Her ribs crackled, in the skeleton night.
And I remember my mouth on hers,
where atomic fish hooks attached our lips.
Where there was nothing like kissing
like our God wasn't dead.

She was accused of killing a taxi driver
in the Brazilian underbelly.
Smoking a cigarette, she dropped it on the ground,
spat on it, and crushed it with her bare foot,
saying she fell in love with the way
his sleep-drenched body lay.

And I told her to stay home.
And I told her that they'd find her.
But she didn't stay home.
And they did find her.

Chasing her through the Babylon brush,
insults were thrown and so were balloons of gasoline.
Each pink, yellow, and green vessel floated in the air, as an internal opera heightened.
And sour splashes spread across her body,
as she fled from the vigilante mob.

The children danced along the panoramic horizon she ran beside,
laughing, pointing, singing.
The slumbering sorrow of the situation became evident,
and she started to feel the calm of fleeting life.

Her dreams aborted and her ideals became fallacies,
and with the sound of fuzzy motors in the background, her heart leapt and her feet slipped.

Rope ate into her, wrapping her like the orphaned recklessness of each set of eyes that painted her.
She squirmed amongst the cheers.
She cried with every thrown beer and balloon.
The empty-eyed males gang ***** her.
The women covered the children's eyes,
and the children tried to move their mothers' hands.

And I pushed my way through the crowd.
And I saw her smothered in blood, beer, and gasoline.
I wanted to halt the hurricane that destroyed morality.
But I am a coward.
Frozen by my fear, I, too, am a murderer.
And a murderer I'll always be,
for the burning of all that was good.

Sudden flames soared towards the sky.
Laughter escaped as molotov cocktails exploded onto her body.
Her head turned towards the crowd,
as flames scampered across her face.
I saw in her, what I never saw before,
which was the human race.

Weep with words
And not with tears

And I want to tell her that I understand
what it feels like to be fake, insignificant,
and a shadow on the sidewalk of society.

And I want to tell her that I also borrow
the experiences of others --
that I, too, learn feelings
by stopping and staring at personal wreckage,
like a tourist of emotions,
like an inevitable wish of a human being.

Depression visits often

He’s the kind of guy
Who doesn’t wipe his
Shoes before entering
And leaves traces of
Himself through out
The house

He keeps to himself
But you can always
Find him washing down
His doubts with cheap wine
Or writing a love poem
That never gets delivered

When it’s time for him
To leave, he usually
Prolongs his goodbyes, but
When all is said and done
He quietly sneaks out
Without me noticing

Even though he’s gone
I leave a key under the door mat
Because I know he will
Be back soon.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****** and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to ***** up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them