.               her **** sprinkled spine.
                her blackened fingertips from a day cleaning and smoking in
                the pre-spring heat.
                her knife atop the stump.

memory is the root of mankind’s trouble.

                  lullabies  
                  her mother used to sang,
                  as the fish gasped and to the bone.
                  
wilderness, a strange enchanted girl.
              
            her bioluminescent tent.
            her blackened beans and tortilla-leaves and peelings of cheese.
            her knife to whittle a twig.

her moments grow like gardens left alone to ghost-over.
to sample the city wilderness
& then slip further away into a rearview idea.
new republic.

                  paradise. she’s up that trail there.

I dreamed I dug a bullet
out of my own thigh.
I asked if I might bleed to death
and they said no
as long as I packed it with happy thoughts
and my mind went blank.
There was no pain, no cringing release,
grim rush to blank reality,
these legs are used to feeling.
I pressed a ***** palm to the ragged edges.
I feel better.

Red black red black
There is nothing more

Traffic runs endless through the gutter Styx

This city is an empty vessel
With mass every day
Triumphantly awaiting its own pointless decay

I grow to despise all
which bring tears to my eyes

it's happened too many times now

I want nothing but your nonexistence
no happiness or sadness

just nothingness

I want apathy, I want disinterest
I want permanently handicapped empathy

I'll get there eventually

I'm losing faith that there's such
thing as hope, or faith for that matter

it's all drab around here, really

I try to pacify my bitterness
but my bitterness pacifies me

I'm taunted by the irony

I've lost count of the times
I've been made to feel so foolish

I'm getting used to being embarrassed

All you well-to-do women
with whatever is in your head

Keep respectable distance

your energy is better spent
on one who won't slowly with time

unravel at your feet

I can agree there's a lot to
hate about those who you pity

the ones who feel as I do

you see them vulnerable and
you feel in control and powerful

it disgusts you that you had no choice

you'll soon loathe as I do
and your niceness will be tarnished

I'll loathe all even more

I feel no sensations other than
some exhausted discontent

it becomes your true companion

I welcome it all at this point
there's no point to finding a point

maliciousness just exists, I guess

you or I are no exception
I know I'm feeling quite awful

I want to share my suffering

but it's for me and only me
my one and only property

my holy suffering

I'll carry it with me
exclusively

I cannot be one with this world
I won't adhere to what it requires
It shall be forced to my own will,
or I will exile myself willingly

with my suffering,
in pursuit of the only thing
I am truly entitled to

I’m just so tired, and too exhausted to cry, and too numb to be sad, and I don’t know what this is all for, but I can’t stop from trying. And these words weigh me down more than the poems I have not written. And It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the moon, and I’m afraid there is no purpose to my heart, and every thing seems distorted, and I’m tired of my skin, and stating this aloud feels pathetic and useless. I really need a break from my self. It’s one of those days, again.

I walked past her again.
Annihilation glance-
one thousand exposed memories
of teenage years
and exaggerated fears;
how stupid they appear
now we've learned misery well-
how to keep silent in its tenure.

How to fall at its knees
in gratitude of its brief release.
Hopeless captor,
impatient platitude;
we catch eyes on purpose,
to relinquish the delusion-
I still want her,
and she is still unsure of me.

I have not changed my costume
since those dress-rehearsal years,
still pacing streets in black coats,
still conversing with my fears.
The core of walnut in the bannister,
the stair-lift in its cage;
I walked past her again
with ****** hair and awkward gait;
an ******* full of tricks
and a folk-song made of hate.

How she falls to her knees
in cigarettes and ashes,
hopeless captor
of old bad habits;
we catch eyes on purpose
to speak beyond tongue-
I'm still singing on the hill-side,

she's still tired of my song.