when people travel far and wide
Enough to make their way inside
a world that tries too hard to be
The definition of complete

I cannot help but find escape
In something not so far away
It's not above and not below
A place beside Abednego
The heat will burn but reassure
you came to be and always were
A passerby of life and death
And lungs that breathe the purest breath
There's nothing here for you and I
Except the time to say goodbye
And when the words prepare themselves
you'll need to look to no one else
your heart will be your head and soul
Derail the thought of human cold
The cover gone, the flesh undone
Recovery to Babylon

The lines curve
like scissors,
like a paper doll
with dotted lines
and you're playing connect the dots

so you're     [  outside the box   ]
And now nobody can hear you
in this Space

Now you are cutting lines
carving gardens in your arms
hoping
coping
that these are just scars

"All I want to be is your antidote"

so you're disappointed
that you're disappointed
and maybe that's to be expected
some folks make beds
out of their catharsis
differently than others
it's this list
of things you lost in the fire
or how jealous you are
of people
who never came back up for air
you're crying
so the faucets leak out of solidarity
& someone asks you
why the floor is wet
so you tell them
"we've been weeping here forever"
then they want to give you
a mouth full of presupposition
by saying
"are you going down with the ship?"
& you look them in the mouth
like Leo is handcuffed to a pipe
five decks down
you look at them
like you just woke up
from that dream everyone has
where all their teeth fall out
maybe it's an intervention
a hearse vs station wagon origin story
a clearance sale
& everything's gotta go
or maybe it's the dream
where you're at the docks
from your childhood
and there's a little girl
unmooring all the ships
because she thinks
they'll float away
but every time
she unties them
they just sink




                                          they just sink

Oh God, oh God,
Oh Jesus Christ,
God ******* ******.

The child lifts his head and weeps.
He has just awoken
and his skin burns, burns
Holy hell, he's stretching out
Let's get a blanket, let's get a hammer
He won't stay still.

God, what a mess
Jesus in heaven, **** me
**** the inflammation and the scratching,
The fruit that is ripe
And that which is rotten
down to the pit.
**** it all.

Are you there, God?
It's me, the unbeliever.
I may have been a bit impertinent,
But Jesus ******* Christ,
if you could have seen him
You would forgive me in an instant.

But he stays under the stars.
He appears only to me
Like some kind of theophany, a dream;
You have not seen him,
And so I remain
in your divine eyes, a sinner
with the hands of a saint.

Strike me down.

In the gas deep under-park,
she sleeps between shadows.

My darling,
upon the mountain's caress.
My ******-friendly mess
in a pineapple dress.
I couldn't love less
or less of you.

Young explorer,
drifting from world to world.
A huckleberry eye
that shifts from trembling duress,
with my hands onto her back.
Why can't life cut you any slack?
The chair is going out under
as the skies are mumbling thunder.
My violin underneath the sin,
sounding from within
"...I love you."

Broken water
bounce from cheek to chest.
Your breathing sounds the best.
With my words onto your lips,
and how the saliva drowns and drips.
I grip around your hips,
with the world releasing a boulder,
that drops upon your shoulder,
and I shake you senselessly,
why can't god set you free?
I can feel from you to me.

Blood, down, to ever and let go,
with your body in the snow.
My river-drowned girl,
engulfed by the swirl.
Love, oh no, from year to year.
Your words so everclear,
"I love you, too."

Silver-shiner,
moon-kissed and ever so,
your feet on the bathroom floor,
the kills from the handled snore.
What I wouldn't give to drink
from your fountain.
What I wouldn't give to die
on your mountain.
My darling, from colored-t.v.,
with a kiss and a motel fee,
I could know what the known couldn't,
with my fingertips where they shouldn't.
Turn down the volume and say
that you'll stay another day
or three.