Do you even notice anymore?
Is the fact that I've completely isolated myself not enough for you to tell?
Or is it that I've become so good at hiding it,
that I show no signs of my mental Hell.

This torment that rages on inside of me
makes me contemplate the other option.
The one where I cease to be,
which is better?

How would I do it?
Would I put a bullet through my head?
Down a bottle of my brothers pills?
In which case would I be the most dead?

How could I get far away from this place?
what’s the quickest, most painless way to escape?
I've got to keep a steady pace,
Can’t let anyone discover my torment.

Would I write a letter?
Would I tell everyone what made me this way?
Or would it be best to just apologize?
I have to find the right words to say.

I've tried to show people without saying a word,
These thoughts running around in my head
But it doesn't matter now,
In due time I’ll be dead.

All I ever wanted was
another hit of you
just one last whiff of tragedy
the scent of my blood on your skin.

All I ever wanted was
proof you thought of me
when your mind went quiet
and the shadows ate your heart.

All I ever wanted was
every word you spoke
tattooed on my wrists
so I could finally **** us both
with one swift stroke.

The constellations
keep secret messages
for me,
stolen away in their red giants;
they’ve told me that
my heart-beats
dwell deep inside your
palmar lines,
where they await
the day when they get read,
but, until then,
are kept
alongside
the Venus, Ring, and Intuition
where our hands meet
at
dawn.

A woman’s touch. Yet to
another woman applied,
towelling dry, older, hands

slightly more worn, eyeing
the young woman, secretly
wishing. The young woman,

naked except the pink bow
in brown hair, thinking of
something other, not sensing

anything of the woman drying,
the touch, the towel, is far
from her thoughts, maybe some

boyfriend and his recent deeds
or words or both. The bath
had been refreshing, the water

just right, the older woman
always has it so, the towel laid
out, the soap prepared, washing

the back, places she cannot reach.
The older woman seems to take
her time, drying each area of skin

with some daintiness, a delicate
touch, wanting more maybe or
nothing very much. The younger

woman, feeling dryer, more in
touch with self, thoughts ordered
into place, takes no notice of the

other woman’s rub of ******* or
under arms, no thought of hers at
all, no grace, no charms, the recent

boyfriend, he who made to her such
passionate entering and kissings,
she feels like a fatted calf, some well

stuff bird, pleased with her self, her
sense of need fulfilled, the pleasure
dome having been reached and done.

The older woman drying now the thighs
has no wish to end her task, no other love
or want, except what’s there before her eyes.

The soft whirling hum of a fan works its way from one corner of the room to the next. I succumb, defeated, deflated, shoulders slouched over, to passing wafts of air that briefly foam over the drooped skin of my emotionless face. Its touch invigorates the senses, momentarily reminding me to take in a breath of the foul and arid air that lingers lifelessly in this second story bedroom. As a sliver of light makes its way slowly up my chest and falls back to its original place, a muffled sound of pain boils over slowly softly searing through my torpid ears. Meanwhile, transparent tendrilous hands of memories begin to curl through my mind appearing and quickly vanishing like steam before I can grasp the true gravity of their presence.
        It must be ninety seven degrees in here. A drop falls from my face onto the back of my clenched hand and for a moment the fan is at it again pulling my head with it from side to side. Oscillating, it dictates a hypnotic lullaby, an ***** riddled rhythm sanding away at my rigid thoughts. Another drop falls toward my wrists driving me away from the blissful moment. Then losing its grip a metallic clang reverberates throughout the room as the object leaves my hand and finds the old wooden floor. Looking back at my hand I see where the two drops had fallen, now glistening in the dimly lit room. Were those tears? When I direct my sight down to meet with whatever had fallen a rush of blinding pain jaggedly inhibits my vision with a flaming wall of white instinctively calling my eyelashes into the backs of my eyelids painfully. My voice cracks and I hear the same singe of grief from earlier reflect ballistically throughout the room and into the hallway where ghosts gargle back an echo of my anguished voice. Am I hurt?
        Afraid now of what I may have done,I cautiously work my foot away from the chair and navigate it across the floor until it hits the handle of something sending it spinning around. Reaching down, the once trance like hum of the fan falls deaf and gives way to a steady beat of drips that are accompanied by an ever increasing tightening of my chest. When I reunite with the object I had dropped the image of blood and steel mesh a murderous hue onto my fingers as I fumble to recover it. Realizing what has happened my mind fizzles and pops with panic and I begin to beg for respite, for a chance to revisit the moment before I had slit open both wrists. Cold anguish flushes the heat from the room and out into the hall as the dam of reality breaks and in with it a torrent of emotions and images of the blood peppered hardwood floor that now seeps dauntingly with the new life it is drinking. In desperation my eyes fire off in every direction, finding an open journal perched on a coffee table. The pages are in a fretful fury revealing pages dotted with smudges and smears of bloodied ink and teary paragraphs. Confused, I begin to search the room again and there beneath the window blinds lies the woman I have loved for eleven years lifeless in a pool of blood. Lorraine.
        My head lashes violently backward as if to howl toward the moon of time in an attempt to beckon the falling grains of sand to return to me what had once been mine. A sobering clarity strikes me and I begin to recall the events that led up to this moment. Beginning with a distressed phone call from Lorraine. I came,I told you I would come. And then I recall the strange feeling that scaled through my body slithering down my arm until it coiled its nervous grip around my fingertips as they bit into the **** of our bedroom door. As it creaked open, I had thought, I'm here baby, but you were already gone. Lorraine. It took what felt like hours to reach the part of the journal where you had confessed your infidelity that resulted from the tangles of promises I never kept, from the things I hadn't done, and should have said. Oh Lorraine why didn't you tell me. I would have changed, would have done anything for you. I'm so sorry,I forgot, I hadn't noticed. After seven years I thought you knew, but I will show you now. I will give you my life as you had given yours. I would have forgiven you ******, they were only kisses that meant nothing. Lorraine...and then nothingness.
        A grey shadow in a once enraged Congo of colors and emotions in an otherwise empty room now fill my eyes until I'm choking on its thick smoke and drowning in tears. When one of those tears fall, this time on my bloodied wrists I'm called back to the present moment. Once more the fan catches my sight directing me toward your lifeless body, and then a warm hand from the deepest recesses of my mind begins to cradle my shoulder. Lorraine. My eyes flutter open and find you placing a kiss on my forehead as you say something sweetly into the soft embrace of night. The scent of your hair bristles around my cheek and ears while you caress the short hairs along the ridges of my neck. All I can manage in the moment is to pull you in closer as I whisper "I'm sorry Lorraine. I love you. I can show you." A tear catches a lock of your hair as you kiss my lips and with your love I am drawn back into our bed and out away into sleep.

So they say I am a man today,
Way past twenty-one.
I've seen my days of anguish,
Had my share of fun.

I've been a doggy on a ladder.
I've been a monkey on a string.
Seen big business go down,
Seen how a prince becomes king.

Now I know its a cliche',
But I don't know who I am.
It doesn't really matter none,
Any day I'll make my stand.

     I look you straight in the eye,
     Let you know I'm still alive.
     Pull back your chair girl
     And walk this way.
     I'm a man today hey hey.

They built Fort Green in Brooklyn
On a pile of prisoner's bones.
Stand still, listen closely, you can
Still hear those old bones moan.

I'm a man that likes these old stories
Likes to sing them from a stage.
On the side I do some honest work
For little to no wage.

I've been lonely on the train tracks,
And I've made a little love
And there even was a time
When I spoke to God above.

     I look you straight in the eye,
     Let you know I'm still alive.
     Pull back your chair girl
     And walk this way.
     I'm a man today hey hey.

I wish I was a headlight,
On a Northbound train.
I wish there were a warrior's blood
Running through my veins.

But Shame sits on my shoulder
And He whispers in my ear.
He says you never really knew her
She isn't worth your tears.

I wish there was a woman
Who only knew my name,
A child to tend the fire and burn
The whole world in one flame.