you stand in front of your bathroom mirror
with puffed-red eyes and dried-tight cheeks
as you practice your smiling and deception

your thoughts feel light but your feet are heavy
and you cannot bring yourself to unlock the door

and soon you’re sitting on your little sister’s
step-stool with the unfamiliar pill bottle in your
hands when the cacophony in your brain comes to a
caesura. The sudden serenity caresses your soul
and makes peace with your demons

you know the treaty is only temporary and soon
you’ll hear the mad ravings of the demons once more
but for now you are grateful and release yourself
from your prison cell into your weary reality

the sadness murmurs beneath your skin
and deep within your chest, but its aches are
distant like an animal caged and restrained

your days become photocopies as you
continue wearing contrived smiles and still
no one knows your proud laurels are also
your crown of thorns

I am hollow
but my blood still flows
in sticky red ribbons
I wish I could wrap around my neck
and divorce myself from the doting air
and fade into sprawling oblivion
for I am a speck
of inconsequence

the sun splits the sky like a blistered wound
as your tired lips sag upon your sallow canvas-face
like a painting faded in the rain
former vibrancy smeared beneath your eyes
with the deceptions of your make-up bag

and a sleeping dragon curls within your stomach
with its claws maiming your innards
and its nostrils setting you aflame from inside
while taunting spiders begin their twisting dance upon your limbs
as a demon's sinuous-clawed finger etches into your skin
"never never"

you wear the scars like a consolation prize
as if they were a bar code upon your generic flesh
and you are broken nails and missed deadlines and fast food meals
as the words in your head are as large as billboards
but as small as the fine print you never read

the dragon awakens within your stomach
its roars echoing within your skull like a mad symphony
as you collapse and crumple like an unwanted love note
and the dragon rips through your flesh
hollowing you like a discarded cocoon
extinguishing the last of your once-burning passion

the tormenting spiders resume their spiraling dance
and with impassive resignation you extend your arm graciously
to the demon who indifferently tattoos
"forever"

heavy clouds hang loftily
in the somber grayed skies
as infant drops begin their proud descent
tiny kamikazes upon our bare skin
like kisses from butterflies

the moan of muffled thunder
interrupts the tremolo whispers of the rain
as our naked toes dig into the earth's
sticky-wet clay

laughter drips from your wind-burnt lips
like the droplets from your hair
scents of sweet-rain and mellow-mud
wafting through the air

your wrinkled-prune hand nests within mine
as we slosh and shiver upon rebirthed earth
baptismal puddles swallowing our steps
our sins begin to dry

I remember your nervous doe-eyes
and uncertain grasps
like a new shriveled-pink baby
engulfed and overwhelmed
by the palpability of a realm
outside the womb

The canary of your hair
melded with the sand of your skin
and the rose of your lips
****** into an anxious
façade of a smile

It was as if
the contortion of your lips
was stenciled onto your taut canvas face
by a neglectful artist
and you wore the mar acquiescently
like a sketch unfinished

And I remember
kissing that imperfect smile
and being stricken by a heavy melancholy
that descended from my lips
to my chest
where it burrowed inexorably

Your limp hand fell from mine
and as my chest constricted
like a reptilian death penalty
I understood your nearly-smile

the cold, bitter wind
grasps our faces with its icy fingers
and paints our cheeks cotton-candy-pink
as you tuck your chin
into your itchy-warm sweater

we watch a fluttering moth
with crêpe paper wings
and a dream of reaching the
cratered wisdom of the moon
but it settled for
the harsh fluorescence
of an ugly street lamp

its celestial dreams were abandoned
for disenchanted, grayscale realities

our hands entangle
as cold as snakes’ bellies
and as your chestnut eyes
follow the moth’s
despairing circles around the
artificial brightness of the
mocking street lamp,
I realize
you sympathize

I gently nuzzle
into your itchy-warmth
and anxious-cold shivers
as I silently wish for you
to one day reach your moon