perpetually human,
romanticizing the madness
of a world that's come undone.
oil paintings of the sea
hang upon the walls of our minds
and we marvel at the sorrow
mimicking beautiful colors.

cryptic fingers stroke our egos
and tell us that we will persevere,
that we are the ******
of evolutionary prose.
lunar rays beam down on us,
shrouding us in a gentle glow
and we almost believe
that we could be infinite.

it's too late to fret
about decisions made
and ties cut, past tense.
it's hard to see it
without the glaring minutiae
of my demise.
I'm scanning the walls
for a change of subject-
Polaroids and butterfly carcasses,
city skyline sketches
and old cigarette advertisements
in gilt gold frames;
satisfy yourself.

my mind is saturated
with degenerate cogitation-
a stew of pantheons
and painstaking nihilism.
my bones are brittle
and begging to break
and my eyes are growing heavy,
with the weight of it all.

but I've an inclination towards
laurels and violet,
celandine and foxglove;

the wildflowers you plucked
in the sunlight of our summers.

Ophelia, Ophelia,
voracious daydreamer,
how dare you
upset this delicate orbit.
your hands were the kiln
for my sloppy and misshapen mind,
but that was nothing,
relatively, compared to the way
your eyes reflected lost souls.
my dear, it's a catastrophe.

now when the moon chides me,
and the stars reek of your smile,
I run my hands across
the fronts of empty dresses
that you wore years ago.
Ophelia, Ophelia,
I recall the way your eyes shone
like the peak of madness
and how your shoulder blades
touched in a subtly avian manner.

how simple are the remnants
of your existence, of your melancholia,
I cling to them like a ***** to touch-
and I know they will bring you no closer.
stale shadows haunt my lingering eyes;
where you should be standing
I see only lost time.

Ophelia, Ophelia,
smoldering star in my hindsight,
stone in my chest-
I'm sad to see you go.

fall asleep in a strange place,
the moths are quivering
beyond a thin membrane of glass,
mistaking fluorescent light
for that of the moon

devour the air of an unforeseen tragedy
unfolding within your aura,
lying silent beneath the sheets.
the sun will kiss you in the morning,
in mourning, as you clutch the banister
for a pseudo-sense of balance
as the rug is pulled from under your feet
and colors meld together
until you can't see straight
and your mind is dumb as hematite.

strangle the doubts bubbling up
inside your brain
and fill the void with lithium
and mindless chatter,
an ******* onslaught of stuttering normality.
you are Atlas
shedding the weight of the earth.

**** it, you may as well be
another faceless face in the sea of glimmering
white noise and chemical delirium.

give in, give up,
assimilate
with your filthy brethren..
living is so much easier
when your head is empty.

Slip down into the
temporal lobe of my
aching brain,
crescendo of *******
organic effects.

I draw the shades and
hold my head in pale winter hands,
allowing oceans of cerulean sorrow
to fill my lungs,
and you say what you will,
and you say that you're right,
and I fold
beneath the weight of
your shadow.

some days I can wake up
and understand why the world
does what it does.

today, the sun strikes chords
on my naked spine
and I roll over, retreat
beneath blankets and sheets.

I falter at the thought of
senseless murders
land mines and apartheid
babies starving
and mothers dying
in an epidemic of ungodly
proportions.

what's the use, anyways?
nobody's winning if
we're all losing.