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em Jun 2021
there was a fire between you
a passion, some kind of lust
and you called it a miracle.
a split ashtray and broken seatbelts and
a flat tire and a screaming baby
you called it a miracle.
dead romance, techno music,
afro picks and spilled beer.
you called it a miracle.
boxes lined with insulation,
IV drip and nurses pressed for life.
you called it a miracle.
happiness, hopelessness,
hurried love, first homes, small toes.
miracle.
then and there and back again,
hospital bed, open head, runny eggs and
silence
is it still a miracle?
im just me,
and theres no cure for that.
and you *******
you twisted sick-suckled *******
crash with the street kids
ruffle up the birdies
who grow seedlings out
their ribcage
only they need to be dead
for that kind of beauty.
and shes shithoused drunk by 3pm
forgot the toothpaste but
not the alprazolam
whats better than a swig out
the ol’ medicine cabinet
and half a cigarette?
thought she might’ve stomped it out
had she not had that metaphor
sharp as glass in her left hand.
men with mottled skin and
charred faces mar and del mar
locks up them up with only
a nose through the bars
i meant to stay hid beneath
that misconception
hear that monster coming?
with his rusted bayonette,
alcohol on his breath?
whats it to you
but the game of life?
of life
which player am i?
the wound or the knife?
and i spent my days treading
barefoot on the beaten earth
radiator burning holes through
the socks she gave me one Christmas eve
which player am i now?
or am i a pawn, relinquished in black
in the lack of light accompanied by foolery
of favoritism?
the heat never did them any good.
so i like to think of it
like a terrorist sympathizer
the constantish reminder of
nothing good
between those blue walls
lives still a desecrated ghost
with a shut off brain
and no reason to
let go.
and all the things which once were simple
***** themselves in the draining effort
of simply being.
there should be places to hide
instead of wide open skies
shall i surrender now
afloat on this hill,
or wait until i am surrendered?
i do it for this agony
a nightly presence
a friend if it weren’t for her
gnashing and talons and rust metal teeth
leaves and grass screaming
in the wind
another part of me
they cannot see
and do not want to.
why is pain so welcome?
why is infliction so
delicious?
the slow fade of a hesitant smile
to eyes which cry and a face that
contorts in the sweltering sun of rage -
is it sinful, shameful greed of hurt or is Godless,
as they say?
somewhere there is something
left to say
you go to shake my hand
and realize i dont have any
cut off and bled
like they do to the cows
and the pigs who are ******* smart
enough to know
because stone cold
said so
so you hug me instead.
its easier to cut butter
with that small fancy knife.
what more do i need,
when i’ve got me,
a body to break and a mind to feed
so when i feel that harsh note
of morality gone and an ego in tow
that nihilism crawling its way back up my throat
all i can think of is God
the Leviathan
to better my chance of living
but not really
just dying,

alive.
em Jan 2019
he sees you
your godless
sinful body
sinks into your skin like a seed
into soil
brings his lips to what
he has secretly craved
he expects sweet
he is quick as a
flea
seeking “his”
instead
his tastes discover
that inconsistency
that ugliness
that disgusting
beautiful
proud
taste of
“mine”.
em Dec 2020
once i read in a book of the time
a girl was hurt
not in the way where one can say
here have a bandaid,
or stop the bleeding
or numb the Pain.
he held her to the ground
as the rocks dug into her back
tugged on her hair in the way which
men do when they use
someone.
and as he held her, pushed her towards the
dirt
she did absolutely nothing.
i believe, her heart stopped.
it stopped because it couldn't keep
a steady rhythm,
as he did.
pushing and grabbing,
owning and groaning.
i imagine her,
staring at the sky and thinking
this is how i come undone.
this is the time, the moment,
the very seconds in which the
corpse becomes a corpse,
the face becomes a moment frozen in
between what could happen and what
never did.
and as i sit here
devouring the Pain
suckling on the hurt and fear
i feel it too.
that it's tearing me apart
"all i want is to *******"
and all i want is to die.

but i can't do it
because what a life i would take
what a soul i would un-soul
and do i even believe in me?
as i sit in this perfection of Pain.
this metamorphosis of suffering
i feel it too.
i feel it so deep in my bones
that it makes me sick.
but alas, i know
ill up and face another day
another day to destroy it.
destroy her.
destroy him.
destroy myself and the sky with me.

i know ill up and face another day.
em Dec 2019
and what the world may see
my bounding heart now lies still
the echoes of the feeling we call happy
are silenced.

i have arrived my friends,
i am soaked and hurting
wont you let me in.

your black hole is an invitation,
a home for my broken figure
my broken baby
and all the people i love.

yet they are not comfortable
here.
doused in blackness,
gravity leaves them and the people
are left with all they do not know.

my mistake has all but near destroyed me
my will and ways have reached the point of
mortal waste.
it hurts everywhere.

someone help me, please
as im drifting out into the black
tell me to come back.
em Nov 2020
she takes my arm and sips the blood i bled
shuts my eyes and says,
i cannot bear for you
to see what lies ahead.
this hurt siphons down
like the tears on my chin
and i cannot seem to reckon
with each and every sin.
and what's to stop this time
marching on in fury, enraged
like it cannot seem to fit enough
of the pain in every day.

sorrow is like a smog
sometimes it is thick
sometimes less apparent
but day in and day out
i am breathing it in.
em Mar 2021
stuck in the wheel between
living and dying
rage between teeth
and words beneath tongue,
that fear will get ya.
lying under the vaulting
of the technicolor sky
smiling among the white-bellied
rotting creatures
smiling because there's not another
thing to do which lets you show
your teeth
besides a scream.
and scream you must if you hope to ever
make it out of this beast.
the fear will get ya and
all you can do is bare those pearly whites
and hope your head and heart coexist
and oh please tell me again
why i cannot hear the sound
no matter how hard i try and remember
shut up i said, or did i?
here they are inside of me,
these evils, these souls who so willingly
ecstatically employ their wrath,
upload their anger
******* on the hard-drive with a golden
molar
and here i am
drowning in the noise when i'd rather be
basking
extending the possibilities of a working realism
mathematizing my existence
because it was nothing to you
and you hurt ME
and you don't know it but you've colored it all
red
blood-red beet-red battle-scar-red
and you don't know it but that's all i can say
and that's all i have said
because if i say more then i'd have to be dead
no way i'd let those suckers see me
finished by a simple three-letter
thread.
i love you
oh really? you do?
**** me again then.
and the worst part about it is the hands.
that sickly warm skin,
i can feel your sweat and your
sin, all mixed in with that under-the-breath
promise as long as i give
in.
time is reckless in this fever-dream
live all day and die all night
become talented at suffering
so when someone asks you if you are okay,
without looking away
you can say
its just another day.
you, so talented at suffering
so skillful in your right to yearn for death
like that wire-tailed cat
in the gossamer green,
so fit to claw your way up and lose a bit
live a bit
love a bit
and see with your shuttered soul
the entire ******* thing come
crashing down before you.
so when my eyes meet yours
i do not know you, i know
the hands that took
it all away.
so **** me over again and again
even though you’re dead
again and again,
in my head you’re dead in that bed,
where you left me the last time
turned inside out and rotting-white belly up in the air
dead fish cant breathe on land
and a child cant breathe on need.
the fear will get ya
worse when the control is blood-letting itself to the exit
they’re hunting now, im trapped, all sides cave in
hot breath and cigarettes
its too much to take in when
we surround ourselves with birds of a feather and act like we don’t want to pluck them.
take away the things that make us human, things we can glue on ourselves, decorate our faces like the places we’ve had our first firsts.
the heart is 5/8ths of a pound so why did it take me so long to
tear it to pieces?
each tick of the tock reminds me of how birds count a lot for not knowing how
and van gogh cut off his ear and gave it to some *****,
appreciate that *******.
at least he chose a sacrifice instead of suicide, twice.
so im stuck in that wheel, going crazy
waving that S.O.S, shredding that white
flag to ****** pieces because i know now
that not a single person cares unless
they're on that wheel too
turning blue
turning to
the only thing they know and that
is this.
life isn't what you make it,
life makes you.
em Apr 2021
my mother used to dress me up

with pink and baby blue

she used to sit and scowl at me

for using too much glue.

on all the projects i failed in school

cuz i never saw my daddy’s face

he was always off to work somewhere

in a cold and lonely place.

and as he cuddled with his cash

the four of us would sing

the songs of gospel and a dying man

who rose again and was called king.

and when my daddy was away

i would come across the paper men

who knew they’d float higher than me

and said i looked a certain way and then,

they smacked their lips and tongued their teeth

and smoked their cigarettes

and without fail they always gunned me down

with a stare and beads of sweat.

thats a fine looking high-horse you got there

in the hollow of this hot and southern drum

theres not a lot of girls like you

that would kneel for a pack of gum.

i used to think i owned the world

because i made my dolls queens and kings

but soon enough i realized

that those were nothing more than things.

and i was one as well to them

a thing to hate like daddy’s bills

they liked to break my arms and legs

and hunt me for the ****.

but after all the fun and games

and smoke that burned your eyes

i came to know that i was sin

with a kept secret between my thighs.

and plastic jesus only sat

on his high and mighty shelf

and despite my prayers or

shut-eyes confessions

he never moved himself.

and what could help me more than that man?

certainly not mother in her cool dark room

and not my daddy raking cash

in some business ridden flume.

here i reside in this truman show life

smoking cigarettes of my own

suffocating memories and

ignoring the phone.

one day there might be someone new

whose teeth are white and straight.

whose hair is neat and eyes are kind

whose clothes don’t spill their

hate.

but till that day i sit and feel and

keep my head down on the floor

because theres nothing more that i can do

but drown in metaphors
em Jul 2021
some guy on the corner, living like his third world relative, wearing a shirt that says “the only cure is kindness”

a woman on the subway, fattened up on consumerism, flipping through the pages of her first read in three years-

“you are enough: and other ways to avoid overeating”

the shocks come in the form of niceties

bloodied, invisible war faces dishing out the l-word

drying up the n-word with their own iodized vocabulary.

places to go never served much for me save for the literal change of scenery

something else for my eyes to melt onto.

Columbine High School right off Pierce

If you squint hard enough,

I bet you could still see the linoleum sticky with blood and

feel, not hear, the primal screams bashing themselves against the walls

Fear smells potent enough that most of us can recognize it, and some of us crave it,

like a shark.

miles of ocean is nothing when your life wavers in the heat-

survival becomes nutrient-rich

don’t let me catch you salivating over it

I might just destroy you too.

Hope Cemetery

eat the rich

**** the dead

pass by the living in all their

sun-******* glory.

Dithers attempt to wrestle the silence cast out by a thousand stones

inscriptions lost all purpose, dates scuffed away by wind.

at night, each night past the full, bleeding moon,

he gets on his two bad knees and prays to God that his unloved family might become lovable,

that his mind may be forever closed to the idea of sin,

and that his throat may never feel the hot rush of alcohol again.

because who could judge the people who were victims of life’s potential?

who was to blame?

not the kind-men

not the prayers not the seekers

not the midnight drinkers

it was only the ones whose anger arrested them

and then the law

and then their own guilt.

summer was a severance

some time to grow too warm in the sun

disregard the ******* who leaned on faith with all their weight and pointed their skinny fingers at every disobedient child.

**** the cookie jar.

if it wasn’t me, it was the Noah’s ark worth of people that shuffled up and down that spiraled staircase each summer.

last full memory i was there

i saw some blue birds with balding spots, tethered in their concrete cage

which i opened silently as silent as my own breathing

as my rage.

and as i was scolded

the scorch of hot breath against my gooseflesh neck

i smiled, a fluttering one


because that freed one was kissing my eleventh winter.
em Feb 2020
Dark!' chuckled I, 'Yes dark!'
Take thy monster from out my heart
Through which it came thick, black, and slow
with that silent begging start.
And upon this beast there lay some eyes
and the eyes said more to me
awaken, girl, from out this sleep,
break apart from your dream.
break out away, from this rift,
which has claws and fiery eyes
in this darkness you may wallow
in this midnight you may rise.
and as the moon touches low, the field
upon which you spun your grief
shall wake from deep rest full and flawed
and greet you.
Oh! Alas! it is you, my child!
my sweet soul only stained with purest love which we lie and name to be love
yet fool ourselves from the truth
this love is not love is not darkness...
Oh dark...
how you have freed me from a life of ever-fleeting joy.
em Jan 2021
There were red berry trees, with their marmalade skies
I saw gossamer green with my color-blind eyes.
And the roads which spiraled this way and that
Spun a yellow brick road for that silver-haired cat.
But despite all the blue and the green and the red
There's a high tiding chance that I wished I was dead.
Dr. Seuss in his study, dreaming down to his toes,
Was the black and the white that I read into prose.
And that poetry book that was cracking and old,
Held the brick-heavy grief stuck way in its fold.
And the tears which fell like clear droplets of rain,
From my cheeks only soared further into the pain.
"I don't want to hurt you, you're the one I adore...
But hurt you I must, can't you see that I'm bored?"
And down by the river near the colony bees,
Happened a thing that struck even the Queen.
In between mud fights and bruises from stones,
Came the black-taloned secrets and their bellyful moans.
And even among the bristled red berry trees,
and the yellow brick road and the colony bees,
and all the roads which curved this way and that,
and the cellophane green and the silver-haired cat,
There was Death with his smile atoned in faux-white
and medicators to push their manipulated plight.
And even besides the mud fights and blue skin,
There was always a bathroom for us to "play" in.
Slowly I realized, with a chagrin so great,
That this victim of circumstance had a five-letter name.
Thus the only thing waiting for nameless to do,
was to fast disappear in the green and the blue.
Those wilted berry trees, with the glassy grey skies
and the fake plastic green with the shy-away eyes,
and the roads which all spiraled out of control,
and the broken brick road for the cat on the stroll,
all these things might suffice with the brain in your head
but not on the days that you wished you were dead.
sun
em Jul 2020
sun
the mind surfaces,
afloat on nothing, extinct almost
but not yet.
a swollen soul, adrift on blue
i am suffocating, taut
is the net.
the hands lost inside me
broken fingers grasp
and break in two.
i pray, religiously,
and once i know i see
im drowning as he grew.
as i have grown a bit since then
and much inside me changes when
im grasping at the sun
to fill me up with something
that no longer resembles
the pain that I've outrun.
and then i realize
i am alone
and nothing can be saved
this **** is not a memory
nor a thought, rather a road
forever unpaved.
em Jan 2019
there is loneliness in
having a mother
trying to grow up
for you
like the blue part of a flame
an unbearable heat
that only melts parts of
your self away
so you cannot tell the difference
between this melting child of your mother
and your own childhood
burned to the
wick
em Dec 2019
this could end
me
from the inside out
but it doesn't feel like that

i am oh so powerful
and this hunger is my
sword

i shall climb these mountains
unscathed
and 10 pounds lighter

i will collects the heads
of monsters along the way
with their rearing jaws

they bite into me
they roar
and shriek
for me to eat
but i won't let them win.

not me.

i carry them
like trophies
and at my journeys
end
is my prize

death greets me with open hands
he says
it has taken years,
my friend
yet i was always here
waiting.

and you've finally found me.

the end.
em Jan 2020
this could end
me
from the inside out
but it doesn't feel like that

i am oh so powerful
and this hunger is my
sword

i shall climb these mountains
unscathed
and 10 pounds lighter

i will collects the heads
of monsters along the way
with their rearing jaws

they bite into me
they roar
and shriek
for me to eat
but i won't let them win.

not me.

i carry them
like trophies
and at my journeys
end
is my prize

death greets me with open hands
he says
it has taken years,
my friend
yet i was always here
waiting.

and you've finally

found me.
em Feb 2020
I am down, in the hollows
of this hole again,
shame tiptoes her way past me
I told her to stay hidden
yet she disobeys, as always
wrapping her silk hands around
my throat,
to let me know that, yes, she's still here.
I dream of things, in this dark cavity
of perfect mirrors, forgotten fears
and things I'll never say.
I sit among the impossible black
waiting for my end to come
waiting this human life out.
wandering hands do not
dare venture in this black of mine
human touch is foreign and unwanted
yet it is a poison I want more than anything to
drink.
I feel everything at once
in this impossible black
it is as though I am
dead
yet painfully, blissfully,
disgustingly alive.
em Jan 2019
more vulnerable than
most.
the child's gaze
says
to the man
beyond it
perched with
boiling need
not-to-be-wasted
desire.
more vulnerable than
most.
em Oct 2019
the death of a tree
is the saddest thing
to find the long light
in the dark of dawn
is hard work for the leaves
they do not know their fate
and continue their rustling temperament
nestled in sore branches
em Jan 2019
ugly things
rest in hibernation
inside my heart
which chooses to ignore
its contents
and instead call
its anger a
"heartbeat"
and its spillage of
ugly things
"blood"
em Feb 2020
these creatures in my vision
they dance around a skeletal me
with cries, they leap in their
animal ways and they then count to three.
to three they get and all their cries
come forward into the night
what skies hold fast their darkened hues
shall set forth all their light.
I call to them, please help me
take this sorrow out my veins
release me from this downward hole
from this everlasting pain.
these creatures in my vision
they toss the marrow-bone
from claw to paw, they sing.
come back to us, our queen.
em Feb 2020
I remember these long
drives
down the African coastline
all our belongings shoved
in the back
with the smallest of us
I'd figured then
that she could not reach me
the sheer distance would
break this horrible bond
from that woman
I felt as though I was a fugitive
running, but chasing at the same time
chasing something that could
love me
right.
it was the first time then
that id realized
that.
that I was running.
along the African coastline
the open ocean collects
warm bodies and such
trash and all alike
I remember stepping on cigarettes
ash and butts
along the African coastline
we march and roll slow like
those cigarettes
I remember that beautiful ocean
not threatening at all
just powerful in its beauty
Somalia will love me
Somalia will cherish me
Somalia will not **** me
for I am among the others
now
but how I was wrong
even then, even there
she could still reach me...
for she was inside of me
anyways
buried deep in my mind
like a parasite
and I was her host
for this evil.
em Jan 2019
no moment feels as finite as this one
yet as infinite in the way
a mother can be with her unborn child
the cycle repeats
*** love
lust
this moment of aloneness
carved out in the universe
do i deserve a place like the womb or my
own home
which holds no such
warmth
caregiving
food for my soul and a soft liquid
universe just for me

how one man would
enjoy crawling back inside his mother
devoid of all ****** meaning
only the feelings of safety
that comes with the infinite cycle
mother wont you love
me
hold me in your liquid softness
which i can feel secure
in
like i was never born

what one woman feels
in the repetition of this cycle
she too, remembers the womb
yet there is no comfort in
her ability to create
it
for she's not certain
if it won't really be infinite
and should she hold herself responsible
if the cycle
breaks
before her liquid soft
does break too


one child is only lonely
because now he is cast
to a much colder place to which
his heart guides him with an equal amount of
primal curiosity and learned fear
how he must miss the feeling
to not even have to
breathe
like he was never born
em Jan 2020
i've got no way out
as i lay here on this bed
this pain will never leave me
like the voices in my head.
he comes again, larger this time
like a wolf at final hunt
i know this will be the end of me
"shut up you ******* ****."
theres nothing i can do
as he pushes into me
he sinks his teeth into my skin
and i count to three.
i could to ten and back again
i hope the voices know
I'm trying so hard to leave
but my body just won't go.
he's given me something
to make me tired and dead
tired enough to ignore
even the voices in my head.
they scream as he comes
YOU HAVE TO ******* FIGHT
I'm trying, i think to them
but its just another night.
i am his now, naked and numb
i feel no fear inside me
only him, and my own blood
and again i count to three.
theres only a couple seconds
apart from his hunger and need
what can i do to stop this?
or am i thinking in greed.
maybe i deserve this
all this fear and disarray
the shaking of my bones
and the sadistic foreplay.
i am numb inside my head
but i feel the most pain I've ever felt
like my skin is on fire
from these cards i've been dealt.
he's here with me now
my coal-black, feathered king
he stares me down with ruthless eyes
you deserve everything.  
he hits me again, ******* my cheek
pay attention *****, you're gonna die tonight
i listen hard, but i can't look into his eyes
only my crowned king, watching me fight.  
he can see my hope, pouring out
my blood and ***** on the sheets
he can see my life, all his own
he can see my pain retreat.
i am light now, a floating soul
above this bed, alone
yet finally free from all this pain
that's buried in my bones.
this will be my secret
only mine to keep
so no one knows the darkness
that nestles in my sleep.
em Jan 2019
man looks for ways
to disembowel fear
perhaps, to bring a knife-tip
right to the gut
ensure our terror and
sorrows
spill with all the blood.
unto the floor we put our knees
passionately bruised
and let our lips
hardened by elements
languish in red
and freedom,
like a well.
em Mar 2021
has it been kind? i should be a fool to think it has. and i'm not sure i want it to. at least not to me. perhaps others, other souls which serve true purpose and meet needs of each other, bouncing around and need-meeting and hard-loving, instead of crossing every line that is thinkable and failing, undeniably, at each little obstacle and challenge. its true that we meet many people over the course of our lives, hollowed-out and thin, hearty and honey-like, thick and sweet. sometimes these people candy-coat our existence. sometimes they **** it over. sometimes they simply sit, limp and lifeless, like a dead ballerina. serving no purpose other than for us to spit upon them, curse them out, regard and disregard. often they come and go, allowing us to live on, just living it out like a Greenland shark. but despite these people, despite these purpose-driven minds, i still stand around with this empty head of mine. and yes, i have no doubt i can create beautiful things. but i am certainly not one of them.
to me, it is interesting how being alive is so unacceptable, seemingly only it becomes so in the wee hours of the morning, like four am, right before the coffee and right after you've awoken from your most recent nightmarish fever dream. when the disintegration of your soul has yet to become entirely apparent. when you've yet to look in that ****** mirror and see yourself looking like death warmed over; ready to take on a new day, yeah right. and often, things, people, places, smells and sights and sounds and textures and tastes and simply cogs of our lives take it all back to those moments. telling myself to forget them, push them away like i always do when things get too close, too much. remembering anyways. that first touch, the blankness that follows. the feeling of being split open. being broken. thinking i would die. living anyways.
looking at people. remembering. like the way things tasted so good before. and the way they taste now. the lions at the zoo. pacing, hungry, fantasizing about ripping the fat white man's head off, feeling the bones crumble between their teeth, licking up the blood and ruling the world. how bad i felt for them. the time i turned too fast, too tight on my old bicycle. more blood. laughing. shaking. bandaids and a dark bathroom. the smell of chocolate cake and the scent of wine on my mothers lips as she came close. go to bed. the deadpan thump of the kitten against the wall. an empty kitchen table. summer nights that drifted through the windows, ate you up and calmed you down. black shoes that clacked against white linoleum. ******'s army. discovery channel and broken televisions. racism. mud fights in the river behind the small brick house, grass for miles and nowhere to go. thick honey people whose touch felt lighter than feathers. belly laughs, beer drinkers and thin paper-weight women. hospitals and IV drips, sunburns and stars you could actually see. tranquilizers and sickdays and scalding showers. obliviousness. neutrality.
happy childhood, sad childhood.
crazy talking teeth.what more could you ask from a primordial life?
i should be a fool to think it's been kind. whether i feel sorry for myself, that's another question. sometimes i am like the three-legged dog, dragging a leftover stump behind itself, buzzing with flies, whining and cowering and sitting in its own ****. ugly and dejected, victim to helplessness. a street-walker, a tired-talker.
then, i get filled up. with some insanity, a mix of molten rage, and that dangerous thing called hope. break the glass ceiling and you'll make it in life. or drown in it, and you become identical to every other human being that every lived and didn't end up in a book. a nuisance. an addict to all the small things life has to offer, never willing, never ballsy enough to allow themselves to get hooked in the cheek by some life-changing ****.

yeah, cuz that's it. that's the thing.

everyone is just absolutely
terrified.
em Jan 2019
there is nothing i can say.
i am no longer a child, or a young adult,
i have no mass of anger, nor am i looking for a way out.
i have realized, along with my newfound silence,
that every single person is in pain.
their pain is specific to them, though.
i have listened to people talk endlessly,
hearing themselves, yet they never really say anything.
their words attempt to reach anyone, yet they evaporate
right off the tongue.
their eyes flick around, compelling yet merely like wallpaper,
to hide what rots and has cracked beneath.
their souls are infrared but empty, they have nothing to give
because they cannot receive.
i have listened to complete, stubborn silence from
many people.
and without words, without language, they communicate in
the most raw, animalistic way.
they cry, they shake, they scream.
they bruise themselves and wish silently for an end
and these people without words,
say everything.
i have realised, many times over.
this condition.
many things can make us tired,
but our own beating hearts are sure to be
a final point of fatigue.
it is incompatible, incomprehensible our place in the universe
overwhelming how little we know, how little we are capable of knowing.
we can feel we are bright but only in comparison,
and as a reality our blood is *****, our skin is pocked, our legs tire, our eyes glaze thick with age, and we do not die with our hair.
everything we consider of importance is material, decomposing.
we conduct our own destruction and applaud ourselves for our fatigue.
we scream, we cry, we shake,
we talk and talk and our teeth rot and our minds collapse inwards.
perhaps our suffering lies not inside of ourselves and our exhaustion,
but in all that we can see we are not.
em Jan 2021
sleepy-eyed, walking through the
field of landmines and bombs.
right foot left foot no protection.
pain up to my brain and down to my feet.
not a single thought behind these eyes except destruction.
cold clang of hospital metal, warm drip of intravenous.
why am i shaking?
am i terrified?
unfamiliar with this feeling,
the strangeness of an ownership
that has never been mine.
i am afraid of this part.
afraid it might fester, rot in the corner,
away somewhere unable to be seen
but forever existing.
i am left hoping
and praying to simply concave, implode,
fall apart one last time, for the last time.
i need this,
with every ounce of my being
i need this.

i must destroy this monster outside
so i can destroy the one in me.
em Jan 2021
18 years, its been
since i first felt the scalpel make its way into
my eager skin,
yet, it should be called a KNIFE
because that sounds harsher,
less kind.
and this is not a kind story.
18 years its been since they
re-orchestrated my existence
for a third ******* time,
and hey nobody asked me.
nobody did.
if that was an emergency,
whose to say this one isn't?
but hey, doesn't a cheap motel sound
nice when you get to have the continental breakfast
with a freshly sewn up chest?
doesn't oatmeal sound nicer with oxy?

i've gotta say man, this is it.
this is the time where you get to feel better than you
ever have and better than you ever will.

don't get used to it.

don't get used to that freedom feeling
that fly-away hyped up bs
they're always gonna look at you and scour
always gonna have that glint in their eye and its
not the one that says
i love you
i need you
i want you
how you are...

its the one with that bitter disapproval
the one with the utter disappointment
the ever-untrustworthy smile.

this isn't you
this isn't you
this isn't you


so come on
grab your KNIFE
grab your sutures
grab your morphine

get on with it,
and don't forget who told you
about God on your way out
em Jan 2021
dont mind me in my predicament, steer clear
just waiting for the evident fear here
of the confinement
to a prison for
one.

mama said ill regret it in a year or so
but to her i say at least thats a year of my
life to know
that i wont have to wake up
wanting to shed this skin.

my thoughts are filthy, shallow, obsessed,
theres not a day goes by where im not lessened
by the urge to destroy
and snip and cut and bleed.

and so i lay and wallow, grieved,
upon my throne of mutiny
suckling a fantasy of
FTM.

holding on to hope that it will
end.
em Feb 2020
it is but a puddle, which contains so strongly my veracity -
a naked pain, which inflicts like a cursed spoke.
and though the sea may be livid, I have been inured to its anger.
you must not believe the sight of such torment.
see not the gossamer of my skin, nor the stiff white edges.  
hear not my howls which echo behind the black door.
feel not the warmth of Blood stitched upon white sheets.
hold not my aching limbs for they may never come undone.
lift your neck and heavy head, hold steady your breath,
to let your eyes rest upon me and see the truth
as a tentative gift, so that everyone may watch as
I inhale Misery, feather-quiet creatures wait on me
for the Rapture is near! on unsteady feet, I rise,
careful as not to wake them, At last, I have summited,
out of this tempestuous sea,
I do not recognize myself.
there is a salt upon my lids,
where I let the angels cry unto my brow.
they come to me in this euphoria,
this window of time that had been opened
whereupon I weep, this time at their feet.
I kiss their toes and cradle in my hands their marble heels.
oh, joy! I have been awakened,
and yet, still, the mirror is clear.
where am I?
What have I become?
em Jul 2019
a small, perfect child
was run through nights
and walked through walls
but the side of his half open
brain was too much
like holding hell in your hands
unable to look away.

beneath the dying flowers
too long a funeral
makes for too long a night
not to make a child in grief.

open eyed mother falls in her ******
a meaningless hill she must climb for
the man,
and all she can think of is
the child.
this is how she made the child.
em Jun 2019
as a child
i feared the screams
the most
it meant
that all anyone had to say
would boil in their gullet
burn upon the skin
contact amiss
whisper lightly
so the child may sleep today
scream only in the night
so darkness equals
impossible sound
imperishable
phrases etched
in perishable
skin
em Mar 2019
i spent an hour with Laughter
we chatted all the way
but i barely remember a single thing
from what she had to say

i then spent an hour with Sorrow
and ne'er a word said she
but, oh, the things i learned the day
that Sorrow walked with me.

-anonymous
em Mar 2019
i feel like a body pulled out of the sea,
skin broken and bloated with liquid salt.
picture me floating, out in the blue,
as the sun slowly breaks into my soul.
who has left me here, alone, amongst the sullen blue whales?
their song leaves me shaking for beauty
and grief.
who has left me here to witness the oil soaked birds?
their cries are met only with my sympathy,
for the sea is relentless,
but humanity more.
em Mar 2020
this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.
the gnawing, clawing night
has found an opening.
its blue-black fingers itch for
restitution of my skin I
give it what it craves so
I may sleep.
this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.
among the grieving sighs of sleep
imprisoned in this mind to keep
the aches and pains of grief
where they should be.
this is a kind of pain
I cannot fix.
em Apr 2019
it bothers me
that some people i know
need a dictionary to live
who taught you that you cannot function
without a language of
judgement and
resentment?
who taught you to look with your mouth?
to feel with your eyes?
take your face out
of that book

and *******
learn to listen.
em Nov 2019
i sit here
beneath my dying tree
the east wind
blows
leaves and flowers
blossom
petals play like
fairies on
east wind's
shoulders.
em Dec 2019
once
i was happy
content and peaceful
the only way i know this is
because i believe that
everyone must have been
once
or they wouldve died.
we all need something to be able to remember
to hold onto

to survive
em Sep 2019
she sits in the flora
large, golden eyes search for suffice,
brown fur bristles in the light
her mind is one in prey and life.

- a deer, in her woods
em Oct 2019
it doesn't matter whether you were just born
drowning in a millennials work
or being fed through a tube.
you're already on your way out,
and there is no denying that.
em Feb 2019
youd explained to me
on tuesday
how we are gonna crash into the
sea
if we keep ourselves
proper stationed on this cliff
any seconds longer.
i tried to tell you
you ain't fully awake,
we already under the waves
and your cig isn't even
burning.

what it feels like to lose more than
you even had in the first place
can often and only be compared
to the ocean, and how she
destroys.
em May 2020
i give thanks, of a sort,
that there were waves. green oil or not.
to block the sound from my throat,
a kind of mourning bellow,
of which i held no recognition.
these walls surround
on all four sides, a valley of hurt
and prove solid enough to hold
the shaking body.
will I ever be Happy?
won't I ever be Loved?
give me back what you took
so surely, like an old possession
give me back this
capacity
to hurt.
for i feel nothing at all.
em Jan 2019
many people i know
and i know myself
seek acceptance
love
compassion
from other people
and
admittedly
rarely seek it from themselves
it is a near impossible
yet impossible, simple thing
to love yourself without condition
yet most people
do not even
like themselves


we could start to.
em Jun 2019
white bear sneaks beyond the ice
and all the blue
to find his prey in wild wind
beyond the ice, beyond all the blue
all bear, white bear, can do
is seek
but how he is mistaken in
his strength
white bear is only
prey to
wild men
em Feb 2019
white dog sits
beneath the tree
questioning
the man
who gave him a warm
bed
his finger is cold when white dog
licks it

white dog has to crane his head
even farther
than he ever has to
see the mans face
he's not sure why
but the man doesn't shoo him
when white dog nibbles
at his shoes

white dog has never seen the
man like this before
he sits and waits for him to
throw something
white dog has never waited this long
for anything

he decides he'll wait
near the radio
the man always plays a tune
or two
for white dog and him
so white dog goes
and sits
and practices patience
like the man taught him

white dog falls asleep
and when he wakes
no song comes from the radio,
and he sees the man
sleeping funny
beneath the tree
and as he cranes his head
one last time
white dog could swear
that tree had lost
a limb
em Jan 2020
i write too much
probably
but its the only way i know
how to speak.
my words don't come out
properly
in normal conversation
i say mean things
i try to get a rise out of them
but i don't ever mean what i say

its hard to cry in front of people
but that's all i ever do
and leave feeling like maybe
i'm too much
and not enough
at the same time
like maybe i've overwhelmed them
with all this pain
and now they have more than
they ever signed up for


its hard, these things....
em Feb 2019
theyre running, and pretty fast too
they might trip i think
they seem pretty desperate to get to me
i might run too
do i?
lately i have become interested
in letting fate
decide for me
cuz im tired.
whose to say
i get mauled
and shot
or do i keep on walking.

— The End —