I used to be trapped
in this little room.
There was no lock
chaining us to the bedpost;
just this surreal numbness
that prevented us from
ever getting too far
away.

You could open the door
and take a step out,
only to find yourself
entering the same room
in which you’d just
exited.

It was madness.
The walls were my enemy.
They planned to **** me.
I could hear them plotting
behind my back, as they
closed in on my deepest fears.
I knew I had to escape
before the cracks
on the ceiling
ate me alive.

On more than one occasion
I recall sitting out
on the windowsill
with the night air
taunting me to join it.
So tired, yet there was
never any sleep,
and when there was,
the dreams were never good.
And I know now, sitting here,
I would have joined the moon’s
convincing breeze
without hesitation,
if only our room hadn’t
been on the second floor
where I would have only
broken a leg, and felt
more pain.

But before we could relocate
to a higher surface,
I at last found my own
little light,

and you know, I guess that’s
pretty all right.

sinking in
an ocean of …
of everything

dark
gray, pixilated smudge
cigarette burns
on the movie screen

130 beats per minute
banging with fists
fists clenched
grasping
gasping

for
anything
other
than
this

but it’s
too
far
away

and I’m …
who the
hell knows

not here

and
maybe never
again.

Sponge eyes twisted in duration with the machines
installed six hundred feet under the Earth;
lips chapped and tongue unfulfilled,
a slight itch molesting my throat;
juice yearning, hibernation warning;
total shutdown following global release,
spasms on the floor along broken glass,
content with the shards scraping death
from behind my eyes
and flinging it in the pan
beside my feet.

Preach the way to live;
how much more should we give?

This sermon fed on lies will be behind your demise;
a loss to the reprise of fading disputes,
uniforms and suits dragging us away
from our dreamt pursuits.

Pulling up buried roots, yet still convert new recruits.
It makes sense naught, perhaps I’m dense,
or better yet, you simply recoil in defense
at the wrongs humans allow to commence,
but there’s a slip on your grip of suspense
for the boredom is so **** immense
and still in rolls the chunked cents
with our thoughts as expense.

Proclaiming yourself lyrical, it’s hysterical;
in truth, you’re nothing more than satirical
of an industrial percent you so vainly represent,
******* about those you resent with a dubbed accent;
you’re long past the extent of accepted discontent;
**** on your consent to understand torment.

Now dig deep into your thesaurus;
again, it’s time for that written chorus,
day through day saying the same old thing,
Benjamin controlling you by a string;
to the table nothing new you bring,
just over and over again ******* us
with your pseudo-cynical sting.

There is a path ahead;
detours include wrath and dread.

Grotesque silhouettes
inhaling dismal cigarettes,
hitching along as we try to stay strong;
only purpose: spinning good deeds wrong.

Like malicious spiders trapping us
within webs of oppressed depression,
with options of staying here or slaying fear.

Charge forward, calamity no longer sticks;
time to smash through these enclosing bricks.

Reach out; fingers spread,
nearing the yearned path ahead;
hollowness filling, an embrace willing
to revolve around multitasked moons,
clenching the omniscient strings
of an infinity vermillion balloons.

Fighting toward the destination awaiting,
draining poison from tumors complicating.

Light fall winds carry the deflated away,
leaving us to stay and sway under and over
clouds and seas, surrealistic palm trees.

Thoughts difficult to explain,
yet I’m ascertain of destiny at its finest;
so let mania relinquish,
and allow the folded to unfold.

Fables we’ve told,
soon to be a font enlarged
by reality’s ink;
an endless snapshot
captured by spirituality’s blink.

In my sleeping bag
drawn by a drowsy pencil
and a fragile grip, ******-esque slip;
paper wings blur together,
lines like stale rivers
converging into an ocean;
lids heavy, drool present,
in the spirit of creating
untitled Poetry all night,
but the ***’s worn off,
and now I am ready
to leap into that ocean.

Limbs stretched, vision ablaze;
home in the dust like a statue
idolized in the center of town
where all of the villagers
have turned to ash
on my behalf.

Leaving me to bathe
in the leftover turmoil
of yesteryear’s quarrel,
refusing to shut my eyes
and allowing their genocide
to penetrate any sanity
craven enough to flee.

Warrior scream in a world
where no one is around to hear,
climaxing until lungs explode,
discharging a cancerous mist
of the forlorn’s plague.

Pleading to the sun,
that ******* sun,
pleading to these spirits
******* with my head,
the ones surrounding me
like a city without tongues,
I can still hear their despair.

Pleading to God,
if He isn’t lost
like the rest;

pleading to whoever
still cares enough
to listen:

*Take me.

A whimper at her window,
but no face to be shown;
closet cast reminds her
there’s nowhere to go,
releasing a flash of indigo.

A scratch from underneath,
the cry of the beast;
screams from a demon silhouette,
agony from a possessed statuette,
thinking of anything to forget
the burning of the cigarette.

Wishing for a life
of vampires and werewolves,
she conspires a world
lacking ripped attires;
no more human monsters
and beauty inquires.

She dreams of painless entrails,
creating cognitive fairy tales
where she keeps her wishes
in a cracked plastic jar,
while Mommy has fun at the bar
and Daddy does things of the bizarre,
she wipes away tears from a burnt cigar.

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.

Left without reason,
caught in the breeze
penetrating me;
a season for treason
discussing
the inevitable concussion
of creative repercussion.

Big bad pig man,
same sad **** plan;
it's for the audience
(we like you!)
hence the distorted sense
of a reported defense
impaled and left stale
atop a graying fence.

Trash the artistry,
erase the registry;
no active hard drive necessary.

The creeps are a lie:
it's not fine to color
outside the lines.
Remain sane in that little brain
with that structured page
to sterilize natural rage;

copy and paste with haste
until the end,
because approval of a friend
and the applause
of a predetermined cause
is all that's needed
to feel like we've succeeded.

"Safety in warmth
above the floor indoors,
where outside the cold's too bold."

Forget this united mantra,
shred your clothes and dip your toes,
and join me as a contra.

Because obscure is the cure,
while ease has always been the disease.

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.

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.

was much like our first,
my arms reassuring
your every worry,
our lips locked,
welded and padlocked
with the steel
that heaven conceals
at the bottom of a pond
too perfect for those
lacking the Beyond.

My face pressed in your face,
it felt like an embrace
that’d fail to fade,
and years later we
find ourselves in
the same place,
on the last day on earth:
the finale of humanity;

and like our first day together,
we barely acknowledge
there are others around
anyway,

so when the sky comes
crashing down,
we won’t even notice
a difference
in temperature,

with our lips bound
to withstand the sound
of confinement,
and pulverize the lies
of denouement;

and when it is just us left
to waltz over the moon,
you’ll take my hand
and I’ll take yours,
and give those stars
infinite more
encores.

Like a string I strum
Like a melody you hum
Like a song sung by eternal wind
A breeze levitating our hair
Two traveling leaves aware
As they float on; entwined
Where it’s always Fall
Yet they never fall
Leaving behind twigs that crawl
In a bright, cement paved trail
Stomped in footsteps prevailed
They continue their journey
A current pushing forward
An infinite gust restored
A beautiful, vibrating cord
That we strum, and we hum
Tunes crafted from our soul
Symphonies orchestrated whole
Notes carried out on our guitar
Carved from the heart
Reminders of how far
These leaves have blown
How high theses wings have flown
Veins which pertain our strength
Arguments never fit to last
Refreshed by our tightened grasp
Returns a yearned relapse
We are they, and they are
Impenetrable leaves
Crumble they do not
A reliable, untieable knot

They sat on the stoop,
on the rooftop,
on the grass.
They watched,
they saw,
they turned away
in disgust
and disarray;
vowed never to see,
but to be.

Ideas sprayed on parchment:
plans for the future,
true ideals
indestructible,
fit to last.
It was their turn
to undo the past.

They would create change,
destroy order,
and recycle the entrails
into a revolution,
one that would have an outcome;
an outcome not of the worst
but of the best.
They’d pierce straight through
this vanilla-stained vest.

They looked in each others' eyes
and smiled at what they saw,
for within each pupil
glowed a fire;
a fire of the downfall
and revival
of this world
they've come to know
and hate.

They knew one day soon
their hatred would spin
and move in the other direction;
the direction of light,
of true happiness
and peace.
The soothing sparks
rocketing from their eyes
convinced them so.

They knew they would succeed,
unlike others who have tried,
they knew how to win,
knew not to try
but to do.
They would release
their envisioned paradise
from their grasp
and upon the oblivious.

But as they grew older
an event occurred
that would cause a change,
a change that would make sure
to reject any other,
a change that would be the annihilator
of their dystopic utopia.

A small occurrence,
unrecognizable,
a brick thrown
shatters through the window,
triggers a false realization.
The shards succumb them
into the seducing
sepulchral-inducing cage
that keeps them bookmarked
to the same opening page.

Vents crack,
in pours the fog.
The mist once loved,
now loathed,
seeps through the fracture,
smothers their hope,
breathes their air,
air they used to dream,
now nothing more than a theme.

Fear drags them down
like the others,
devours wonders of the unknown,
slashes at their flesh,
shrieks of monotone,
visions escape from the wound,
wounds of which sealed
with reminders of the failed,
never to be reopened,
their appetite remains forever lost.

Now they walk
back and forth,
forth and back,
hands in pockets,
shoulders shrugged.
What's the time?
They've lost track.
All watches are smashed,
big hand frozen on yesterday.

They are the lost,
previous dreams forgotten,
left in the rain,
drifted away
down the drain,
never to regain
their once beloved ambition.
Instead they gather
gritty ammunition
and float towards
certainty, the predictability
of a future that ceases in a puddle.
They are the lost.

Lightning flashes,
only it’s not from the sky,
it’s from the hands
that break your fall,
the hands you use to crawl;
I saw them in your grip,
cellular migraines
surrounding me in the pit,
flashing out of control
like a industrial seizure on a roll,
standing perfectly still,
row after mindless row
like a haven of brain-sizzled zombies
recording priceless moments
to enjoy at a later time,
contaminated by a screen
pixelating a musical dream,
and that’s exactly how I felt
in the center of the attraction,
cord after lyric after cord
ruined by modern distraction,
and despite the following talent
being the pretty reckless,
it was still pretty obvious
we’d remain being
the pretty restful.

There’s a moth in my room
Attracted to the only gleam
Of hope in sight
It has no other plans
Except to stay glued
To divergence

And when I flip the switch
It will once again be lost
In its own backwash
On the prowl
For that one speck
Of light
Off in the distance

Later when I am in bed
Trying to sleep
I will feel its feet
Perched on my neck
Restless wings at rest
Forever blinded by
What it cannot see

Neon signs came to replace the sun
last night, as the cars drove nowhere
and our minds drove somewhere;

the streetwalkers did not fail to appear
at the sound of change
splashing in a moving pocket;
***** like flowers in bloom,
we unearthed a dumpster rocket
and aimed for the moon,
prayed to land soon;

all the while aspiring with fire,
head tucked between thighs
as outside horns blared
to drown out practiced lies;

familiar smells like a gas cloud,
sensations of electric currents
sizzled fried brains on expired warrants;

so strong I could feel my nose hairs burn
while in revolt my stomach turned,

looking for someone, anyone
to blame,

while a million mourners yearned
for the same:

there was no one.

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.

The writer never strayed
from the same line
in his notebook,
yet the tip grew dull
and the page grew a hole
as deep as his desire
for satisfaction.

The lead bled red,
as did his tears
in his fit
of utter

madness;

he’d lost it.

A bang, a crash, get off your ***,
the Dead are here, for you, my dear,
they’ll steal your time and **** your mind,
tell you how to dress and transform you into the rest.

They are the Dead, but they’re very much ahead

with their gangs, their cults; it’s indeed your fault
that these songs are in my head, brought to you by the Dead.
Corpses lining up from all around, their Queen parading downtown;
appalled how mere strum of guitar free feeble minds to gain thus far.

They are the Dead—too late, you should have fled

into hiding, before it all came subsiding
into toxic debris, due to refusal to disagree,
like rats in the grinder, you can’t get much blinder
with your bigoted visions and hypocritical decisions.

They are the Dead, tyrants in need to shed

their preferences over you, reminding you whom to choose,
all this keeping quiet persuading my brain to riot,
difficult to resist anymore while you worship a *****;
turning the other way from the same old cliché.

They are the Dead, oh how I dread

what this world’s become, how we’ve succumbed
to shooting sprees, sugar music and reality TV;
we’re a lost cause, a wasteland glitch stuck on pause;
and tomorrow you can ensure they’ll start another war.

*They are the Dead, here to stay and to corrupt your head

Chest heated,
gravity defeated.

Lights are so bright,
different shades, all right.

In a linear pool
I always cough cool.

Lungs are so warm,
hooked in the swarm.

I roam this street
craving red meat.

I want to kiss you,
euphoria’s so blue,

despite a new world,
still need my girl.

Smile like mine,
dent that thin line.

Drift off to sleep,
never again weep.

Blood is so clear,
we have no fear.

Inhale our warmth,
this is rebirth.

Within I endure madness
while outside I lure sadness.

Feeling like a biblical man
on a quest for his own grail;

averse trials mentally fixated
on a mountain universally hated,

conjured by the monster’s plague
inhaling a cloud of enemies.

Battles of the paranoid schizoid
unleashed on common ground,

soaking in a dagger’s blood lust;
and at the finish line I do trust

comforted warmth will embrace
my exhausted thoughts at last,

and will grant them freedom
like the dying man’s wish.

Walkin, talkin,
blinking, thinking
robots, good thoughts,
futuristic loser characteristic,
hit me, bite me, be very frightening,
please lie, don't cry, **** you, just die,
stick the needle in your arm, lie down and crawl
into this funny room, the place you know to be your tomb,
empty bottles clash linoleum and ratter, sobriety no longer matters,
quickly running out of time, but no knowledge of those you left behind,
wife and kids think you’re not the same, makes you want to blow out your brain
when you see their sadness, so maybe you’ll finally hop aboard this twelve step madness.

Can’t recall the last night I slept
without awaking multiple times
under the serpent’s cataract eye,
mistaking a midnight whisper
caressing my defense systems
as the shiver-inducing slither
of a mercenary’s lucid blade.

Hours afterward, eyes stretched
in fear of invisible shadows,
as the sun rises to meet my gaze,
I can’t help but wonder
when the night will arrive
where imagination
isn’t the villain.

Intoxified,
out of my mind.

Paths intertwined,
running blind.

Straight ahead,
where fate bled

a new destiny,
for only you and me.

Your cosmic grace
reinforces our embrace,

as waves of affinity
guide us for infinity.

Spiraling beyond
any anomaly ever spawned.

Expediting faster,
smashing through disaster.

Dual impenetrable grips
fueling a paradisiacal eclipse.

We drift within the moons,
floating along vermillion balloons.

Impressions in the sand;
together, forever hand-in-hand.

Welcome to
             Dreamland,
where
            even
the windows
      are
inside out.

I see you there
across the way
with that
       hideous sneer,
and I won’t become
          aware
(until it’s too late)
  of this nightmare.

Too busy lost
in your form.
Seems unreal
but at the same time,
more real
than I’ll ever know.

Are you
      what I fear?
Are you
      an altered image?
                        or a naked truth?

a substitution issued
   by my
      subconscious?

or an unveiled vision
of what I’m too blind
                    to see?

Before I can give it
        anymore thought,
the words leave your
        edited lips
and pierce my chest
like a double-sided blade
of Loki’s caress.

Words escape me
as I gasp
           for breath,
a problem you don’t have
as you progress
           my death.

With that sneer,
                 you twist,
   molding a fracture
useless to fix.

And then eyes open,
I am awake,
infected by a cold sweat
and a contagious case
                      

                       of longing.

I swear you just winked
in your hospital bed
up in the moon’s eye,
where Poetry is dreamt,
like you’re having us all on
as you are wont to do
from time to time,
and all those other times
in between.

I return the wink
with the doc’s back
facing toward us
and we try to suppress
our giggles,
lest our cover be blown.

And once we are alone,
I bring out the wheelchair
and bribe our way
to an early checkout.

No one notices
because no one can,
as I push you out the doors
and into the backseat
of our getaway car,
climbing in beside you
and closing the door;
the car tearing off to raise hell,
with Nod behind the wheel,
the Narrator riding shotgun,
Tiny Dancer on the dashboard,
and a little piece of heaven
blaring out the speakers:

we’ve escaped.

Swiveling in my chair;
chivalry’s not so fair
when you aren’t here
to compare

the ducks in the pond,
where we used to ponder
temperatures on the other side,
and wonder

how much bread we needed,
and where they went in the winter
when wind was thick with frost;
how bitter

life seems now in my lazy chair,
lonesome feet limp on the ground,
with thoughts of your touch
spinning ‘round

my mind; consuming my time,
memories like scrapbooks
flipping from front to back,
with looks

that excite me years later,
as I dwell in my little chair
and you sleep under covers
we share

two thousand miles
away.

White dwarf in a garden of eden
strolls along multicolored streetlights,
nodding at the spectrum manifesto
as lullabies meet and senses heed
henceforth the eve of madrugada.

Expansion was to blame,
as was the thesis I forgot to write
but mailed anyway.

The stamp failed to stick,
as did our hate,
despite our tries.

We abandoned ourselves,
left to roam alone hand-in-hand,
rolling around our own private land;

regarding the brilliance
of the unwritten plan.

The sky held no surprise
as the other galaxies evolved;
imagined no second thoughts
when we chose to dissolve.

There’s never enough time (yet we’re counting cracks)
There’s never an honest line (spat through yellow teeth)
There’s never a clever rhyme (though we’re all geniuses)

Sometimes we’re sick of it (that is, when we think of it)
Balled up fists (nostrils inflamed by ****)
Plug me in to your escape
Charge this battery so it’s fit to last
Inject me with a reality where this is no past

A blank page, for a dead pen
A pretty cover (illustrated by a pretty color)
Flip fast; ignore the digits
Until, alas, we’ve reached the end

(but how did it start?)

Details forgotten; ****** lacking purpose
And we’re left with a spine that snaps
Decayed oak fluttering to linoleum
Bleeding dry ink (cannot refill)
Consumed by second thoughts

(but was there a first?)

Distorted lips agape
(cannot tell
top(?)
from    
bottom(?))

Wrinkles circling bloodshot eyes

(parentheses for what others see and others don’t)

And then we fade away
Drowned in transgressing whiteout

(but where is our epilogue?)

[and therefore, our sequel?]

I refuse to wipe the tears from my eyes
after crying for fifteen minutes straight,

letting the salt dissolve into my cheeks
as a reminder for the snow outside.

I think I could cry like this forever
and never lose my balance again;

it’s the greatest feeling in the world,
crying your soul out like this.

I’m sure outside my frosted window
I must look like a crazy person,

but that isn’t going to stop me
from doing it some more.

*Thank you …

You in the snow
The one nobody knows
Hot blood boiling at 20 below

You in the white
The one who owns the night
Numb limbs never felt so right

You of the undead
The one forever in my head
Resonant moons have long bled

You of the blissfully cold
The one yet to be correctly told
Snow imprints together growing old

You of the evermore
The one destiny washed ashore
Lost souls could not ask for more

I came across this house
with all four walls still intact,
in a lost town, a forgotten state,
in a country without conversation;

and I went inside.

It’s kind of silly,
but at first I had knocked.
I almost expected someone to answer.

But of course no one did;
no one ever does.

There was no food inside,
or anything else of use;
all scavenged long ago
by those most likely dead.

There was this marker;
black, permanent …
Sharpie …
a reminder of life
before it had ended.

I went to the cleanest wall
and etched my soul;
I wrote you a message
in case you ever stumbled upon
the same house.

It said
             I LOVE YOU
and I signed it
                              YOURS

At least I know,
if you never come here
someone else might;
they’ll find this message
and rediscover just a single grain

of
hope

that’d previously blown away
with the rest of the world.

Whereabouts unknown;
no concern for the burn
inflaming our insides.

Paradisiacal vertigo
swallowing all we know.

Muscles uncontrolled,
voice boxes cracked,
released into the wild.

Nature startles,
flinches in the wind
and whispers in the sky,
boiling *** on the stove
with melting metal.

Aware of the world
spun in unity,
but forgotten of the world
way out there,
down the steps
and away from our Zen.

Rather stay chained
up in the cool dark,
with my lips locked
on your lips,

and my serenity locked
on your serenity,

while the townspeople
continue to ruin
perfectly good
torches.