
but their chocolate depressants
elevate me and i hail mary
when they hail hope on me
and i'm newly merry

when it’s all over,
i seek refuge and rush down
and on to the one and only John
where rest can be found
he’s bold as kohl and cold
as his marble floors call for

it's he who keeps my thoughts snowed in
and spares my teeth cracks no dentures can fix
suppresses my urge to purge like Snowden honing in
on how not one man cares less for one careless node in
systems nor the cancerous danger of no protests nor dents

it’s tasteless, the rice that is humanity
so i dine solitarily
in solemn grief
seeing the uselessness we
as crumbs and morsels have come to be

individuals in division
invincible in coalescence
bound to form solid solidarity
likely as the moment

satan and saint agree
to raise their satin
black and white flags,
respectively

to enwrap
two into
one
fabric. silky, smooth, seamless
as is the cocoon
          i once was foolish enough to assume
    would secure the very same wholesome skin
                         it would later go on
to help me consume.

cannibalism.
absinthe Jan 2017
i asked him where my medicine was
“it’s on your side of the bed"
and suddenly i remembered you
after i had tried so hard
and let in hard
and played hard
and played hard
all i could do
was think about your comforter
and the comfort your words offered
how they comfort her still
when she’s weak and she lets you in
and hard that's softened leaves
even in your absence
imagine…  

the power of your presence to me then

she says she's sorry for my loss
though i’m sorry and i'm not
simultaneously
that she seems not to know
that what i lost was her
but she didn't leave me…
not forever at least…
at least that’s what i hear
my inner monologue speak
when i feel feeble and
i dread waking because it means
i'll have to keep my head above sea
and my true thoughts at bay
and i'll have to swim against the wave
because instinctively i don't give in
and as much as i would **** for you
i won't die because i let them drench me,
till i let the tide consume me
when i ensure that you're
the last image i see
follow me closely,
my tailgating tears

after you, i went to the doctor’s
i thought they were supposed to help
but they had me sat in that waiting room
for too, too long. almost as though they knew
of the last time you sat in the seat
i’m now writing these words on
penned poetry, just like me
you’re not here
and i'm feeling
sad and nostalgic
boxing out
fist fighting
violently resisting
even the slightest semblance of hope
my cruel mind tries to grant entrance

because i’ve been there before
and though they draw comparisons
between my knack of gathering information
that’s not mine to have and felines,
this is the exception
everything has one
and i'm cashing in
ignorance is bliss
it's never made more sense

i felt relieved as i sank at the shrink’s love seat

though i could also feel
the heart you’d enlarged
shrink in me
i couldn’t tell you anything about
our talk if i tried
for the life of me
i was too busy thanking time
for getting me away
from the waiting room
before i slipped away
and got it away from me

i started seeing people like this
you know them,
i was fathered by one who somewhat resembled them
the ones with a bunch of acronyms
listed next to the names their parents
gifted them. it’s saddening.
they’re all the same, robots
rinse
repeat
rinse
repeat
you’d have agreed with me

i guess i’m a hypocrite, though
i always knew little brother was right all along
i always denied the fact that a word that simple
could arouse defenses so complex
so as to divert my attentiveness
from the major setback at hand
aim, grimace, and flick metal at
the innocent fawn whose only wrong
was looking at me for long
enough so for me to see my reflection in
his ******* eyes
but i admit now, yes, i am.
a hypocrite.
because here i am,
collaborating
and manipulating the manipulators
to try to bring her back
because she was so happy
and ever since she left
you fled the negativity
and i don't blame you
that's why i use them
since they'll do me the same
regardless, as it’s a two-way street
i know they know what they're doing
when they hand me pills
in childproof bottles
my naïve questions
are enough "indicators" for them

and i play along
because that's what children do
and i make it seems as though i’ve just learned something new

like walking
and taking deep breaths
and loving sunny days
and life vests
and you

sometimes i get answers but never a handshake
not until we’ve zero'd it all out
by exchanging
pluses in bank accounts with negative NA motifs
at least i know, it’s all a game
and i like those a lot, you know.
you're the only one who really saw the child in me
she's been hiding for years.
shy...but instead of mocking nature
you made her feel how any little girl should feel.
so i win, because it’s all
about winning—my flaw, i know
acting like i know it all too
when i feel like i do
because i don’t claim
to retain
information
i never cultivate.

i drove home—or wherever the hell  
take it as a figure of speech
i’ve never really had that
not in my heart, at least
except with you
and thats all that matters most

like you said to me on the balcony
mama told me all that matters
is her sun
his heart
his soul
and the one
he chooses to sleep
next to each night
faithfully
her sun
his heart
his soul.
not wallet
nor abode
just.
those.

so here i am
sat, placid
apathetic
pathetic

reading him long before
he knew what he
was fixing to do
and i thought of you
so i walked to the room
sinking steeply
thinking deeply
sprinting wouldn't be
fast enough if it could be
that i could outrun
thoughts of a memory
because if that was you
and i’d seen your intentions
long before your own self
the influx of dopamine that would
flood my head
would’ve never driven me
to waiting rooms
in the doctor’s office
but reality is reality
as philosophers would agree

and i am me

though i’m unsure
as to what they’d say here

on my way to "my" side of the bed
right before I swallowed it
one more day out of thirty
pieces of her heart
that somehow
ended up in this
little
orange
bottle
she left for me
all i could fixate on
was the fact
that we had no fixed rules
or obligations or tasks
how we could fall asleep
and wake as we pleased
how you'd rise early
to move my car for me
to save me the officer's money
that i now use to sit in this crook's office
for this orange bottle

remember how we had
dinner for breakfast
true conversations without
no need
to divert attention from any
awkwardness at hand
by stroking our hands
on each other instead
and no curfew
or house laws needless?

do you remember my favorite?
when laughed as if we
were best friends sat by one another
in the classroom
struggling and breathless
because we weren’t allowed
to laugh that’s exactly what
made us red—what we can’t have

remember when we talked about assigned bedsides
the silliness of the notion because, besides,
once the electric shock seizes us and we fall
asleep in each others arms and hearts
left and right would merely do right
side by side just like
how our hearts and
words and bodies and brains
and all that makes us human
did

pure perfection.

you used to move me to the core
when you'd pull me in more
with those strong arms of yours
every time you sensed how on edge i am
and what i wouldn't give now
for that set side of the bed, left, right
that we had mocked as silliness

you’re the only thing
i wouldn’t give, if even
for the edge of your bed.
absinthe Dec 2016
spontaneous
as this piece is
add something, anything
constructive
it's all i've ever
struggled with
had trouble with
innocence
ever since
i lost it
but in a sense
i want everything still
everything
but to retrieve it.

- end
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