she casts her pencil like a wand as magic soaks into the page her flannel cascades around her work, shielding it from curious eyes she tilts her head to listen to the lecture, but her heart is elsewhere running through castles and stumbling through candle lit streets colors tangle to mirror the expanse of her dreams she shares her soul with every meticulous stroke each face blessed by her style but never the same when she designs she never aims for perfection for she knows perfect is just a fancy way of saying flawed she erases and redraws as if her art could never satisfy her desires it can always be better but it is never good enough if only she knew I meant it when I told her I loved her drawing her art speaks to me like Mona Lisa never could

The cracked and umber, cyan, lichened bark,
its wintry deprivation echoes stark
impoverishment: the denizens live their
neglected, leafless lives, in Highgate Park.

The winter icy earth’s, anaemic fare,
enough for hungry birds and squirrels, there
is insufficient food for bigger beasts,
who huddle, famished, in the frosty air.

A grassland’s faded, green, uncut, now greets
all walkers down its dwindled concrete streets,
replacement for old honeyed flags: new flaws
displacing golden pathways, lined with seats.

The squirrel, hungry in the cold still gnaws
her nuts: she holds the winter food in claws,
and quickly looks for danger, then a pause,
and runs, avoiding snapping canine jaws

Love bade me 'trust in my word'
'Come away with me to a deserted place-
and I will speak to your heart'.

Echos from the distant past
Hide out in dusty stations
Waiting for the Midnight train to Georgia.

Feet ******* with burning cramps
Stumble through the buttercups
That always used to turn chins yellow.

But my-oh-my there’s cherry pie
Baking in the oven
That used to cook on Douglas Street.

Good grief never did exist,
I’m sorry Charlie Brown-
You need to find a new phrase.

The Ferris wheel goes up and down
Without a sound except for all
The children screaming as they fall.

Why did my Daddy **** his hand off of my leg
When Mom walked past the bedroom door.
Why can’t I manage to forget

That I have nothing to remember.
            ljm

The walls breathe in static—
a hum, a crackle, a whisper of wires
pulling tight around my throat.
Every sound a gunshot.
Every shadow a knife.
The milk spills,
a galaxy spreading across the floor,
an apocalypse in white.

Outside, the neon world churns,
spitting teeth, shrapnel dreams.
Everything slick, wet, sharp.
The streets groan,
their intestines spilling out
in the form of cracked asphalt and broken glass.
I can’t leave;
I won’t.

Inside, the air thickens,
a syrup of dread.
Home is a box,
four corners dripping in soft rot.
I sleep under the table
because the bed is too open,
the ceiling too close.

An old television flickers in the corner—
faces in grayscale,
lips moving with no sound.
I try to pull their words apart,
but they squirm like worms.

Every second fractures,
splitting into shards.
Each shard digs in deep—
a hiccup, a phone ringing,
a window slammed shut
by the hands of ghosts.

I try to glue myself together
with the thought of silence.
But silence is a gun too,
a loaded chamber waiting to click.

The wolves circle out there—
dressed as mailmen, as friends,
as my own reflection.
I clutch the blanket,
a shroud, a shield,
a joke.

Safe.
Safe?
Safety is a story they sell in pills,
in pamphlets, in soft voices
that drip honey and venom.
But the wolves are here.
The wolves are me.
The wolves are you.