Learning to be human; I raise my glass to bitter silhouettes. A vibrant mess of tragedy and lethargy crashing between these ***** sheets. Grasp the hands that hold you back. Replace the voices that stung your fleshly establishment and disintegrate the surrounding atmosphere. we're stuck. we're terrified. We have lifted our arms and pitch to an honorable level, otherwise disheveled and  destroyed. CAN YOU HEAR THROUGH THE NOISE? The static fills the empty spaces. I am balancing on curbs, and i am curbing my appetite for disturbance. Your eyes are what i am most afraid of. Vacant, excessive....slicing me in to fragments of extinction. Bring to life the fallen leaves -- perceive the landscape for nothing more than what it is. I could tell you i'm fixed. I could fabricate these lonely narratives. Look into your face and plunge the knife slow. Reciprocate the venom I've been injecting. Infectious allegations to promote your narrowed estate of mind. I examined it completely...A to Z. I am fixated on the entrapment you've designed especially for me. Note the elegance and fallen tipsy. I've resigned from my superior complex -- now to mismatch with your faults. We were born on these broken bridges worth burning. Side effects can be exaggerated, and usually are to your liking. Fighting for the sake of argument, for the sake of sound. thunder crashes within my skull -- reverberating against my eyelids while i pretend to sleep. A lounging corpse. I'll trade a minute for yours...they appear shinier. Tasty. Grinding my teeth against your car keys; i keep them sharp. i sharpen my vision when  i feel you enter the room. A double dose. A wounded chapter in this twisted novel. my fingers move when I tell them to. I am my own puppet. I reenact plays that have no meaning, avoiding the secrets. avoiding suspicion. I'm learning to be human.  i can feel the planet shifting.

elevated decisions rationed
falling from the sky
leaving traces of impatience
running parallel to the worry lines
ground up from the dirt
abandoned by an empty grave
shock to hollow
i have ingested every arrogant fiction
it's stuck between my teeth
and i bite my cheek
i'm forced the blood to swallow
battle of the dazed predictions
we've tried to finish
what we've started
open-ended, broken-hearted
face up beneath the waterfall.
i refuse to stop
knuckles digging deep
a stretch to sleep
demons have abducted your voice
can't you make this stop?
stabs to the gut
picture frames in tidal waves
only make the room feel colder
i'm feeling old and mostly worn
tattered blanket that keeps you warm
i will keep you warm
i have sacrificed my damaged being
for what i thought was everything.

dancing with discolored dust particles
we float around this empty house
light on my toes; hardwood whines from uneven lines
striking as much balance as i can
flashes won't surrender
these images intently weigh the moments down
flattened against the bitter boards
why can't i seem to synthesize
or cope with this acidic atmosphere
this house is falling to the earth
fingertips, losing oxygen
lifting up in echoes of sirens
a new era, a new birth
the yellow color --
we found what hurts
black and lace circling worry lines
collected upon my face
polluted pupils gazing in my direction
pairs at once with no escape
zephyr with strength;
assaulting the smile that once graced this face
we float around this empty place
i don't feel your presence
i don't feel anything, but lost
with absence of breath - comes a cost
passing the bill around, this weighted check
eyes dart
the floor or the ceiling
the healing process leaving us restless and broke
when i grabbed your cold leg
i was praying for jokes
i can't seem to synthesize or cope
with this acidic atmosphere
this house is falling to the earth
fingertips, losing oxygen
lifting up in echoes of sirens
a new era, a new birth
the yellow color--
we found what hurts.

Blank stares have embezzled every ounce of elation I’ve contained, through rigid terrain, I attempt to look up. The mirror echoes my mistakes and I can’t recognize myself through pupil size and bolder vessels. Just tell me it will be okay. I’ve driven my lessons out of open ended sentences and pushed myself to the depths of this ashtray. Where’s the separation? Charges keep adding to the receipt still stapled to my side and I’m opening wounds I’ve wrought hard to sew shut. You can’t teach the ignorant, and the ignorance trumps rationality. Formalities in my fraudulent appearance. I can’t scream it. You can’t hear it. I am simply alone, and this tower is crumbling slow. This is what I chose, as if that makes it any better. Stormy weather can **** and this hurricane has me lifted, if I plummet, will I care? Will I even blink when I shatter. Just a pitiful creature contorted on the concrete with secrets left to die in the wind. I’m screaming at her to wake up, to force some insight through fuzzed up brain cells and alarm bells, but it’s lingering in the air like secondhand smoke. Only those around her are left to choke on its’ tragedy. She’s eating me alive and I can feel my body parts deteriorating leaving ghostly images to haunt my already afflicted eyes. If I stare at the sun, maybe I can catch a part of it. If I break myself, I can break her too. These ruins are the apartment where I have really been residing and time is only making it worse. Feed me my own soul, I need to breathe. LET ME GO.

a scream of fusses in rustic reflections -- off again, forcing trust is a silent revolution for us. no blades with this parade; grasp hot coals without blinking and YES i am on top of the world. NO i can't feel a thing. Was it the destruction of senses that bordered our hesitance? Blank pages won't fade away with this operation. only collect dust. And i remembered to close this mouth. Eye contact at a minimum. Contradictions lead to continuous disagreement. i feel it even when your voice reverberates though this mind of mine, no real sounds, piles of old junk mail and fast food wrappers left to dye in the open sunlight. weren't we prepared for a battle? Fists up, intellect down. We have reports of a beast-infected stand-still. Plots to ****. I keep my sketches in my pockets, next to packets of mild sauce and cigarette butts. Mistaken for less dangerous, but let's face the music while it still plays for us. Limited is what we have become. Pushing thoughts like empty strollers over bridges and ignoring the collision and the crowds that keep forming. oblivious, but not really... considering we chose this catastrophe. Drawing lines over famous portraits, orchestrating every moment. No regrets, no remorse. Broken bones and stolen show times. As we disguise our characters and dress them under fine white linen, we count the lines. we count the circles. we prepare for the unbroken. replacements are cheaper and easier to find. hollow, determined, violent. place fingertips on pointed objects and close those heavy eyelids. this is the ending. this is the awakening. this is what you wanted.

A restless breath
Asthmatic transmission
I’ve resurrected my demons
Display, parade, spectacle
Alliances are forming
I’m forcing these words
Finger in throat
Erupt and unnerve
Deserved preferred pathways
And driveways to stumble around
No commas found, only
Broken sentences
In disheveled paragraphs
I laughed with you
I lied.
Fingers crossed, holding my breath
A child in a burning nest
I am not above,
                  or below
I rest my head on sticks and stones
I’ve made no peace with this arrangement
Noose bound tight
Blade sharpened stroking the skin
It runs in circles
It tells tall tales
It shows the truth
My voice wouldn’t confess
These mirrors haunt my shaded arrival
The witness screams
In fragments scattering the bathroom floor
Reflection is no place to hide.
I see those dark eclipses, brown and excessive
Slicing each piece thinner and thinner
What is left; a broken mess
If I could breathe, I’d clean that too.
Along with the dust that's collecting
On your fingertips.