With bowed heads we genuflect before the wicked grin of the guillotine.
In my mind's eye I go to parlay with the Grim Reaper.

He is seated before me- cloaked in obsidian shadows
His ivory bones offensive against the inky darkness
His scythe glints in the candlelight
its thirst for blood and flesh almost palpable.
His laugh comes as a rumble of thunder
Punctuated by the cracking and shattering of glass (and my sanity.)

He leans close across the table, transfixing me in terror,
staring directly into my soul. He who has no need for breath breathes -
and the smell of earth and death and decay and rot and ruin
tells me that my pleas for pardon will not be heeded.

Snapped back into reality, I close my eyes in defeat.
Suddenly- the angry serpent-air
hisses
and is parted.
Garish crimson stains ivory cobblestones.

Silence.

Skyscrapers jut towards the heavens
middle fingers to mother nature
or sun-bleached white ribs of some poor beast
who tangoed with a Toyota
and lost.

The stench that wafts through the streets could easily strip paint
but the locals don’t seem to mind.
meandering through their mundane Mondays
like maggots in goose step
feeding upon the entrails of the mangled carcass.

Soon, their bellies full, gorged on wealth forged from blood, sweat and tears
of the less fortunate, they will pupate.
and in a frenzy of greed, gluttony and lust, they will burst
from their cocoons, and ****, eat, and relish in their wealth until they die.

Thus is the cycle of the city.
a cancerous growth, a festering boil, an affront in the eyes of the lord.
this grey-on-grey urban tragedy taints the land and traps us all.
no one ever really escapes.

as their corpses lie in rot and ruin amongst the filth and viscera,
the newest generation of eggs begin to hatch,
and the cycle begins anew.

no one ever warns you that love is so painful.
heartbreak? car crash?
i couldn't tell the difference.
did i fall in love, or off a cliff?
both seem equally pleasant.
looking back, i'm not sure if you were kissing me or cursing me.
                                                                                                               (i'm sure you meant me no harm)

your voice, your smell, your smile;
these are all things I will never forget,
locked in a gilded display case in my mind until I die.

l-o-v-e is a four letter word i only barely learned to pronounce before my tongue and heart were ripped from my chest and open mouth.
i now sit in silence.
i wish that i could speak again, so that i may curse the universe for this torment.

slowly, i forget what my heartbeat sounded like,
how it felt to love.

i am hunted
                        and haunted
by memories -
            once good times turned sour.

                                                               ­ vines claw and grasp at my feet
                                                            ­ while i try in vain to trudge forward.

i am picasso with paintbrush poised betwixt my teeth-
                                                          ­                                                             arms bound
                                                                ­             by a straightjacket sewn from sorrow.

the lacrimose landscape of my limbic system is a scarred battleground.
fear and regret clash with my spirit and sanity like angry gods.
i fear i may be broken.

how many times have i apologized?
'til sandpaper throat
and crimson finger
from repentance and gripping pen?

                                              not enough.

I have fallen in love with the lilac trees
oh how i long to be the gentle wind
that blows slowly through their leaves

i could speak ceaselessly for a thousand years
and still not explain why
your magnificence brings me to tears

i looked upon your sunkissed face
and for a moment
the vicissitudes of the fates
seemed a little less vicious
the winds a little less harsh
and the world a little less cruel.

heaven is a real place,
and it is a few inches of skin
just below your nose.

i am a man of many words and metaphors
but none of them can accurately describe
the simple beauty of the fact
that you are mine
and i am yours.

i wish to give you the world two times over
and three more times just because.

i was so lost amongst the wilds
and yet you still found me.

the pair of hands i've never held
are the ones i am dying to hold.

i cry out the massed molecules of this  malevolent multiverse
for a cessation of this tortuous existence.

i never want to hurt anyone ever again.

i walk through the field of flowers and leave behind nothing but ashes and arsenic.

i am like a lonely hurricane inside a china shop
i destroy everything i touch
and only wish to be loved.

i have apologized
until sorry is no longer a word
simply a jumble of sounds spilling out of my mouth
with no meaning
and no purpose.

i could say it to you
in every language in this wide world
paenitet
désolé
triste
scusate
and none would be enough.