There was a black child
stumbling along the deserted road,
heading in my direction,
although I doubt he even knew.

It was the first person I’d seen
in well over a week, at least;
even if he was not the soul
I forever seek, I gladly accepted
his withered embrace.

He looked into my eyes,
and I looked into his.

There was something lost in them.

“Help me,” the boy croaked,
and passed out in my arms.
I cradled him like he was my own,
and in my mind, he was.

I built a fire and laid him on a blanket
that I previously found
in a destroyed supermarket,
inspecting the affecting effects
of total annihilation.

He was more bones than skin;
most of his teeth missing
from tar bled gums,
and his stomach was bruised
from God knows what.

I wondered where his parents were,
and if he even knew himself.

Suddenly my mind
was filled with a flash of flesh
grilling against more flesh,
where anxious fingers dug in.

Tears met as unwanted
satisfaction struck
with remorse,
and thoughts
of a better time.

These visions are something
I will never get used to.

In the morning the boy was dead.

I never even knew his name,
but it didn’t stop me
from telling him mine,
all the same.

I find myself under God’s magnifying glass,
sitting on a log that belongs to the dead,
scribbling words in endangered trees
just to grasp my own spiraling sanity.

Beard so thick I cannot help but scratch,
and hair so long it’s edited my shadow.
You wouldn’t recognize me unless
you were looking in my eyes.

I wonder if I will recognize you
whenever we finally meet again.
I used to study each corpse I passed,
making sure it wasn’t you,
but then stopped when I realized
if you were dead, then I would be too.
So instead I think about the ways
you must have changed
over time, in this world of ours,
this land of the unplanned.

I imagine your skin is brown,
hair going passed your waist,
lips chapped and awaiting my own
to get them wet again.

I move my feet in the dirt
under this log;
a daydream of a distant cloud
that we share our sight on,
sky splotches slowly
guiding us back together.

Have you changed like the rest?
Have you killed for survival?
Have you cried until your stomach
started to hurt?

What do you eat?

What do you think about
to sooth you into sleep at night?

Do you think these same thoughts
when you think of me?

Do you think of me?

I think of you.

I think of the credits
at the end of a movie,
from when movies existed,
and how sometimes
there would be extra scenes
once the words were finished
rolling up that silver screen,
and it gave you a sense of relief
that just because something’s implied,
it doesn’t mean it is the end.

Sometimes things are just given
extra film time.

Another day’s sun
weighing us down;
an exquisite appeal,
sleepy and more real
than the days spent
doing anything but.

A dusk we trust,
tuning common love rust;
a reversal of iron and alloys
corroding,
as such things are wont to do,
from time to time,
through rhyme and rhyme.

Hard hours bled on the clock
for the payoff at the end;
a check stub spun as a rerun,
adding to numbers
we can no longer count to.

Fingers bled and rough
as our nerves are tough;
beaten yet not defeated;

a massage of purposed hands
can cure even a dead man.

A reminder at the bottom
of the porch steps,
where hair rests against
a perspired chest;

caresses restless
within autumn whispers;

it’s the good life.

Reliance on silence;
our day went just fine,
now that the sun is down,
and you are around,
and everything is in
its right place
again—
and evermore.

It’s the good life,
the one on porch steps
painted by imprints
of time;

a scrapbook full
of memories
yet to occur;

the only life
that doesn’t seem forced
to call a life.

Euphoria is a drug we know well
A short lasting high
But the greatest of them all
A quick fix here and there
Will never suffice
Nor will the whole supply
But it gets us through the day

Euphoria in our veins
Heated from the inside
Weak and stronger than ever
Grips tighten as souls enlighten
For the fifth or sixth time
Or some other number
We've lost count
We can't count
What are numbers?
Mathematics are of no concern
To a couple addicts

My euphoria
Stay with me
Bring me home
Sail me away
Euphoria

Fog in my head
Swimming like clouds
Nothing is wrong
When we're this high

So stay close
For a little while longer
Sweet euphoria

You'll ruin us all

Eyes were like the difference
that makes the surface and bottom
of an ocean without ships.
The fog too immense
for normal aquatic life,
but I still sank
all the same.

The water felt like solids;
green murky depths
that seemed to be
leaking from my own ears,
creating this vast sea
single-handedly.

Dragged down by chains,
hooks inserted into flesh,
like a fish without hope,
a limbo lacking doubt,
taking me along despair’s
graphic scenery route,

phantasmagorically correct
and fantastically imperfect
was the chimerical activity
that surrounded me,
as I refused to hold my breath;
and in its thickest cloud,
I fulfilled a destiny
bound for death.

another one died
over the weekend,
this one a black
who dressed like
he was going
places;

he did not go any place,
except the only place
that we all wish
to go,

some day.

they found him
in his house;
he was already gone.

what had happened
was not revealed,
although that did not
prevent others
from playing
detective;

whether they earned
their paycheck
has yet to be
determined.

I hope they don’t
get a dime.

the details may have changed
as the rumors continued
to spread,

but it did not change
the fact
that he was still
dead,

and always would be.

the kid with purple shoes
died last year,
over the weekend.

they announced it
the following morning
at school,
where everyone
was dreading
the day
ahead,

and dreaming
about the days
after.

he’d parked his car
on the tracks
at a crossing
of life and death,
and waited.

tears drugged his mind;
vision gone blurry,
peripherals
narrowing
toward the lights
ahead,
until they were
too close
for him
to drive
away.

there was a moment of
silence
in the room,
and then soon
talking resumed,
and no one
mentioned him
again.

that night I saw him
in a dream,
still wearing
those purple shoes;
he told me to tell
his mother
he loved her,
then turned around
and walked down
the train tracks
until consumed
by the darkness
that consumes
us all.

I didn’t need to tell her,
because she already
knew,

and so did he.