its so expensive just to stay alive
i mean imagine how it costs to thrive
experience a life of mint and time
like written rhyme but if it werent the rind of strife
the pith the side the bite
ill tell you what it costs to keep your life

a tax of mine is mind and spine
physically substantial
and soon to be a wound or three
it will become
critically financial
incredibly intentionally extensively pedantial
so thoroughly impossible to handle
quite the radical tangential that you could manage to survive this ******* battle

and yet how crucially essential is a victory to saddle that it is your very life within the throttling hands of rattled gods and brands
bottled shot and ran
right on down your throat
and yet they gloat and boast a new disposable feel-good care-for-you quote
but dont misunderstand they do not give a **** youre broke
broke of time and full of pain
i mourn the future

i dread the chest i dread the suture
the uncertainty will have no name
with nothing for the hurting to be tamed
nor a place to shove your blame

this is the pith the side the bite
this is the cost to keep your life

I AM BREATHING.
THE ATMOSPHERE HAS TURNED TO PINS AND NEEDLES
IT HAS TURNED TO ASPHALT TAR
THE AIR IS FULL OF DISTANCE AND REGRET
BUT I AM BREATHING YET
THE OXYGEN HAS TEETH AND IT IS SCREAMING
BUT I AM BREATHING
I AM BREATHING.

awoken missed calls
to another eight hour stand
body pain and mental strain
say it's needed and
call this really living

call it present call it future
call it time forever further

A LIFE OF LINES upon a page upon a chest would you believe it yet. WOULD YOU SEE a crime to vandalize or would it be a pleasure to your eyes. A WORK OF ART upon this skin but would it do the trick within. AN EMPTY BOOK full of boxes full of checks though the emptier it gets. A SKULL THATS SPLITTING full of gritting anger and emotion. COULD IT HEAL or might it just rot the soul increase ten fold fester and congeal. WOULD YOU FEEL a flame beneath your palm or would it burn not noticing at all beacause doesnt seem youre reacting as youre getting mauled. MAYBE ITS that spot within your chest between the things they just cannot forget. THAT SPOT WHERE THERES an open wound from which your heart falls out each moon and to the ground it hits the stone and there it sits til you atone for deeds that maybe have occurred though the pain is to insure. BUT DO YOU THINK the tear will ever close. DO YOU THINK youll ever add two more. COULD YOU EVER have three lines upon your chest all neatly in a row. AND IF YOU DID the body still could rid the heart each time returned to core and blood inside your head coagulated red with palms that have been burned - THEN WHAT WOULD IT BE FOR.

gentle hands when gentle time collides
touch hair touch heart touch lives
include another in tactile feeling
grounding, remind them that they are worth being
the warmth that is held in the palm and the eyes
conveyed to each other through physical guide
how difficult to be vulnerable
to show scars with skin
but with touch, consolable
a human within

twenty three twenty three twenty three
sin the leaves spent the free when in tea
sent to seem bentley ream really keen
forty six forty six forty six
torture brick court see lick forced he rips
more the ships for lean mix bore me sticks

twenty and two twenty and six
forty and three, keep kept that this
poetry poetry poetry

appointed anointed entitled insane
assaulted revolted compiled remains

jaunty raunchy defiled deranged
daunting exhausting exiled and caged

experiment serious fistful explain
mysterious furious pistol disdain

lodger copter laughter softer
walking wanting wading wearily watching
thumping trading
vapor water left unbothered
shot and pulled and dropped to fodder
pushing pouting prodding per i lously pinching poking
paper thought or kept to rot and sought to put the trough
but
type. speak. letters. words.
components honing rodents fuller shoulder bone boulder
broken beaten bottled breathing baker bleating basted by
faker fleeting fated fearing facing feeble fine
CHOKE
keeper of the cold and crafted cattle
come to coddle all the wretched blood
it would it was and has been done
the blooming of a bud