we held hands behind the Black Lives Matter banner.
we took to the streets in solidarity with Heather Heyer
opposing white supremacy and every vestige of bigotry.

the cops stood idle while racists circled
the park like sharks to shake our resolve.
but we carry a new world in our head and hearts.

we marched down Kennedy and Ashley
no badge or gun could hope to stop us hundreds.
we mourned and wept and rose like lions.

no justice, no peace! no racist police!
1-2-3-4, this is ******* class war!
5-6-7-8, organize to smash the State!

i cannot find the rhythm and beat amidst this misery.
but, in her memory, we will drive the fascists out.
from Tampa Bay, FL to Charlottesville, VA: *¡No pasaran!

she rests her chin on my chest
as we lay naked
beneath sheets
knotted by affection.

the moonlight filters like silver tresses
through the blinds
on this cloudless night,
illuminating tears quivering
in the corners of cold brew nitro eyes.

as her fingers twirl
in the brambles of my beard,
she whispers, “the scars i wear
are the wounds
i carry inside.”

i push my lips against the angry stripes
in the crook of her elbow. she winces.
grits her teeth. the scars have hardly healed.
i brush my hand across her cheek
and speak truth—meager as candlelight,
but maybe enough to swallow the shadows
playing tricks inside her mind.

in forgotten eons long before
our sun was forged,
the molecules that would conspire
to give you form were born in the cores
of super giants. those same cells
floated through chasms of space-time—
billions of years—to this very moment:
with you and i entwined beneath the gaze
of a cosmos lightyears beyond.

nebulae watched, powerless,
as you suffered in a black hole
of oppression, desperate to aid,
but paralyzed by distance
and the entropy of time.

but they did not stay idle.
like some whisper of the divine,
i find some solace in the fact that somehow
dying stars put us on this planet
at the same time, almost
as if we were two photons
in perfect orbit.

for, while dying gods
couldnʼt reach out to save you,
the stars have converged
and our paths overlap.

some wounds may never heal, Beloved.
old hurts often refuse to lose their ache.
i cannot save you from the inhumanity
youʼve suffered. i cannot erase your pain.

but i can lie by your side
and ease your anxiety,
hold your body close to mine
solidarity, forever—
endlessly intertwined.

the first time i said, “i love you”
we were lying in bed
at your apartment.
your skin held the hue
of the afternoon sun,
but a frown
pulled at the corners of your mouth.

a chill that had nothing
to do with the Florida summer
came like a cold-snap
and, in an instant,
covered us in hoarfrost
smothering as a blanket
racked with smallpox.

the scars in the crook of your elbow
had all but healed, but an itch
crept across you—insistent
and incessant. for a while,
i read The Myth of Sisyphus
aloud, moved by Camus,
wrestling with the one
true and serious
philosophical question:
suicide.

i searched desperately
for the right string of words
to convince you
the razor isn’t a solution.  
i made “prayers of my hands
on your body” and sang hymns
like honey. i sampled
salted, caramel apple—
you hung precariously
on the tip of my tongue.

wishing i could wrest my eyes
from my skull so you could see
yourself from a new perspective.
Beloved, this may well be
your war to win,
but in every struggle,
we need comrades.
in solidarity, i remain.

i refuse to leave you alone
to fight the shadows
lurking in back-alley
neuroses. in a world
that is utterly absurd
only three words
make sense anymore.
three words. a song
that fills our lungs:
“i love you.” partner,
dance with me
to the beat
of a new drum.

i trace your cartography with my fingertips
as the yawning sun filters through the blinds.  
your chin sits on my chest, confident, at rest.
you smirk before you kiss me, run your hands
through my hair, and whisper, “g'morning, love.”
i chart your valleys, climb your mountains, slip
into the crevasse parting greedily to admit me.
you are a new world, one i only yearn to explore,
to document, to adore. you’re built of marble,
somehow delicate, yet firm
all at once, as if you were set
into the corridors of my mind, chiseled
by divine hands. you're a relief
easing anxiety, a treasure
to cherish every morning
when i open my eyes
to burgeoning life.

the rocking chair creeks on the back porch.
she cradles The Hobbit in her lap,
sips black tea and brings the joint to her lips,
carried away in an airborne ship of smoke
to Middle-Earth, an escape
from the tedium of 9-to-5s,
consumerism and bored housewives.

the cars **** by but she can’t hear.
she slips through the fabric of time
and space to the upside down. flipped
around with another page to hang
on the precipice of bliss implicit
in every interlocking sentence.

here, words cannot hurt, only heal.
within these holy septs, sacred texts
lead us to truths beyond the veil.
she who reads
has lived a thousand lives
in a fraction of the time.

i want to dive behind her cold brew eyes
and peruse the passages of synaptic gaps,
meandering along neurological paths,
for not all who wander are lost.
the human mind is like your favorite book—
once it’s been opened,
it can never again be truly closed.

we fell like a swell of rising seas, swarming the capitol city:
D.C., a bastion of vitriol, bigotry, and inequality.
we were demonstrating in the streets when she kneeled on the concrete,
a bit of scarlet chalk treasured in the palm of her hand. all around,
people were dancing, singing, laughing. she smiled to herself and peered
over at me when she thought i wasn’t looking. a paisley red bandana hung
from her neck like some outlaw out of the wild, wild west,
challenging all authority. grim cops looked on, faces obscured
by matte-black helmets, guarding the twisted tower looming over our globe
like an ancient deity out of time and space, a leviathan effacing the world.
she etched a symbol of defiance and solidarity into the cement and, in that moment,
she embodied anarchy, the mother of order, a guiding north-star.

***

Turnover spills from the speakers. she hums along, her foot on the dashboard, tap-
tap-tapping along in-tune, attuned to the road, nose buried in an Angela y Davis book.
North Carolina interstates fly past us and i wonder absently
if the words hit home for her, too:
losing you was like cutting my fingers off.
you can catch a glimpse of grief
in her eyes if the morning light’s just right,
filtering like a double-shot of caffeine into your bloodstream
through the forest canopy flanking the highway.
you can feel the melancholic heart-ache lingering
like old wounds even time can’t seem to heal whenever she forces a smile
and pretends to be—if not happy—then at least “alright.”

***

authenticity is our only refuge against the creeping ennui,
the choking vise-grip of social hierarchy. how seldom do we rise
like lions from slumber? shake off these chains of misery.
empathy leaves us crippled constantly, wishing we were dead—
believe me, i share your burden. it’s been said that our integrity
is the very last inch of us, small and fragile. yet, within that inch,
we are free. so, braveheart, find your feet. this dying world so desperately
deserves a love as beautiful as yours, yearning to set the captives
against their masters. and when we shake the streets once again,
pirouetting beneath a banner slashed with black and red,
beloved, do not forget that you, too, are endlessly adored.

a ****** of crows gathers
over Hamburg, carrion carrying on
with business as usual.
feeding on the festered flesh
of a gentrified populace.

in private jets coughing carbon
they fly from the west on turbine wings,
engines screaming as they dive towards a nation
secured by razor-wound walls
and barb-wire borders.

they pitched a battle in Germany,
convinced that austerity
would ******* the resistance
and give justification to premeditated violence.
but the tables have turned on the thieves again.

we are the end result of your failed policies,
globalization has destroyed our homes.
if your cabal rallies like a kettle of vultures,
you will do so behind closed doors,
cowering in your fortress' halls.

you shall not pass. watch as the power shifts
like the melting gears of torched BMWs.
we will tear the vestiges of your authority down.
we will black out your surveillance cameras,
smash your windows, and block your limos. no pasaran.

flee, while you can still run. this city belongs
to the wild ones, a black bloc, thousands strong,
dancing amidst the tear gas, tossing molotovs.
marching to liberty's sturdy drum,
equal in our solidarity song.

i thought that you were
medicine when all this time
you were ******.

anxiety saps
my psyche. i'm trembling
uncontrollably.

i'll carry the scars
you gave me, wounds no one sees,
for eternity.

i thought this feeling would prove fleeting, dissipating with the rain.
but nothing's changed. there's still a void
where you used to be.
anxiety's vise-grip didn't ease one bit
when i found a new home
on the bay, so far away from the memories
that infect the streets we used to roam.
every love story eventually ends in tragedy.
entropy is our fate. but wherever i go,
i seem to be doomed to stumble
perpetually in and out
of your shadow. the rot that clings
like leprosy. inexorably, i decay.
drawn like rust right back to you.

wake up every morning with a jackhammer in my head.
think about you.
read the news.
whose kids did we bomb today?
what terror occurred half-a-world away?
or did another racist bigot stab someone in Portland?
gun shows at concert halls, schools.
protesters jailed, surveilled, beaten ******
on concrete streets we laid
after generations of genocide.
i struggle to find the poetry
in a world that's gone to ****.
wake up mourning, hoping today the world will do me in.

i have a death-grip on strife. i count my vices every night like sheep before sleep. walk alone along the razor's edge, plunging straight ahead. i admit, i'm misery embodied. but i'll be ****** before you steal my liberty.
no gods. no flags. no masters.
there is nothing and no one higher.
i open my lungs to the summer air. breathe deep. the sun is beating down. my clothes are black. i feel the beads of sweat gathering. the crickets' lyrics slip through the reeds. the pond ripples, a dragonfly alighting upon a lily. i feel the earth beneath me, spinning on its axis. i cannot see the tilt, but i can measure the skies, chart the constellations. we are spinning around a star, one of many. trillions of suns. this is real. this is true. i can prove it.
no gods. no flags. no masters.
there is nothing and no one higher.
defy. deny. concede nothing. solitary in conviction. stand strong. stay sober. die free.

sometimes i listen to old voicemails you left me
just to hear your laugh bubble and froth—a tonic
made from nectar and ambrosia.

i do not bother fighting the smile that tugs
insistently at my cheeks every time
my name finds your taste buds—
almost as if it were candy. you savor
the sweetness, leave me lingering
on your tongue.

you say you miss me and i hear an anthem
lifting these lyrics in tandem with the drum
of my heartbeat, palpitating, galloping
like a steed freed on pastures of green,
sprawled out as far as the eye can see.

all the same, these drugs
still **** in the end. i am hooked
on my heroine. i found what i love
and i want it to **** me. let me die high.

dawn's rays peek like a ******
through my blinds, refracting
kaleidoscopic sunlight
through the window pane.
the succulents on the sill
reach out, needy,
craving the kiss
of photosynthesis.
motes of dust float
melancholic. detritus
pirouettes off the ceiling fan—
whispering languidly,
dancing as i stare blankly
at the space in bed
next to me. i'm sick
to death of mourning
every morning, wishing
i didn't wake up.

my nails keep peeling back
from fruitless attempts
at pulling myself
out of the well
i've been drowning in.
slip—six feet under
for every inch gained.

i took the plunge,
forgot my iron lungs
are wrecked with cancer.
drowning, enraptured
by rotten memories.

one moment is bliss,
next thing i know
the floor drops
like a trapdoor
beneath a gallows

and i feel the rope
bite into my throat,
tearing at my vocal cords—
a rabid wolf,
incensed by the scent
of blood and gore.

if only the highs
didn't come
with all the lows.
a rag doll
tossed about
amidst the gale,
a train that's jumped
right off the rails.

we've lost.
now there's no
going back.
we're doomed.

even if you had a single thought
beneath that golden toupée,
i wouldn't pay a penny
to hear you stumble
through a sentence.

you're grasping at straws
as you spew your vitriol,
peddling snake-oil—
a reality TV show host
floundering amidst the shipwreck
of a failed state.

impotent
bottom-feeder,
you have no power.
you're digging a deeper grave
with every single syllable.

another salacious scandal
to bury you alive.
fascist, your days
are numbered.
no pasaran.

we will rise like lions
after slumber,
unvanquishable.
you're bound to lose.
cower, racist coward.
if only your ignorance
would die with you.
your days are numbered.

anxiety guillotine, hanging
from a thread, suspended above
my sunburnt neck. i'm utterly spent.
another day, back bent in the stocks,
latched in for the Kafka-esque:

carnivalesque body-horror.
shovel white-hot daggers
beneath finger-nail keratin.
bite my tongue off with police-tape teeth.
sadist, savor my godless screams.

drawn and quartered. send my limbs
to the map's furthest corners.
horseflies' aborted eggs
nest amidst maggot-infested
intestines, dangerously dangling.

turn my frown upside down.
stick a razor-blade
in my mouth
and pull 'till i grin
like chelsea.

interned within an unmarked grave,
save for the cairn made from the same stones
i flung myself upon from a great height. a wave
dashed against the rocks, endlessly rebuffed—
the sea's clairvoyance couldn't budge the boulder.

father time's wispy white beard
drifts like cumulus clouds over
his work desk. with a bony finger
he adjusts the half-moon glasses
on the bridge of his nose,
an absent-minded gesture—
this blind clockmaker
hasn't seen in years.

the gadget fidgets, plied
by his callous-tipped fingers.
over the radio, a jazz duo
croon a somber tune.
the old man wipes beads
of sweat from his brow
with the back of a hand,
then connects two wires.

sparks sizzle in the dim light
of the workshop, cascading
comet-tails in brilliant plumes,
filling the room with hues
of phosphorescent blue.
once more, he'll try in vain
to compartmentalize
spacetime.

black and blue,
adorned
by ugly welts
and purple bruises
the naked eye
cannot perceive.
i keep picking
at invisible scabs,
addicted
to the rush—
the self-hate
a shotgun blast
burying pellets
like tiny graves
in the remnants
of my face.

i grit tombstone teeth
and keep peeling back
sundered-earth skin—
badlands flesh,
bones of scattered stones.
stamina sapped
by anxiety's quicksand
swallowing me whole.
each line of red
remains a white-hot
and unfortunate
reminder i haven’t died
just yet.

i’d be the first to agree:
asking for help
takes courage and strength.
walking this path alone
is the coward’s way.
misery may love
company, but i choose
to stay in solitude.
i may be lonely,
but at least
i have the luxury
of making my own mistakes.

i always heard,
"write what you know.
forget the rest."
but i'm tired of
poems where you
and i never fit
on the same line.

just once,
i'd like to breach
your universe—
an alternate reality
where you opened
your heart,
not just your body.
i dream of a galaxy
where your affection
floods my psyche.

then i might pen
a verse or two
in quiet
reminiscence,
commemorating
an experience
where love
was finally requited.

you are a kaleidoscope
of oscillating multicolor.
a spectral spectrum,
at once
elusive and constant.
i couldn't decipher
your wavelength  
if i wanted to.
instead,
i lie awake
every night
and pretend
i'll be fine
without your fire.
i can't seem
to find the nerve
to douse the flame.
so i spin Jane Doe
and let Converge
sing me to sleep.
your name
is still my password.

you scratched our initials
into the surface
of the polished wooden table
behind Redlight Redlight
with the key to my heart.

P + S.

a brief message
etched in time
for all to see.
you grinned up at me
when you'd finished,
ombré fluttering slightly
in the evening breeze,
and said, unabashedly,
"it was the first thing
that popped into to my head."

P.S.

sometimes, i still think
of how your hands clung insistently
to my windbreaker when we sat
on the pier, how our bodies
synced in quiet harmony.

there was an empty seat
at the table tonight.
while the candles flickered
in the streetlights,
i shut my eyes
and wished you'd appear
right by my side.
i blew and the flame sputtered,
then guttered out.
but, when i looked up,
you were still
nowhere to be found.
i looked up to the stars
to try again, but spotted
your irises instead—
a vision hanging
in the heavens.
there was an empty seat
at the table tonight.

i went through my mid-life crisis at twenty.
i dare say, that doesn't bode well for my longevity.
five years on and now i've done
twenty-five arbitrary circles
around the sun. a quarter century
spent spinning like a top
upon this pale blue dot.
one year older and i've only grown
colder at the thought of a life
stuck, stranded on this rock.

in the grand scheme of reality,
i am but a solitary blip in a lonely corner
of the Milky Way. the galaxy gasped
and, in the blink of an eye, i passed
once more into nothingness—finite.
with my last act, i'll whisper,
"it is finished" and breathe
a sigh of relief.

but a piece of me will last an eternity.
like the hammer of the gods, i was forged
in the core of a dying hyper-giant.
my bones are fashioned from star-stuff
and to that same dust i return, inexorably,
tugged apart in the fusion of the multiverse,
scattered to all corners of the cosmos.

when humanity is long extinct, molecules
that once belonged to our bodies will cling
to each other and build new bonds.
i'd like to think that i'll find you there, lovely,
rotating and waiting for me,
adrift in the fabric of space-time,
so we might embark on a new journey
and spend a moment or two entwined.

my lethargic limbs ache
taut against the strings.
****** around
by a puppet-master
with invisible hands.
perpetually exhausted.
i sleep,
but i do not rest.
just once,
i'd like to wake up
on the right side
of the bed.
instead, i keep
waking in a sweat
at 3:00am, wishing
i was dead.

the fissures spiderweb across
the glaciers, torn asunder
by invisible hands.
a rising tide doesn't lift all ships,
it capsizes them.
the fat cats will turn dead presidents
into sails to catch the earth's dying gasps,
but they will flutter, helpless
to progress in this disaster economics.

green business won't save us.
infinite growth on a finite rock,
a pale, blue dot circling until it, too,
burns up. the tires are spinning
in the mud. we've no other option:
we cannot reinvent the wheel—
we'll have to break it.

reformist logic leaves us soulless,
servants cowed by corporate forces
whose sole motive
is cashing in
on our projects.
they'll serve us up
without a second thought.
they'd raze the world
if they could make a profit.
fascism is capitalism
plus more ******.

we must admit our losses:
false hopes and letter-writing campaigns
are too little, too late.
a petition won't halt climate change.
beat their bombs with hammers
until they're shaped like plowshares.
the Earth will be consumed
by the sun long before
the State saves us
from our fate.
if we're to be prophets
of the future,
then it's time to ******* rage.

positivity is a plant without root,
withered petals dangling acute.
obtuse excuses are abusive homes
with leaky roofs and we're spluttering
in the gutter as our lungs
fill with rainwater.
integrity is small and it is fragile,
but at least it's foolproof.
i critique, therefore i am.
engaging consistently
in an emancipatory endeavor,
a liberatory tour-de-force.
false hope is a ******* noose,
endangering our biosphere.
the anthropocene is here.
we will not survive
if we remain aloof.
pursue truth.

the worship service looks full this morning
though, admittedly, i haven't been
in attendance since Christmas.
families in their Sunday best
sit on wooden pews
in a patriarchal church
that spent its tithings
on a multi-million dollar
gymnasium rather than the poor
their savior told them to look out for.

men, women, and children
awkwardly pretend
to sing contemporary hymns
beneath their breath,
hoping no one will notice
as they pick their noses,
thinking absently of Easter dinner.

i write poems
while the pastor prattles,
his shallow words
an empty drone
filling my ears
with white noise.

i feel myself drifting.
i haven't been sleeping
lately. the news has got me thinking
each passing day might be our last
on planet Earth and i'll be incensed
if i waste one minute more
than necessary
in this cramped
and ugly church,
a sanctuary smelling faintly
of old ladies, cheap perfume,
and wilted flowers dying silently.

just one more week
and i'll have been
god-free for half a decade.
for now,
i grin and bear the tedium
and mourn the tarnished legacy
of the radical rabbi,
a Nazarene who took on an Empire
and died by his convictions.

i daresay,
he'd be rolling in his grave
if he could see
these rich, white
Presbyterians sullying
his good name—
provided, of course,
he'd not so famously
vacated the premises.

this is not a dialogue.
tug the cotton
out of your ears.
free speech
is the banner
fascists wave
to propagate
their hate, hissing
with forked tongues,
spitting vitriolic venom.

speak in a language
they cannot fail
to comprehend:
kick a racist
in the teeth.
*******,
**** ****.
no pasaran!
they shall not pass.
we won't go meekly
into that dark night.

my day  
begins
at 3:00am
with hip-hop
thundering,
rain splattering
my window pane.
the witching hour:
my own, private
Galgotha. i forsook
god, now i'm ******
to hum the dirge
of doom, hushed
and out of tune.

this week in the news,
Sean Spicer swore
****** didn't gas
the Jews. apparently,
the irony of Passover
was lost on the fool.
if Pepsi truly held the key
to ending police
brutality, i'd be the first
to shake the Invisible Hand,
but that spectral fist
is too busy choking
the life out of refugees
to make time for a paltry
teacher like me.

as gas prices
sky-rocketed
and approval ratings
plummeted,
the *******
of all bombs
fell in Afghanistan
while tomahawk missiles
pummeled Syria
and predator drones
zoomed over
Yemen and Pakistan.

where do we stand, hands
stained red with the blood
of those we've martyred?
will we idly abide
an Empire crucifying
its imaginary enemy
on this insane crusade
of endless war?
our silent compliance
rings louder than the hammer
nailing our victims' limbs
to the cross of our indifference.

if there's one thing
i know for sure,
it's that art
makes this whole *******
joke a bit more bearable.
but how could we portend
to outlast this tragedy
when even ****.
and the Last Jedi
are only temporary reprieves
from suffering perpetually?

what's so good
about this Friday
anyway?

there's a shade of you
in everyone i meet.
a faint flicker,
like sunbeams refracting
on the ocean's surface,
forcing me to squint
at a hazy horizon.

you keep time
with my shadow,
always hiding
from the light.
your absence
weighs like a void,
a gravity-gobbling
vacuum siphoning
energy, leading me
inexorably toward entropy.

you are a dæmon, ancient
as the cosmos,
sturdy as oak.
a familiar, lingering
like a musk upon
my garments.
a spirit, resplendent
if, albeit, a bit
impatient.
a ghost, haunting
me close as i slowly trudge
through the sludge of psychosis.

so, errant i remain
until you deign once more
to speak my name
into the ether.
on that day,
i assure you,
i will be true—
come what may—
forever and always.

late at night,
i lie awake,
and trace the lines
of moonlight flickering
through the blinds,
falling like razor-blades
severing arteries.
the shades of gray
whisper solemnly
of death
and peace.

4:00am passes
without event.
i wonder absently
what life might
be like if i felt
nothing at all.

numb
to the world
i drag behind me,
a planet wrapped
in chains wrought
by apathy and a lack
of imagination.

why
do i
so desperately
crave to save
a planet
that seems
perfectly content
to dig
an early grave?

we'd all
assumed she'd
choke
at the last minute.

boy,
were we
fooled.

she
fought tooth and nail,
chewed through the wires
we used to hold her back.

we placed bets
on when she'd give up.
seventy-five cents
on the dollar.

and what
were we
expecting?

she
swept the house,
walked home a queen,
and shared her wealth.

we thought
she was a girl
disguised
as a monster.

but who
were we
kidding?

she
was a monster
disguised
as a girl.

breaststrokes
power me
through nebulous
clouds of stardust.
push through the pain,
echoing in the chasms
of a brain deadened.
bypass the past
that clings like detritus,
beyond the black holes
gobbling galaxies
whole. onwards.
eyes set on the horizon
nothing lies beyond:
dancing along
the razor's straightedge,
an eternally
expanding cosmos.

your hair sprawled out
across my bed
as if it swam
upon the surface
of the sea.

you looked up
with coffee-colored irises
and asked me,
"how on earth
do you fly?"

you giggled breathlessly,
as if your mirth
were a brook,
bubbling eternally.

we both looked back
up at the screen.
a tiny figure
in a red cloak
and hijab danced
aimlessly, flitting
across the sand.

a scarf twisted
over her shoulder
in the wind, drifting
with the twisting koi fish,
glowing. her journey
was only beginning.

a hooded figure,
all in white,
came alongside her.
his scarf seemed
to stretch as far
as the eye could see.

he'd been here before.
fallen down an abyss
of his own design.
died and rose again.
he returned
to lead a friend,
hoping she'd find
her own way out alive.

as they soared
wordlessly, they seemed
to skip across the skyline,
their scarves intermingling.
alone, they'd remain
trapped in a daze,
lost in a maze of dunes,
trudging endlessly.
but, together,
struggling—surviving—
they somehow made it out
in one piece.

we sit amidst a haze
of marijuana smoke,
chasing esoteric ghosts
on the front-porch
of your abuela's house.
the rest of the city is asleep,
but these streets still remind me
of painful memories
i thought i'd left buried
with the ashes of the bridges
i'd burned and friendships
i'd left in tatters.

2:00am comes and goes
as you pack another bowl
and we shoot the ****
and reminisce
about the old days—
back when we were naive
and still believed in god.
how we'd sneak
through rich,
white kids' lawns
and sit at the docks,
bare feet spinning
in the lukewarm pond
as we traced the Big Dipper,
contemplating the boundless.

now we make reverse-suicide-pacts
and promise not to **** ourselves,
if only for those we'd leave behind.
we share a laugh.
there's not much else to do.
contrary to popular belief,
dawn may bring a new day,
but things won't suddenly be o.k.
and we're learning how to live
despite that fact.

they whisper in reverent tones
on the television,
hushed, in awe,
struck dumb
by the images
of fifty-nine tomahawk cruise missiles
a flaccid, wanna-be-strongman
just launched at Syria,
a country whose refugees
and babies we'd rather see
washed-up on the sands
of foreign lands than safely
at peace in our homeland.

Brian Williams calls
the spectacle, "beautiful."
sociopathic pundits in ecstasy,
spewing meek excuses
like babbling baboons, buffoons
lusting for an **** of nihilistic violence.
they invoke their dead gods,
beseech the "Almighty" to bless
their bloodstained hands,
and say this is how a demagogue
acts presidential.

beat the war drums in quick succession.
about face in a new direction.
left, left, left, right, left.
it doesn't matter who sits
in the Oval Office, war
makes America great again,
boosting administrative approval ratings
and corporate coffers, revenue soaring
like sky-rocketing jet-fuel.

we cannot pummel the world
into submission with munitions,
but that won't stop us from trying.
planting early graves
like seeds in the ground,
bearing fruit that spoils
and keeps this whole sick joke
spinning perpetually around.
we **** people who **** people
because killing people is wrong.
what i'd give to wake
to a world not torn
apart by war.

there's something serene
about waking up
at the beach.
the heady drone
of the waves' ebb and flow
induces a gentle hypnosis.
the Atlantic
pulled back
and forth
by the moon
flirting with the Earth,
two lovers
who never quite touch.

saturated cumulus clouds cling
to the ocean's surface
as far as the eye can see,
a downy duvet
laid across the planet
for warmth and comfort.
as the salt breeze butterfly-kisses
sunburnt skin, a hazy lethargy
invites you to sink
beneath, an anchor
lost at sea, and forget,
if only for a moment,
the world's weariness.

you keep your lighter
sandwiched in a niche amidst
the Spirit cigarettes
you carry, a spark
hidden in the breast-pocket
of the jacket you borrowed
from me several months ago
and neglected to give back.
like Prometheus, pilfering fire
from the gods, you stole
the warmth from the stars
and built a hearth
in my chest, a warmth
nurtured by the mirth
that tugs at the corners
of your mouth every time
you laugh at my expense.
i'll cherish your candle close
to my heart, even when life
inevitably tears us apart.
everything ends eventually,
but at least we lived
as if we'd never burn out.

i feel a phantom vibration
where my phone usually rests.
i hear the Mockingjay chime
each time, as if i've received
an imaginary text.

weeks have passed. still,
the moments creep past.
no word. i wonder
what you're up to.
are you feeling any better?
when can i expect
to see you next?
i miss you.

i'm afraid my last letter
might've been misconstrued,
so here's the truth:
no higher power exists
to protect you. the 12 steps
cannot save you from the ghost
of addiction. i'd resurrect god
just to **** him again if it meant
i could help you. but i, too,
am powerless.

you've got two hands
on the steering-wheel.
white knuckle vise-grip.
liberty or death,
this or the apocalypse.
only you can save yourself.

a flock congregate
at 1600
Pennsylvania Ave.

carrion
masquerading
as doves.

a group of vultures
waiting
for the storm.

a failed state propagated
by a real estate mogul
turned reality TV star.

an orange fascist
adorned
with a golden toupée.

the White House's
black market profiteers
have emerged from the dark.

let's have a round of applause
for this parlor trick,
globalization's final act:

the curtain parts.
oligarchic puppet-masters
take a bow

as the laugh-track kicks on,
their fingers overlap
behind their backs.

corporate coup d'état.
hostile takeover.
d(evolution).

the black and white photographs you took
five years past still hang framed in my room,
just above my turntable. Deja Entendu
spills from the stereo as the needle finds its groove.
a shelf filled with all the records
we used to listen to for hours
lines the wall and succulents
adorn the windowsill, waiting patiently
for the rare rays of sun, golden
and flossy as your hair,
which somehow manage
to peek between the tenement rooftops
every now and then.

we still live in the same town. sometimes,
people bring you up. they ask me how you are,
how long it's been since i've heard from you.
i neglect to tell them that, aside from absentee
notifications popping up on my phone
at intermittent variations, we've only spoken once,
in a crowded, little coffee shop
in the city we both love to hate.

you pretended you didn't see me, but i felt your eyes
notice me at the bar as i sat typing another story,
bobbing my head, listening to Daughter.
if i hadn't approached you, i imagine
you would've acted like i was invisible.
the conversation was terse, abbreviated.
i find it strange how once
we were the best of friends
and now we can sit twenty feet apart
and act like we never knew each other at all.
i can't really recall why
our friendship collapsed in the first place.
have i suppressed it? or was it just the casual
slip, like Pangea, elapsed time
fracturing our continent.

when you only
see the world
through the prism
of an Instagram filter,
the spectrum's
overshadowed
by black and white
vignettes.

brick-by-brick
you build that wall
around yourself,
closed off to the plight
of every one else.
who needs borders
when you refuse to see
beyond the periphery
of your iPhone's screen?
refugees? border patrol?
endless war?

merely fragmentary
snapshots
in off-kilter
snapchats
casting grim light
on contemporary
outcasts, rebels
built to outlast
the vitriol leveled
at modern-day martyrs
by tyrants and overlords.

'cause when you neglect
to read the passages
of history, you scapegoat
the brave, can't see
the forest for the trees,
reduce the complex
to Manichean binaries
of Good vs. Evil,
Left vs. Right,
an infinite etcetera
of demagoguery.

noses glued
to illuminated screens,
ignoring the visionaries
for illusionary fantasies:
one-click—purchased
happiness, bread
and circus.
advertising
has us chasing
a feeling fleeting
as a riptide when we
ought to be rallying
on the front lines,
punching Nazis.
a black bloc
tossing bricks into
storefront windows.

i find solace
in life's finality.
fragile as porcelain,
prone to shatter
in this bull
in a China shop
existence.
eventually,
all our suffering
will slip
from the memories
of those who
outlast us.
thank ****,
everything ends.

disciples stumbling
in and out
of the darkness—
blind faith
in this or that
substance.

abusing
the psyche
with sycophantic
fantasies of liberty.
one step after the other.

the needle, the crackpot,
the Bible. all symptoms
of the same psychosis.
trade one god for another.
nothing but crutches
crafted from driftwood.

i have a problem
with a program
that fails 90%
of the time,
purporting to save
addicts by hooking
them on another
worthless fix.

i fantasize about stomping on the gas,
hitting the accelerator
as i approach the on-ramp
for the 408,
launching like a rocketship
headed straight for outer-space.

careen into the concrete
headlong—
scatter my brains
and body-parts across the wall
like a ******* splatter painting.

as lights blur together above me,
my head goes hazy,
dazed in this fugue state,
half-awake and thinking absently
of the city-lights
drifting listlessly overhead

like unidentifiable flying objects,
hovering over this interstate.
i wish they'd beam me up.
kidnapped by aliens,
taken to a galaxy far, far away
so i could forget
the contours of your face.

i want to rescue
someone else
'cause i can't seem
to save myself.

your god lies dead and buried
in an unmarked grave. a radical—
a terrorist charged with treason.
for defying the Roman Throne,
they shoved a crown wove from thorns
onto his brow and called him "traitor."

but two thousand years later,
if the homeless rabbi
walked the Earth,
he'd be in the streets
with the anarchists,
fighting to end the wars
that plant kids' corpses
like seeds in the ground
that only yield new bombs.

he'd call your president
a ******* fascist.
he'd denounce Israel for bombing
his homeland and try to cease
the genocide in Palestine.
your savior would stand
shoulder-to-shoulder
with water protectors
in North Dakota, shouting, "mni wiconi!"
in the faces of cops guised in riot gear.

can't you see, pharisee? or is the log
in your eye blurring your vision?
snakes like you, who stand on street corners
preaching the "Good News," were the very same
self-righteous fools he detested.
you can't white-wash the legacy of the Nazarene.
you stand on the wrong side of history.
if Jesus walked this earth right now,
your hands would hold him down
while the State drove nails through his palms.
i only wish the fantasy was true,
that i could see your face as he said,
"away from me, evildoer.
truly, i never knew you!"

Seraphine wields her dagger like a torch
to illuminate her path—a figure at once
youthful and monolithic. Mother Earth
caresses her as flowers bloom amidst
the bloodbath. the old skulls of dead
fascists rest in silver platters. three arrows
plunged into the hearts of charlatans,
an Iron Front, disrupting decorum.
the celosia petals burn like a bonfire
around Seraphine as her nāgī coils
like an ouroboros, slyly smirking.
Seraphine works the blade back and forth,
sawing through the ****'s neck, smiling
while decapitating the demagogue.

hell,
i maintain,
is watching those
you love languish
in agony, powerless
to alleviate their
tragedy.
i would suffer
forever
if i could just
absolve
your woe.

you set my neurons firing
like an arsonist in the foyer
of the old abandoned church
built within the synaptic gaps
of my brain matter.

burning bridges was the only way
to keep from sinking with the anchors
chained to my feet.
i find myself, instead, adrift
inside your bloodstream.

so scrape the match and watch phosphate
sputter like the final gasp of a dying sun.
let the shaft of wood tumble end-over-
end into the kerosene amassed at my feet.
raze what's left of me. set me free.