Let us ignore
the wall
built in his honor

a looming crow's nest
black mangled stone
and onyx

Can we not forget
the bodies
the people lost after

the ground sank
deeper

Make my day!
Switch to another time/place to
once again be lost in the ether
     the cold and damp so sturdy in dark

But do not interrupt my impenetrable
bouncing because who are you
     (why are you is more apt a question)

You need not lose yourself in that
lightless chill to make your point, No,
     that is done

So please Friend, Fellow:
follow that tunnel to the end and at
the end you will come upon all that I
     hold dear and

as you exit the tunnel into day
you will be among the life-blood
     breathing in warmth and sunlight

I wanted to die

This house This place I can't

Tried to drown it smother suffocate deprive ******* life-force

I felt feel I belong to some Otherplace

I still feel; weeknight dim-dark

Streetlamps cities and my eyes swole shut a silly haze

No sugar or milk please thank you and could you

The owls sound off—or owl they all sound the same don't they

One too many passersby

Screams far away terrible

Wait for prescribed calm to take hold

Crows are not like owls are not like vultures

No thing is like any other thing

This I've come to sense

I can't shake this pain from my belly

I felt the presence of so many souls in this empty room.

I felt something brush against my neck. The brush was cold.

It smelled of rotted meat and toiled field-ground, sticky.

I broke the ice cold quiet with a question. Who are you.

Nothing. A creak, maybe, a disembodied patter of dust, set flight.

—

Someone hung from the rafters in the attic, I'd been told.

Only that wasn't true. They found him in the living room.

Apparently his eyes had popped out of his skull and lay on the carpet.

He'd been there for a while, air soaking in his last exhalations.

I was altogether surprised the ceiling fan had held the whole time.

—

I could touch it, slight sulphur-burn on nosehair and lung.

My arms bumped up, a flat-tire-road-like indicator of augury.

His voice was soft and weak, and he spoke only to me.

"My shoe's untied. Do you mind?" Hair once of my neck ran away.

Strike, redress—I heard his coughed cries from my dented boot-heels.

I received my weekly phone call from Lucifer.
He sounded ill, like his throat was full of
sandpaper. I told him he should probably
cut down on the talking and let himself
heal. He let me know how the kids are
doing, and I told him about the storm
that was passing through tonight and
how hopefully nothing would be damaged,
but he told me to accept this as fact.
There are some things one simply cannot
change, he says. Storms and violence.
For example.

What I would do to
feel the warmth of her skin, the
tremble of her touch.

'Binge and purge,' she says,
'It's a self-imposed poison:
hurts no one but me.'