You kneel over,
hurling,
hands on gravel on tire stench on rubber
And there, on the streets
blood

Do you feel a pain too?
Right there, in your stomach
A little at the back, to the side
like when you run for a bit and stop and then run again but you forgot that it gives you stitches but it’s too late and it stabs and—

Do you feel it?
You grin at me with carnage teeth
We’re bound, aren’t we
Ritual and bone
Do you feel the needle?
or a cut
or a knife
or a bullet
or a— oh
you don’t feel it

I’m staring at the sky now,
your head’s the moon
your eyes the stars
my blood rain from your storm cloud lips

I— I think I’ve had enough
It’s been fun, I wanna go home
It’s— it’s been—
hold on

My chest is the rotten mouth of dying lion
Yep, crank the clamp wider, that’s right
Bad teeth in the back, come on
Yank it out

I’m still on the road
It’s a crossroads, I notice
It’s the only thing I can notice over the vice on my ribs
and the sight of your back

It’s crowded here
There’s the Hurt, doing shots in the living room
my Breath, snorting chemicals in the corner
the Night, shoving its tongue down my throat
And you, host of the Party of the Century

You walk away, silent as always
I think my veins still swell in your mouth
iron minting you a new silver tongue


I hope you taste nothing else

I need a picture on the wall of my coffin of stone
Put on a pedestal
Put on a shelf
A thousand years crusting tears on my self

Paint me immortal
Paint me a Saint
Or paint me the nightmare that everyone claims

Cause I am a paradox
A knife’s bloodless blade
A faceless body in the mirror
I can’t wipe away

Sinking on land
Quicksilver sand

Poison on lips
Drowning the tips of my
Sanity
Profanity

The sting of a bee hurts less
Than the thought of you leaving
Cause I dance the fine line
Of empathy and tragedy

Oh the church bells will ring for
Dancers and fools
Pantheon of Justice
Your name’s just a tool

Oh the road ahead is dusty
And the trees are barren fruit
But my back is to your hangman love
And I’m sorry I’m leaving
So soon

Mmm, tempting fate
Standing above storm clouds
Icarus bled silver regret
So he could be his own sun

And the audience behind the
Heavy blue curtains weep
And the sound effects team take thunder
From their giving hands

Oh, heroic, ironic
tragedy

he burned under the gaze
of our eyes

hello, stranger
i see we meet again
between book pages
within art hedges

the paths to immortality are
storylines and ballad chimes
i’ll see you in the epigraphs
i’ll read you in the skies

first law of
thermodynamics
no energy created
no energy destroyed

over and over
blood born blood lost
arms carved from fireflies
breath fossils in northern lights

hello, stranger
decaying and beating heart
chubby hands clinging to heaven
or trading final death-cards

the clock ticks to the rhythm of
supernovas far, far away
and prophecies printed on
abandoned beach sands

and you, stranger
walk the plank between the waking
and the beyond
my question to you is
Which direction are you heading?

You stand there in a field
Of gentle grass and daffodil

The butterflies gossip in dances
The breeze sweet as honey
Haloed sun on your head

And I feel you smile at me
So soft, so wanted
Cradling in your hands
My heart

A gory mass of muscle and tissue
Pulsating and twitching
like a nightmare struggling
To tear it’s desperate fingers through its
******, oozing womb

And I lay under you
skin gorged, ribs cracked
Wheezing through smoker’s lungs
clinging on by a few dripping strands
of fleshy tubing

And my hands claw the earth
nails mangled and nerves ragged
But my eyes fix
Enraptured
despite these things scrabbling
at my irises
As I strain
To catch a glimpse
of
your


face

I thought if I could swallow the stars
I’d be as beautiful as the evening sky
I tried one night    with fireflies
They burned my throat
Their legs striking at soft flesh
But my skin did not glow
No moon crawled from my eye sockets
I was left with corpses in my stomach
I soon learned I would only ever be
A cemetery