silent carnivorous savage,
                                          why prey upon our innocent flesh?
streamlining your black venom into fragile veins,
                                          sparse roots multiplying sickness

this lack of color that you provide
drains the blues
                    and reds
                    and yellows,
                  until 4 white hospital walls remain,
and in this bland, neutral palace of death,
                  the beeps of machines
and cries of heartbroken families serve to torture

this, the true fashion of your killing . . .
          no, not the mass piling of amounting dead cells,
but this blood,                                     it's not just blood anymore,
                            crimson liquid melancholy,
traveling into a mind that can only construct horrible images,
                                         groups of mourners surrounding a single grave,
                           wiping Sunday's tears against their pale faces

gnawing away at the slabs of sanity,
                                           concrete and brick,
the image of a young boy with a shovel
                                           far too heavy for him,
using all of his strength to catapult dirt over a casket,
                                           burying his vital innocence,
into the unforgiving soil where it will never be retrieved

how many tears must you taste for your thirst to be quenched?
how many lives must you waste as our friends are entrenched?

why, cancer?

burning rubber
a tragic memory engrained
into charcoal pavement
2 souls
nevermore
a community flooded
in collective tears
crashing rapids
against concrete curbs
summer's glow all but molded
graphite and gray
far too young
a tragic day

Intricate strings
    Bend with cracked cellar light
            Revealing a dancing spider
                                 Cowering in fright
                                                                                                Delicate eyes
                                                               Consume cracked cellar light
                                                 Noticing a terrifying arachnid
                                 Crushing it with might

Resting in an icicle hammock
Between the only two trees on a tundra of thick tears
The world remain an uncolored book
Neutral sheets of parchment paper, it usually looks
Yet, visible remains the vermillion that dribbles from my dry nose
The only shade around, which resembles petals of rose
Tissues soak up ruby rain that drips and drips
Streams of scarlet sorrows and crestfallen crimson collect as they cascade in the crevice of lust lips
The warmth of it all still cannot melt the frozen bars of this cell
But I must enjoy the only tint that reveals itself
Even if it's lava tone resembles the terrain of desolate Mars or the sinful flames of hell
Soon these cherry rivers will make way for a new pigment
A hue I will soon be wrapped in
When too much of this spills, and strings of a flowing red licorice yield to simple black
~~~~~~~~~~~
*And in a faint yelp, he knew there was no turning back

If my memory could disintegrate to ash speckles
Expect that a dazzling fire would be set ablaze to the flora of my mind
I'd scatter and pinch the black bits in the nectar of flowers
Watching unsuspecting bees take them away into the spring air
So when others are stung by pesky wasps and buzzing yellow-jackets
Their wounds will swell red with your name
A passing boy will wear your welt while I run on this sunny day
And as I attempt to read it, I'll have unknown gratuity that I can't process it's significance