Dirt from under the tire swing caked into my fingernails;
so raw, they’re beginning to hurt like hell,
layers crusted upon layers until they’re busted.
You can smell the smell and I can tell
you’re disgusted.

You shoot me down
with that knowing tone,
as if you’re too good,
as if I’m just ****
with ***** fingernails,
with that *** that shakes in your stride
as you walk away from me,
as you shoot me down.

I’ll shoot you down.

You leave me trembling
in my wake,
in my sleep,
as I shake,
as I weep.

Soon you will tremble,
and I will win,
and after you’ve realized
why we’re perfect,
you will also win.
.
We will tremble.
We will win.
We will love.

Perfume savored,
I return to my sanctuary,
my four walls;
walls stripped of character,
walls strangling my mind,
a mind running out of time,

and the cellar door
leading to my dirt floor,
where I can collapse
on my knees
and scream pretty please,
and pound my fists
into my skull
until I bleed
enough sin to succeed
in my goal of filling
a paradoxical hole
eating my stomach
to shriveled bits.

Crimson tears forming puddles
to drown my fears of failure,
I continue to formulate your ideal man,
so you will be my ideal girl,
and together we shall rule the world.

I pry at magazines with cutout eyes,
I dine with your hologram,
but it’s never the same.
I need the real thing,
I need you here,
underneath me,
on my dirt floor,
where you are mine,
evermore.

When I am through,
flowers will grow differently,
and the moon’s glow
will never glow quite right again.

Music will sound completely new,
histories forever tainted,
our love will stay true.

When I am finished,
nothing will ever be the same.
They will say nasty little things
that you’ll never hear.

They will say I’m crazy,
and they’re right:

I am.

I am insane, but at least I know
I am the rain and I am the snow,
I am the cloud destined to guard you
until the sky falls down.

I am the hand that comforts,
the lips sewn into your own,
the bleeding heart dying
beside your bleeding heart.

I am the creator,
and you are my prize.

Claim thee I shall.

My fingers bury themselves
in my cellar floor,
as I try to grasp
how to make you happy,
how to please you,
how to complete you,
how to have you,
got to have you,
need to have you.

Must have you.

Fingers so *****, it’s sickening.
Maybe one day I’ll cut them.
Maybe one day, a lot of things will happen.
When I’m finished with my project,
maybe that day will come.
When I’m done building your present,
maybe you will have me.

When I’ve built your man,
maybe I’ll build you.

With a toolkit like mine,
there are no exceptions.
I can reject your rejections,
and accept my paradise.

Madman’s fingernails
claiming handfuls of hair,
so stressed, so pressed,
trembling on my workbench,
striving to at last add
the finishing touches
on our present,

the one I’ve built
just for you;

my magnum opus.

I hope you like it.

Night air, so tranquil,
accompanied by you and me,
and an ever gentle breeze
soothing our decree.

Words so soft,
spoken like raindrops
making love to a puddle;
majestic discretion revealed
to the only two willing souls
savoring the sky.

Nineteen hours away,
you still manage to sink
into my welcomed chest
as our synched eyes caress
a harvest moon at its finest,

the royal glow ascertaining
a profound truth heavier than
the radiant Venus hanging below
on its translucent string,
swinging with the stars,
swinging in our arms,
in our hearts;
evermore.

Phone call notification;
monotone robot
delivering its message:

your book is now available to pick up;
report to the library at once,
lest your order be returned,
come alone, but bring your phone,
never fear, I’ll meet you there,
as along as the machines inside
continue to ride,
so will we.

A chance of escape
via a rare break
in a wall trapping us all
in our own separate rooms,
offering opportunity
away from private tombs,
and to each other,
to which there is no better.

Once given word of flight
I rush through mountains
just in time to arrive at your side
through the front doors
of our utopic pharmacy
in which we’re prescribed
spiritual medication
to relieve distress caused by
perpetual determination,
the pavilion where we practice
mental meditation,
forever joined
by reciprocal warmth
and whispered kisses.

Frantic fingers traveling
at the pace of haste as we taste
all that we can in the given span
we’re allowed for the moment:

the present escape formula
we’ve used and abused
will only last temporarily,
but it is enough to keep blood
flowing through our veins,
just the cathartic saunter
required to remain sane.

I can’t decide whether
I love you more than I hate you
or if I hate you more than I love you.

I don’t know if I should kiss
your sweet salted lips,
or strangle away frustration;

with a simple stroke of my hand
I can deliver you to bliss,
or deliver you to the clouds.

I can make or break
this entire glacier
in just a few words,
melt away our sorrow,
or freeze our guilt.

Now if only I could
make or break my mind,
then I could finally put an end
to this fatigued suicide.

there is a man,
was never much for plans,
just wants to fight and ****
and drink and cuss
and one day he believes
he’ll sneak downtown
on this bus
he’s been watching
for quite a while,
and he’ll happily go
wherever it goes
just as long as no one knows
his name, he thinks
he’ll finally be sane.

*

brain relinquished
of all thought,
save for the liquor
he bought
at every truck stop
they stopped at
as the bus filled up
on gas
and the passengers
filled up on candy,
and they didn’t
ask questions,
they did not
judge him,
they left him
completely alone,
and he was perfectly happy
to be going nowhere
as long as it wasn’t
the same nowhere
as before,
and the man,
he couldn’t ask for more,
no, he could not
ask for more,
he did not want any
more.

Fingers caressing delicate piano keys
along the softness of your spine,
arm wrapping around what is mine
and pulling you closer to what is yours.

Your head resting against my chest,
eyelids heavy with utmost content
as outside waves rebel on the shore.

I kiss the top of your tired head,
wild hair tickling my lips
as we trace sleepy circles along warm skin.

The night comes to a rest
and we are too exhausted to protest,
caught in the peaceful silhouette
of a moon yawning its melody.

Our embrace intensifies
as two fated raindrops saturate
into the same leaf.

Maybe we’re all better off dead,
I ponder, as the thoughts replay
again and again throughout my head.

And when your ponderings can’t focus
long enough to match with the last,
you have to wonder if perhaps
you’re already completely ******.

****** of thought,
****** of fresh ideas,
****** of it all.

So **** it all.

— the motto of a thousand deluded slugs,
bugs lathered in slime; thoroughly spattered
with imbalanced chemicals of an imagined time,
                                    
                      ­             and I couldn’t agree more.

Head pounding
at the insensible drum roll
of the closing in
overwhelming mass
of dull hysterics;
the ever present drone …
                      I can hear it …
                                 I can’t bear it …

destroying me from the inside out
                     until I
            implode
                                      a sickness
infecting all pure stars reflecting
across a lake
contaminated
by a thick oil
lucidly pleasing the spoiled,

and      I’m         thrown
          right in the
              center
sinking
            at
                a­ slow
                          melancholic pace,

like quicksand you’ll never understand,
a liquid so intolerably bland,
I’ll be relieved when my lungs finally
                                                         ­    collapse
to this long awaited lapse
of closure.

Do not try to grab my hand.
I wouldn’t even know what to do
with dry land if I had it.
Let me dissolve with the fallen;
I’m already deeper in
than I am out, anyway.

My interest has long since faded.
Can’t relocate purpose for the Word,
for I am ever bored, and you can feel
rest assured there is nothing more.

No ingenious plan for escape.
No story-arch that hasn’t already been repeated.
No conclusion that I can’t predict.
No two-faced intentions that won’t contradict
all the reasons I used to enjoy those creative seasons,

and I can feel the decomposing treason
chilling my heart to its core,
like a rancid breeze stirred just for me.

Left with no purpose, no drive;
on the inside, I’m not even alive.