When the answer
Is cancerous
Dancing with
Necromancy
My enchantress
Fragility
Life’s
Not so sacred
Encampment
And no academia
Harbors my kind
For the sickle
Anemia
Sharpens my mind  
And I put it right back
To the grindstone
Benign

Climbing up
To peaks with you
To float with you
Through space
Renew
The happiest places
From where they begin
All the stars in oblivion
Starting to dim
Reimagine
This moment
Illumined again
And in sickness,
In health
Be prepared
For the end

Nights like this
I’m with you
Still I miss you
Far away
The only one
Who lifts me up
And then adorns my days
In gray
And though we stray
Returning solely
To the city lights
Surrounding
All around us
Haven’t found us
Permanence
A place to stay

Now I can really
Stop caring
Thread baring
Regaining
My bearings
Imbalanced
Repairing
The damage I’ve done
Open wounds I’ve inflicted
The monster I’ve been
In my skin
Self-afflicted

But no one wants
Trauma
The triggers
The switches
The wounds
Never heal
Until buried
In ditches
And tearing at seams
Of the poorly sewn stitches
Cannot be resisted
When tragedy strikes
When the moment’s
Resurgence
Resurfaces plights
And when sickness ensues
And envelops the nights
It’s this desperate outcry
Silently
My pen writes

Couldn’t keep track
Looking easily back
Would’ve saved us the hassle
Of having to ask
Do we keep fighting battles
Or letting them pass
For imperfect
Uncertain
The surface is
Cracked
And meticulous
Faultless
Attention
To fixes
Just makes for mistakes
When it narrowly misses  
And left in the wake
Of our unfulfilled wishes
We target remarks
With deliberately
Vicious

They take a long march
And recruit
The downtrodden
Enforcing their farces
Then throw the whole lot in
The ring
Where the circus
Bespectacled
Beckons
The animals caged
Labor slaves
Win elections
Politicized weapons
Discounting the vote
And outsourcing
Offshoring
The capsizing boat
To some far-reaching
Not my backyard approach
Passes
The buck
To the bucket list
Kicked
Working classes

In these pages
I’ll awaken
What the world
Has long forsaken
I will mourn the loss
Of nature
In these pages
I’ll engrave it
I will tell her that I love her
Bear my soul
For all to share
And I will cover
In these pages
Reasons readers
Should beware
Of when too long
Bereft of pages
To engage in
My catharsis
I become instead
The words
Never preserved
Except in darkness

Amusement
Sport
And profit
No unconquered kings
Could stop it
It was something
In the water
In the wind
And in the trees
A sort of sorrow
That could lift you
Swiftly
Take your soul with ease
Though it is not
Until she leaves
Can you imagine
How she grieves
And claim the same innate
Despondency
Through all the fated
Weaves

Ravenous gluttons
It’s rather
Disgusting
Discussing this subject
Another taboo
Never mind
We’ve more wealth
Than we know what to do
And get used to
Consuming
Confusing
Desire
With need
As the greed
Transfers now
Through a wire

Brain begins to die  
Thinking only
You will die  
And the moment
That you know it
You implode in
Can’t deny
There is no waking to
Another day
Unmaking
Past mistakes
Too late
No chance to change
The minds of fate
When deemed
Condemned
To suffocate

Imagine her gone
Then from there
Make it work
Until therein
The revenant
Residents lurk
And its resonance
Echo this
Desperate
Directive
Return to me
All we once were
Irrespective
Of countless transgressions
Committed
As innocents
Victimless crimes
Become indolent mimes
In the incidents
Making themselves
All the time
Before ever there was
Such a thing
As a promise
To keep us instilled
In a pocket watch
Locket
So locked in
The notion
Emotions must profit
From some innate use
Of what one can provide
And if not
Well…
What good am I!?
Sweep me aside
If we cannot confide
Anymore
Then it’s clear
That the vision
Envisaged
Was further
Than near

Don’t take it personal
Illness is terminal
Turned us
Into
Something else
Indiscernible
From the non-verbalize
Gerbils
Still running
Around the unyielding wheel’s
Torturous fortune
Inside a vivarium
Social distortion
Where trickle down
Sustenance
Keeps us appeased
And whatever they feed us
Much sooner diseased
Ever farther from freed
We are just pets in hands
Of the gods of greed
Squeezed

But who’s up to the task
Of unmasking the past
If the present
Sets precedents
No questions asked
And in decadence
Basking away
In our trifles
We cling to beliefs
Like a tweet’s
Assault rifles
So happy to trigger
Emote manufactured
Contrived
Artificial
Pet issues
Have fractured
Our psyches
Identities
Loyalties
Turn
From the bastion we’ve built
To the bridges we burn

Don’t feel like ranting
Not up to romancing
For wallowing
Follows
The dread
Notwithstanding
When pictures of perfect health
Suddenly torn
And no ounce of this worthless wealth
Mourned or reborn
Just reformed by conformists
And status quo showmen
Adorned in a flag,
In a badge,
Or an omen
But I am the no-man’s land
Landless
Entrenched
And the working class man’s
Underserved
Ubermensch
Rent these tenements
Spent my inheritance
Running
Their social experiment’s
Most unbecoming
Extreme destitution
Supreme ideology
Keep heads enrolling
In highways of robbery
Move the mass media’s
Passive aggression
To cover up holes
In the history lesson
And therein I seek
But a nugget of truth
Among glorified
Stories
Alternative route
To the root of the problem
The root of all evil
Unequal
Behold it
Uprooting the people

So many fragile pieces
Of complexity
To puzzle
To perplex in
What the depths
Of my unrest
Prefer to muzzle
But uncovering
The smothering
Of all the fragments formed
In a more normalcy
Dysphoric
Inner-portrait
I have worn
Has sooner torn apart
Attempters
Be they temptress
Or dementedness
Of mind, they miss the frame
For the entire picture
Bigger than
My maddest
Scatter-brain

Do not bear
Fear
Or weary
My irrelevant existence
My request
You just reflect
My categorical indifference
Just admit it is
The best
Approach
To forming these attachments
Just confess
If we had never met
And memorized these fragments
Formed these habits
Would we have it?  
Or confabulate
A tragic
Would you even need
To know my name
Or tune it out like static?
For what actively
Is listening
But passively
Imprisoning
The confluence of ego
And emotion
In some other
And to oversee
Eventually
Imploding as their lover

Haven’t yet missed
Any more opportunities
Just those eluding me
Never discovered
Developed immunities
Foreign to others
Whose ignorance
Shifted
From bedlam
To bliss
As domestically
Terrorists
Click the death wish

So I say again
I haven’t missed
Any chances
To take aim
And place blame
On bandits of bandwidth
Reframing the digital aging
King’s gambits
But can’t reprimand
Can’t command
We clean house
If they’re making us sick
At the click of a mouse

So I reaffirm I
Do not shy
From my duty
Engage civically
But at times
Rather rudely
When only I venture
To censor
The nemesis
Silicon-based
Artificial intelligence  
Clickbait and switch
The code
Ode to dystopian
Cyberpunk’s pulse
To make nervous
The system
And watch it convulse

The room would shrink
And vanish
I’d be left alone
To panic
Into darkness
Closing in
Around me
Soon would I be banished
Feeling famished
For companionship
Bereft of love
A cancerous
Despondency
Would start to grow
Your warnings
Echo
Told you so
And knowing we
Had come so far
Learned to accept
The way we are
Discovered some
Profound compassion
Deep connection
Satisfaction
Just to see us
Overcome
By strife
Would render me
Undone

Free peoples
Inherently equals
In status
Yet countless “illegals”
Made sheep in the paddock
Like bouts of the measles
Proliferate panic
Dehumanized by
A contrived apparatus
To those who resist
Cognitive dissonance
Dissidents
Do we want peace
And security
Caged?
Or do we want a war
So unlawfully waged?
On the ways
We identify
Seek affirmation
The species
Is specious
Compared to
The nation

Let this be the one
That will resonate
Audibly
Spiriting me
To a tune
Of most longingly
Late at night
Wondering
Where it went wrong
How it fell apart
Leaving some
Discordant song
In its wake
In its aftermath
Probingly vexed
To have clearly foreseen
I would make such a mess
Of such otherwise
Soaring highs
Tidy and neat
Had it all figured out
Saw the journey
Complete
But remember
I reminisce
Flee to my reverie
Lest I forget
And let memories
Bury me

This city
The world
All the rest of it
Looms
Overbearing
Without me
Expelling its fumes
Into some atmospheric
Calamitous ends
Into globalist visions
Dystopian trends
A greenwashing campaign
A whitewashing the stain
A robotic performance
Of hypnotic fame
But society
Beckons me
Back to bemuse
In its melody
Maladies
Fallacy news
Except now it’s infused
With a glut of my
Truths
And whatever you like  
All subscribe to my views

Maybe this isn’t
Adroitness
A talent
My skill with a blade
Not as brave
Nor as gallant
As one who was made
In a penmanship palace
Imbalanced
My trade
Often deficits
Palates
And I am left just
A distasteful
Impostor
Recounting the ways
I’ve repeatedly
Lost her
And offer it all
To judgmental
Reviewers
Who learn me like
Pro bono
Poetry tutors

Memorize these names
It’s fame
Makes idols of iconoclasts
And critics of acclaim
And so we put them on
This pedestal
Then thin the ranks
To skeletal
Like skewed dysmorphic
Perfect
Happy endings
Unforgettable
But Oedipal
Complexes
Just neglect
Abusing youth
From when they’re groomed
To how they’re broomed
To independently
Produced
When the producer
The seducer
Just reduces them to dust
But not of stars
On boulevards
But merely objects of
Their lust

Out of sync lately
Mistakes have been
Gravely
Impacting
Exacting
More making us angry
But strangely
As yet
Undeserving as I
Of forgiveness
She still seems to find it
Inside
Amidst dissonance
Distance
Disdain
And decay
But there’s no one
I’d still rather see
Every day
I just have to preempt
And preclude
Provocation
Not merely accept
It as my
Inclination

Wandering
Squandering
When have I not
Failed to reach my potential
And mentally rot
In a caustic
Corrosive
Self-loathing
Moroseness
That worsens
The more
I’ve expended
Resources
Exhausted recourses
And letting her down again
Just reinforces
Alone
I can’t hurt
I can’t harm
I can’t hate
I can’t blame
I can’t claim
I am not the mistake

Like ghosts in the wind
Into formlessness thinned
Having dimmed
What illumined
Implores I rescind
From promissory
Thresholds
Committed to stay
But my history
Written
Retreating away
From conflictual fronts
Confrontation ramparts
And a battlefield
Littered
In withering hearts

Mania’s
Micro dose
Host
Mostly harmless
Hostility felt
But at least I disarm it
Before going public
With my uncouth nature
The truth is
It’s some kind of anxious
I’d wager
And smirking
And lurking
And chuckling with glee
Appears lunacy
When it’s just me
Gloomily
Having full conversations
With shadows
And wind
But externally
Ear to ear
Stretches my grin

All it adds up to
Delusional
Sentiment
Not necessarily
Miracles
Heaven sent
And I’ve spent
Precious
Invaluable
Time
On believing,
Conceiving
It there in my mind
Or somewhere
That contains
God complexity
Brains
But refrains
From more formally
Praying
Its games
Although every
So often
I soften
The skeptic
When signs appear
Crystal clear
Waxing poetic

I think of it
All of it
Last day together
Are there
Any words
That could salvage forever
When all forms
Communicate
Some expiration
And needless to say
I am just
Irritation
Incarnate
Unnerving
Recurring mistakes
As you harden your heart
All the harder mine breaks
And it takes me to places
Too dark to escape
And it numbs me to feeling
Entombed by the weight
Of contrition
Remorse
Utter ruin
Despair
Melancholy
My folly
Beyond all repair

Vengeance or justice
A thinning blue line
They mete it out
Dole it out
Punish the crime
Keep us safe
Keep us facing
The wall
In disgrace
Like we’re already guilty
But make no mistake
They are just the slave-catchers
The shackles and chains
Their immunity
Qualified
By the bloodstains
On the pavement,
The backpacks,
The halls of our homes
And their failure
To serve
And protect us
Arose
From systemically racist
Agendas
And schemes
To be for-profit prison’s
Enforcement machines

My second reflection  
Appears in the mirror
And suddenly I’ve
Never seen myself
Clearer
Begrudgingly
Sigh
I no longer
Endear her
Can’t cheer her up
Fear
That the ending
Draws nearer
That my complete picture
Omits
The mirage
That the photos
Cut deeper
And scar my visage
And you’ll just see
Deformed
Mutilations
At best
An unlovable beast
From his man suit
Undressed

If I had nothing more
To say
I would’ve written it
Another way
Grown old
And having been
All out of options
Settled down
Ingest the toxins
Of a modern
Lifeless
Strife
Without a sound
And buried down
Forever deeper
What I never
Wanted found
But I am just
An open book
And readers
Cannot help but look
And what it took
To tell my story
Started with
A simple hook
A line and sinker
Master tinker
Overthinking
Critically
And if you lose me by the end
Well then
There’s plenty in the sea

When we finally
Wake up
From the dream
Could it be
This is not the forever
We used to conceive
We are not as together
As like to believe
And when leaving
Is all that
Alleviates
Stress
Is there anything left
But a ruinous mess?
If the sound of my voice
And my presence
Perturb you
And absent
Its resonance
Doesn’t unnerve you
As much as it would
If I was
The one wronged
But still couldn’t undo
Beside you
I’ve belonged

But now everything’s changed,
So much ice
In the veins
In the air
In the room
In the gloom
It contains
Hurting you
Hurting me
Is now all that remains
And we don’t feel the same
As we used to before
When I open the door
It’s like bracing for war
And I see us still trying
To desperately cling
But we keep going back
To the same exact thing
Such irreparable harm
Such appalling disgrace
Can’t erase
The betrayal
Just watch as it breaks
Us down further
In fervor
In heartache
Inveigh
When no terms of endearment
We have left to say

Starting to prefer
Alone
Though
I want you
But before
A mere name
Could be slipping right through
Seldom kissed
I commit
A most faithless
Adrift
And I stared for too long
And I gazed in her eyes
But at night
Only you in the dark
Would I find
Only you
Who reminds
That my longing
My yearning
For dying inside
Cannot weary
Or wayward
My down for the ride
Further still
Have I shown you
The places I hide
When I cannot keep carrying
Days out of sync
Sinking
Crushed
By the weight
Of my ego’s distinct
Inclination
To feel itself
Safe
In the warmth
Of the moments
I am not a wraith
When you look upon me
And I cannot escape
From the hold that you have
Over my last embrace

Am I just
The next transgression
Never learn my lesson
Stressin’
Lonely graves
I must
Unrest in
Empty suits
I look my best in
Can’t befit
My corpse decay
As hollow as
The sky is gray
When half a world away
You flee
And no sunlight
Enlivens me
No sight
Nor taste
Illuminates
No scent
Nor touch
Intoxicates
It all just resonates
Despair
And melancholy
Everywhere

Moments eternalize
There in your eyes
And I crystallize
Memories
Nemeses
Vie
For a seat at the table
A place in the stable
And I am still willing
To gladly
Disable
My sought after
Loveless
Redemption’s
Return
To companionship’s
Rift abyss
Feelings confirmed
In the actions and words
Undeterred
Unreserved
Until my
Hope to die
Guilty sentence is served

Perplexity
Vexing
Confounding as ever
Attraction not only
I see us together
And romance is not
What you think
What you want
Is a love letter
Penned
In illegible font

Undeserved
Underserved
They still need us
To turn
To keep catering
To
The downtrodden
To earn
What a dignified living
No longer affords
And what destitute
Institutes
Leave uninsured

It’s how much I’d miss you
To you I submit to
And none more among
The great many
I serve
More than her
Undeserving
Will I
Ever learn
How it hurts
To be bearing
The weight of betrayed
How to stay
Inclinations
Inflictions
Of pain

The longest goodbye
The most longing to die
I have ever considered
The flowers have withered
And soon enough die
Upon hitherto
No more embrace
We can trust
We just give in
Forgive
And just feel the love
Rust
And like that
She is gone
I keep trying
I fail
Can’t avail
Me enough
And whatever becomes of us
I will still
Wanderlust
Wondering why
Does it hurt
To alive
And return to eternity’s
Longest goodbye…

Make us a creature
A villainous
Wretch
Skulk about
For the precious
We formerly kept
After theft
And a fratricide
Made it our own
And we made a new home
Out of shadow and stone
And the bones of our victims
All strewn about caves
And all hapless intruders
Play our riddle games
For our psyche is shattered
Persona is split
And discarded,
The heart
To a bottomless pit
Where we wait
And we stare
And we talk to ourselves
We’re forever condemned
To a ring’s
Magic spells

Now that I’ve lost you
It’s clear
What it cost you
What put you through
Days of unhappiness
Plainly
As clear as it’s been
From the start to me
Mainly
But often
As into the coffin’s
Unmade me
My love still persistent
Albeit,
Ungainly
In ways I could phrase it
Mistakes just erase it
And then no forgiveness,
No hoping
Could save it
If yours disappears
Then we cannot endeavor
To once again
Rest
On the shores
Of forever

This time
It’s not unto death
I can give
Anything left of love
Of my life
Yet to live
If you don’t even like me
Can’t stand the mere
Sight of me
Push me away
Day by day
And by nightly
I’m once again grossly
Mischaracterized
As the guy
Still disguising himself
Suicide
Although I
Only wanted
You ever to hold
Onto me
If I truly
Enlivened your soul
And enamored your heart
And enraptured your mind
And enveloped your body
In mine intertwined
So if this isn’t it
Anymore
The dynamic
Just let the ensuing
Depression
Be manic

Without markets
It’s darkness
No cable
To spark this
That works
To connect
An anonymous
Marxist
With Cominterns
Burning through
Forest and field
More ideally
Than killing ones
Capital yields

Cavalries,
Fleets,
And the streets
Are all mine
All these corridors, mine
All these concubines, mine
All my coffers are brimming
With enemies’ dime
And my dungeons still reek
Of the insolent swine
And my right to command
All the land
Is divine
But I will
Cause depression,
Make hunger a weapon,
And question the curs
Like a history lesson

Difference of opinion
On who’s fit
For this position
On which either one’s
Division
For the country
Is consistent
With their actions
Speaking louder
Than their policy decisions
If their words
Are incoherent
And their facts
Are blatant lies
And we can see
Hypocrisy
Definitively
On both sides
But can’t agree
That mental faculties
Though clearly in decline
Do not determine
That the candidacy’s
Cancer
Is benign

God is just
Your shame
Your insecurity’s
To blame
Not everyone is out to get you
Not a reason to complain
So stop deflecting
And diverting
Only hurting
Your pretension
With each mention
Of the overwhelming
Trauma
You’ve endured
In no dimension
Left conceivable
Will you be reassured
You’re not a victim
Not a target
Just entitlement
Incarnate
But your followers,
Subscribers,
All the eyes on you
Desires
Are made fleeting
And enfeebled
When you’re asked a simple question
Can you really live without it
But a moment’s
Inattention?

Little man
Gets enraged,
Is why every war’s
Waged,
And nothing stays
The saber-rattling
When it’s simply
How we’re made
And what we gain
From our crusading
Must be powerfully
Displayed
And what the makings
Of arms racing
Yields an arsenal
Arrayed
And what precipitates
Intimidates
Obliterates
And fades
Like an imperial ambition
Spread too thin
In its campaigns