The urge to create, to write
to paint to compose
is only a disillusioned
form of madness.

But great art can come
of madness, and
sorrow can birth
extraordinary genius,
so embrace your
defects and fault lines,
for normality
is a fate
worse than death.

six deadbolts
and a loaded gun
tucked beneath your
pillow, what are you
waiting for love?
is it the rapists or
the sociopaths or
the criminally insane
come to shatter your
suburban dream?

they may come for you,
or maybe you are
one of them.

it doesn't really matter
anyways, you'll still
rise when you rise,
laugh when you can
and never, ever cry-
that would make you
human. you'll still
be seeking answers
if you're lucky and
pretending to know
what love is
in a dark, dark place.

everything will go to ****
on its own. be wary
not of the sociopaths
but the preachers
of god, of love, of war,

be wary of
your own mind.

lonely lonely,
you leave me so,
inside out watching
the stars burn out
in an emptying
of cosmic sorrow..

and tomorrow I know
the sun will smile at me
your kisses will taste
like honey and
the birds will romance me
with slaughtered butterflies
and sweet lamentation.

But today,
I've been tuning radio static
to white noise and
flashes of Chopin,
trying to recreate a feeling
from shadows and memory.

don't leave me lonely,
dear, make love to
me in the hypnagogic
stare of the rising sun.
play me soft as buttercups
and foxgloves;
piannissimo,
gentle as death's
watchful eye.

time is an hourglass
glued to the table,
and the world outside
has gone quite mad,
my dear.

rats in the gutters
and a soundtrack of
nine millimeters
resounding through
the air; and didn't i tell you
life was beautiful?

the shooting stars now,
they look a lot like bombs
as they make their way
to the shrieking silence
of dry land.

the golden babies laugh
their golden laugh
as a million more are lost
or left for dead in the
alleys of my mind
and didn't I tell you
this would all be so very
lovely?

don't fret now, baby,
the skies will soon catch fire
and the madhouse
will bloom
and thrive.

I was going to write you something
that embodied our love, some
infinitesimal prose about
your name click-clacking off of
my tongue or your eyes
when you're smiling.

I was going to answer all of
the questions that are silently ticking
inside your mind and scrawl
perfect prepositions across the page
so that your hands might
falter as they traced the corners.

I wanted to tell you about
the tug of your presence or
the way that your fingerprints
feel against mine,

but I'm writing this instead,
listing off the beauty that I feel
seeping into my skin and
it doesn't really make sense
but that's just the way it falls
onto the paper, bit by bit.
sad things, serenade me.

I'm only romanticizing
the madness of it all.
I never asked to be
a ******* poet.

how strange; you leave me
hanging on to your words
like parachutes, a smile
dancing across my gratuitous
face; appalachian eyes
the color of melancholy
and mouth of a sailor.

you said, I never thought
that I would miss you
quite this much.
...and my very heart
swooned at the idea of
you, so very far away,
so close to me.

come home to me,
darling, I want to tell you
how much I've missed you.

there are these things like summertime
sadness and frosty windows,
moth wings and the cosmos
and goose flesh and miniature houses
with miniature chairs and

hourglasses and sun-soaked
sheets in the morning and your lips
against mine, hollow bones
and thin blue veins and the
delicacy of synapses and nerves,
reoccurring thoughts and images;
my intimacy with them is
alarmingly sensual;
like the honeysuckle curve
of a bare shoulder,

shadows of hands on walls
and the nectar of your kiss.
things that haunt me and
dance before me,
the epitome
of grace.