excuse me while i sit here
and dog ear Ginsberg
while hurricane and humanity
battle outside of my window,
and i'm wondering why i'm not
at work as sunrays speak
of sin in soggy song

this world is full of death,
disguised as martyrs making
their mark on an otherwise
unscathed blank canvass
and i'm trying to see the
art behind all of it

where blood smears meet
spoken psalms and bruised
blood vessels speak of silent
sighs, the last breath to escape
you as you charge toward
the pearly gates

i'm wondering who taught you
that life is invaluable, that the
only thing that matters is
how you leave it, and then
i open up your shirt,
button by button and see
the answers tattooed brutally
on your collar bones,
angels look up to the precipice
and there sits the ruler of them all,
God.

i wish then that i could unbutton
your skull and peek in to see
memories of mother scarring
you into submission, priest
preaching prayer with prolific
posture, grandma growling
through grins of god fearing
centuries, instead,
i'll hold you as your skin
turns blue and i won't cry
for you even if the angel
that comes to retrieve you
asks me to, i won't, because
i know this is just what
you asked for

i am trying to find
the space where i feel
anything because of this

tragedy, sadness, self pity, guilt,
none of it comes

instead, a strange calm
continually washes over me
as if i lay on the sea shore
waiting for the tide to whisk me away

i've thought so much about loss,
what it means to feel that
dull empty ache that radiates
from the bottom of your ribcage
up to the back of your throat

the kind of loss that brings
tears to your eyes with every
sad song you hear, every image
of a baby you see, every man
who brushes by with a mustache
like the one that tickled my nose

i begin to wonder if i'm cold,
too calculated in my logic,
but i knew what i'd do
if this happened eons before
i decided i could turn off emotions
and ******* without any
sense of love or regret

tomorrow when i say goodbye
to whatever it is that you have
a mind to call this, i know i will
sit heavy with the fact that i
will never forget you and your
innate kindness, or what we
created and what i've done

perhaps tomorrow i will feel

I am a ghost chased by the present
Forever burrying my mind in the future
Under ancient texts and maps that tell
Of times the world no longer speaks of

I linger and I run, then I repeat,
Until my legs give way and I slip,
Tumbling through the earth until I land
With a thud on a different continent
And I am content there until
The locals begin to know my name

I am a shadow shrouded in anonymity
Smiling at strangers, but never speaking,
Looking vaguely out of transit windows
Like I'm learning something very important
From the senseless blurs that pass us by

I am alone and I am surrounded, all at once,
And I'm not afraid to die alone because
The truth is that we all do,
No matter who's holding tight to
Our old brittle hearts and our seasoned souls

In the end it's only going to be me
And I'm enough

my lips, like molten lava,
slipped words out with a fluidity
that appeared smooth and even

beneath the surface lay the heat of the sun

they yearned for one graze,
but those who looked closely
knew they would only be burned
upon first embrace

past lovers wore mouths
more akin to pulled pork,
two slabs of meat so disfigured
from my desire that the words
that now left them
could only be a jumbled mess

i felt guilt, but more importantly,
i had felt pleasure

and in my mind,
a few scorned lovers
didn't mean **** in the realm
where everything spins round
my lava lips

god help us if this is
what you meant
when you sent
little jesus'
in your wake,
after the prodigal son

full of die hard direction
on a path from which
they'll never stray,
these foot falls are misguided,
although their reasoning innate

hearts are full as they begin
on a journey
to save the needy souls,
but who are they
to judge sinners,
when they too
wear sinner's clothes

introspect, it escapes them,
while they smile
and explain to those around,
that, of course, they know better,
even if they haven't raised
this community from the ground

now myself,
I watch with wide eyes
through clenched teeth
and bitten tongues

my faith,
I find in humans,
that care deeply enough to understand
that a tree does not balance upon soil,
its roots are what makes it grand

sweat poured down my back,
pooled in my crack
in the seven am Arizona swelter

I waited for the gods to
break open the sky, or the earth
heaven or hell,
it didn't matter

one friend, four legs
though he sealed our fate
we dared not deny him

I wondered if I'd survive ten hits
while you went to take a ****
and the hills, with their eyes,
came alive
to surround me

I lost myself that day,
in the same instant that I threw you away
because betrayal
doesn't taste any better
locked in a six by six cell

Hawaiian prints lifted
numb lips into the closest thing
to a smile
as I recounted a gift from
my island girl,
with eyes gone blue on trial

I thought it poetic that we stood
in this sinking ship
hand in hand,
but now I know
we had been chained to the mast
by fate itself
long ago

our love was flushed down
with your chewed up and **** out
enchiladas

I hope to every god
in this universe
that you still taste
the acid
crawling up your esophagus

call me blind, call me bitter, call me *****,
call me insane

I am all of these things

but I will die knowing
that I have never been disloyal

we built our friendship
out of whiskey bottles,
bowl packs and friendly *****

porch sitting in the sunshine
and soaking in the laughter and stories
that raced from our lips
one after another
like derby horses darting from the gate

I admit that I still ache
for you,
but I've come to accept
this truth for what it is

so please forgive me if my
words perceive a penned phantom pain
for this life comes in waves
and I can't catch them all,
sometimes I get ****** into the depths,
lured by the undertow