i exist beyond metaphors
there are things even poems
cannot tell.

to make a cut is to make revision
peering daylight onto flattering blame
a sin out into the open
so vulnerable to observation and hypothesis
(can you replicate it?
can you hold it in your hand and brush it away
with hysteria?)
my dependent variables
make the narrow corridors seem suffocating
soil supporting sadness
the microbes grow in the shadow of death
i'm no scientist
but i know that experimentation
is three steps back from platitude
and two steps in front of madness
i can't revise my method
to do so would admit to failure
or an error on my own scale
instead
i'll watch my own environment
be given looks of scorn and contempt
while my pseudo name is smeared with mud across the glass.

We are not autonomous agents
Born from split atoms whose heads are placed on upside down
Metaphysical refinement atoned upon us
We are a cycle of washed out fragments
Bone marrow and plastic debris
A graveyard flattered by dying light
The candle flickers wildly in hallows
It feels so poetic
We both know it's divine in an irreverent fashion
I've never believed in free will
To think that I can set blaze to my narrative
And carve out my own caves
Would be such a foolish illusion
I am formed by the ones who came before me
My life inked before me on the very first hospital bed
I rested upon
You may think it's unfair
I find it to be of sheepish solace
I will never
Find myself
If I am just
A split second of refracted physics.

This.
A lipstick-stained envelope
Mailed to your front door.
A collection of sonnets
Written on thin paper.
This.
An old map hanging by the corners
Fraying at the edges
Guiding you to here
And there.
This.
A lantern blossoming in flames
Untouched by the mortal eye
And unloved by the iridescent wings.
This.
My collection.
My home.
My requiem.

chalk-slates and battlefields  
i'll write in cursive
whenever i get the chance
swirling through dust
scribbling my signature in the corner
running across decorated hills
it seems i'm already dead
chalk-slates and battlefields
maybe one day i'll learn to put a period
instead of a comma
but for now
chalk-slates and battlefields
i'll forever be a sentence.

There is a god somewhere
Who is marked with orange
And speaks of fury
(He looks a little like you
With secondhand creations claiming Him as Father)
The deathless hero
Who chokes the souls
That never tire
Aglow is His chamber
Marked in conformist magenta
And dying melancholia
He'll never approve
Of someone as bright
As you

the music is fleeting, transient, waltzing in the middle of
an abandoned church parking lot
i know i'm not supposed to remain here
fixated on the bite of the chill
but i can't help it.  
i don't love you anymore.  
we've both known this for a while,
but i can't find the righteous strength to let it slip from my mouth
i'd rather live in a lie
of unhappiness
and petaled dishonesty
than ever tell you how i feel.
i had lunch with him this afternoon
he had his guitar
and he plucked the songs
he knew i would want to hear
i'm not saying i could fall in love with him
but i can become obsessed with the way he doesn't hide behind
false silence
in an attempt
to make me affirm him.
we aren't working
you and i
between your character of meek silence
and apathetic ignorance
and mine of bold conversations
and tones that would get me kicked out of libraries
your gentle touch
and my cold tongue
we were never meant
to be in moderation.  
i can't write this
i can't write this
i can't write this
not if i can't tell you first.

i.
mental map.  
kingdom.
a peasant's land.  
monarchy.  
soliloquy dreams.  
there is honor in being noble
there is serendipitous fate in being transient.
left to choose between a palace of exquisite marble
and expensive murals
or a life of poverty and mud-dusted fingertips
the ability to walk out upon pavement
cry in the company of a stranger
feel dangerous for a change.
ii.
chimera holds a flame above my memories
fraying the edges of sweetness
making livid to peaceful retreats
i took as a child
behind embers and coils
matchsticks and lighters
the gasoline is poured all the way across my chest
reduced to cinder
chimera holds the match
iii.  
i wish i hadn't told you
i figured that once i did, it would be in your hands
and now
it's strangled between your hands
choked and mumbled back into my scorn
i've never understood
the power of being ignored.

I don't want to be a poem.
I don't want to be a poem.
I don't want to be a poem.

there's a heart of india ink bleeding through my system
it ripples through a different world
and comes right back through my lungs
saying "i'm sorry" took too long
indifferent in its sound, a guilty muse of apathetic pleasure
there was a man in france who died this week
dedicated his life to that of creating an ambient force of music
never settling for one medium of passion
spanning outwards evermore
they say he's inimitable
glorious
envied
my veins are wrapped around this reality-based darkness
it waltzes in my head
gory tenderness is my claim
i can't hum your story in the streets
but i'll rob you of your innocence
how you happily fall into the scheme of being
a heart of eden muse

i stretch myself before you
dark streaks of charcoal
fading into shadows of shaded nightmares
from long, long ago
when i was a child
i used to paint myself in indigo
body as a canvas
mind as a painter
walking into our dismal kitchen
my mom told me she could barely recognise me
and i
body as a canvas
mind as a painter
hands as a fighter
i agreed
bending myself
into bands of charcoal.