Run, carousel horse, run.
Try to understand the circles you’ve spun.

Staked and anchored to docile motion.
Acting out this ordered commotion.

The wooden platform on which you stand.
Turns to the song of repetition and demand.

Bright flashing lights and epileptic episodes.
Rusted machinery breathing out chemical corrode.

Dressed in painted costumes of false grandeur.
A perverse imitation of true splendor.

Children come to watch you prance.
They scream and order that you dance.

They yank on the reigns with savage cheer.
They poke and **** and hiss in your ear.

You’re nailed upon this dizzy ride.
Built from material and empty pride.

You live in a swirl of regret.
Time comes, it goes, then, you forget.

You’re an instrument of attraction.
Something you don’t feel even a fraction.

But, like clockwork you whistle a tune.
Of smiles and laughter and undercurrents of doom.

Run, carousel horse, run.
Try to undo the damage you’ve done.

His dilated pupils
wide and dark as they were
brought to mind black holes.
Their pull was irresistible
its gravity already
enveloping my mass.
Leaning forward as if
to add me to him
I cautiously peered
over the lip in his eyelids
to the tunnels of a man-made abyss.
For a minute I stared
legs dangling, fingers tangling
the sheets on his bed
thinking about choices and paths
and set destinations.

A line of white sand points at me.
Arranged just so upon the glass shelf.
I roll and unroll the twenty
into then out of a tube absently;
contemplating the barrier I knew
would shatter into nothingness
if the sand was inhaled backwards
like it could rewind time.
But I wanted black holes
in my eyes to explore
the vastness of it all.

Time rewinds, short circuits, and I’m here
in the cutting clarity of awake.
It feels good.
A lightning storm of sparks
crackling against my neurons.
It feels real good.

Licking my finger I trap the
white substance between
the ridges on my fingerprint
and scrub at my gums
enjoying this new-found better.

Throughout the night I
gouge tally marks of coke
into the walls of my nostril
and douse my liver
with shots of Tequila
getting increasingly more lost
in the eyes of my reflection.