The lines have escaped me once again,
all buttered up and sliding under furniture
like cockroaches at dawn.

I was made with a different chip.
My heart, she dances to her own music,
a song with no words- just Gregorian chanting
and an amnesiac beat; she dances lonely.

My tongue is tied to the floor of my mouth
with fresh sinew that I stole from the belly
of the cat still steaming on the damp asphalt
beneath alien streetlights, streaming
unhurriedly past a new Mercedes,
seeming to fall in chunks down my throat...
neverlanding.

Every trip, every drip, drop, knife or needle,
only leaves me more alone when my imagination
is gone again, and the elevator panels
have ceased giggling as I tell them ***** jokes
between floors two and four.

My dreaming lover lies while I stare rudely,
washing his clothes and feeding him broth.
He wretches over and again, poisoned
by the arsenic in my kiss, the lead in my bowels.
Not this lover, nor any other, could survive
the rugged terrain where I insist to live,
where the well supplies me well
with replacement tears,
yea, even blood.

The mosquitos so strong there,
despite the heat and barren broken stones,
they lick me dry as I methodically flip the light
and lift the coffeetable and ottoman in the den,
finding the nests of my soulmates
who have eaten my lines slowly,
savoring the bitterness of cheap paper.

I refill myself at the well,
swallowing the unsuspecting larvae,
while the one I love drowns facedown as I watch.
His heart stops, and mine, she quickens her step.
She can hear the tortured tongue.
Tickled with every gulp, he's giggling.

I take a step forward, over the void.
The elevator disappears as I turn the corner
into the falling crimson sun.