I can steal your ashes and get away with it
if you leave the lights on and the door unlocked

no more
time
punishment
or indexed actions

death
now

if I can't **** where I eat then I wouldn't be conditioned correctly
all of my archetypes are made of wicker
to burn easily and dissolve brain cells more quickly

closer, more palatable, one-sided hand-me-down closure
comes to me indirectly
and wanders back out to sea

my own anxious battle ship
stiffened with paranoia
jolted by nicotine-amphetamine shock and
with everyone accounted for and on board
drifts aimlessly out at night

but there is no battle to be fought
there is no war to win
there are no guns
or knives
or hand grenades

just me

when we see the blackboard
we get angry
we get queasy
we get sleepy

last night I had a dream of a car crash
hot steel and cold earth
******* upon collision

all fallen disciples without
discipline

like a horse with a broken leg
the only thing I needed to complete my extension has third degree burns now

all dead paratroopers
like rag dolls
no longer fearing the earth

parachutes serve as hospital gowns
as they sway from their individual hanging trees

my existence cannot be accounted for
by myself
or by anyone I've met

you
lined the median with
all of my mugshots
so I could revel in past failures

my car seemed to drive itself to your house
I came bearing gifts but they washed away in the rain

when they knocked on your door I had nothing to say

years before I was born are the most difficult to forget
and in turn the most arduous to forgive

I liken myself to a criminal
trafficker
burglar
thriving off my skin
bathing in my own chest cavity

each day I wake up
and my cells **** themselves
at the point of full collapse
my dendrites and synapses abide

when I look back now on
years past, things that have been said, or done, or not said, or not done

I realize
there is no leaving
there is no going
there is no running
there is what is left
and all that follows

it has always been funny to me
that they call it
sin city

because it follows that
sins are commodified, justified, or monetized

speaking for myself here
if my sins were contained to
a place, or given a context
a simple time and place
they would lose meaning
if there is any in the first place

my sins are old
my sins are new
my sins are whatever