and i've been tired for so long i can't remember how alertness tastes
because boredom with life is a habit i could break
with a bullet
and a lapse in cowardice.
and when the planets align i know i could
but mars is falling and pluto,
pluto crumbled while i watched the rain.
my roman candles are alight under the clouds
and i let the rain drown the fuse -
i'm afraid to be awake.
stillborn child, i was d.o.a
why change that now?
all these pyrotechnics just
reek of desperation
so i drop mine in the lake where they belong.
with bullets on my breath i watched the rain
while pluto crumbled above
a negligent god let the universe fall,
a negligent god let words of love
be scribbled on the walls of his church.
i'm tired of life and death would be a nice vacation
but i don't speak the language
and the exchange rate is too high
so i sit by the runways
and pretend i'm leaving too.
i watch terminal patients die
and put myself in their place.
dark tattoos below the eyes
like a bad decision
another fight lost.
throw the fireworks in the gutter
and hope the sky stays dark
tonight
roman candle heart sodden with rain,
i wouldn't know what to do with consciousness if i had it.
i fell asleep by the runways and dreamed
that i lived forever
unrequited adoration,
a one-sided love affair
with death.
all my idols were runaways
and i worshiped them like an eclipse
i worshiped everything that devoured itself
and anything that dared approach
they said **** your heroes
and i dropped cyanide in a whirlpool.
the balance between insomnia
and narcolepsy
is fragile
and my inner ears burst when i tried to retrieve my
fireworks
from the bottom of the lake.
too tired to stay asleep,
i watch the rain
and catch fragments of pluto on my tongue.
dead nerves, damp fuse
alexithymia and apathy
lie along my veins like cyanosis
blue lips,
blue lips -
neptune in my mouth like a bitter aftertaste.
pluto below my eyes,
mars drowning at the bottom of the lake.
if the planets were aligned this would fly true,
but the threads are tangled
and it's another casing at my feet.
infinity is not a number, only something you can
reach for
or run from,
cowering in the safety of ze
ro.
the heresy of nonexistence,
the concept of nothing vs the promise of heaven.
in a whirlpool i found my calling.
in a whirlpool i devoured myself
and spat myself back out again,
dissatisfied with the sour taste of
stagnation.
i missed boredom when it was gone,
ached with the hole it left
and the sudden shock of
consciousness.
you know boredom has a smell?
it smells like honeysuckle
and fog
and apples rotting on the ground because
the harvest always passed us by.
i found one of those apples
and filled up the hole boredom left.
rotting autumn in my chest,
apple-heart,
ennui like a second skin
or first language.
i tried to learn another but it remains,
the language i think and smother in.
      you know
in all languages but this
my name means nothing,
just a collection of syllables to spill
out of a foreigner's mouth

in the language of death my name means nothing
but it's all i know how to say