some strange dark corner of the earth
where the chemicals run high
and everyone hangs low
from the gallows,
their feet touching the ground.
all these people around me
their whispers and muffled coughs
the rich music resounding
through this fluorescent cave.
I am alone.
I don't want to be here,
It'd be better to be everywhere;
you could slice me up and scatter me
wherever you walk.
I want to stay
and fight, and see stars
but I'd much rather be
dust in the wind.

everyone speaks in tongues
leaving traces of their sickness
in others' lungs.

and we're waking up
with bad dreams in our mouths.
tell me more about the monster
that hides inside your head.

don't you want to be alone again?
that night, the snow
when no one could name us;
sovereignty in its purest form.

now it's just glances, banter
across the water
a blur of other faces.

because everyone here is against us,
or for us, or whatever.
don't bring humanity into this.

(you are hand-made
derived from symphony halls,
guilt-wrung hands,
hard feelings, the light reflected
caught on the metal.

jesus, you're going to blind me.)

see that I was looking.
see that I'm still the same.

recognize that I'm getting worse every day.

the smell of burning tires
smoke ascending from the streets
someone call for help --
everyone's coughing.

they will forget soon enough.
what did they know to begin with?

look, I heard things too.
you don't have to smash your padlocks
we all have our secrets.

see yourself
looking down on them
through the upstairs window
once again.

see the shimmering fish
below, the fountain full of papers;
some wishes do not sink
but instead float on the surface.

then see how
you still are the same.
the walls move around you
in a microcosmic orbit.

look, look
you're never first.
they've locked you out of their heads.
you are the papers in the fountain.

all that remains, for you,
is a story you can tell yourself
when the murmurs get too low,
your very own wolf on the wall.

everyone has a name here.
but you must now forget that title;
leave yourself and lead yourself
into the darkness in the corner.

Oh God, oh God,
Oh Jesus Christ,
God ******* ******.

The child lifts his head and weeps.
He has just awoken
and his skin burns, burns
Holy hell, he's stretching out
Let's get a blanket, let's get a hammer
He won't stay still.

God, what a mess
Jesus in heaven, **** me
**** the inflammation and the scratching,
The fruit that is ripe
And that which is rotten
down to the pit.
**** it all.

Are you there, God?
It's me, the unbeliever.
I may have been a bit impertinent,
But Jesus ******* Christ,
if you could have seen him
You would forgive me in an instant.

But he stays under the stars.
He appears only to me
Like some kind of theophany, a dream;
You have not seen him,
And so I remain
in your divine eyes, a sinner
with the hands of a saint.

Strike me down.

it was coming,
arriving on a train --
some silent, mouthed anticipation
recalled to life,
finally.
soon the house had no walls;
we were living in huts made of twigs,
trying to kindle a small fire
in the snow.
surrounded by darkness
and the occasional passing car,
we leapt from star to star
in the cobalt haze of the night.
there,
a bright spot,
a sort of celestial fortuity.
all of the sudden I was not so alone.
I walked in your footsteps
on the path to your house.
knee deep in snow,
being careful not to stop moving,
but still wary to move at all.
I remember we were falling,
falling, falling down
(well, I was falling,
you were helping me up)
then running, running,
racing through the streets
to ensure our return
before anyone knew where we were,
or who we were.
I remember you taking my hand
which was wet with a layer of snow
and numb to the bone.
I couldn't feel yours at all.
maybe that was the idea.
there is always a guilt,
but it was mitigated here;
for one night
that terrible swelling in my throat
did not swallow me whole.
but you cannot open the floodgates
and expect to stay dry.
I am slowly learning why this is true.
I only hope that I will live to tell about it.

Six feet apart, feet wide apart
relentlessly checking the doorways.
I wished I was six feet under,
wished some seismic sea wave would arrive
and pull me asunder.
I locked myself in the third-floor bathroom
because I didn't want to wander the halls.
There are people stuck in these walls
and I hear them, I hear them, I hear them
       I hear them when I walk alone
  and they're all screaming
         for me to leave this place.
There are people stuck in my head
and I keep them there until I'm ready
to think about them,
       ready to write them down.
This is a warning.
    Do you see the red flashing lights?
      Are you looking at the black and gold stripes?
I was warned in a different way
and now I'm warning you not to stay
    here.
Some people are so naturally ordinary,
and others don't quite fit in place.
Parts of them do not align, so to speak,
They are never looking directly into your eyes
and you only smile a half-smile,
                       because you feel bad,
                          but not that bad.
Why are you still here?
Don't you have somewhere to be?
It's not worth it to meet
  just to see me curl myself in a ball again,
    make a home for myself inside my head
   putting up a picket fence there
          so the dogs don't come for me.
I admit that it's a juvenile fear.
But I promised myself I'd run away
when my fingernails started to rattle,
and I've kept my word.