wake up
from slumber you cannot call your own
walk
run
move
proteins block and
blur motion

if i thought i could do it i probably would have done it
being in the hospital long enough
has taught me that colors correlate to days
and that the opposite is true as well

i have too much of what makes you good
and that is why i am what i am

broken legs approaching the podium
lost in open water
stranded in the emergency room
with a four inch dislocation
and wasps burrowing into my intestines

like a dog in heat, panting
always

six in the morning
five phases of traffic
autophagia to pass the time

arrived at work with one less arm
it doesn't matter if your face is made for radio

compartmentalized in an overhead cabin
gestures of kindness
favors that only exist in the past tense
and lose meaning in the present

fell asleep in my seat
they locked me in

cataract eyes
lungs full of coal

i swallowed my heart and it was full of worms

my fingers have blistered as i can no longer harness the sun
warmth is foreign and intrusive
warmth serves to damage and even sometimes destroy

fill my tear ducts with sulfuric acid
monetize my emotions
bury me in a mass grave
dug for no one but myself

swimming through flesh
monomania exists
only if chance insanity is marginalized
incorrectly

my stomach
aches in yearning
for nothing

i am your newest
latest
most adaptable
most conforming
but least controlling
****** god

termites ate half of my attic
as if to prove that
this is not my house

i am nobody
if i am myself
i am nothing
when i have it all
i am empty
when the cup is full

stay the same forever
but don't tell me who you think i am

the mouth that never closes
nests crafted out of teeth
trading skin for kindling

i will never be the same again

the ship was underwater before it could be properly evacuated
and i was drunk in the captain's quarters with a switchblade to his throat
he missed a spot when he was shaving that morning and i
offered my services

a spot on the canvas of my mitochondrial conditioning
my dendrites receive no stimulation as i laugh so i feel nothing as usual

crack my clenched teeth in a practice of proper response eliciting
reinsert the breathing tube and rip the catheter out of me
no

look at your hands
are they ***** yet?

i counted every single footstep from the car to here
i ran them backwards through my mind
and then i forgot about it

reactions and
nervous twitches
i have all of you to thank
but no time to do properly pay you back

don't worry
stay the **** away from me

dry heaving at lunchtime
pulse radiating
through every intact hull

fibers of final standing
remain, and will stay, and will stay, and will stay, at ease and incomplete

the only items i acquire at the pharmacy
are those that will inevitably erase me
these are the items i enjoy
and they are the items i hold closest

no need to die but
no fear associated with passing

absolute beauty cannot be grasped within this realm
nothing is beautiful
beauty is dead

from what is sensible
i have derived that i am always covered in insects
rats burrow into my mattress at bedtime

i leave in the stingers
i let the bitemarks speak for themselves

because i am sinking
oh god
i am drowning
breathing is more about lung capacity and less about bubbles

i hold my breath and wait

return to earth
try not to be bothered
by the bamboo shoots stemming from your lungs
through your throat and out of your mouth

of this pain, i cannot speak
but i can only imagine it hurts

the tragedy of restlessness
nightmares as fast as experience can be filtered properly
the problem of unrest is that it causes
one to see things that they might not want to

paranoia
induced by hypnosis
state of eternal and improper sleep

the sun rose on the wrong side today
i stared into it until i went blind
the crows came to visit me again at the hospital
and they didn't make me feel any better

today i came to and realized
i'd thrown it all away

cold touch
dead
all i remember

anything and everything
forever and ever
and on and on and on and on and on and on and on
forever

tall glass of ***** to cure the pain
tearing apart pigment with sandpaper and bleach in the bathtub
rock salt pouring out of open wounds

what is this?
i want to forget this
i need this
i need to forget this

price tags and delicatessen tickets
your number is up
it is time

you forgot to take your price tag off
so they're doing work on you
they will fix you
they will end you

if sleep is the cousin of death
why does it seem so infinitely appealing?

crimes of passion committed against the moon
when searching in the wrong realm
there is an urge to outsource your remaining affections

scars will never get through to you
how things are or what they were
my scars will never see through you as i want them to

with the sun comes heat
with the moon comes cold
unity of opposites
causes stagnation

infiltration of the human condition
knives with dull blades

save me
but do not help me
ever

drowning in stab wounds
bleeding out
on a white tile floor

these colors
were supposed to be ones you couldn't see
but i've showed them to you now

evergreen
but never content
like smoke on a cold night
like a chest cavity full of insects, stinging slowly and carefully

blood blisters full of gravel
this treatment is unjust but nobody
is around to justify it anymore

staggering to the finish line
going down
down with no up
pure, total, complete, perfect
down
down
down

i sleep with my hands over my face
i won't see it
i can't see it
i won't touch it
i won't feel it

it is these times
when i feel it the most
it is these times
when i need it the least
it is these times
that i am nothing at all

my dreams have no meaning
and my life even less

a direction to stand for
or one to move in

i dug a hole in the backyard
and buried everything in my house

two steps forward and seventy five back
a dry heave with each meal

i cannot feel my heart anymore
as it balloons in my throat
i cannot feel my stomach anymore
as the knots bend there way out of my skin and explode on the floor
for you
and only for you

you have created all that you wanted to let go
you have created all that you never wanted to be there
you have created me

i have no one but myself to blame
and i have nothing better to do

i can hear a dying bird
at night
in my dreams
i hear the call of a bird with wings that don't work

i listen for it until my heart implodes

i ripped out all my stitches
and i bled on your doorstep
i wanted to prove to you that i have never been coward
that i am nothing less than what everyone expected
that i can live up to embellished standards
that i don't need fixing
that i don't cry in my sleep
that i don't look over my shoulder at least three times before i smoke a cigarette
that i am not becoming a creature of habit more and more every ******* day
that i wish i had no mirrors around here

note from the author:
i have always loathed myself
i can't stand who i am anymore
i am tired of changing
but i need to
i am tired of hospitals
and neutral colors
and pills
and names that i'll forget
i am tired of pretending to be a *******
and not even living up to that

you know i'm sorry
and you know i will be
for a long ******* time

i hope you know who you are
because i've been losing a lot of faith in myself lately
but i hope you know i wrote this to make myself feel better
because no one's hearing me

i hope you know exactly who i am

*******
i took a xanax for you
*******
turning in my grave

i want to prove to you that there is a hole in the earth
and a loophole in all of our laws

i got

face the whole ******* world
convince yourself you aren't who you are
i have no ******* idea
and it doesn't matter

shine the lights brighter
******* brighter
blind me
i don't ******* know and i couldn't tell you

can you count the number of times you did it on your fingers?
cry on someone else's shoulder
grind your teeth until they shatter

you should be made to bleed from the mouth
as you spew your ******* garbage
as you spew your ******* garbage

let me crucify you for a change
and show you just what you've done

complex
serpentine in posture
unending
relentless

i cut my achilles' tendon
and ran for you like i never thought i could

the entire time
inching further from myself

if you want me to help you
i have to hurt you first

give me something to chew on
while i sit this chair and
watch you nodding along

today i saw fireworks
on the beach from
far away

lingering gunpowder clouded my vision
seagulls like it when you give them bread
but now i have a flock of birds following me everywhere i go

perched, waiting
as if to intimidate
not to extermine
but to evoke some sort of fear

this was my favorite vacation so far

drunk sitting shotgun
you're behind the wheel

don't let me disrupt your steering
don't give me control of the wheel

don't bring it back

and i promise i won't make you steer us into the oncoming lane
so i can end it

i ran over more black cats on my way here
and shattered enough mirrors along the way
to justify all the truth and all the lies

could never find a way

an operation with the wrong instruments
a nod of the head
a turning of the shoulder

replace bones with kindling
exchange organs for red phosphorous tips
transfuse diesel instead of blood

like a dying dog on a cold night in the middle of the highway
laying down
waiting

i **** time by killing you
i operate machines with the same passion i ******* with

i lost it
all of it
and this time
i blew myself up
and ran my world with my blood and guts

a well documented severe case of marginal disassociation
keeps my belly warm during the winter

in the deepest snow we could find we buried all of our necessary accessories

i couldn't lie to you
after a two full months of sundays

obligatory religious pilgrimage
offer yourself to the archetype
give in
give up

we got together in the snow this year and
when i say we i mean me and everyone beside me

we showed each other all of our stitches
we replaced all of our gravemarkers with each other's heads so as to
always be looked down on

you might exist finitely
but not here
and not now

here you will live in forever
in pieces of porcelain i will
hang your pieces from the trees

and listen to the wind at night
like a screaming child at three in the mornoing

if it was my choice to say
i probably wouldn't tell you

if it was my part to speak on
i could fill you in but not now

if it was my choice to say
i probably wouldn't tell you

if it was my part to speak on
i could fill you in but not now

exhaling smoke
i come to you

existence measured in evaporation
a small break in the page margin

whiskey and coffee on a cold night
makes my nasal cavities sting

but mostly it just makes me love you more

that my ribs may be sheared apart
to create mock wings
to writhe incessantly
in the sky
towards warmth
all i wanted was to find warmth and
the sun decided to burn my wings instead

in my ultraviolet coffin i had a few thoughts but none worth mentioning
most of which i regret
even if i cannot remember them as they were in the first place

a wish to fly
a wish to escape
a wish to not be here
anymore
not anymore

all you have to do is pay bills and fall over

******* on the assembly line workers
with your corporate grin

fall symmetrically
like pins in my throat
my pincushion body will not withstand the storm this time
and i will be gone for a long time

very appreciative, cultured and astute viewpoint there

i ask if you account for Buchenwald, interment camps, sweatshops, and the nuclear bomb laying in our backyard

you say no and come inside

chipping off bone
as a monument to an end
that neither of us are confident to move close towards

when i was born they put
tubes down my throat
and i am starting to feel
as if nobody remembered to remove them

bathe in the blood of your own savior
find someone who condones your actions
and just like you've done before
tear into their chest

talk to their organs
watching smoke curl in the desert early morning air