you created this
can’t you see? it’s you
the way you want to be.
a bright flare
of pure white light, stark
against the bloodied canvas
of your reality;
your hands
reaching out
emptily
towards salvation

stop it.
they aren’t going to save you.

who’s going to save you?

me

you’re going to save you

the razor edge
of living sharp and free
is when the roses lose their petals,
the thorns are all i can see

lately, the anxiety keeps settling in my teeth,
setting them on edge:
an unwelcome guest spitting scornful jest
to cause my brain to second guess
every thought i thought wasn't a mess,
exposing my mind -- a train wreck

i scruff my tongue against them
in the hopes of forcing the enamel clean
but this apprehension's made of harder stuff
that even molars couldn't crush;
the muscles of my jaw clench
their unhappiness, an endless throb
of raw numbness, itching to be expelled
through sound or sick or movement

excuses to flee, suddenly,
enunciated by the bitter desperation
to expel what words fail to express;
there's no sudden obligation,
no needs to address. i'm just trying
hard to outrun the foam of fruitless frets
fizzing into overflow, stomach acid upset

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you