A building so bleak and endless
The multitude of fluorescents
Blinding me with their truths of death and decay
Until all I can feel is numbness

The floor is frigid and stoney
It peeks through my weather worn all-stars
Unable to leave survivors
I stomp it to carry on

That smell so clean that is stings
Bleach and clorox pierce my nostrils
To meet reluctantly on my tongue
Tumbling and fumbling along my taste buds

A feeling of death roams through walls
Searching desperate for something to cling to
It finds my ripped jeans and plaid flannel
And nestles in for a restless slumber

Hit the needles together three times
This is where you’ll awaken
A tumultuous trip from your veins to the brain
I’ll meet you there every season

When you arrive the pristine gates open wide,
Gabriel and Lucifer uniting.
I finally understand
what those bible folks say
about believing in God.

An embrace like the dawn,
engulfing me in luminary beams of comfort.
Blinding me from surreptitious sins
that are now just an inkling
of the past.

The air surrounding us dances and mates,
rubbing our skin and shaking our souls.
Pushing us closer together
until it evaporates completely
and I am left gasping.

Static echoes our eardrums as the world vanishes,
tasting heaven and hell for ourselves.
Hues of blues and greens
heavenly halos
singing hungrily on our tongues.

Our own Garden of Eden,
between messy sheets and half eaten apples.
A chorus of serpents and lambs
stagnating the air and everything around
until we become one.

“Gloria in excelsis Deo”,
a brilliant halo illuminates your face.
Finally arriving at church
I am pulled to my knees
And wait
For the offering.

I'm envious of that deep blue,
how it glided over skin and bone without a second thought.
The last living thing to hold you
before the earth.
My touch a forgotten memory to your skin.

With every shower, I'm reminded. No matter how long I stand
under the rushing beam
I never really feel clean.
You wasted away in the ocean
for 32 hours.
I stand in the shower for 33,
and can still feel the maggots.
They worm their way into my blood and my brain
and pour out of my eyes like tidal waves.

Ten winters pass swiftly,
and I return to this beach.
It feels like no time has passed,
yet my hands are being squeezed from both sides.
The water is unforgiving and beats the shore
over and over and over.
Laying down in the sand, like you once did
I'm enveloped in white washed waves.
Instead of drowning along with you,
I’ll float
on and on and on.

I bet no one’s called you that in a long time!
You'll always be Moony to me.
I guess it was so much simpler back then…
when we pranced around on stage and could hide behind names that weren’t our own.
Reno and Moony, the stars of the show!
Anyway, I guess those days are long gone now.
Even if I still remember them clearly.
Your hands were torn but your hugs were warm and no one thought to connect the two.
The smile you hid behind was similar to mine, but you wore it better.

Anyways, it’s really been a while huh?
Since we used that stage like it was a therapist’s office.
Better than therapy, actually!
Backstage we could share tears and laughs that lingered in the air.
That ugly, patchy couch that absorbed our secrets...
I bet they’re still in there if we went back and asked it nicely.
Although, maybe we wouldn’t want to know.

I guess it’s okay that we don’t talk as much anymore.
As they say “friends grow apart” and all that.
I never thought it would feel like losing a part of my soul
when you decided I wasn’t what you needed anymore.
Do you remember dancing and singing our worries away
on that stupid high school stage?
Did you know you were the closest thing to a best friend I’d ever had?

When other friendships have been forgot,
ours will still be hot!

I still sing that song in my head from time to time and wonder
if you do too

Forever,
your Reno

You ask me questions
I don’t know how to answer
Taunt me with thoughts
of a dawnless future
Plant ideas that you know
I’m wary to act on

Praise to you, battered brain

You encourage me to look
twice over my shoulder
Remind me I’m never alone
and never peaceful
You keep me awake
with delicious destruction

Praise to you, bitter brain

You give me such dreams
hues of blue and the cosmos
Mountains and storms
tucked away deep inside
You grasp a pen
and transcribe them with ease

Praise to you, boundless brain

You turn tears into art
and create quite the sonnet
Twist my insides around
just to see if I’ll bleed
But you need us
and together we’ll be

Praise to you, and praise to me

I bend
and you extend,
collarbones to the ceiling.
Beads of sweat glisten
and the whole world watches.

Vinyl catching fire
beneath the curling and scuffing
of our toes.
Struggling against each other
to gain control.

You leap out of reach
and I am distorted,
left alone to face piano trills
and nameless faces.
I grasp blindly but of course
you find me,
trapping me in the fermata.

I break free and spin for the wings
but you ****** my slender wrist.
My veins bulge as the music turns desperate,
a spattering of minor chords
as my heart breaks,
and a major longing emerges.

A lift to the heavens and I taste the sun
again were in sync.
Wrists sprained and lungs deflated
we continue this endless waltz
for the rest
of
time.

America.
A place where guns used to be raised in freedom, but are now pointed at the lives of the innocent
America.
A land founded on the belief that anyone could come to start their lives over, but now prohibits those with a different skin color
America.
A country established by immigrants, but now closes its doors to them
America.
Where our founding fathers feared nothing, but now we fear everything even remotely different from us
America.
Where red, white and blue once meant innocence and valor, but now stands for black blood and terror
America.
Land of the beaten and beaters,
Home of the spineless leaders.