though i’ve never smoked a cigarette
i’ve always loved the smell of tobacco.

it reminds me of shows in seedy concert halls
and the gum my father chewed to get sober

minty-fresh nicorette replacing the scent
of the wine that imbued his every breath.

i recall my grandpa, the way he sat on the porch, surrounded
by nana’s garden, listening to the songs of birds

the stub of his last cigarette, poised between frail fingers.
as it withered, he withered with it.

their walls stained yellow from the nicotine
like some vintage sepia photograph.

through synesthetic memories, i can taste the
way cigarette smoke wafted through the summer air when

my friends and i sat on our back porch, reminiscing,
nostalgia suffocating, tightening its grip like a vise about our windpipes.

i’ve never even smoked a cigarette
but they always remind me of who i used to be

before i lost what was left of my innocence.

these incidents prove maddening.
i keep catching myself trying
to figure out whether or not
coincidences explain the way
that hints of you are interwoven
in the secret corners of my brain,
binding fresh philosophies with the strings
of new theories, stitched together
like the seams of my favorite garments.

from day one, i knew you and i were cut
from the same cloth. i saw your ears perk up
with curiosity when we first spoke about anarchy.
you doodled idly on the corners of my psyche,
renditions of ripe flowers, burgeoning
at the tips of my fingers.
though, i must say, in a certain way,
it has been a joy taking the time
to expose the treasures locked inside your mind,
like peeling back a fruit
and sampling the sweet juices i find,
an ambrosia fit for a king.

in the myths of the Greeks and Romans,
a Muse was a source of inspiration—
typically feminine—that controlled
the whims of destiny,
made the words of men
dance right off their tongues,
to be interwoven with the myriad threads
of elegant tapestries chronicling stories
of humanity's fate.

is it such a stretch to suggest
that i might not possess full faculties
of my tongue?
that, at the very least,
my mental agility
might be deadened
at times beneath
the empathy that screams
between you and me,
as if we were rogue planets
spinning infinitely
around the same sun.

with our constantly interconnected
strings that sing so eloquently
like strummed scales
on a ukulele,
can i entice
you to hum along
in harmony?

it doesn't seem
all that far-fetched to me
to think the atoms in our bodies
were forged in the core
of the same supernova.
if you don't agree, Listener,
then lean in close. get cozy.
i'd be happy to remind you
how we sync together
perfectly.

we spin concentric,
like a record on wax
and i feel the heat of analog.

you are the quiet harmony
hiding in the background
of my favorite song—

a melody
i couldn’t quite catch
until i turned the volume ****.

watch us turn
like twin suns
sustained in infinite orbit.

hydrogen-fusion
synthesis. combusting
like burgeoning nebulae—

a great osmosis
in our corner of the cosmos,
an ouroboros in lemniscate.

come one, come all.
gather 'round, gather 'round the table.
you'll find your invitations—
corporations' coupons—packed
between stories of Indigenous
People, shot by militarized cops in riot gear.
Water Protectors defending the river
while a black snake rears to poison the well.
tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades
replace ragged blankets draped in smallpox.
a tradition rooted in genocide
upheld in frigid North Dakota.
no need to ponder
the lasting legacy
of a leader who campaigned
on "hope" and "change." a hypocrite
continuing a tradition of colonial
aggression, lying by omission.
just another facet
of his presidential profession.
so drown the news of a fascist's
election in gravy and eggnog,
viscous substances to gorge
yourselves on. Nazis vandalizing
black churches with swastikas
must've escaped your notice.
vacuous, preaching
that Jesus is the reason
for the season, but i think
your savior would flip
your Thanksgiving Table over.
flimsy pretenses of gratitude
discarded hours later, chasing deals
before your stomach could even settle.
your brand new 4K TV
cost you over $4K, but couldn't give you
a clearer picture. you continue to disregard
the smoke signs and headlines,
pursuing the material.
consume!

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.

a corpse flower
blooms beneath
a blue moon.
stench of death
held aloft
right underneath
our noses.
once in a decade,
hang suspended—
stuck in the liminal space
between two moments.
for a hairsbreadth
we wait
on bated breath.
amorphophallus
titan arum.
a reminder that joy
is fleeting, a rarity
eclipsed by twilight.

the first time i choked on tear-gas,
we were standing in the heart of the Empire.
the scent of capsaicin still smarted
as we fished our medic bags for water-bottles
to flush our comrades’ eyes. we did not weep
for the revolt. we were at peace even as we knew,
beyond a shadow of a doubt,
we were ******.

the black bloc, three thousand strong,
had raged through the streets of D.C.
overturning dumpsters, torching limos,
taking hammers and crowbars
to Bank of America windows
with gleeful abandon, a sense of endless,
militant joy. it would be
anarchy or annihilation.

the spontaneous insurrection
of the antifascist demonstration
was an inferno hotter than the dumpster-fires
we’d left like signal-flares in our wake.
for a moment, there, we could feel
the ******* quaking as our feet
shook the Earth, stepping
in-and-out of Lovecraftian shadows,
eldritch horrors of doom gloating over us.

but we’d been kettled,
cordoned by cops in riot gear,
cut-off from all possible routes of escape.
faceless phantoms clutching cudgels
to bludgeon our conflagration
into submission. and then
the call came. “this way! this way!
we found an exit!”

immediately, the cops swarmed in,
their momentarily vindictive arrogance
shattered by the freedom that rang
like church-bells in a half-a-hundred voices.
“this way! this way! we found an exit!”
motorcycles turned down the alleyway,
sirens screaming, echoing off the tenement halls
and only one of us possessed the sense to intervene.

for a moment, she stood alone.
a single figure, holding up her hands
and shaking her head, refusing to let
the ******* advance. but courage
is infectious. a moment later,
another joined her, then another,
until all of a sudden a half-a-dozen
of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shouting,

“no pasaran! you shall not pass!”
we waited for the billy-clubs to rain
hell upon our shoulders, but still
we remained steadfast, anchored
by the weight of our conviction
and the hope that even if we fell
the rest of the bloc would escape
to wreak havoc another day.

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.

hope is a hoax
a sick joke that always ends
like a punch in the throat
cage up my guts and
crush the butterflies
departing my vacant stomach

i've grown sick of all the lust
that always crawls over us
invisible cockroaches scurrying
across emaciated flesh
give me the needle the drug
part my skin succumb to sin
addicts trying to kick our habit
desperate for the next fix

whispers and insinuations
an endless simulacrum
an earnest emulation built
on selfish impulses that
never fail to corrode and
corrupt until there's nothing left
of us but shattered shells in
self-made hells begging
for another bump

and while no god presides over
this unending infatuation
i've asked the skies to answer why
i am always second rate
gathering dust while
you **** a hollow husk
of a human being

am i the crux
of true love or
am i just a crutch

sun-starved flowers sit on the windowsill,
yellow daffodils wilt. petals litter
the turntable—balanced precariously beneath,
needle tilted and askew. a record spinning out of tune.

repeat. repeat the same refrain, a lyric
trapped and contained within a cage.
a melody at once profound, but it’s grown
harder to find the harmony now.

breathe in the decay, a forgotten bouquet
left alone and in the shade. a gift
better left behind, “the patient, cut-flower sound
of a man who’s waiting to die.”

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.

the invisible hand is in my pocket
pilfering everything
and there's nothing i can do
to stop it from robbing me blind

it does not guide it only destroys
personal expression under the
whims of an outmoded model of economics
capitalism
a philosophy that subscribes
to the metaphysical conclusion
that a spiritual malady
plagues every human heart
a harsh chorus that rings like a melody
of triumph in the multi-million dollar
mansions of the 1%

convinced we're born selfish
it seeks to reward us for our own malpractice
an edict predicated on social darwinism
that forestalls the possibility of future charity
as it drowns in the throes
of misanthropy and butchers any hope
of philanthropic community or basic humanity
to vanquish our more maleficent impulses

relegated to paying taxes
to ensure the illusion of security
while our money finances endless
war and police brutality rather than
healthcare or education
they know if they keep us sick and dumb
they can get away with ******

if the population shirks in horror
from the looming specter of terrorism
they can justify ubiquitous surveillance
that robs us of our right to
self-determination but
people should not be afraid of their governments
governments should be afraid of their people

they say we can't be trusted
that this is for our own good
but i'll call their bluff that
bull on Wall St. is full of ****
and like a matador i'll entice it to
lower its horns and charge
when itsjust a hairsbreadth away
i'll turn to one side and let it skewer
the slave-driver raising his whip behind me
that same skulking shadow that turns
veterans into homeless wanderers begging
for loose change in Central Park
a pale horse haunting the aspirations
of college students it
leaves the poor and
oppressed shivering after dark and
overburdens broken backs
god doesn't hold up the world
like Atlas we shoulder the globe

now watch us shift the weight

brought down by the people you tried to suppress
this is not some petty expression of vengeance
but the rallying cry of a dream deferred
exploding out to meet your injustice
mark my words

we're taking over the world

you recite the
lord's prayer
but i don't
hear a
messiah
whispering in
my skull

you read me
lines from the
Dhammapada
but i do not
care for the
Buddha's boorish
proverbs and
tired truisms

i can only
focus on the
inflection
in your voice
when you pause
in the space
between words

i can't see you smile
but i can hear you
catching your
breath as heat
spreads across
your cheeks and
you free slick fingers
from wet pink flesh

you're burning in
the poems you
read at a secluded
café on Thornton
silhouetted by light
like a beacon of hope
a lighthouse guiding
me back home

your words are
the  rope i
knot about
my throat
kick the chair
beneath my feet
and leave me
                       d
                       a
                       n
                       g
                       l
                       i
                       n
                       g

and when the sun sets
will you lay your head
to rest content with
all the choices that
you've made

will your last breath
pass without regrets
when you lie
on your deathbed
or will you wonder if
you resolved and wrapped
up all the loose-ends
before fading away

into the dark abyss
of nothingness
that awaits  
each of us
inevitably

there are no rarer bedfellows
than joy and intellect.
mortal enemies—
fingers locked
around each other's necks.
to possess a shred
of empathy in times
like these is to embrace
perpetual melancholy.
i refuse
to deceive
my psyche.
i will not shirk
the weight of reality.
unhappiness is a virtue.

if i **** myself, will i wake from this dream?

a half-remembered reverie floating
at the periphery of my anxiety.
will death free me from ennui?
will my final breath
bring me liberty
or will this life be but the passing
of one ship too many on a moonless eve?

if i **** myself, will i wake from this dream?

the doctor told me to
swallow a fistful of pills.
whatever you say, doc.
i've been striving for lucidity
so i might achieve some measure of restraint
a way to constrain the hellscapes
when i drift unconsciously
listless within my psyche.
can i project my whims
into the astral plane
to attain a degree of peace?

if i **** myself, will i wake from this dream?

endless possibility rests
just beyond my fingertips.
to soar serenely
over lavender mountains
past fields of magenta glass.
magical realism birthing infinite possibility
from the labyrinth of night-terrors.

if i **** myself, will i wake from this dream?

it's been said
that if you dream of falling
and you reach the end
you won't wake up ever again.
but my deja vu is transpiring endlessly
as if i was trapped in an abyss spanning eternity.
am i caught in a vacuum of space-time?
am i adrift within a void?
am i going through the motions once again?
the doctor told me to
swallow a fistful of pills.
whatever you say, doc.
repeat. repeat. repeat. repeat.
...
is this a dream?
is this the real world?
am i already dead?

if i **** myself, will i wake from this dream?

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).

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.

there’s a gap on my bookshelf
where The Deathly Hallows used to sit.
i lent you the seventh text
when you left for rehab
and haven’t seen it since.
you’ve been holding on to it for me.

the absence reminds me fondly
of the way you used to etch the wand,
stone, and cloak into my skin
with your fingertips,
searching for the pulse
thundering in my wrist.

it’s been nearly a year since I held you
on the drive up to Gainesville.
you’ve been clean now
for over five months.
like coal, you weathered the furnace
and emerged priceless as diamond.

depression
is an ocean.
at times, it ebbs.
at others it flows.
forever it endures.

depression
is a dead tree.
ripping apart wilted
leaves, adrift
in windswept currents.

depression
is an ant hill.
fit to burst
with activity, but
simultaneously stationary.

depression
is a sword in a stone.
wrest its hilt
to no avail, the blade
remains buried deep.

depression
is a melting glacier.
worn thin by
global warming,
wilting in enervation.

depression
is you and me.
living in the same town
now, but somehow
distant as dimensions.

i yearn to change
the world
but i can't seem
to change myself

i fear the gears have ground to a halt
and i've been left to gather rust
between the teeth of tired cogs
in the jaws of this dysfunctional mess

am i nothing more
than a bent tool
a broken fool trapped
in self-detesting testament

piece
me together
with anger anguish
and mistrustful lust

the aspects of a psyche
peeled back
like flayed fingernails
exposing fresh flesh

i've resolved
to be a nightly victim
of my own failing
mental health

i may be pointing fingers
and smashing mirrors
but i haven't been avoiding
the abject reality

a reflection
i know reflexively is inexorably
responsible for this current
catastrophe

i
am my own
sworn
enemy

a contagion
jealously infecting
everyone and everything
i've tried to love

though i dream of death
every evening
i continually awaken
disappointed

he was radicalized in
the marshes of Vietnam
when they told him to fire
his loaded gun at a
group of school children

a dissident who
marched on Washington
with a Reverend and a King
and read Žižek Zinn and
Chomsky's reflections on direct
action and anarchistic philosophy

a staunch opponent of
police brutality in his
fifties he protested the
****** of Rodney King

he did not go quietly
into the black abyss but
raged against a putrescent
apparatus obsessed with control

he died waiting for the Revolution

we slow-dance to Turnover in the living room
while cars roar past and ambulances wail.
backlit by the yellow glow of a dimmed lamp,
we whirl endlessly, choking back melancholy.

“would you come here and spin with me?”

visions of the past still haunt
our periphery, but we cling
to hope, enduring even at the end of a rope,
waiting for our chance to catch the next breath.

“i’ve been dying to get you dizzy.”

your tears collect, mourning dew,
slipping insistently down your cheeks.
i kiss the salt streams and sing quietly,
lips pressed like a seal against your ear.

“find my way up into your head...”

the needle scratches against the LP.
aimless, we twirl in unspoken rapture,
hearts thumping to the very beat
that sets our feet to turning.

“...so i can make you feel like new again.”

limbs taxed by atrophy, we collapse
once again into the bed, light-headed,
giddy. dazed with joyous, ephemeral bliss
to flit through another sensuous tryst.

the only thing
that got me
through the week
in one piece
was the thought
of who’d take my dog,
Albus,
for a walk
if i stopped
breathing.

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.

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?

there is a pitter-patter
of witching hour
rainfall on the window
pane. a deep
and profound thunder,
the kind that made
our ancestors fear
the wrath
of imaginary gods,
resounds—
unfolding
across Tallahassee
hills, shaking
itself out of existence.

heat lightning
unfurls its tendrils
across a violent sky
illuminating
my bedroom
like a ******’s
spotlight. my dog
whimpers absently
in his sleep. i envy
him his nightmares.
what i wouldn’t give
to slip beneath.

Tolstoy purported,
"the purpose of life
is to serve humanity."
but an empty cup
cannot fill another
and i've long since
been drained
to the last drop
dry as drought.

cottonmouth, hoarse,
blue-in-the-face
from screaming
my lungs out.
a mime beating
bulletproof glass
until my knuckles bleed
and streak.

three words
bloom like heliotrope
petals on my tongue:
"i love you,"
a refrain on endless repeat—
a broken record
covered in motes of dust,
skipping on the turntable
stuck in the same rut.

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.

there’s a certain serenity to be found
standing on the precipice of a continent,
lost in the expanse of an ocean
unfurled like a map, extending out
to caress the earth’s curvature. the seas
sift as i stand on hourglass sand
and forget the seconds slipping
past, stuck in the liminal space
between the hour and minute hands
on the clock—if only for a moment. here,
i feel smaller than the grains that cling
like salt-and-pepper to my feet. peace
drifts in the ebb and flow, eroding
this old soil. wash away my cares
and let my soles sink deep.

my heart is heavy
as a corpse
hanging from the State's gallows.
my head is light
as a child
eaten away by her own hunger.

there is a marriage between mental instability
and the fragility of this postmodern world.
anxiety exacerbated like rising sea-levels,
stress fractures greater than tectonic shifts,
insomnia that shakes you from sleep,
an internal alarm powered by the doomsday clock.

fury waits for me, lurking like cluster munitions
on Syrian soil, primed and ready
to rip the innocent limb-from-limb.
bombs bought and paid for
with the cold, hard cash  
pilfered by overlords,
pick-pocketed by white,
heteronormative men
with invisible hands.

caught in a web of poetry
amidst threads i've spun like a spider,
a noose fashioned
from so many strands of rope.
constantly oscillating
between interconnected themes:
tragedy and suffering,
the hallmarks of existence.

showing solidarity
with the least of these
virtually guarantees
an early grave.
to possess
even a modicum
of empathy
in times like these
is to court
interminable
melancholy.

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.

it's become something of a cliché but
like most trite adages
for all its faults
it is not necessarily
lacking in validity

the journey itself is the destination

a phrase that conjures images
in one's head of subconscious
sojourns across arctic tundras
and windswept plains
savannas and mountain ranges
or perhaps astral and ethereal
projections of the psyche into
some pseudo-spiritual metaphor
for overcoming corporeal suffering
and psychological anguish

but it holds true too
to the metaphysical revolt
explored by Camus in
chapter two of his opus
on the spirit of rebellion

it is not enough to merely **** god
acts of deicide are at once
reactionary and revolutionary
imposing subtle dictatorships as
we merely claim a despot's
stolen throne for our
own whims and fancies

no
to resist the urge to become the master
to destroy dominance and empower each
other is the greatest test humankind will face
a constant struggle to pursue the
better angels of our nature

the means don't
justify the ends
the means
are the end

Death and i converse in the midst
of 3:00am's darkness: the witching hour,
when the veil between this world
and the Abyss grows thinnest.

the Endless approach, swift as quicksand
in an hourglass, silent as a shade
on a moonless eve. they whisper
in tongues mortals cannot speak.

Insomnia's embrace is cold as hoarfrost,
a lost soul looking over my shoulder.
Time wonders, "when you lie alone,
do you hope you don't wake up?"

Morpheus leaps
from the pages of the Sandman,
a phantom from my nightmares,
cloaked in flame and shadow.

"rest easy, friend,"
the King of Dreams
says to me.
"there would be no hell without Hope."

we are all knights errant
chipping at the gilded armor
of tyrants and overlords
with rusty swords
doing little more
than tilting at windmills
and howling at a world
with hands clamped
tight over its deafened ears
and lids clenched shut
to block out the fears
of insignificance
the years of feigned ignorance
when we knew all along
we've no one to blame
for the hand we've been dealt
we'll all get the hell that we've built

raging at the moon and stars
eternally pushing boulders
up the slopes of mountains
just to watch them roll back down

nothing we do will be remembered
our lives like the dying light
of seven billion supernovae
burning in unison

a universe without masters and slaves
awaits us all beyond the grave
when our bones disintegrate
and carry us away from this place
a globe we bathed in blood and toxins

no gods to welcome us into the fold
no shepherd searching for his lost flock
each of us a footnote to a fourteen billion
year old explosion that split the veil
of life asunder

salvation is flirting with death
knowing she still haunts
our every footstep
life is defying illusory deities
raising the bird
to an apathetic horizon

we will all be forgotten
dismantled and interned in disrepair
atoms fractured and drifting apart
distant as two motes of dust
in this ever-expanding cosmos

yet still we endure
for though none can contend
with the factions that rend our planet
we are all dying super-giants
refusing to go quietly
into the last goodnight
for if we are all made of star-stuff
what can we do but combust

how might my reality be redefined
by slipping furtively
like a hapless lover
disentangling midnight sheets
fleeing past pathways of my own psyche
to see the view from her mind’s balcony

to inhabit intergalactic eyes
sparkling and shining like supernovae
every time she parts scarlet lips
in defense of the helpless

i'd plant gardens inside her irises
water the seeds and invite the bees
to pollinate fresh thoughts and rejuvenate
an energy that could illuminate new theories
about the cosmos and its inhabitants

i want to dwell within
corridors of infinite imagination  
bridge the synaptic gaps
across rivers of lapsing memories
a lackadaisical adventurer
adrift in neurological galaxies
ingesting erudite insight

i yearn to build a home
inside the mind
of a poet
an activist
and a bona fide genius

the fire of your defiance burnt your name
into my tongue. a caffeinated elixir
scalding as coffee, smooth as milked almond.

a rebel amidst the fray, hair pink as bubble-gum.

i am as scorched as the earth left
in the wake of predator drones, but i yearn
to hold you beneath a moon of blood

and cover this city in red and black paint-bombs.

your eyes are the espresso at the beginning
of a long day, a pick-me-up, a reminder
that human beings are the works of art

wrought by the hydrogen of a hundred billion suns.

depression is waking
with one foot
already in the grave.
a tombstone
with my name etched
into its stony face
is perched
atop my chest.
unable to breathe,
i lay paralyzed
and think,
well, if this is death,
then we'd best
get on with it.

•••

depression is drowning
while the sun peers down,
ambivalent. my fingernails
are splintered fragments.
i've worn weary digits
down to calcium bone
scratching at the icy
underbelly of the surface.
in vain i draw scant bits of oxygen
through the slivered cracks
spider-webbed above me.
the molecules cut like rusty shivs
through my battered lungs,
sustaining my suffering
for just a while longer.

•••

depression is gathering dust
on the top shelf of an oddities shop,
surrounded by the macabre.
while taxidermy goats stare out
with lidless eyes like opals,
i am the thirteenth tarot card,
misplaced and unlucky.
someone forgot to take me home.
tattooed in my parchment flesh
is a skeleton key hanging
like a noose from the neck of Death,
who reads an arcane text and grins
ominously beneath the hood
of a shadowed cowl, beckoning.

i tried to pray, but god left me to decay.
i watched your smile evaporate
with rain puddles on a sunny day.

wasting away, anxiety had its claws in me
and i dragged you underneath
depression’s crushing, tidal wave.

i think i finally realized:
this was all my mistake
but, by now, i’m afraid it’s far too late.

trapped inside
the same cyclical
fantasy
a veil of lace
obfuscates
the mystery i've
explored with
gentle fingers
and yearn to sample
with my tongue

tripping and spinning
endless iterations of
vertigo
elusively choking my
psyche which insistently
craves the taste of
flesh upon your neck

i long to fly with
avian flocks
charting a path
across your
collarbones
and make a home
for you curled close
inside my bed but

as of yet
you remain a
fiction
within my
head and a
friction
beneath my sheets

we plant white lies like seeds in the fertile soil of stories—
perfect as a magic bean, we’ll climb skyscraper-high
to a world of gods and giants.

when reality sets in, cold as a vise and just as tight,
it’s unsurprising we cling desperately to soothing fictions.
given enough hope and rope, we’ll tie our own noose.

we’ve memorized the plot-lines,
can trace the hero’s journey
as the veins in our hands.

in fairy tales and holy texts, they say,
“love will save the day.” but i have never met
someone who can take the pain away.

i think about dying every day

not suicide
per se
just
alleviation

for if existence is suffering
then sadness is unending and
my anger defines me

it takes a certain sort
of courage to endure
to persist in spite of
the inevitable abyss

i am caught in a
cycle of cynicism
that leaves me jaded
more often than
i'd care to admit

and i can't help but
feel guilty nursing
my enmity

i hate him
almost as
much as
i hate me

yet i find
strange comfort
knowing one day
everyone and everything
will meet its end

we are precious
precisely because
we are finite

swallowed the bait
hook line and sinker
choked by the weight of
too many mistakes until
i'm strung up by
microfilament
like an unwanted catfish
a nuisance a pest
bash me to death
with a metal baseball bat
shatter flimsy bones
until nothing's left but dust
and toss my bleeding carcass
back into the murky lagoon
that i used to call a home
and i will float atop
the sea foam green surface
easy prey for
ambivalent carrion

i’ve written countless 

poems you won’t ever read. i'm
melancholia.

illusion festers at the
altar of apathy we
sacrifice our intellect
for luxury items
woe-filled slaves chained
to hypocrisy

if this is what grows in the
absence of thought—weeds
spread out to choke all semblance
of hope—sew my eyelids to my scalp
i'll sleep no more no nightmare
is more terrible than this
reality we must endure

stretched out across this wasteland
we built temples to worship
finance bathed in our own arrogance
we fancied ourselves gods through
deicide and accepted the
inheritance that gave us such a throne

measure out the violence in Biblical
proportions spread like fire
to every corner of the globe
cover the map in a sea of
ash and smoke white phosphorous
raining from the sky like manna
on all the forgotten children
anguishing in third-world exile

we are the arbiters of our own demise
drunken bloated ignorant harbingers
reviled for our revelry of orgastic negativity
plunging the Earth into the sixth
extinction that surely spells
the end of our finite kind

some sentient race may yet witness
our only home caught in the
death-grip of its sole intellectual organism
as life ebbs from her lonely pale blue eyes
winking in and out of existence
from hundreds of lightyears far far away

no telling whether such a recollection
viewed through the chasm of space-time
might offer a mirror to some species
possessed of less self-destructive
tendencies devoid of suicidal mentalities
a warning sign to all the legions spread
across the galaxy:

do not follow in our footsteps

a piece of you
is in every
letter
a momentary
stutter of an
amorous stupor
produces a rhythm
for me to flow
back into you

scratch poems onto
parchment with
ink and pen
or with my
fingers flirting furtively
across your skin

i carve them in
like calligraphy tattoos
and lay them to rest with
gentle kisses that
give you gooseflesh
and make you curl
your spine as
your eyes roll back
and you invoke
the divine  
that's just fine
because in this
polysyllabic string
of words and images
i am god

a pleasure of elation
growing
somewhere deep inside
bursts with
not-so-quiet
ecstasy so
come
under my spell
beguiled by my charms

what am i to do
if you're susceptible
to flattery that flushes
your skin like cherry blossoms
burgeoning in fertile fragility
can i be forgiven for
following my bliss in
iterations of thought
that might serve as
temporary kisses
touching the *****
palpitating in your breast
as i imagine laying down
to rest with you pressed
tight against my chest to
fight off the emptiness

if this tongue's simple rhyming
makes you blush
imagine how you'd quake
if you let it touch your lust

so give in to sin
when i knock on your door
don't be hesitant
lay anxiety by the wayside
open up
let me in

let your fingers slip beneath
the lace obfuscating your
forbidden fruit and pluck along
the strings to this tune
thinking how i'd savor the sweet
juices leaking from enflamed flesh
turning from pink to red to
soaking wet and saturated

i think thou doth protest too much

let your mouth go dry
as your breath catches in your throat
peel back the gauzy veil  
enter the most holy of holies
the sole authentic steeple
use your fingers to speak
in sign language
languid gestures of affection
come inside now don't be shy

bite back your tongue
hold on to your objections
this isn't some conjecture
or feigned misdirection

breathe
sharp
quick
light
just
let
go
i

think it would be best if you
forget about the fears and
latent thoughts that flow
and in this instance just let
go so you can explore
yourself the way
i wish i could every night

with lips pressed
indiscriminately
i'd climb the
mountains of your vertebrae
and find a home in the buxom valley
between the twin hilltops
of your chest
howling like a wolf as
i admire your waning
crescent moon

it's not too late to
disrupt the peace
that leeches
all our joy

in case you didn't notice
i'm just making this up
as i go along
does that turn you on

can i watch you
spontaneously combust
panting shaking wet
i can see your face as
you clench down
on your jaw and
bite back a soft groan
and try to run from
what you're feeling

but
love
fear is your
adversary
not me

don't fight me on this
gorgeous
i don't aim to be
misunderstood
the cadence of your
****** is generating a
fragrance i can taste
on my tongue
even from here
go numb

succumb

i woke to a ceiling fan
humming above my head
a disjointed cadence obfuscated
by a couple loose screws that caused it to
shake and to shudder and
splutter its song

i couldn't fall back asleep

i went for a walk instead
watched a boy in oversized overalls
cuffed about his ankles
cuss and shake his head in
lament as he kicked a crumpled
aluminum can across sun-baked cement

a scrawny teenage girl smoked a roach
on her front porch step
she wore a scowl as i admired
the cigarette butts scattered across her lawn
she acknowledged me with bloodshot eyes
that seemed as though they'd seen too much

the St. John's River brushed the shoreline
furtive as a lover's butterfly kisses
and whispered sweet nothings
as a garbage barge drifted past
i could smell the rotten filth
rich folks had discarded and i
imagine i regarded that same
vessel with a different expression
than the homeless man who sat
on a park bench nearby feeding
the crusts of his sandwich to a
cluster of pigeons

on my way back the
skinny girl called out to me
she walked down from her balcony and
asked me if i wanted some ***
but the words
no, thank you  
caught in my throat
i couldn't miss the fresh scars on her wrists
or the pain in her eyes masked by
youthful defiance and
i turned from her wordless remembering
ignorance is bliss

i wish i could remember how to forget

instagram-famous
action hero. lean back and
relax lay-z-boy.

armchair activist,
keep the sofa warm while you
raise a Twitter storm.

ivory tower
intellectual, trapped, a
tepid state-of-mind.

self-righteous ethos
sapped of the courage to join
us. predatory—

you‘re too obtuse to
realize your abuse has scarred
wrists and ruined lives.

we’ll leave you behind,
but not before i cut my
knuckles on your teeth.

when i say
**** the police
i do not feel obligated
to justify or quantify an
assertion that seems
fundamentally apparent to me
i do not find it necessary
to recount the endless horrors and
psychological terrors visited upon
ordinary men and women
nor do i deem it essential
to my personal ethos of
mutual dignity and
profound respect to
needlessly revere those
behind the badges
and the guns
i just see pigs dressed in blue
prove me wrong

i'm still waiting

when i say
**** the police
there's just one thing
i hope you understand
i do not detest the finger on the trigger
nor the hamfisted hand shoveling
Krispy Kream donuts
into a bottomless gullet
nor the fist clutching the baton
pummeling the peaceful protestor
who gave a riot-geared narc
a bouquet of flowers
nor the thumb emitting mace into
the unsuspecting face of a teenage girl
with a hot-pink mohawk

i do not mean offense when i remark
officer
your mustache reminds me of a walrus or
officer
were you the high school bully or
officer
can you direct me to nearest KKK meeting
please and thanks

so when i say
unequivocally
**** the police
know that it is because i detest
a racist misogynistic homophobic
apparatus of institutionalized oppression
that harasses the marginalized
as it butchers youth of color
and masks the misdeeds of its privileged elite in
a fraternity that utterly disregards morality

when i say
**** the police
it's 'cause i realize that absolute power
corrupts absolutely but the same
could be said for even a modicum
of power that twists and churns
and transforms the best of us into
vicious caricatures of humanity
the fissures of hegemony are exposed

as hierarchy crumbles we find inside us
the power to extol truth
even when it's unpopular

and say
**** the police
'cause they're too lazy to use
their words when the State gives
them a gun and
a license to ****
all charges will drop
because the only police who police
the police are the police

when i say
**** the police
it's because the State uses fear
to control its subjects
in hopes we won't realize
we don't need them
they keep us scared of one another
of the demons hiding in the dark
focus our terror on the monsters
lurking underneath our beds rather
than the Feds driving down I4 with
firearms strapped to their hips

when i say
**** the police
it's because it has not
escaped my notice
that the U.S. has the largest
prison population per capita of
any nation in the world due
to draconian laws governing
the use and abuse of substances
and i may be straight edge but
i'll be the first to point out
that the State's manufacturing new slaves
with its arbitrary arrests over ***

so i say
**** the police
because i remember
my brothers and sisters
who swine stole from this Earth
though i wager i'd never meet them
i'm certain their so-called criminal behavior
certainly did not merit an execution

and contrary to popular belief
black lives matter
so pull your head out of the sand
with that
all lives matter
hog-wash and open your ears for just a second

brother Michael Brown shot
down in Ferguson for walking
along the middle of the street

Eric Garner
strangled by a narc
accused of selling loose
cigarettes after dark

Sandra Bland failed to use her turn
signal and we discovered her later
hanging from a rope
like Roxanne Gay said
even if she killed herself
white hands are still locked around her throat

Trayvon Martin dared to wear a hoodie
and trespass in an affluent community
for failing to return to the ghetto
a vigilante **** sent him to the morgue

twelve-year-old Tamir Rice
played cops-n-robbers in his lawn  
no one stopped to tell him
its the boys-n-blue
who're robbing young kids of their lives
with bullets packed tight in their 9's

over 860 men women and children
killed by thugs draped in red white and blue
in these first 9 months of 2015 alone

so when i say
**** the police
i say so out of a sincere conviction
that there will be no peace until we get
some ******* justice
and i know the State Department's supplying
our masters with leftover gear from its
exorbitant multi-trillion dollar wars
M-16s tear gas flashbangs,
body armor HumVees tanks
rubber bullets surveillance kits and small arms
to suppress dissent and smash
lawful assembly with violence
but when they order us to cease and disperse
or suffer arrest
we'll have three words poised on our lips
**** the police

the words spilled
out in a rush.
they dove
from the tip
of my tongue
before i could bite
them back:
i told a friend today
that i would die
for this. i have no
sons or daughters,
no cats or dogs,
not even a fish
to provide for. if i
could place my body  
on the line to depose
this fatuous fascist,
then i was obligated
to mount a resistance.
and i almost caught
myself by surprise—
my empathy congealed
to galvanize and, in an instant,
catalyzed conviction.
the tears of a student
wearing a hijab, frightened
to show her face outside,
crystallized in my mind
like a mirror, with the phrase,
"the least of these" scrawled
upon its surface.
the shouts of a student
hoisting a hand-drawn
protest sign, almost as high
as her *******,
set my heart to aching with pride
as we stared down riot cops
on mounted horseback. she stood firm
and did not falter.
and though i choked
back tears when i said
that i would lay
my life down
for a stranger,
at least i can say
my voice
did not falter.