if i could, i’d let it go -
long ago,
so you’d never know
how i felt
when you had me knelt
before the sinister
price i owe.

i gave you my world
with fists uncurled;
you gave me your spite
with a tongue that twirled
at the whims of a curse
so foul, it reeked
of a bane too vile,
and unreasonably
perverse.

can’t blame you, though,
the things i know
could rip the heart,
and have it show
the crimson shards of
memories jarred,
and a quiver so bare
from all the blows.  

perhaps,
there’s still a place for you
in my heart, that’s yet
to know what’s true;
but i cannot allow
my head to bow
to scorn, and spite,
to name a few…

the fishhook plunges -
catches a big one, adrift;
the tension scales up.

the banshee wails loud -
coddles the heart of darkness;
the echoes shiver.

i cried a river;
it wasn’t enough -
to whet my wits,
and call your bluff.

i tried a thing,
or two, in vain;
i could not escape
the house of pain.

i lied to you -
didn’t occur to me,
‘t’d be so hard
to agree to disagree.

i hide away
my bother; i coy -
hush the man, and
play the boy.

i ride along -
for i’ve lost my way;
bide my tongue…
do as you say.

i denied myself
the right to speak:
i waived my voice
to the cackle of
the creek.

death is humble;
death does not discriminate;
death is everything,
but life.

i saw a half-dead man
at the butcher shop;
he ordered half a kilo chicken,
with half a voice;
his eyes, bloodshot,
sliced open like
the chicken’s clucking throat,  
and surveyed the butcher’s knife
for traces of humanity:
i don’t presume he found any.

the butcher verbalized an
unofficial bill of transaction:
the man paid with a 100,
and a 50 -
he was offered a 20 in return
by the butcher, who pressed
a ****** fingerprint on the note,
at the denomination.

the man reached for it…
but retracted halfway,
and said,
‘keep the change’.

sticking to my guns,
i never realized that
they’re pointing at me.