the highs, the lows, the overdose
the nights alone, the empty phone
i wish i'd know where this would go
i would have got off long before
it broke the wings i used to soar
and left my heart an open sore
you don't know what you're in for
hey, what's your favorite dinosaur?

The satin gown of hope a myth
      
   The heroes fallen                                      
                                    to the abyss

The bloom of death, no longer risen
Our souls trapped in endless prison

        Existence the master of all
        masked curses
    
              A song of tragedy with endless
              verses

   So if dying breath comes anyway
                  What's it matter
                 How soon the day

All suns set
Some plan no dawn
They care not for those who mourn

           I wish myself
      The blood to stop
     To soon not hold
   A single drop

So I promise you my heart for free
       If you swear
   You'll rip it out of me

i feel like the weight of my world
is on my shoulders,
a self-inflicted
Atlas curse.

my actions
are coming back
to knock me down
and crush my resolve.

i'm so close.

so close to getting everything fixed.

and i push the boulder
up the hill as Sisyphus did.

but every time i near the zenith,
i make one small misstep,
and everything slips from my hands,
rolling me flat again.

mere assignments
feel like labours of Hercules,
impossible trials,
with the intent of divine punishment.

if i slay the Hydra,
will i pass english class?

dear eurydice,
what did it feel like to die twice?
did it hurt more the first time,
weaned onto the sticky honey of love,
only to drown in the sugar as it turned to poison?
or did it hurt more the second,
when you were already bled dry,
to once more hear the siren’s song of your beloved,
only to be gutted by his greed?
did it feel more like a stab and a twist,
or was it more of a thud, then emptiness?
did you die a third time,
when you realized your beloved had run out of chances,
and that you had forever sunk?

///

eurydice, i heard a little rumor
that orpheus used to sing to you under the stars.
did his songs paint you a perfect little world
"for your eyes only" he would say
the way that my love did for me?
one that locked away all your fears,
washing across your vision
until it was tinted over with rosemary?
tell me eurydice,
did you dream of orpheus’ song
like i dreamed of my supposed savior,
humming sweet promises
that couldn’t be kept?

///

did you know, eurydice,
the first time i drowned,
i too had been the victim of a viper?
its venom had blinded me first,
it cursed me with sight;
i saw the world unraveled,
bared in all its debauchery
as savagery unsheathed silence,
nailing women to the cross,
and children to their graves;
an utter panem et circenses
while society watched them bleed.

did you know too,
i was smothered in honey,
just like you?
i tasted the sugared ashes
of the skies unfolding,
as stars turned to bombs in the air,
one little boy crying,
and one fat man dying;
society had found its penance
a faux but effortless salvation.

i like to think it was a blessing:
a little gift, the anesthetization that followed,
how the viper had wrangled out my lungs,
emptying me before i could breathe again,
only to find toxins rather than faith pouring in.
i can’t help but wonder, eurydice,
why were you given your lungs back,
if only temporarily?
did it feel good to have that final breath,
a final glimpse of your favorite delusion,
even if you had already fallen?

///

they say that everyone is born twice:
once on the day their umbilical is untangled and cut,
and once on the day they untangle their own mess;
but what happens when you die a third, a fourth,
and a fifth time before you are born again?
i ask this to you eurydice,
because it seems, like you,
i am already dead.

Think it a wound
That has been cut open,
All of this
Pouring out of some person.
As blood like ichor.
Of Uranus a pouch, a receptacle, a quiver;
Time in consumption,
Like an arrow autochthonic
In the breast of existence.
Nursing the young.
Of Cronus a reflection, a refection, a ripple;
Time in digestion,
Like an innominate derivation
From the navel of continuance.
Bringing them up.
Of Zeus a reverberation, a spark, a sliver;
Time in expression,
Like an aborted secret
From the honey of speleothemas.
Shaping them out.
Of Apollo a radiance, a ray, a participle;
Time in extension,
Like an auspicious countenance
From the mucilage of angiospermae.
Birthing the echo.

I scream so silently
That the voice is loud
Enough that others might hear,
In this state like a snake
My tongue is forked
So that when I speak
I am having multiple conversations
Slithering across many fields.
Like the ocean tortoise laying eggs
Ever near the shore,
My children join me in the waters
Only after they have fully formed.
You say,
Nature is yet cruel
And shall lay claim
To many of your young.
And yet,
Is it not nature who spawned them?

Magpie sitting in your sorrowful tree
go find a friend, or let me be

If insanity is truly a blissful ignorance,
then take my mind so my heart can be free,
set it on fire and gift the ashes to the wind.
If I shall burn, then I burn like Icarus,
euphorically and foolishly in love.