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 Jan 2014 e goforth
Zachary
you swallowed prunes as if your life depended on it, and to your mental state, they were better than any gateway drug or needle implanted into your muscles
the rough exterior cracked and ripped apart your lips unforgivably; tearing down your esophagus with the force of a peach pit
you rubbed dried apricots onto your skin as if that could cure you of all your sadness; as if it could take the need to get away and drown yourself
until you were buried deep into the soil and there are flowers nestled into the crooks of your bones and you tasted of sweat, *****, and tears
when at night you sit on the edge of your bed contemplating life or death between sobriety and a drunk that lingers for days on end clinging under your nails
and to all the people who roll their eyes at you and say ‘you’ll get over it’
tell them to **** themselves; tell them that when they see apricots, they see sunshine, but you see death to infinity and beyond;
you see all the broken promises that were whispered into the knots in your back
you see the lily pads of roses that dripped with regrets and words that were never said
words that gripped your lungs like a vice in the back of a car
when you thought of love, you thought of apricot kisses rubbed against your lips;
of rolled up aluminum foil
of lighters drained of their fluids in a week time
of the close to boiling water that invaded your personal space and reached the tip of your nose
and of peach kisses from Georgia that dug its way into you; promising another day
 Jan 2014 e goforth
A
"Girls shouldn't smoke"
I'm sorry sir, say that again?
Tell that to the 15 year old hispanic girl who sold her virtue under the guidance of the traffic lights to pay off her mother's cancer bills.
Tell that to the wife of a man who
beat
beat
beats her, because some nights she refuses to kneel at his supposed genital altar and confess her sins.
Tell that to the girl who has spent 6 months carving her home address into her forearms,  hoping that her Mum would smell the rust and come and rescue her.
Tell that to the girl who was stolenshackleddruggedsold under the consent of her father who used her body as a paycheck to settle his blackjack debt.
To the lonely girl. The ugly girl. The fat girl. The anorexic girl.  The bulimic girl.  The girl.
"Girls shouldn't smoke."
Tell that to the women who find their prayers in the daily grace that is, nicotine.
Just like men do.
 Jan 2014 e goforth
Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
     universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
     reach my hands and play with pebbles of
     destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
     reading "Keep Off."

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
     in the universe.
Tonight I dream of spiders
Hair spun, fat filled, scuttling legs
Quiver over my body and thighs
Eyes, ears, mouth, a tongue
A taste perforates through my eyes
Spills into my skull

Splat, Slash, Splot
Scuttle

Tonight I dream of Isolation
My footsteps fall on empty ears
Searching for life
Fearful, Tearful
Ripe with Strife
What does this matter?
I cannot be seen.

Unhear my own quiet screams
Please,
I want to
I need to
unhear.

Tonight I dream of running
An unseen assailant
I know, wishes to
attempt on me harm

You can't be calm
I can't, You can't
I Must
You mustn't provoke me.

I wake reaching
Reaching
Reaching

I find nothing
But empty solace.

Tonight I dream of fighting
Clockwork childhood
Figures slicing at my
face, racing me
to death.
A metal axe, a clawed
arm, walls with eyes,
a broken staircase,
distorted laugh, a
past repeated.
'Treated' to terror
remember me
dismember me
tenderly
race me
erase
me

I can't seem to wake up.
So I’m marrying this young girl, see,
it’s the second time round.
My first wife died and
I’ve been struggling and drowning.
So I'm clutching the life raft
of this girl who is beautiful and young,
who’s romantic and sure of her ground,
and she and her family believe
that I can breathe and survive again.

Me?  Can I remember how to be gentle and kind to them?
It was luck. I was lucky before.
Because now I'm a veteran of the thousand campaigns
and I’ve bayed at the moon, see,
then I hunted with The Beast.

And anyway, my first wife and I
(*******, her name is Lorayne!)
suffered, and then suffocated
before our love soared so high.
Then we danced like fireflies, fabulously,
until the future ended forever.

So how can this new girl
find ecstasy with me and, and,
you know, live happily ever after,
which is such an impossible dream,
and how can I handle all this ******* purity
and innocence and beauty and youth
and flawless skin and fairy tale stuff
when I’m so gnarled
and twisted and knotted?
You see, I'm actually deeply ashamed.
In spite of my much vaunted campaigns,
I'm really a coward.
I'm afraid I can't drag myself back and do this again.
Can we possibly become fireflies and dance in the flame?

Yes, yes, I know.
We'll swear to love and to honor and to obey
in sickness and in health
in richness and in poorness
until death do us part.
Though this formula's too cute. It doesn't mention the pain.

But there's no other option. I must try to rise up again,
and alright, once more, I'll call on the flame.
So I'll cast out my demons and force them away.
Somehow, I'll hold those monsters at bay to give you
the light and the love you say
is still there, everywhere.
You are wide-eyed and oh, so naive.
But I desperately want to believe you.
I need you.
Oh god, I hope we can love without fear.

Mike T Minehan
 Jan 2014 e goforth
Jared Eli
Perhaps in shambles I have found
Things that drive me underground
It may be that in ruin I see
Things together beautifully
And so I smile for I can view
Beauty present but for few
 Jan 2014 e goforth
Karina Roman
Dust is my only memory.
White is the only color I see.
Emptiness is my only pulse.
Solitude is my only shelter.
In between all this chaos of nothingness lies my brain in a box of cigarettes.
Smoke becoming my only lover.
Caressing me with its ashes, while hypnotizing me with its nicotine.

I am looking for my mind and its nowhere to be found in this asylum
of heartless consumerism.
I am smoking my hopeless life away, with each cigarette.
Slowly burning my insides with its fatal dose of love.
Whispering: "ashes its all there is left after death, my darling."
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