Dehydrated by an empty canteen,
I can hear the drops at the bottom
but can’t seem to shake them out,
and my tongue is getting so dry,
crackled like a gunslinger’s boot.

The sun is torture, and it’s here to stay,
but what about you, are you staying too?

Lick my lips and it all but kills,
so weak in these times of despair;
my lungs need your damp air
and like a fish, like a fish
I’ve become addicted
to your sweet liquid.

Need to drink you in,
have to breathe you in,
and forget to exhale,
and you’ll drink me in,
quench our thirst,
inhale our scent;
like cool cement
we are content
to be addicted
to our liquids.

Want to bathe in our thick waters;
encase our lungs in an aquarium
with a castle made of sand,
and poison the other creatures
so we can swim in peace.

Overwhelm the tank,
all that we can take,
‘til parallels begin to shake
and our surreal liquids
are their own **** sea,
and let us float, and let us be,

and once we’re finally down,
let us drown.

tears infect her eyes as she hears his car
pull up in the drive she knows he isn’t far
lights stroke the wall he’s returned from the bar
and white heat soothes the anticipated scar

drunk again he stumbles through the door
he smells of rage and his words are a slur
fists are balled up and he’s hungry for more
violent bursts delivered to a lying *****

lips quiver to be silenced further she is unable
she screams as she slams the glass onto the table
it shatters like her spirit she is mentally unstable
tonight is different she will be the one to disable

even though it was inevitable his eyes open wide
as she leaves her shell she will no longer have to hide
she reaches under the pillow and lets her hand slide
until she finds the pistol and god knows she has tried

but she already knew the attempts were no use
should have walked out long before the abuse
moved on to a better life away from this recluse
she knows this escape he will never refuse

deep down she accepts it’s either her or the other
to fix this snapped wire when he will never bother
too many nights spent in tears there will not be another
so with a grin she shoots down her daughter’s father...

Isolated in the shadows
kept away in storage
above his head.

Directed downtown
where the strangers
tended to hide.

Accompanied with
a pack of matches
and a money jar.

The jar was empty,
as was her stride;
a hollow center.

Nobody noticed,
save for the night ice
bullying her raw.

Tried to keep warm
by a cheap timid flame
ablaze in delusion.

Hallucinations kept
her sanity at bay
until the final fade.

The next morning
the matches were gone,
and so was her mind.

Body frozen stiff,
she chose to remain
in those lovely flames.

dystopia, where are your welcome bells?
utopia—must have missed the exit.
oh *****, I’ll gladly breathe your scent
if you’ll calm this paranoid cursive.

drag me from this bush
and introduce me to a forest
to claim my own.

skipped the chalk
of enlightenment,
and landed on a crack
and sprained my ankle.

head beating like a popcorn machine,
membrane popping in the sun,
sweat pours through ****** doors,
drenches my senses in gasoline
while a mosquito strikes the match.

pupils flawed by nails clawed,
bloodied sockets gouged
to forget to remember
and to remember to forget,

to stop thinking about life
after it’s all over,
and when that will be,
just let it be,
you and me?
relieved free?
maybe …

… and maybe flesh will sizzle to the bone,
maybe I’ll scream and moan,
and pound my fists into my skull.

hamburger raw,
soon to unthaw
in the flames
driving sanity
insane.

posture with the shakes,
productively stressed and
destructively depressed,
I just want to shed my clothes
and drain my lungs into the moon,
like a wolf without reason,
without a single concern
except for me and the moon;

the moon and I.

Pencil shavings spilled in the drawer,
layering over my cerebrum cortex,
like fallout that fell out from my sleeve,
shaken down with me to the ground,
but bound never to leave.

Despite all this,
the pencil tip still snaps
whenever it feels my pain,
regardless if it’s invented or installed.

A thousand pencils broken in my grasp,
yet no words ever seem to last;
rhetorical questions and questionable rhetorics
jabbing my eye as if I’ve already worn it,
but the fabric feels more new to me
than the first day I bought it,

and I can’t remember
what I did with the receipt;
think I might’ve lost it in the gutter
with the other organisms
that were no better;

but maybe, if you would let it,
I could try my luck with some store credit.

United, a day feels like a second, at most;
apart, a day feels like a year, at least;
and in my thoughts you’re like an eon in rewind,
memories, past and future, lived and invented,
slow me down and speed me up,
blood pumped in a plastic cup
fed to you through a solid tube.

So anxious in these dark times
as our internal instincts take over
and rule the peasants out on the street,
I am the king and you are the queen,
and these ants are the jester in our court,
so make us laugh, funny man,
yeah, you make us laugh.

Clouds blind the sun,
shielding what we’ve done
and will undoubtedly do again
whenever the chance arises;
fog banks keeping us safe
as we shed our clothes,
and I kiss your nose,
and continue on below,
an adventure we both know;
always much more to learn
as another day turns
and our craving returns;
we feed on knowledge
and warmth sheltering us
from this starvation
of each other’s salvation;
such wicked dehydration
eternally quenched by
mutual infatuation.