but I’m just buckshot
caught in a sonnet,
and there’s just too many
shotgun shells
in my diction.

There’s gangrene
in my carrion verses;
each word, a gaping
wound of its own
shrapnel design,
****-filled and leaking

through wrinkled
notebook paper.



A putrid smell instead of
cheap perfume lingers
on sealed envelopes, —
dried blood
in lieu of a wax seal...

waiting to be opened,
and pressed to a numb chest,

where the infection
can spread again,
and again.

you were the veins
at my throat;

roots
protruding through
diaphonized
lungs;

pain on display
pickled, prodded,
left…

a hanger for dust
galvanized no more.

those days;
just like old television shows
on a retro box.
black and white, silent pictures
that make my head hurt.
whimsical musings tarnished;
a damaged Charlie Chaplin film—
a lifetime burning
on the **** projector
4 hours away in an Ohio Autumn.

these days;
a blue wool hat i wear in
90 degree weather,
always misplaced the first of
November,
and Hypothermia is the name
of my favorite child.
i dropped everything
to cradle it because
it’s insane how heavy an
August shadow can be,

and yes! i’m the red gloves
found under the bed
several months too late,
the drunken mess that got
thrown in the leaf pile
by the curb last year,
the 3am snowfall that everyone
******* about on facebook…

spring just isn’t the
same anymore,
and people still *******
about that too.

Remember the days
when our soldiers were
bloated stars,
and we collapsed under the
weight of their misdeeds?

When the eons were multitudes
of bullet holes in our backs?

Betrayal outshined
loyalty in light-years…

on silver she flies
this delicate
mother-of-pearls

moon adrift
during the daylight

she's luminous
like snow atop
auburn branches

or like pale petals
from the sky

an ethereal
daydream

fluttering
on a
warm breeze

A good friend of mine once said:
“I hope you get revenge someday.”

And even as I smiled,
I still found pain in wishing
things turned out differently.

Of drifting stardust and waning moon,
A distant voice sings an ethereal tune;
A spell of nocturne this voice recites
From the knowledge of an archaic rune:

"Hath wandered about vast nebulas aglow,
In auroras of energy only she couldst bestow.
This omnipotent child born of thine dark;
A galaxy of radiance deep within thy soul!

Awaken! For the moon, who departs into flight
Commands the Cosmos before thine veil of night!
Gathered her gems in the heavens and strikes
This Goddesses’ wand with a pale, silver light!"

if storms appeared,
blowing down your foundations
with frenzied tempests…

if shadows stalked,
molesting every ill-fated dream
with unbidden darkness…

if hell arose,
choking the air from your lungs
with sulfur hands…

I just want you to know
that I
warranted it all.

what didn't ****
only gave the thrill
of dying

and when i couldn't
die in his arms, i let the
smoke, the *****, and
the night ******
the cancer inside

i was in a darkroom of fractured webs
hands on fire slipping off of chrome
and porcelain
warm pulp juiced raw
and heavy but all i
could see where photographs
developing under my sticky fingers

someone after
me
it was soon
too soon (she
‘s better than
you)

ground down my knuckles
peeled back
exposed blue-green hanging
down my palm
shards swallowing it
whole like salt
crystals
growing
on
a
st
ri
ng

i came out the other side
losing myself to the sink
the same
as i
lost myself
to you

In this cracked bower of dusted morn,
Under crinkled leaves of cankered scorn,
Thine promise hath ruptured in purulent bliss;
Innards devoured with one poisoned kiss!
In death’s cruel grasp, spring bid adieu,
Such an ill-fate bestowed upon thee so soon!
Writhing in the pain from this soiled vow,
Revenge is waiting, won’t thy surrender now?

Lilies wilted
On** the windowsill
Vase cracked from age
Every memory still anew

snuffed out;

on her breath,
a smoke as white as lilies.
i cannot stay here for long
in this charnel house…
the temple that was once her is
shifting,
buckling,
seizing,
burning….
there’s flames licking at the
roof of her mouth.
every vein
reduced to a
nasty, crackling rubber.
every fizzle, every pop!
my nostrils fill
with bile.

my bloated fingers claw
at the charring husk
in her diaphragm....
this time
i cannot escape society’s
witch trial.

In my longing to
drown out your memory,
I choked on the *****
of my dreams,
and woke up feeling
empty inside...

They’ve woven veils out of my halo again!”
the moon bellowed though its own smoke.
For a long time, there it sat with a grimace...
Another nightfall wasted.

There was a sort of wheezing…
you know?
A toothy whistle, even.
Sardonicism of an angry crescent, it seemed.

And the trees outside were clearly snickering.

******* about something,
I lazily recalled as I slept;
another nightly poem; another silly cosmic backdrop
for someone’s soul.

“Brilliance in passing!” the moon
once said to itself, or rather of itself, I suppose.

No remedy for the stars tonight…
so I decided to write about it all over again.

she
swallowed all
the lilies in my
garden. then
descended
upon my
rosebushes
and delighted
in the fact
that they
resembled
her.

You!
Ringing bells.
Flutter.
It yells!
And
it never stops
singing;
voice reached
the top.
Half cracking;
fading.
I
can tell
the angel
fell.

For G. H.*

The secondhand smoke on your old hoodie
is tendrils of disembodied electricity
mercilessly carving through my diaphragm.
Somehow, I envision ivy climbing the side of an
abandoned house in unkempt droves of static veins…
My throat is cruel in the way that it seeks you,
like in the way squatters seek warmth behind boarded
doors that won’t easily open up.
If we ever kissed, I imagine them dwelling both of
our atriums and airways simultaneously,
and zero degree weather would use our breath
to leave crudely written IOU’s on the only
window still intact. I’d think an angry ghost would appear,
and remind us why we’re there in the first place.
Even then, I’d still like to believe
you’d give me a light all the same.

where the sun ceases to expose
all of the cracks of our shells

and just before the night
slowly engulfs the embers
we have left.

meet me
here…

Shadows scream
abandonment,
menace,
neglect,
deceit…

I miss their mouths,
hitting walls instead.

Prophetic as a
lake-effect tempest,
an unnerving
November howls like
a dying animal.
The sound rattles
the houses,
and shake
the skeletal trees;
they hunger for
warmth
through emaciated
limbs as they
brush against my
rufescent face.

I survey the
frost of the broken
valley.
In death
the surroundings
seethe in
white as my
blood pools and
congeals with the
waste of the rivers.

He carried burden in his little bones
Since the day he first arrived.

His legs would spasm and fail him
In mid run; he always insisted
That he just didn't tie his shoes well.

His arms would always lock at the joints
As he slept; he always just told me
That he was tucked in too tight before bed.

His hands would go numb and he'd
Grip a glass cup too tight; shards splintered
His small palms, but he said it was fine,

And that he was so very sorry.

The smallest coffins are the heaviest,
And I could have swore I heard him
Say he was sorry as I carried

It out in the rain.

The parched night-blooming cereus
aches for la lune’s silvery caress,
the same as I ache for the words
etched in secret codes on your tongue.

There’s a nightly symphony in your touch;
chamber music inspired by the hints
of heavy crimson within your lips;
velvet petals spreading before a rapture...

How I long to crush them to mine
with a sweet, savage brutality!
How I long to hear the angelic aria
of your moan.

In the nights that follow a
thousand waning faces,
I still can’t help but to find
my gaze locked on her
shining smile.

And even when the clouds
conspire to hide her away
from me, I can still feel
her silvery gaze
and her unfaltering
brilliance!

You grounded me in silent melody
like a rusted harp from yesteryear.

You gave me prideful ambition when
my other endeavors failed to bear fruit.

You made me feel alive when self-infliction
was only desecration to the living dead,

and showed me beauty in both anger
and sentiment when mixed; botched,
yet perfect in its own twisted way.

You still spilled from the ink of my
shadow even when the alcohol wasn't enough.

You still came to my mind when the
wraiths of my memories tormented
my waking hours.

You gave me clarity when the pills refused
to dissolve in my wreckage,

and when all else abandons me for the last time,
whatever you have to say in that moment
will feel like my first time.

Lamenting tonight.
Lamenting the absence of moonlight
That still bathes my skin.

The inertia was pulling my blood.

The night goes on.
The clouds move in,
But I still see you everywhere.
Luminescent, ethereal light.
Still entranced, still in love.
I don't feel you anywhere!

I wander alone through the darkest of nights.
And I swear I still feel your pull. And I still feel...

Alleyways became my inspiration,
and I found my audience in bars!

Ocean views became somber,
and my meds made me think I was
drowning.

Someone said that I would
fall in love with typewriters,

and monochrome photography,

and drinks twice my age!

But someone also told me
that nostalgia would break me,
and that I’d babble about
being the greatest thing

while shoving napkins covered in
faded ink and ***** in my pockets.

And while you were haunting me,
I was doing my day-job.

So I saved up for a shotgun,
and like buckshot through a sonnet,
I finally got you out of my brain.

The art of embellishing our skeletal
wraiths has matured so much from
merely just locking them away
in the closet.

The true beauty of deception
is to painfully merge them with
your soul, because there's a certain
grace in using the truth to tell a lie

all while embracing our demons.

i’ve tried so many
times to throw away the key,  
but my heart pulled a Dillinger,
and it now hides out
in every single *******
thing you’ve ever wrote to me.

we learn of
celestial bodies in
science,

and i touch
what is
considered

forbidden
knowledge about
the stars;

the longing of
the supernova
to cover as

much of
the blackness
as it can in

a moment
of explosive
intensity. write

me a song on
the blackboard
in health class

comparing your
nature to the
onslaught of

solar winds,
atmospheric
pressure on my

lungs, and
the force of
gravity you

inflict
upon the
bearer of flowers.

tug and pull
celestial seeds
floating in

its own beaker.
attack me.
force me to

answer and
make me
want more.

ignore my
protest and eat
up the blank

space with
smeared
fingerprints and

crude words
about my lust in
the dark

and how
the night sky
swallowed me

whole.

each time i
traced over a vein
a blush-pink stain
blooming

like every blemish
kissed in a dull light

it’s as if
everything you’ve ever
touched now had a line
going right
through it

lines
that only i could
see

it’s as if everything
we were became
meaningless

like crinkled petals
on a windowsill

like
every vein
i’ve longed to kiss
goodbye

drying up inside

dying of thirst
in a cracked vase

and
before the incision is
made there

between dizzy spells
and tears

i only hope
red roses grow

and run

far
far away

from here

I.
Back to remembering how his
voice might have sounded in the wind, —
catching the wind on her tongue.

II.
And she said nothing but air!
His chest heaved in and out
of the words they might have said.

III.
He stirred awake in her mind
when nothing seemed to wait
on her as she fought to catch her breath.

The Bell-tower taunts me when I look out my bedroom window.

Saints who sin are loved more than me.
Their audience comes in droves to the sounds of bells!

I hear them ringing.
I go numb with fear.

Then I remember that there's two dead trees in
the backyard. I look at them instead.

I still hear the ringing,

the sharp screams in my head that let me know
God hated me from an early age.

Angels are scavengers; a ****** of crows
staring into my window at night and
I hear silent children crying again.
They began to scream angrily at me,
forcing me outward, feeding me to darkness.
Handing me over to the birds!

I fall asleep on the roof as cries circle me from above.
The dead overtake my room and stare at me from my cold bed.
Little decaying hands banging on the window telling me they
want back inside the womb.

I hang myself Sunday morning. The crows pick
at my unclean body.
I am not missed.
Everything goes on as it did before in heaven.

“Old houses mended,
cost little less before they're ended.”
       —Colley Cibber.

When all is said and done,

you’ll stand there like
ancient wood-rot
and I’ll let you fall in ruin.

“You are so easy to break.
Remember that.”

So can I wash you cold and brittle
with your broken hand until you fade?

Can I touch you?
Answer soon.

Can I keep the cracked pieces of paint
around my neck like
a broken rosary until you believe
in me again?

Can I hope?
Answer soon.

I’ve been ransacked, but you waited after
the fact to tell me…

Was it because my house wasn’t what
you thought it was?

“You robbed me of what I had left!”

Now there’s hate and
wrath in every wall
that houses your life now.

Every insecurity, everything
I know of you…

“I’ve locked you in.”*

So can I approach you?
Answer before I **** you.