escumbag

escumbag Dec 2024

how many beginnings before an end?
are there any after an end?

or would it just make that end a different kind of beginning?
or perhaps it’s not so binary, so linear.

maybe it’s just drawing arbitrary lines so we know where to place ourselves.
what if, instead of a prison, time was a maze. circuits, walls, dead ends.

an existence comprised of seeking patterns, distance,
turning unfamiliarities into common memories, an evergreen pursuit of mirrors.

obviously, it’s all relative.
locally flat - euclidean. non-locally negatively curved - infinite, etc, etc.

though they’re saying the universe is flat now.
am i allowed to believe differently?

who has the authority to permit my perceptions?
why should i be so concerned with uncertainties which i have neither measured nor observed?

askin’ a lot of questions cause i’m a scientist,
haven’t got many answers cause i’m not a very good one.

i care too much, i’m too close.

face pushed up against the cold window

of a train tearing through the longest tunnel i’ve ever had the privilege to enter.

right now it’s forever.

until i unstick my pestering orbs from the vague sweeping images surrounding me.

though i don’t think i will.

escumbag Dec 2024

a colorless affair

sharp angles seen
from my reflection, photos, flash.
they puncture what I can
only assume to be my ego.

pus rolls out onto cardboard,
viscous vague stains.
I try to wipe it away
but the joints in my wrists give out,

so I'm lapping it up now.
a salty sweet metallic tang replaced
with a defensive acidity that
burns all the way down.

it's repulsive but
it is
myself.

escumbag Dec 2024

your heart is a house

and you
say I'm chipping old paint
off of the walls
just because it's something to do.

you're probably right,
but instead of saying that

I introduce a long silence

which could have stretched
across the earth,
over all of the cities and seas,
and came back around
to be tied in a neat bow

~

we stare down at the floor
and watch as it
tangles to a heaping mess,
curling impossible knots
swallowing itself in every iteration.

it could have been forever
and
I wish that
it was.

escumbag Dec 2024

tumble dry low

faces of those I've known
burned to the crust of my conscience.
I'd eat it with butter and jam
scraped onto its surface
wishing each bite would be my last.

I think about how there's more to touch
than what fingertips can hold.
spaces between bones close,
I feel white hot needles
between the cells of my blood.

time crumples under the weight
of my vision of you.
it's a waste- and I kind of hate it.

so cliché.

if only there was more

than

this gross abundance of parallel experiences
drawn infinitely, never intersecting.

circa 2023

escumbag Dec 2024

particles (flying)

large masses tearing through space,
spilled coffee on your mother's purse,
there's a purpose behind all of it,
oozing from every photon that
stains your retina.
but is it really all that important?
sometimes, maybe, i'd like to think so

circa 2023

escumbag Dec 2024

wants not needs

I want to be your favorite shade of green.
the one you can't recall when asked,
even as tender crumbles of your thoughts
fall into it, kneaded in like dough.

A sticky shade of green, that shapes itself to the creases of your fingers, and peels away as if it was your own skin.

While you press is into the holes
and crevices that litter your mind,

as you struggle to remember~

circa 2021

escumbag Dec 2024

osmosis

he spat in my mouth, twice.
well in actuality it was more like one and a half times.
in the first attempt it caught the corner of my gaping gob and proceeded to crawl
across my cheek, inching toward my ear canal.
as if over par, a look of disappointment and determination flushed his face.
it really didn’t matter much to me.
shot number two was a perfect lob, caught by the back of my fervent throat.
a cough seized my body and the warm flux traversed
through my synapses,
secreting around his *****.
a proper exchange of fluids, so i thought.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
i don’t think i’m very good at this.

an obvious red herring, i reassured him nonetheless.

i mean, i just don’t know if i can. y’know… in the way i feel like you want.

not needing clarification, i asked for it anyway.

i really like you… and like, i really respect you too. it’s not that i don’t enjoy seeing you in that way, or think any less of you, and uhm, i’m just not sure i can do it. i think you’re really beautiful and cool and it’s hard for me to enjoy feeling like i’m degrading you.

it wasn’t difficult to understand his perspective.
not because i could relate, but because it was a simplistic
statistical inevitability.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
i hugged
his face with my ****
his neck with my arms
his thighs with my knees
and kissed the top of his head.
licking the salinous sweat
from my dry lips, i dispensed a:

that’s quite alright.

which may have been
a lie, because i think
i need it.

circa 2022