i ate a four-leaf clover and
consumed its luck, which died in me.
i lied in the quick, quiet field,
killing the grass,
looking to set myself free.
i drank and i drank
from every river, every creek,
my thirst unsatisfied until it had every sea.
my touch burned down forests,
my glance slaughtered meadows,
when climbing and looking for everything, anything,
i killed every tree.

in my quest for satisfaction,
i murdered the sky,
and yet nowhere have i found the fulfillment
i believe key.
thus, starved for complacency,
i continue my fruitless killing spree.

He is who i think of after any ****** encounter
He is the ***** feeling under my skin

it is Him that i think of
it is Him that holds my innocence hostage
i ache knowing He stole my special moment
He took from me what was supposed to go to someone i love

He is the bitter taste on my tongue after i call someone "baby"
He is the terrifying ****** thoughts i have
He is the fear i feel when i'm in a room alone with a man

He is the fear.

my chest is an aviary,
hundreds of caged birds
flutter and shudder and whistle
soft songs and incomprehensible words.

my ribs as bars,
and my heart as feed,
and the birds all hum,
and we all have needs,

including birds, including me,
digging my hands, into my chest,
they peck at me, my insides,
to rip me open, we try our bests--

i scream and writhe and cry and whine--
i tear and pull and carve and break--
they sing and sing and sing and sing--
half-gored, i give in, stop, shake--

an albatross in my chest cavity,
the canaries' screaming pitch remains,
the robins and bluejays and wrens and larks,
all choir my unending pain.

i want to be free of them,
and them, of me,
but my ribs are bars, and my heart is feed,
and in my chest they will always be.

the scientists called it The Bomb,
capitalizing it like God.
is there anything more
surreal or divine than to
crush the world under your fist?
is there anything more human
than to ascend, abuse, destroy?
do you think they realized
what they'd done?

animal breaks Creation,
adam usurps Creator,
radioactive, reeling, resplendent -
i hope for a nuclear future;
not desolation, no horsemen,
but clean air, man-made Providence.
there's something beautiful about
evolving, becoming more than animal,
living past hope or good sense.
i am become god,
bringer of life;
i want to live to see the atom split,
not for death,
but for light.

i have to drown
a necessary reprieve, a last chance to truly breathe--
escaping that living crown
so fitfully placed upon my head

i've always preferred the dull gray
the drab of concrete always more appealing than gold
i sole my shoes with it, wrap it around my neck
looking at my sadness reflected by this watery mirror

history repeats itself
the mirrored melancholy of her and i
two corpses having a tea party
at the bottom of river ouse