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Ethan Johnston Feb 2016
I thanked god for my Taco Bell

And waited for you to speak

I got taller as you cried in my arms

I think they shorted me baby

The moon's a coward tonight

He lets clouds in bed and freezes as they pass him by

Stick your fork in the socket

Your eyes are a speckled green lightning

And your hair is erected like skyscrapers in the big city

All on my own, I wander into the poorly lit Bar of America

I find dream lovers and myself a fair heir to that mans throne

I sit in haste although I have nowhere to be , no one to greet

A maiden turns her head to me,

Expecting her to speak, I prepare a question about her lineage

She remains silent as a politician's mistress and dresses as such

I focus my eyes down to the floor as the barkeep drops glass

A family tree of poison spreads through the floor, creeping to her shoe

She offers me a drink called "i think I know your father" and is confused when I reply "no, thanks."

As my body is pulled from the inside to the outer brick, a short-haired phantom pulls on a smoke as the carcinogens seep out through her skirt

Nice weather you're having

Transparent red fills the street above my battered shell

I lie to myself as I lie on pavement

"My time has yet to come"  I say

"I'm still with myself"

But everyone crowding the nightcrawler's bar knows they are on the way out.
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
In dark or day, with rain or burning sun,

nothing holds as pure as a mountain’s air.

When all is quiet and the day is done,

I feel so much guilt for the weight she bares.


Among me are thousands of other guests,

Her rocky flesh, we will surely consume.

Myself, the trees and the animals- pests,

worsening winter’s night till summer’s noon.


She pushes me closer to her clifftops

I peer over the edge, fearful, yet numbed.

not fearing the pain, not fearing the drop,

but fear of destiny- to which i will succumb.


For my bones will become fertilizer,

to the ever-selfless, fertile mother.
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Enter blank screens and
Typed-away feelings
Your dark room and plain face
Are brought to life by a faint,
Familiar pulse of white light
Useless and used to it.
The face in the ***** window,
It's your's but you wish it wasn't
Your reflection dimly responds
With a similar feeling of disgust
You numbly allow your eyes
outside toward the Hearts beating in cars and on bikes
Blood rushing through the veins of the city
But your heart is still
And your veins are empty
kid
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
kid
Crowded, foggy, checkerboarded screens- all showing the death of the individual and the eyes of the new-born kids who follow more people than last time, more crowded desires and confusion are shared, an exchanged glance and a quick darting of the eyes in another direction, the made-up face you have come to hate, the small explosion of tears you wish you could have, the little number of years you have lived, the large portion of time you spend wishing you were asleep and not awake. It won't be long until your heart murmurs for the last time And you'll forget what was dreamt And what was felt And you will move along And take a journey of your own And feel similar spectrums of apathy And sadness And love And un-comfort And warm insides And regret And lust And yearning And longing And wanting. You will never find yourself but you will find companions and maybe even a place to call home. At least a place that is yours, with doors, floors, walls and tables.
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
I think of last cigarettes

They last in anticipation of what?
Death? Better health?
To quit smoking or quit living
I have tried and failed at  both
Won't you trust me to inhale your carcinogens when I return? Will my return revitalize my feelings for you?
Or will what has become a smoothed-over ceremony in my lungs turn to a harsh fit of coughing that tears us apart?
Either way, sooner, later, an end will come.
But that makes it all the more intimate.
Maybe that's the idea of last cigarettes.
to stare the cancer of doubt in the eyes
and bathe in sparks of vitality-
to take part in a comforting regiment
and forget for a few breaths that the end is eminent
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
That black wheel of shame
Take your chances
Guilt is a cat clawing the back of my brain
Swallow your cancer
Maybe god's the answer
Swallow my kids
after you blow my lid
That dripping potential
Melting like a candle
Down your face, breathless as space
And time's on the table
Dark mirrors are watched closely, felt
Hold it in your hand
more than a lover's
Cover yourself in cables
I'll lie there soon as I'm able
Our nights live a better life
Before the clock strikes 5
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Yes I blame the pills

The pills that presented these problems, or at least made them prominent. The pills that kills everything's my body had to offer. >Bodies bloodied blued and blacked. These and the rest burrowed in my big sleeps.  >Hearing dad's voice reveal that heaven is the place I'm living in. >Lying in different couch corners watching the rooms fog and transform.  >a colorful reason to protest and a humble reason to continue. > only craft to consider, origami living. They press till you fold and fit their mold.

The house is sold.

Now u get more gold. You're kids are getting old. Your skin has gone cold. Either pole will do. Lift the casket with me.
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Why off myself why off your bedroom light why off the car

For I get off on health and the moon and the girls who belong to no one

Your tears in my skin will wear off between conjugal and prodigal visits like your fake nails eventually do so keep reapplying and continue to spew light from your eyes and mouth  through the 2x2 cell window because it's dark and I'm crippled without it but when I allow myself out of the nucleus of this cell I will give to you as much light as you give to me. or will I be blinded by the overwhelming sky and recede back into the black whole of my-nd sick? it's cold, but I'm safe. safer there. Safer Here, dear.
Ethan Johnston Feb 2016
My chamber finds us ashamed
My bed, your department store eyes
It's a showroom all the same
For once I'm relieved to be waiting
For you to open the bathroom door
You look outside and say it's raining
You can't sleep along anymore
Flirtation with an undercurrent
Becomes a dance with a tidal wave
And final union with the great eye of the hurricane
Your eyes water up at the silence
Before the wind fumbles through the windows and onto your tired skin
Worn away by passing salt and liquid
Conglomerate reasons to deny and defy what is inevitable
As a tectonic plate shifts from it's usual bedroom position
So does your body
Disrupting my focus and routine
All my books are on the floor and my drink has poured itself onto the carpet
The room glows and twists
I jump out of touch
I land in solidarity
I never liked you much
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Bloom big in the night-time
Separate yourselves when the day
Rolls around like a hearse
Rock and roll baby
I dug myself a hole baby
When you stood over me
Sugar dissolve me in tea
Should you, a leaf, make waves
Like me, oil in the sea
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Gunshot castration echoes thru

High ceilings, jets fly by- shaking the roof of your mouth. Not of taste nor ****** arrangement- my ******* flaw lies in light of the darker-darkest chambers of my mind. Indifferent as a front- don't have myself to trust. You're flipping a switch now. And what happens next? Just what you guessed. Light comes soon after. Surely light comes after. Will you come with me? I'll lead the way. Anyway, the switch was flipped. nerve-endings and my mind-saturated with anxiety are illume, "darkness has exited the room!" I release. I feel as if I halted my descent from the edge of a canyon. Has this ****** ended in a cliff-hanger?  "But look below you", you cry, "a shadow creeps alongside. Closer than before." Personal-dark shaped to my body, my worst enemy. Come with me to the place with no darkness and swim in the clear ultra violent sea. Come, dear.
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
Wife as I know it has succeeded itself not knocked down without cold left shoulder
tires burn and kids get older but while my light still shines bright and a community of faith will hold me tight and you drive behind me like a spell and you curse the time we had in hell but when I drive ahead can you fill my veins with lead so I will know true life death and I will grow with the trees and I will fall with the leaves and I will know you as my son and as my brother and I as my spouse the future is daunting and I red frame is haunting but I know that the future is liquid and I know that I'm afraid of what I will be sick with without you
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
You took my wealth
and now everything's free
I let your farewell get the best of me
It's always raining behind your eyelids
And your face is ingrained in mine
What a graceful waste of time
Your velvet embroidery stitched along the river of my mind
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
cherubs fly faster as mosquitos **** from the moon and light is finally bent into waves we can ride on
I swear on everything I love- not everyone though. everyones are my world. every one relation keeps halos above and wings behind
wings that reach through the life of the mourned
the eye of the storm
the eyes of the ***** captured in ****
ties between my every ones are
tied tightly try not to cut circulation to her wrists
I've got some friends who could use it
Ethan Johnston Oct 2015
they ThEY
they WERE ALL Wrong-
really THEY WERE when
    they told me
but when can they be right?
on a school day.
between cinderblocks
between classes grasps-
of skin like the smooth touch of water
thirst makes more sense when we are
so made of water
in our brains and body
how can water be wrong
water is all right in its place
but when
THEY come out its just wrongThey are bad water feeding bad plants
all in favor of you know who
maybe the world will end up flooded after all
when the water finally
sings its song and
reclaims
what it wanted all along
    to be right to be free
all  right
but they are  all
       not rightwriting away on waves of paper
everything they say is to be right but they are    wrong
when they talk they say that being wrong is
bliss
but i know otherwise
rightness is bliss and
is  righteous and right
i know because i have felt the tides, yes tides of what they think is true
all in favor of you know
    maybe it is the same
if they are the     same
rightness and   ignorance
then i was and will be mistaken all along THEN
the Water will have me like it had them all ALONG ALL along
        a Flood.                        
into the depths i go far from what i have felt from their tides and i go deeper DEEPER

DOWN




until
i know.
it is gone
bliss
it was    never there
to begin with

— The End —