bidding my time
& counting the lines

ill be on my way
& you don't care

Quiet in my velvet dreams
gleaming with beauty queens
ultraviolet veneers
under crystal clear chandeliers

Awake. Never quite getting the reckoning.
Instead you're beckoning
me to your charade of promise
but I'm stuck in the forest
where you're my Charon
following me to the limestone,
dragging me back to the gates
and I know you mean well, but it doesn't resonate.

I've abandoned all hope and entered
Feeling like I've surrendered
What is it I will remember
when we get to November?
Biting my arm
in moments of harm
or
braiding my hair
with you just being unaware?

It all seems silly
like a grand facade really
where I can't see why anyone
can buy into becoming a chameleon.
Why take it so serious
when it just feels delirious?
What is it we're racing to
at the end, it's the same view.
Who is it for?
I really must make sure.

Waiting for my Virgil
To guide me through the hurdles.
He's no where to be seen
as I choke on my amphetamines.

walking left
or walking right
you drag me down
with no end in sight
you cut me deep
year after year
yet still i need
to fall at your feet
ha.

highway's hush rushing through bare trees
as fiery snapdragon blooms stillness
despite outreached branches mingling with the wind;
sky darkens the sun with deep bearing clouds burdened
ready for release-
each meticulously becoming
one with intersection
softening the blow of punishing heat.
no blade no leaf suspicious
just breathing and being
knowing not of time fleeting

be still my raging thoughts
ranging from bleakest futures
to none at all
whether they root in truth
or become that itself
i'll find out in the fall
- - -
fibers of my clothes stitched neatly
into channels visible under a lens
expand with each breath
and retreat unto themselves by ways of exhale
however soft
however sharp
matching the pace
shaky at start
steady? still i come apart
unraveled at the seams
loosely joined to begin with

what love do i know?
rooted in shadows
i call home
warmless golden corridors
no palm upon the windows

groveling at the feet of
clay pedestals
in these names and forms
full of shame shaped thorns
forcing breaths that fuel fire
whose foundation runs weak
like volcanic empires

there i stay serving
myself on a pyre
going up in flames to release
sparkling embers fading upward
crackling from remains
nothing but charred

here i am free
where you shelter in me
scaffolding lay repose
and everything you see
is not mine I suppose;
never was, but in the end:
this capricious rhythm's taken its toll
& the avaricious will never does as it's told.

daughters of pageant queens
like them you
             want
          me
       to
   be

i come from a broken gallery
on display for
                           no
                               one
                                      to
                                           see

In my final hours
I acknowledge
there is nothing
more that I can say,
nothing more
that I can do

I can never be
what you need of me
without dying a little
on the inside
day by day
until I'm gone forever

it’s over
it’s done
there’s nothing left
to be won
not for me
but maybe for you

i'm back home now
in the abyss
where i cant be
how you want me to be
and you can never see
how much it’s hurting me

so what is there left to do?
nothing else until I’m through.
maybe then you can visit me
with a hand full of peonies

looking up at the popcorn on the ceiling.
watching it dance, groove, and jive.

wondering if I'm imagining this too
and what it even means to be
alive.

the waves of goosebumps come and go
and I'm a little cold
from the AC I keep too low
so that I can hide under a blanket.

wanting to be seen,
wanting to be heard.

   all I've ever wondered,
   all I've ever learned.

      is that it's too much to ask for,
      that it's too much to give.

why then do you take from me
in every hour of your need?

light shines through
onto all that's true

no will nor worry
can conceal nor carry

son of my sons
you're nothing
without the Sun

who rises in the east
so the moon can
shine in the west

no matter your
frays nor feigns
he always knows best.

soul of my souls
you're nothing
when alone

together we gather
and for all
a happily ever after.