What divinities
Beckon me
This time
Enchanted
Enraged consciousness
In a shell of
Recanted
Positions all formerly
Formative
Certain
Result in this normal
Pejorative
Version
This boring
Embittered
Automaton
Person
More callous
More crass
Far less likely
To help
Unless it
Can enrich
My immortalized
Self

******
In my loneliest sorrow
Foreboding
Yet for
Her I do
Know I have to keep going

Atoned
For my failing
My feeling
Like ****
By unmaking myself
More becomingly numb

Then disowned
But immersed
In material worlds
In my alienation
Recounting the girls

I bemoaned
Of my heartache
Uniquely
Distinct
As if no other lovers
Expressively inked

Their enthroned
In eternal
Forevers unfolding
Just finally found mine
In her close to me
Holding

You’d think by now
I’d overcome
My undoing
Reclusive
Obtuse
Of no use
Just consuming
Indulgently,
Carelessly,
Selfishly
Sating
My lust
For the never enough
Stuff I’m craving
But they could all watch me
To no end devour
Avert their gaze
Flee from my gaping jaws
Cower
Before my voracious
Most wasteful
Disdain
In its hungry indifference
Treats them
All the same

The sickness of society
Itself
The impropriety
The clock
Tik-tok’ng
Virally
The world reacting
Violently
Too long repressed
This side of me
Pretenses
Prone
To primacy
Eventually
Become the norm
Undo the instinct
To conform
That comes from this
Excessive culture
Dog eat dog
Consumer vulture
Law and order’s
Infrastructure
Ruptured like
A housing bubble
Hospitals
Reduced to rubble
And beneath
The tons of toxins
Still our self-destruction
Blossoms
Love and hate’s
Unnatural state
Of unions we cannot
Equate

I’ll always be
The quiet kid
Internal wild
Riot kid
So long within
The shadows hid
Unto my fallen graces
Bid
A long farewell
To adolescence
Yet preserved
Its youth
Quintessence
Fully formed,
Matured
And grown
Up in a world
I can’t condone
And so condemned
To walk alone
Along across
Its vast unknown
I’ve shown beneath the surface
Seldom
More than what is
Most unwelcome
This
Needless to say
In writing
What I’d rather
Be inciting

****** expressions
And micro-aggressions
Connections,
Perceptions
And lasting impressions
Still can’t comprehensively
Summarize
Talk
Just communicate
What we
So seemingly
Sought

Edge of the world again
Jumping back into
A despondent sea
For eventually
Everything ends
With my misery
Close to sustaining
In totality
What just years ago
Seemed
Inconceivably
Distant
Attained,
Reified,
Redefined
Self-sufficient
To then see
Dependency
Forming
Between
I can’t live without you
Can’t make love
To a screen

Free screechin’
My speech
From on high
Out of reach
And I keep droppin’ bombs
Like the gods you beseech
To surcease the truth-bleaching
How many we reap
To keep eye-sis on prizes
And dreams ever suite
Like the president’s penthouse
My skyrocket rents out
The tenements
Residents
Turned into terrorists
Level it all
For a nest egg
Resettlement
Watch the rest beg
As I hatch
Propaganda
My liberty spectacle
Extravaganza  
Commanding
Demand
In my talons’
Vice-grip
Watch me crush the life out of
Refuse to submit
And perpetuate conflict
Unscathed and unfettered
Without even ruffling
One single feather

The issues that plague
The day
No one will want to say
Just let it go
Far astray
Like a stowaway
Soon reenact
The detachment
Scenario
Learning each time
That it isn’t
So scary though
To remain bound
Inextricably linked
With a future in which you
Suppress the instinct
To abandon what
Brings the most
Comfort and joy
When you feel
What you seek
Soon enough
You destroy

What is this warped
Standard beauty
Obsession
This skewed
Self-esteem
That distorts
Your reflection
Is it
A pretentious
Consumer-based
Model
To blame for
The single-use
Plastic-faced
Squabble
Or simply just vanities
Staring inherently
Fairest of all
On the wall
We apparently
Cannot see clear
Merely peering in glass
But somehow
We make shards
Of the one looking back

But I cannot lie to you
Soon enough die for you
Told you I’d wait
Hesitate
My goodbye to you
Even in doubt
You return to my sight
Or without you
Before me
To read what I write
I would carry on lonely
Just solely compelled
By the still so elusive
Lost homeliness
Dwelled
In its absence
Move past this
Impossible choice
For each option
A toxin
No hope to rejoice
If I go
I relinquish
My life’s work
Amounting
To stay
In old ways
I can spend the days
Counting
The fortune amassed
At last
Watch myself tear at
The seams
Fall apart
If you’re not here to share it

This is my life now
Be told what to do
Just get used to the ways
That I fail to please you
Could be going through some
Minor
Internal crisis
Infecting
Afflicting
My love like a virus
And I just
Want something
To cure the
Divide us
Retire my
Self-righteousness
And unite us
But try as I might
For impartial
Provider
I’m building a home
With some sticks
And a lighter

You beckon me back
To the path
Not yet taken
With you I’m the tallest
The strongest
The bravest
The boldest
When circumstances
Are the gravest
And I will keep pulling you
Back in my arms
Keep on letting you snooze
On your morning alarms
Still refuse to get used to
This losing you
Fear
Still exclusively
Write to you,
For you
Sincere
For without you I’m smallest
The weakest
The fakest
The coldest
In sunlit expanse’s
Oasis
So beckon me back
To the path not yet taken
For all those I’ve ventured before you
Forsaken

Have I not
Yet overstated
Graves and havens
All the same and
Grim as I’ve ever been
Staunch proletarian
There is but one
Whom I hold
Dearest sentiment
Much to the complement
Of my addictions,
My bastions
In ashes
Atop my convictions
My practical
Prosperous
Prose
Only knows
How irrational
Feels
How emotional flows
When she goes
Beyond where
I relinquish control
Where the only choice left
Is to give her my soul

Look at us
Blurring the days
In these picture frames
Going our own
Separate ways
Onto sicker brains
Leaves me
Internally
Wretching
To contemplate
Predicated
On the seedbed of doubt
That what happens between us
Would wither without

We’re all just
Walking corpses
Mass extortionists
Exploiting
One another’s
Other lovers’
Generosity
Avoiding
Indiscretion
Infidelity
Indefinite
Decay
And in the interim
Infer
There must be someone left
To save

Not problems
Ideations
More like mental health
Math equations
Wait
Can I say that
It’s not a condition?
Just bury myself
In my work
In my mission
In reason
Still lacking a purpose
But aimed
At the brains
Of the same
Kinda strange

Always wallow
Ever wither
I am underneath
The Winter
Soldiering
Like lonely snowmen
Thinking of the graves
Below them
Frozen in
How long I’ve known this
Predisposed to cold
Immersed
My killer instinct
Nature lurks
How hard to keep repressed
It works
To seal within
An icy fortress
My most
Predatory
Portraits

Immersed in new roles
Disappearing in me
If I get any closer to death
I am free
But I might just keep playing
This game everyday
I can meet
And delete you
The same
Unafraid
To be severed
From ties
Tirelessly I knotted
And weathered the storm
Like a pumpkin patch
Rotted
Forgotten again
Is the ink in my pen
And despite how it pains me
I still write its end

Love for my solace
Enchantress
Romances
To render my solitude’s
Narrow expanses
A coffin no more
Than the halls of Atlantis
Enthralled on the shore
Of a homeless encampment
Displaced along
Floodwaters rise
But alive
And as long as
The conflict ensuing
Is distant
Not in my
Backyard
Basically
Non-existent
My conscience is clear
And untarnished my pride
I can carry on here
Without guilty inside
All it takes
Is reducing
The problems to me
All alone,
So alone
In my personally

Fear not
I am only
An omen away
Just a miracle
Universe
See you someday
And in nearly three decades
My path has converged
Intersected
Enmeshed with
Insatiable urge
Irrepressible
Lust
To be wanted
Adored
But I must
Be left all alone
To rest assured
That attention received
Won’t just leave me aggrieved
When the unwanted feelings
Arising
Deceive

Staunchly the vanguard
Far flung is my beachhead
And only the sirens
Have sung of my weakness
And lonely horizons
As distant as memories
Unparalleled
In bestowing serenities
Woe and beholding
Idyllic illusion
All coming to ruin
As foolish delusion
Intrusion deep into
My psyche sanctorum
Fixated on finding
My place in the forum
Beside the belied
Circumscribed
Happenstance
But encounters as resonant
Subject to chance
And entranced
Unperturbed
Or intrigued
I’m romanced
Just as easy as wind
Finds its way through the world
Just as natural
As any boy
Talks to a girl

Still nonetheless
Hurts
Your reversal
Of fortune
What’s up wit me?
Now you see
In full distortion
Was not what you wanted
Expressed
Or repressed
Miss me
Just keep me guessing
Hurts still
Nonetheless

Coward
You felt it
I know it
So chase it
Don’t ghost its
Verboseness
Its lack of embraces
Its pauses in places
Its stuttering
Muttering
Fluttering
Bumblebee
Try as I might
There is lonely
My lunacy
Solely
My infancy
Slightly matured
More inured to the suffering
Sooner you bring
More restored
By the solitude sorrows
I sing
Upon feeling the jolt
Of your poisonous sting

Worked hard for this bastion
With masterful
Craftsmanship
Forged
In a crucible
Of my undoing
Secured
Rest assured
In catastrophe
Brewing
Like cauldrons
Of storms
Like calderas
Of potions
Like maelstroms
Of mind
In a sea of emotions
I’ve courted disquiet
Cocooned in unease
A tumultuous riot
Adorned in oblivion
Shrinking like violet

Running out of
Ways to care
You win some
Lose some
Grin and bare
The failure
Incomplete successes
Life is making
Cleaning messes
Shame,
Humiliation
Stresses
More or less
A desperate plea
A cry for help
Since infancy
Along the way
Some tend to hear it
Seek your truth
Then come to fear it
So, I’m simply finished
Trying
Here on out
Just keep on dying

I am the imminent
Detriment
Human,
The eat the rich
Feed the poor
Final solution
Delusions of grandeur
Commanded
Beside
Shadow valleys
And alleyways
No place to hide
Nor a refuge
Awaiting
My ego escape
Just the alternate one
That looks good in his cape
And the gaping vast maw
Of the void opens wide
And there’s no place to run
And still fewer to hide
Now coerced to confront
Its indulge affirmations
Its many minds,
Many lives,
Infinite faces
I still play the game
And claim victory
Seamlessly
Seizing my darkest desires
Since infancy
Infamy,
Outcast,
Pariah
Expelled
And despite how deep into
The distance
I meld
There is no sanctuary
In which I confide
The unspoken
More vocal
Than no place to hide

Is this why I do
What I picture
Undone
Why internalized voices
All rolled into one
Like a gun to the temple
Corroding the psyche
Gets triggered in silence
Appearing unsightly
Unloading its violence
In public now
No chance
I’ll ever come quietly
Not so politely
Conveying anxiety
Try as I might
To cast doubt
And aspersion
There’s something unspeakably
Sinister
Lurking
And surfacing
So close
To breaking the skin
Is its
Solace in madness’s
Most aloof grin

Had it all figured out
On my way up
From way down
Commitments to change
Into willingly bound
Just to meet unforeseen
Redirection
Temptation
Throw it
All away
On a whim’s
Inclination
In case it should vacate
Holistic embraces
The pieces all present
But in the wrong places
Or forced into place
Where they do not belong
Now it’s stuck in my head
Like some kind of love song

Dusk settles in
On my grimmest despair
Of my guilty subconscious
I’m all too aware
Too fixated on quelling
The faith reservations
Uproarious tirade
Of self-confrontations
At war with
Internal conformist
Resent
I nocturnally wander
The wastes of lament
Not enough for
My suffering’s
Love hesitant
But sincere
What I actually feel
Is content

Know just where to sit
Bring the fringes to me
And then centralize
All of it
Cable TV
And no thanks
I’ve got plenty
Of drugs to have fun
But still innovate
Later than
Never been done
I’ve been one with
Euphoria’s
Relative
Masses
Organically
Championed
It in my classes
The last of us
Wary
There is no escaping
This room
Or this tomb
Nor the gloom
Of heartbreaking
So listen
And learn
Then apply it painstakingly
Diligent
Increment
Progress ensues
When we talk to each other
About the issues

Friends lost forever
And families estranged
Does it go?
Does it turn?
Can it not stay the same?
I see holidays
More like malaise
And I hate it
Accustomed to work
When I once celebrated
Just stuck in my ways
Out of place
Aggravated
I never thought changes
Around me
Unwelcome
A pop culture reference
Exceedingly seldom
Confirmed understood
But I couldn’t care less
Retrospectively
Forward progress
Calculus

Embracing tonight
I feel lonely and pensive
I heard from my girl
But my home is so empty
Seems like a lot less
Than three years ago
Entered
Found purpose and cause
In the people I’ve mentored
A living,
A being,
A place to belong
A community
Hidden
Was here all along
And still part of it
Just at a distance
Transition
To next chapters
Elsewhere
Adventures unwritten

Attacking the man
Not the candidate’s plan
Nor his policy
Killing spree
Gun in each hand
Let the grandstand
Theatrics
Commence
The pretense
Can’t convince me
Some fool in a suit
Represents
What expensive
New spectacle  
Circuses
Act
On behalf of the people
Before super PAC

Extinction
It happens
The reigning claim
Wanes
We consume
And indulge
In the holy war
Games
We persist
In complicit
Explicit
Slave trades
Then they dig up our bones
Where we dug our own graves

I only know
So low it goes
Written down
And with each note
Composing
My hole in the ground
Be it of my
Enormity
Hubris
Reborn
As my self-esteem’s
Self-loathing
Vision
Reformed
Just remember me
Staunchly
And stoically
Stolid
Amassing my fortunes
Like orphans
In squalid
Conditions
From riches
To rags
I was given
My recompense
Just more expensive
Laments of my privilege
A whole village
Left
In the wake of my dream
Be at peace
With profession’s
And profit’s
Cuisine

And yet,
As I stumbled
And plummeted,
Spiraled
I soared to the heights
Of a hubris
Unrivaled
Compiled
My youth
Tribulation
Disgrace
As I fell
More in love
With its tragic mistakes
Not the least of them
Leaving
For more fulfilled shores
Nor the most
I could gain
From unsettling scores
Of the populous
Forcefully normed
To my kind
The metropolis
Downfall
Reformed
In my mind

They had a big heart
Know they did
Why they died
They were living
For eating
And dying inside
Unreservedly love
They imparted to others
But bound to their
Cravings
The decadence
Smothers
And deeper
In deeper-dish
Dissonance
Lingers
The blood sugar
Insulin
Plantation’s cane
Now the Neo-Monopoly’s
Game of weight gain

Like a virus
Just uploaded  
Human nature
Soon outmoded
Superannuated
Use
What purpose I have now
Obtuse
A recluse
More machine
Than man
The latest tech
Within my hand
Yet still don’t understand
The changes
What my role
In climate
Change is
Only my directive
Senses
What the coding
Fails to mention

Normalize
The no more lies
Cushions of privilege
Urbanize,
Demonize,
Vestige of village
The thrill is
The ****
And the millions
In shrill
Shrieking panic
Demand it
And they pass the bill
But then we foot the bill
And the citizens
Rest
While the rest of us jest,
Freeze!
You’re under arrest

The last words I’ll ever write
Her
Unobscured
For each day spent without her
To with ‘er inured
Rest assured
My finality
For her  
Undoubted
My feelings no longer
Illogically
Shrouded
Confounded she’d so much
As suffer
To take me
Unbounded
Awaiting
Her heart
To erase me
Or dare I hope
Soulfully,
Solely,
Embrace me
Again as she ever has
Tried to escape me
So let again lonely
Consume and unmake me
Replace me eventually
Fading from memory
Mine left to rot
In her absent
Serenity

Don’t think you can sell me
On more than needs-based
I don’t think you can tell me
I’m wrong
To my face
That the price justifies
What the world lost to make it
To take it to market
For product replacement
Of nary apparently
Valueless cogs
With the e-commerce
Metrics
Of new money gods

In bastions
Of Athens
In bathos
Unmentioned
We learned of my most
Civilizing
Pretension…
But miasma in the streets
The prices spike for gas and eats
And aisles full of the deserted
Still put ***** in the seats
Armada fleets
Exacting trade
By any force
Of commerce mightier
Than people it extorts
And it aborts its own last rites
To feed the richest
Their reports
And still under my aegis
My supremacy elitist
Representing staunch
And solely
No conviction
More egregious
Than my appetite
For sleight of hand
Subliminal starvation
My addiction to
The revenue’s
Casino reservation
To the totem
Status hierarchy
Token virtue’s
Price,
So tag the flag
Like body bags
And watch me wage a war
On rights

We are every bit as worthless
As the dirt is
But it grows
We just impose
And peddle
Influential
Genocidal droves
Is all we ever will accomplish
From the reaping
That we sow
Our own destruction seeds
Implanted
In enchantments of a scene
With ease
Entranced
By what askance
Dehumanizes us,
Machines

I work in the future
And thrive in the past
I live in the now
For I’ve mastered this class
Armageddon
Armed conflict
Is messy and grim
Is maniacal
Viral
Beheadings to spin
For extinct
My distinction
From that which
You cling
To popularity
As currency
Concurrently
A shopping spree
And I am just an old,
Fossilized,
Unwritten history
Predating
And presaging
Starkly raving
Of the grave
For I have been there
I have seen it
I have marched
In its parade
And I will be there at the end
To watch it all go up in flame
And in the eons passing by
They will assign me
A new name

Try to keep me from my students
I’ll be back with retribution
Execute
My education
Like an edifice
From ruin
For consumed
In long entombed
Devoid of purpose
I collapse
Without a point
Through which to put it
On this page
Within my grasp
I am aghast,
Must teach the class
That this divides us from the beasts
But has the power
To unite us
As a species that can speak

Eviscerate
Take from me
Leave me defenseless
Who knew
A mistake
Could become
So portentous
Incenses
Ineffably
Target acquired
But seldom is I
The object of my ire