escort stress by the wrist
compound cravings caged
echoing faintly at hole bottom
where chalked stars summon
emotive salve revolution

my poetry was trying
to be something:

pretty, deep, unique

as if cosmic recycling
can ever be solitarily
special

that’s all just
suped-up vanity
lighting one’s own face

now I just try to paint
authentic real on
my vanilla ***

with crinoline skirts
flung overhead

I walked it
to keep me from
walking back into
the slaughterhouse

read renewed obit daily
spattered on asphyxiating
pulmonary walls when
you moved on in
an attempt to replace
our magical rarity

maybe it was for
the exact same reason
you put the gun in
your lonely mouth

preferring suicide to waiting
for unsuspecting heart
to get massacred

again

choosing instead to stroll
hollow self-made planks
with egoic illusions
of control

I won’t

walk it again
I’m stronger now

though it will hurt if
you repeat the bore
boring stale pattern
into open skull

starting
to flower

it will be no
surprise

and I know I
will be OK
this time

look
I know I
terrify you

quake your bones at
thought of home foreclosed
U-Hauled, stooped alone affront
cold locked door

too bad
there’s no one else
who understands what that’s like
who’d hold your hand and dive inside
your diverting fractured ice in melt
saying silently, as I turn to pools

me.
*******.
too.

while I was locked
and gagged
inside me

I took the time to
do some crucial things
enabling me to
face you
shakily

I went back
to the beginning
ate each and every thing
I thought was a no
and inked over
so hard I
ripped

the paper
with yes

I edited
our timedlines
inside my mind
struck thru rejections
Sharpie marked in insecure
pushpull bulls puncturing
red cloaked fear
with horns

I engineered
utmost empathy
by stumbling through
scenes I thought I knew
in your dusty kicks
forlorn and weary
in a bath robe

and I prayed
with heart splayed
between wide legs
whispering my truth:
your name

life is a video game
we are characters
there are levels
things to beat
to move up

we’re all 3D
when really real is all
4 - 11 D (+)

there are hacks
to level up, my loves
(as far as I can tell in
moments that trump
my everyday numb):

see your patterns
own your ****, traumas
choose love
over all

and make better
different choices

in the face
of torment taunting

then the
record skips
and you find yourself

in a new
orbit

ya, ya, i know
there is a King Koopa mf
at the end, but like
by that time

we will be
stronger

and not
alone

I felt something
pulling me

so I looked, back
over my heavy shoulder
as I lugged that broken seat
down the stairs on casters

it fell apart
when he grabbed it by the arms
and slammed it into the linoleum
with me in it

after I rolled it to the dumpster
and lifted it over the metal edge,
I remember the relief of letting go
of that fractured, useless piece

somehow I was
lighter

as if tossing that moment
and all the things
no longer safe
for me

latent ***** stripped
worldly bearings dizzy
not catching
spiral

then seconds
multiply

not dodge or burn but grow
where it all often slides
and I palm groove

it rolls inside as memoir
with new car smell
epiphanic brushed script
in hallowed blues
& pinstriped opal

my vibration outpaces
the weight of existence
cuts it off around
my bending

center stills enough
to catch glinting dust
before I turn
to it