Brace yourself!
The taxes have come
stomping through
your house
your car
your mouth
your heart.

The porcelain in your mother's urn
the dust collecting on your sill
the money you give away in your will,
The facts you meant to learn.

You're ****** dry
a bag of bones on the floor
picked apart by the dogs
                                       cats
                                       birds
                                       rats
                                    that you paid to keep.

A shock of that medieval gait
Iron clad and shut tight behind
our failed visit to this church or that.
Wandering slyly
Sphinx-like in our mysterious gaze
across the Douro
Avoiding eyes but
touching hands
'Because...
Well...Vacation'
he says
slipping his hands down my spine
I say, 'that's fine'
Because...
Well...Temporarity.
But it's not-
Tid in the stomachways.
It churns at the sight of you,
Not in the good way too,
It swivels and slights
always threatening, threatening, threatening
to give up on lunch.

But I guess,
that's all to rest,
because four more days
And you're a stranger again.
Not this succubus sprite
trying to bask in my light,
Not some peeved preacher's son
desperately adopting what I've done,
And not some Disneyland duo,
or too sweetly caricaturised lovers,
But a boy;
and a girl,
Too hurt by this world to admit that
sometimes, it's not where you go
but who you're with
that can ruin the trip.

Feigned fatherly affection
which I ate up
as on a golden spoon
dipped in lead.

How silly was I,
to imagine sincerity
after so many years
chained to your bed.

Was it your doing?
Broken demigod of yore?
Fragmented mosaic that I adored?
No. Twas all in my head.

How cruel were you
To allow me to feel,
to encourage my worship
and to leave me for dead.

Alas! It is you who were tricked!
By my slight of hand, my skill with ****.
For never was I abiding to begin with
But rather a defiant bird, regurgitating all you fed.

I live in sepia tones:
drained browns and tans;
too bleak, and too old, and too, alone
like Wendy in new lands.

Love, inject in me your
bright spectrum
release my soul,
and subtract my sum.

My surplus lust
has made me lame.
I've lost my mind,
forgot my name.

But this is where the magic happens!
With fairy dust and misguided boys!
Where I sacrifice control.
and adhere to your ploys.

I dream in words and lyrics
I crave the scratch of a pen
the leak of creativity
upon paper.

Dressed in stark white
mental anesthesia
Sneaking poems between immunisations
I don't belong among the needles.
Blunt and uniform
never was my style.

I feel my mentality slipping
dying with the leaves
falling down, down, down,
Ricocheting against my skull
and leaking out my ears.

I beg of you
a spare parachute,
stuffing to plug my orifices.
I'm melting away
I'm slowly stifled
and I need to be saved.

I crushed the needles of a pine
beneath my feet,
Rupturing like a thousand baby beetles
singing 'crunch, crunch, crunch'

I felt the power of my step
the destruction inherent in it,
And the revelations
that come only afterwards.

And when I stop to wonder
at the distant emotions I call to,
(frequently dead and scripted)
I hear nothing but passing vowels,
and the 'crunch-crunch-crunching'
of the wheels of time
in my mind.

Deviant Disaster where art thou?
In the toes of corpses
shriveled and blue?
In the blood of blackberries
staining my shoe?

I find the cool clamp of destruction
under my bed
in my hair
on my eyelash
everywhere
everywhere
lurking for that one strike of a match
one puff of grey smoke
one fallen blackberry
one wretched, writing girl.

I remember when you said
your freckles made you mad
Well hunny if you'd like
I'd kiss them all away
lick them off your skin
one
by
one
until my tongue is speckled
with your sun marks
and my body full
of your imperfections.
And you,
a standing, sitting, loving
sun conqueror
raw as that January morning
and new as the year
when our lives melted together
and the world disappeared.

Your hands as white as skulls
piled atop one another
a tower on your lap
ghostly mouth pursed
empty eyes narrowed
muted
mutilated
anticipated.

My fleshy finger
touches your bone
cold
cold
cold.
Peachy pink,
my dreadful sink
into your vacant stare.

For you
to speak the truth
is to spit fire.
Close your mouth
Close your mouth.

Build the words inside
they bubble,
and blister.
Don't cry out
Don't cry out

They turn your gums to ash
a grey ****** mess
behind your polished teeth,
but a safe secret
beneath your scarred tongue
beneath your scarred tongue.

'Your hair is shorter' he remarked,
hand on the counter
eyes on the floor.

'I cut it' was all I could muster
dead words ****** out
into the ancient air
and held,
steadfast,
in our wake.

When all my time has passed
And my memories are filmed with dust
I'll recall my travels, as if friends,
from distant lands
to newfound ends.