ii.

Why should I change?
Last night's scent
is all I need to mend.

i have burned bridges
and put out their fires with
bare hands, tried to make
something of the ashes
because i always thought
moving forward was the
best way to deal until
i wasn't able to go back

White bed sheet
Strangely picked wallpapers
White eyes, white eyes
Die
Army and explosives
Molotov never did taste this sweet
Yellow lights, beware of God
Pray for us sinners? No ---
Let Mary Jane sing
the sonnet alone
Let Marionette
see your death
Believe her, believe her
No Jesus would be
Stop praying the Rosary, stop it
Don't you want to puke when you hear
Hail Mary? Führer! Führ---
You live like Cleopatra
whose tongue was a cobra
whose eyes were the black swans
on the lake where you first
drown
yourself. Are you Narcissus?
I am an echo
An echo not Echo
The smell of rain won't ever
Won't ever
Won't ever
Won't ever

Peeled toad's skin
Like an apple's
The Cs are not enough; Never ---
Crescent moon
Cat's sad eye, another blind
I miss you

What madness is taking over this world?
Why the mothers, why the children?
When I was a soldier I made a choice
I knew the risks.
I blame them all.
Taliban, Israelies, Americans even my own countrymen
Yes, all the warmongers who make money from the sale of arms
All the radicals who don't believe in democracy
All those who steal the lands and destroy the homes
of those less educated or less wealthy
I hope those responsible can sleep soundly at night
Those who fire the randomly aimed rocket and shell
can wash the blood stains from their hands.
They don't have to listen to the weeping mothers
They can close theirs eyes and ears to the anguish
of families ripped apart
They are never close enougn to smell the cloying stench
of drying blood and rotting bodies

Were it in my power to do so I would take them there
And rub their noses in it
,

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines