i.

two boys
skipped school
to fight
in a field.

we who stayed
took sides.

I somehow became a leader

      which mattered only
when the boys
returned.

their original quarrel
ended
in that field
     where a scarecrow

interested
both-

ii.

     boys
whose names
imprison me.

I lie in bed, under cover,
fear rising up through the pores of my skin;
it leaks from my hair.

My door is locked; there are no monsters under my bed.
The only demons here live inside my head,
in muscle, bone, cell memory.

Tall and impenetrable is the brick wall that locks me out, that locks me in.
Sarcasm drips from the corner of my mouth, first laughing, then crying,
my face stuck in a perpetual open mouthed gape of surrendered indecision.

Anger trickles through my toes, almost imperceptible,
a shallow breath slowly exhaled, a child hiding in the dark.

The cool porcelain of disavowed feeling snakes between my fingers,
settles in my palm.

Who protects me from my own rage?

Nowhere left to hide,
smashing dishes under cover.

Show me all the scars you have,
and the stories behind them

I want to see the scars on your fingers.
And hear about all the demons you had to fight off with your bare hands.
did you win?

I want to see the scars on your back.
From all the people who have ever hurt you.
And how I vow to not add to that collecetion.

I want to see the scars on your heart.
well i can't see them, but i can assure you i feel them.
those are the scars that hurt the most and im  sure some of those wounds are still open.

And i want to see the scars on your face.
those distinct markings that give you your features.
those marking that say you were not afraid to get up close and get hurt
for a reason you saw fit.

Will you show me all your scars?
I wont try to fix them, i promise.
because i know some of them you hold dear.
you can give me any scar you want though. i want a reminder of you.
i wont flinch, it won't even hurt.
Im used to it, so cut as deep as you want.

Darling, show me all your scars.

Whirls of smoke have sidled our brains
Leaving emptiness
Nights of withering inconsequence
Tinted with ghastly strokes of melancholy wit
As we grasp for more, addicted
Believers in merriment, but to no end

Fooled. The past has gone
Ah! But we are stuck, bitter nostalgics
Laughing at the times past, when we strove
Happy, for entertainment,
And stumbled'pon narcotics
I feel I have seen the failures in our ways

We've no love like we did once
But you each remain
Staunch defenders, heads spinning  
Single minded in your quest
Sober you are morose, reticent
But what merriment is brought?

Why did I take this rending smoke?
For these tired looks, into nothingness
As we recede into bubbles of self-indulgence?
We disconnect, and throw away all reciprocity
As weeds paucity causes faces to turn yonder
Or to themselves in sadness.

Is it that we are dying?
Or will be be forever stuck, in this eternal stupor?

What can stir us from these technological wonders
That light our faces in our self-absorbed, transfixed stares?
With comfort paramount, and misery found
In repressed echoings of a warmer, better place, away
From the throes of competition fought with tooth and claw
For meaningless aspects

Far from the yelps of laughter
The endless, choked machinations
The giggles and dreams of helpless schoolboys
They are only found to us when **** is plentiful
Those days have receded, like us
Away from our sight and our thoughts

We don’t embrace the life we give eachother in company
As we could, no,
Stinginess and selfishness are first
We don’t create a sound
As much as we engulf others
In our stream of subtle consciousness
Is this what you wish for?
A world of these faces staring, cold, tired
Is this what you think of?
When you dream of some stoner’s Utopia?

Or does malice engulf us too much to look upon ourselves as we do others
With phased memories that act as barriers to progression
And our life.                                                            ­                                         My friend
Your flat face may turn from this to silent, personal mutterings
Of cursed levity
As you are cursed with a ghostly heart.
You should not utter a word of revile
Or turn yourself up in sneers

Trust in what I tell, with honest roused from my soul
And do not take it in passing
Like you so turgidly and heedlessly do all things
Crying hope shattered in these passing moments
With evil beyond compare,
Incarnate in your expression,

Do not, my friend
Look upon me with the icy malice of derisiveness
Nor with the shallow, empty eyes of hedonistic senselessness
No, brother, instead realize
With momentary individualism, the gravity, at least to me
Of these words. I speak morbid
Of my, our humanity, in our restless silence
And our uttered oaths and in our artifice of the tongue
And in all things that shiver my blood to even think of

If it is so that our acquaintance is founded on a passionate whim
On a fairy’s wing, on the smothered apparition of a dream
And not grounded in earthly brotherhood,
Reposed of efforts of the mind
Then this is the end for us, brother
For I will no longer cut my heart across this herb, turncoat
As you have, in its infirmity
And cold infer’nality

I saw you on the stage today
covering your *******.
You looked like me in some sad way,
bruised white thighs and bony chest.
I saw you on the stage today;
my belly filled with dread:
You looked like me, but gimmicky
and grimly oversexed.

Great hawk enshrouds tiny ring;
swallowing silence in the reflection of spring;
Your shadow bemoans my gentle home;
where wax wings and iron legs of sternness roam.
Between shattered glass and petal's dance
whose schadenfreude--makes you sound like an ***?
Oh, what a ******* intellectual chore
when even poetry doesn't make sense anymore.