shrinking, squeezing, constricting
like old lovers do
im falling down the space between molecules
be my hydrogen, let me be stable
pressing my fingers into the table
(will it go through this time?)

the tension between my temples
seem to be courting, it's simple.
just not elevated, alone, or incidental.
tease apart my form, my chemical bonds
fissure the aching need
from when it was thought to be wrong.

if carbon is carbon,
and dust is dust,
when will i find my home in You?
i know i must.

divine serpent twisting her lungs
burning the sheets because she likes the taste of ash on her tongue
an angel would shred his wings
just to get the chance to dive into her lake
all repenting is done on the knees,
i breathe, i break

shatter
and mend
hazy pools evaporate
when the curve is just over the bend
writhing, like cyaninde does in my veins
savagery and bliss do consummate
in this battle of a lover's only cellmate

the night's estranged urges
alabaster flesh, a collage of need
darkest hour brings an unexpected liability
for i am in need of breaking
to remember how it feels to be whole.

now my thighs are shaking
as if my inhibitions are obsolete
it's not just the moonlight
that makes my skin luminous
it's the effort of my strife that makes me complete

even after i lose my voice,
i will miss you in my bones.
even after my bones are ground to dust,
i will miss you in my flesh.
and when that flesh rots to feed the flowers
that grow above my skeleton,
and the child that will inhale the perfume
of my longing
will know that you are missed.

Angel of anguish, take this from me.

your feathers brush away my sins,

but your talons carve my guilt into my chest.

sweet Angel, carry me to oblivion,

rest your head in the lake of inaction,

tasting wordless pleas.

eyes, eyes, they say they never lie.

but you have none, only an empty promise lay in your skull.

spongey bones
ten little toes
not a single cry is heard.
i did not sing when
brought into this world.

bright blue eyes
grandfather in a tie
silent doctors grim and telling lies.
"we have no reason to believe
that she is in any pain"

twisted tendons
agony, unending
reshaping, like im made of clay
sterile tubes and lights
was all I knew, for so many nights

a macabre expanse
of leather and metal in a cruel dance
the clicking like the knell at my guillotine
fear strangling with cold hands
while the sheets witness suppressed sobs

she is not yet one
but her torture is not close to done.

notches on the bedpost
i'd rather count the freckles on your skin
i do not have a bedframe, an empty plaque
but i have my little scrawls of whim
and the tumbling scars on my back,
a rather pallid mosaic
of the sheer audacity of living
but please, count them until daybreak?

i am afraid that
if i were to perish in a car accident
and they see that
i am an ***** donor
and a doctor examines
the vessel i call a body,
he might say;
"none of this is any good"

i would be too dead
to be devastated

(still trying to pen you into existence)

slowly, we dance
a lighter in my hands
i don't smoke
empires, reduced to stones
bludgeoning the dreams we spoke
in the last rays of roan
sliding our fingers to the ribbons
tied to our throats

convicted serenity, falsified.

always the artist
hidden behind her canvas
never the muse
with a languid smile
always the composer
forever lost in false reverie
never the music
a song, a symphony
always easy to like
just for a while
never worth my price
in the transaction of respite
always the sacrifice
on the altar of lies
never the worshipped
devoted only to my light

now i'm from Georgia
never far from a mountainside
scent of earthen greed
down where hills do fly
but buried 'neath those hills
is a hate that runs deep
where preachers lie
for a false god, on their knees

now i'm from Georgia
land kissed by sea
fortune for the rich
and bloodlust for the freed
because the fog and the apathy
can be heard when they sing
liars, all of them
when they decree:
let freedom ring.

now im from Georgia.

god, i feel so unpretty
out of everyone's league
twenty-thousand pressing on top of me.

perhaps they are all too intimidated
by the siren who sinks, ill-fated
cursed by fatal beauty that leaves them fixated.

yet none brave the dive
seeing what may reside
in the depths of the briny tide
of my soul.

you would be drowning
in an ocean of my love.
and i would drag you under
to hold you close
while you choke on your own regret.

you lick your lips, hunger settling in
say a prayer before your meal of sin
crude sentiments whispered like a hymn

(and so)   feverish flesh lie flat on a platter
         though i hardly get a say in the matter
       on how and when i am to be devoured

(and yet)              i give and feed
                        the male ego, preening
                 at the sound of forced satisfaction

(all the while)     black beetle eyes roam
                          i close my own, pretending
                  that you gaze upon my heated flesh
affectionately.

beneath the folds
of aged leather,
a poem of nostalgia
creates a tether
between two strangers
of different eras.
one long gone,
the other closer to forever.
for nameless and faceless is he,
head bowed and laughing,
captured in timeless reverie.

and i know he is gone,
yet i am still left grasping
at the fragment of stolen memory.
twisted, in my fervent hope,
but i still want to remember
the person i will never know.

i was there, you know.
ironic, my name is.
but yes, i saw Her.

i was Her, and i am Now
carrying the weight of Her 'crimes'
and my biggest transgression;

living up to the name that bears
the blasphemy
the sacrilege
the defiance

i am the catalyst
the divine
the scorned
and the blamed
i am the night before
forever more,

and yet, i do not carry my name with shame.

-the walls are mumbling again.
the syllables are different
but the words are always the same.

wondering, pliant fools
the ceiling tries to sleep
but it's all no use.

find me a rhythm.
find me real soon.

salvage the pieces
of my home-brewed
gloom, in my ears
haunting the depths of the halls.
forever a ghost,
an echo, a murmur in a scrawl.-

hold me like you have
three        breaths left
and you need     two    of them
to whisper;
"always and forever, sweet    one."

to find peace in a stranger's embrace,
a risk i find myself willing to take.
and i know it's a strange kind of quest
to love with each pained breath.
yet i can't bring myself to reside
in a soulless abode of bitterness and lies.
so carry on, as will i,
to see a thread of myself
in every passerby.

-a dark brigade
carrying a funeral pyre.
held to the sky,
a message burning for miles.
weeping, is their war-cry
for grief they march,
to their battle of scorn.-