i ******* hate
alcohol
don't come near my friends
my family
don't create any more
qualifiers
i will destroy the bottles
shatter the glass
drink up the blood that
spills from my fists
i will not let
you take that too.

acid poison venom
the ugly disease
the one that i hate
the one that i work to
destroy.

i am ******* immune
to this fear of mine
and i am adamant
i will **** it where it
stands

Comforting words drift down from the window and I'm hanging by one finger and no rope falls down. No hand to catch me. My ears are burning, flaming, like dying candles. The voice is soft and I sense no worry. No idea that I'm about to plummet.

I fall at last and the voice is gone and I'm alive.

Yo, how the **** did I do that?

"'There was passion without emotion,' read the book.

I burned the book and then my hand caught fire."

Dig knives into my chest,
see how many will fit.

I'm doing it,
those are my hands.

This knife has your blood and this
one has hers, and that one has his.

There's no whisper telling me to
stop.

Stop.

Find me in the far East with a bow in hand and a tree at my feet and a deer fleeing to the sunrise. I hope to find a way to escape the sun before it overtakes me. The deer seeks light. I seek nonbeing. The tree has been destroyed. The North still governs where I set my feet.

Find me upon layers of ice with an ax in hand and a mammoth at my feet, buried under a million years. I cut through a thousand and then a hundred thousand and then I’m there and my ax is cutting into ancient, frozen blood and my own is flowing and I am dying a million years ago. Snow begins to fall. The million years ago meets the now and I have an adequate grave.

Find me in a casket six feet underground with a rope around my throat in case I escape again. It’s happened twice. This time, when I wake, the rope will secure me and I will not be able to dig myself out. This is good. This is what my family wants. It makes things easier. It’s good.

Find me awake in my casket, hands ****** and lips bloodier. I kiss the silk lining of my coffin and the rope cuts off my breath and my claws cut through the rope and I push forward and wet soil falls into me. It is raining. I escape the graveyard in my white and red and brown suit and I hide in a trash bin before they can find me and **** me and bury me again. This is the eleventh time I’ve escaped. It is the last. My veins are filled with preservative and it is colder and drier but I am alive and that’s all that matters. The sun comes soon. I’m not ready for it.

Find me on desert sands with a rope in hand and a horse nearby, thirsting for the river a mile off. I am mesmerized by an image before me. It shows an island. My mind tells me that the island is where I want to be, so I mount the starving horse and make my way to the island. I am clad in a white and red suit and the horse pales and they call me Death. They call me Death because I scare their children at night and I seek the island that harbors my dreams. I don’t know that the grains of sand beneath the hooves of my horse are lives.

Find me on that island and know that this is my destiny.

Steal me to distract me

Maybe then I'll forget

Three-syllable words

the act of being alone
the act of being a lone
person
without
others
nearby

the act of being depressed
d e p r e s s e d
it's crawling and then running and
then my skull is split on paper and
the blood is ink and people
are dipping their quills in it
as if my body is not there
and there is not a casket big enough
to hold everything i have touched
and created and not a scroll long enough
to encompass all that i have destroyed

Three-syllable words

some things can't be fixed

A person is a bulb
and when they are broken
words spill out

Kick the ground and it'll send you flying

Hit the wall and you'll punch right through

Power, oh power.

sickening grip on reality as
you
bend
it

Stretch the miles and retract
Go go to the edge of the universe
And your sneakers will track stardust
Into the kitchen

Blame it on the wine and on
the roses

This is the city of angels

Blame it on the killers and on
the embezzlers

This is where they come to
rest, so let them rest

This is where they come to
die, so let them live

Sup on wet flesh and sip on
sweet blood

Grip green cash and step on
the graves of the forerunners

They built this land and these
angels are not yours

Sinners, unite.

Why blame it on the virtues?

Take my heart and take my soul and
takes my hands and take my role

in this world.
What's worthy?

Your voice,
what's holy?

Your feet.

Tread hallowed ground and
desecrate it with the blood
of new gods,
newly forsaken,
newly undertaken.

Drop the shovel and surrender

Your voice is legal tender

Blasted on golden guns
with bullets flying,
shattering red veins

How can I expect to put
myself back together?

Don't.

Let me ascend to
hot heaven

Take from the poor and give to
the poorer

Scorched lime on ashy
bread

Bronze in fist and silver
in tooth

You're surely ******,
highwayman

Fizzed at edges like
seltzer water
from a plastic pack

Tell me - what do you
see?

You tell him - I see more
than I asked for

A smile and a grimace and
the alkaline aroma of burnt lemon
wafts in the window

Rock music and emotions in song
legends cast in gold
hesitancy in cracked discs
honesty in teary eyes

Dreamer Boy, you tell him
I see more than I ever imagined

It's a rainy city and a sunny one
all at once.

I bought that coat for a little more n'
twenty dollars, she said.

He looked up and clenched his jaw, coat in hand. Ma'am, you were seen stealing this here jacket.

She protested and the man was going to call for security when the police cruiser arrived outside, silent but lights flashing

Your secret is safe with me, said the officer, and he took the jacket and the man perished, and the woman opened her palm to find a little more n' twenty dollars.

It was the middle of winter and the store was closed, and the corpse of a dead clerk stained the ground for the weekend before it was discovered by the night watch. There was no coat and no woman and the police officer's name was concealed.

"The gods envy us because each moment
may be our last," murmured Homer, and pen touched paper and a legend was born in which a man killed a god*

My fingers drip crimson as I unfurl my hands at my sides
My eyes shine silver like lunar spotlights
My skin ripples with the vitality of the young
I grip a pulsing heart in a bloodstained fist and I
crush it, curling my fingers around it, digging into
the arteries and veins

This moment is my last, for a curse darkens my gaze
and the heart of a dead god dies in my sight

Will you rejoice or run in terror?

Perhaps the manic glow of ichor in my eyes intimidates you like the devil once did. Guess which form I will take next.

Distance is a savage *****
and she tears me apart,
ripping rib from flesh and
pouring blackened blood
that mingles with tears

The kilometers can ****
themselves

Moderation is healthy but
why must it be that the miles
separate us so?

You're my first kiss, my
first love and of course
something so amazing must have
a catch

I didn't think it would be this

A kiss on the chest
triggers the human instinct
to draw a quick breath

Radiating energy as you do
Would you lend some to me
I don't have a coin to spare
and you're practically glowing

Lend a thought to the low and
gain a spot higher, I know the lure
Who am I kidding?
I'm a fool to love, as are you

Spend some gold on a life and you'll realize the
pointless futility,
the hapless mortality that plagues
those immune to life

Open your eyes, my love,
see the sun with your soul

Radiating energy as you do
Would you lend some to my friend?
She doesn't have a coin to spare
and you're at a lively flicker

It wears you down, my love,
don't you see?
I'm burning bright and she is a dying light
and to fuel that fire
she must give some away

I'm burning, ****** to high heaven, and
I rise like hot air

But for you, my love--
There's still a chance!
And to flip a coin, to coax that dance,
your path to hell would quickly advance

Choose a road, my love, as our
time grows short, and my hidden plague
takes my blood and gifts me poison.

Should this vitriol spill from my lips?
Kiss it away, and steal my coins,
radiating energy as you do.

I've lost my sense of direction
I am floating without correction

Drifting toward the nearest sun
And
My starving feet begin to run

Breath hitches in my throat
Blocking thieves as if a moat
...
Protected you from me and you again
Of you there is no lack again

The sun begins to burn me up
Then
My skull is but a gilded cup

I feel you drink the richest wine
I sigh when I know that you are mine
Is that where we draw the line..?

I float without direction
No sensible correction

I listen for the my beating heart
Before I recall that you stole it

Our boots shake the earth and a thousand suns beyond,
stars shine afar, of which we are so fond

Burning voices tear the air,
hunting parties are rife with the knife,
a blade drawing black blood,
our boots soaked in black mud

No time to play, you'll waste away the day
Face the sun's shallow ray and tell me you'll stay

It's okay if you lie, dear,
but it's my wish to keep you near

Hold my hand as the world falls apart and magma breaks through my toes, crimson waves of fire swirling round
It's quite the sight, my love
Tell them that when they put up my gravestone

The end of the world is a relief
Do you hear the fear that
drifts on the wind?
Neither do I

Let's go have fun, love,
dance upon the stone as it breaks apart
sing to the clouds as they flee to space
kiss each other goodbye as the waves climb higher

There's a cordial whisper that begins to scream when it gets too cold outside
There are bubblegum kisses that burn with proximity
Fires crackle and stars flicker and the universe doesn't get any darker
We like to change and we don't admit it
But crystal melodies reveal as much as a veil cast aside

Grab the fireball and let it burn
your palms to the bone,
scorching it black as
the dark face of the moon

It lights up in your eyes and
you know you've won the fight
before it's even begun, and you
begin to whisper the funeral rites

The winds roars around you,
blinding ears and striking feet,
and your shoulders catch flame
in the ever-growing heat

What a fury, what a light
you've ******* won that fight,
you've won that right
to boast about your victories

The heroes will bow down soon,
speaking their sin and hailing their kin,
and you'll be the spark in the fire

Cast in stone, they won't call you a liar

He was killed by a falling
beam of his own rotting ship

His crew had abandoned him
and he died blind and death
in an instant

Stricken by an old piece of wood