o monotony,
her hideous face allures me
so much that i might leap into the abyss,
a mediocre fall, in truth,
onto a springboard for disaster...
and not for want of false trying.

i watched a movie today that made me cry.
i can't remember the last time i cried in front of anyone.
i looked over at my mom's tear-soaked face and as
she looked back at mine,
she did not see me.
because i don't cry; right?
i'm sure she cried some more just at the sight of me.

i've gone and done it now.
exiled myself from the one thing i want,
the one thing i crave:

the one thing i need,
or else i'll wither, for a little while.
like a tomato plant that's been out
in the muggy alabama summertime;
like i forgot to water her for just a few days;
like the leaves are wilting brown, and gray, and i think:
i can save her.

and i water her day after day;
and i sometimes think i'll drown her
the way i drench her stalk.
and her roots.
and her leaves;
like i want her to live so i can live
and through her love to live instead
of living to love her.
and i have to wait and see if she'll pull through
and save me in return.

and at the end of this day,
of whatever kind it was,
i sang some songs of old,
and smoked until the ash
and dreams
were too soaked into my clothes
for my tear-soaked mother
not to notice.

the sunsets tick like a time bomb to redemption,
the seconds, like so much sweat,
mere atomisms,
symbols of this world's inconceivables,
indecipherable nothings,
whizzing 'round your halo;
rushing to drip down your fading silhouette
before it's shattered by einstein himself.

still:

remember that it's all a game
and when your heart shouts wealth or fame,
remember that it's all the same,
remember we have much to gain,
and nothing to lose but hope.

still:

remember the way she looked,
and the way her throat strained at the hook,
remember it's your heart she took,
remember you're an open book
and your pages won't last forever.

still:

remember the shape of punk to come,
and how you used to be so dumb,
remember when she pulled the gun,
remember watching black ink run,
and the stains on your fingers forever.

still:

remember that he died for you,
and the years spent trying to pay that due,
remember that your human, too,
remember language is so crude
and the world is so...

still.

as much as i try to seem
calm and domesticated,
like an old dog in suburbia,
i am yet a beast:
my fangs drip with whiskey
and my eyes shine in the night
like a vulture or a fox, but less beautiful.
so distant, horizon lines and fish eye lenses,
like the past, or some naval armada,
pummeled by your locks,
driven to the bottom of the ocean by
your treacherous hazel eyes.

fair well, or better than i,
for your happiness is its own reward
and your smile is the universe.
once we sat, delirious,
smoking cigarettes in the misty sunrise,
talking **** about people we didn't know,
asking questions, unanswerable,
all the while, your smile bearing down on my soul,
and mine, paling in comparison,
searing itself into the insides of your eyelids.

i am the way your cheeks flush whenever you see me,
and you are the sweat on my brow as your smile,
refracted on a million rays of light,
reaches roughly into my brain and extracts
every single bit of sanity, so tenderly.

and so it seems that life and death
are just some pleasant accidents
between which we sit here, struggling
with whats, hows, whos, and whys;
but why do we care? and why should we?

and, by the way, who are we? and who is you?
questions, billions of them, unanswerable,
crawling almost ceaselessly,
down magical filaments of endless light,
towards a nonexistent finish line.

you'll never make it where you're going,
and not from lack of trying or some
deficiency of moral fiber:
it's just that that finish line, and all its glory,
is nothing but another beginning.

tired, weary, stumbling slowly,
our heart does something new,
having spent so long beating,
like some tribal ritual gone awry in your chest,
now rests forever in this world.

cross over, into the other,
the dark, the unknown, the nothing.
nothing is everything, just as ending is,
ending is, ending is, repetition,
full stop, and breathe.

and so it seems you are no more,
a pleasant detour life turned out to be,
and now, you sleep, or dream
of grass growing to the heavens,
or maybe a field flowering, just once, forever.

and so it seems that life and death
are just some pleasant accidents
between which we sit here, struggling
with whats, hows, whos, and whys;
but why do we care? and why should we?

and, by the way, who are we? and who is you?
questions, billions of them, unanswerable,
crawling almost ceaselessly,
down magical filaments of endless light,
towards a nonexistent finish line.

you'll never make it where you're going,
and not from lack of trying or some
deficiency of moral fiber:
it's just that that finish line, and all its glory,
is nothing but another beginning.

tired, weary, stumbling slowly,
our heart does something new,
having spent so long beating,
like some tribal ritual gone awry in your chest,
now rests forever in this world.

cross over, into the other,
the dark, the unknown, the nothing.
nothing is everything, just as ending is,
ending is, ending is, repetition,
full stop, and breathe.

and so it seems you are no more,
a pleasant detour life turned out to be,
and now, you sleep, or dream
of grass growing to the heavens,
or maybe a field flowering, just once, forever.

what am i to say?
when your tears are his,
his dreams are dark,
and i am, here, exiled.

the songbird tells of strife,
but sweet harmonies through the bars,
entrance the ear and heart,
almost forgotten now, the woe.

the stars, of course, point backwards,
sacrificing holy rules and codes
merely to get their fix,
before returning to their stations.

sit. silent. feel it. definitely.
i can tell there's something missing,
but as for what? what matters?
and as for how? why bother?

drift, eternal drift, so cruel,
that drags you from the top,
and gags and binds you with every word,
how empowered he must feel.

still, no way out,
but the slow, benign hand,
ticking lonely seconds,
sinister, and dripping with time.

devouring, always,
thirsting for words,
jonesing for dramatics,
yearning for redemption.

the keyboard pounds,
some inglorious Beethoven
composing some dilapidated
Archduke Trio, just for the hipsters

the action repeats. now. now again.
in spite of its supposed purpose
a mere reflex?
or the essence of self.

more more more, i say
why should not the skies erupt
with rivers of euphoria
and other useless miracles?

the city, overrun with ugly serpents, makes
the whole gambit crystalline:
permanent, frozen, and most of all,
clear, as a may afternoon, laid out on the Front Lawn.


so, always, never does it come.
the chalice spills forever,
and i must lap it off the ***** floor,
because why cry over spilt milk?

nothing grieves me heartily indeed
but that i cannot do much at all,
that i can do everything and don't,
that i need everything evil and beautiful.

the seconds chisel the ice;
the thaw, it has begun.
as old woes come to die,
new paths are clear in view,
if distant and unwanted.

return to past hallucinations,
don't trust your withering eye,
and always have in mind
the sad contempt you held
for him. (but who am i?)

old world across the ocean,
torment me with vivid lies.
i ask for salvation
and all i get is you,
ether, slipping between my trembling fingers.

she had an accident
but all i can do is drink,
until the scars and bruises
dissolve and melt into
the atlantic, or at least the bath water.

i read because i must,
and listen to the beats
that others love to death
but i just want
to get laid (but what do i know?)

i fear that god has made me so
no living soul will comprehend
that i don't mean harm
when i do the things
that hurt the most.

dread and happiness comingle,
like awkward exes at a party,
their hands touch at the punch bowl,
but they were never really
in love to start.

the path of wisdom dwells beneath
the open sewers of the street
and far above the ancient pylons
of a lonely gravity.

the sea of roses flows between
an old forgotten shattered dream
and young, immortal gods of new,
creating truth, or so it seems.

the strings that bind us to this place;
they are the same that make her face,
the beauty and the horror, truth,
beseech the strings to truth, erase.

this parade of fiction shall cease
only when the gods, with ease,
decide to shatter dreams once more:
how beautifully impossible this love is.

the story of the year was nothing but an escapist fantasy.
she took it, she read it, and she understood it as such,
yet she did not point it out so as to make it less real.
across an expanse of water and an equally daunting stretch of time,
she assumed my unjustified and unjustifiable love would dwindle,
would crumble, would fade, and would die.

and in fact, her plan is working.
every second, like a cancer,
the love that courses through my brain is being transformed.
through sheer pain and disillusionment,
whether she likes it, whether she knows it,
whether she wants it or not,
the waves of infinite love,
the ones that used to lap at her feet when she,
alone and too beautiful,
would sunbathe on the shore of my ocean,
they are turning toxic.

something has gone wrong.
like a tormented planet, choked of all good, deprived of love,
my wrath tempts my restraint.
will the hot and angry sun scorch the lush rainforests of affection and goodwill?
will the bitter waters flood the plains of balance and reason?
will my mind,
whether in retribution or in self-defence,
turn to thoughts of cosmic revenge?

but then,
with a flash,
the drugs kick in.
or are they wearing off?
and i realize that it's all for what?
and i remember what i want.
and i smile.
it's a simple wish, really,
but it's proven elusive, at best,
at worst, beautifully, passionately,
revoltingly unattainable.
i hope it stops.

but will it ever begin?

i'm in a daze,
with all things simultaneously happening,
and not,
and, as my chest exhales its harsh condition,
we both know it's up to me,
no more.

the ball in her court,
her proverbial time is anything but up;
it pains me so sweetly to know,
that i, the weak romantic,
would wait for ages,
or at least until the age was up,
and i, with renewed vigor,
sought a new home for my needy lips.

the wall of flesh and bone stands upright,
blocking the way which,
in all natural beauty,
our hands would clasp and fuse,
into a glorious pile of flesh,
a holy collection of bones,
an infinite matrix of perfectly matching atoms.

as i sit here,
desperate for her warm gaze and her fleeting touch,
instead i settle for cold words on pages,
written about people who have,
for all intents and purposes,
figured out the complex network,
of loves and lusts and loves,
or, at the very least, have shut their urges,
down,

down, we descend,
will she follow me into this?
because, despite the face of stone,
i am nothing but straw, aflame,
held fast by water-weary clay,
a David of sorts, a Thinker,
a monument to humanity,
but most of all, to its flaws.

she don't think straight,
he can't see straight,
i don't think he...
i don't think i...
can do it on my own.