My cathartic heart
threw away the finished leaves of bitter autumn's burning
I brewed myself a loving cup, made sweeter by my learning
tansy, bay with chamomile, bright meadow flowers to sip
tastes better far than poison found upon your lips

With coarsest sackecloth cloathe my naked soule;
     Construct for me a throne of ashes blacke;
Place on my lying lipps a liuing coal;
     Cast me asea inside a sackcloth sacke;
I am a rocke of great offence, a rocke
As stonie-hearted as a stvmbling blocke.

Not any man hath greater loue than this,
     That hee should for his friend laye downe his life;
But I betray'd my friend without a kisse
     And stabb'd into his backe a butter knife;
And hee who loues his life his life shall lose,
And I, by loving life, my death did chuse.

Hope and I are not friends
Hope breaks my heart everyday
My darling Hope
So bright, so lovely
We could never get along
Hope is a liar.

Fear,
Fear is reliable
Fear understands
Knows and sees
Fear is my warning
Tells me that the bad things
The bad things will stay bad
Fear does not sugar coat
I wish I could always listen to Fear

But my darling Hope
Ever so persistent
Waiting, wishing
Breaking the both of us at the same time.

~
I.
Killing Mary Poppins
with a spoonful of sugar,
the sugar from the medicine
on the other side of town,
the town called Silent Hedges
And A Bit Of Fluff.

II.
Only a display model,
her name is Marmalade;
skin white like the moon,
she wears her ****** stranger dress;
one of her sisters is dying,
the other never lived;
God is a far off concept,
the fuchsia colored ball on
an overhead power grid
points her way to salvation.

III.
Morning became something else:
bright decline,
cold things start to burn,
tragic saxophone
among the beckoning,
everything's a symptom:
tax exiles, imperialists,
girls talking nitrous
--mouths full of soil,
Virginia Reel around the fountain
(do-si-do),
ready to buy up impossibles
as the dominoes fall.

IV.
Memory is a chemical
to the girl who cried champagne,
like ceiling stars
during the prodigal summer,
she played the game
on all fours,
and found a drawer
full of quarantine polaroids,
some with blood in her mouth,
others, of rain on her birthday.
~

I wandered back to the scene of the crime.

I remember all that transpired from that night.

As I was making my way across, the bridge went up in flames.

And the smoke still lingered even after all the tomorrows came.

I saw the match from your hand.

I smelled the gas before I could land.

I blame myself for not expecting it sooner,

when all of your crimes leave the same signature.



All the houses that burned down carried your name.

History said you were going around claiming you were framed.

Yet the clothes you wore still reeked of the fuel.

The last thing they found were skeletons inside a cubicle.

Did you think I’ll always play your game,
never thought I’d grow tired of the same joke every day?
When I came to bid you an honest farewell, 

you thought it was an invitation to send me straight to hell. 


Perhaps I truly am the one to blame.

You did tell me about the things that drove you insane.

And I recklessly chose the path of extrusion.
Perhaps I deserved this execution. 


I wandered back to the scene of the crime.

Where the ghost of the bridge we burned still haunts its culprits.
I saw fear when we locked eyes.
Did you think I’d be reduced to ashes?
Did you think you were burning a witch?
Darling, you forget I’m a phoenix. 

Fire is what keeps me alive.

This spoon is bigger than my plate
these green peas are bigger than your mouth
like the big words that are bigger than this conversation
It’s making this evening hard to swallow
your big eyes are bigger than my lies
and this lie is bigger than the both of us
you tell me to be the bigger man
now here I am

In the kaleidoscope of affection, I painted you with hues of adoration, blind to your monochrome reality.

Eyes fixed on the canvas of our shared moments,
I brushed away the shadows you cast on the edges.

Your smiles, a palette of warmth, a sunlit mirage,
Masked the colder currents beneath the surface.
I sculpted your silhouette from fragments of devotion,
Blind to the chisel that carved deceit into your contours.

Each word you spoke, a lyrical serenade,
Harmonizing with the symphony of my own yearning.
Yet, within the notes, the discord of deception echoed,
A melody played on strings attuned to your agenda.

In the gallery of my heart, your portrait hung,
A masterpiece crafted by hands that concealed ulterior motives.
I traced the lines of your whispered promises,
Unaware they were sketches of transient commitment.

The truth, veiled in the smoke and mirrors of affection,
Cloaked by the tender illusions of shared vulnerability.
I basked in the radiance of your borrowed light,
Unmindful that shadows were the offspring of your truths.

Blinded by love's unforgiving lens, I sculpted a narrative,
Ignoring the fractures in the marble of our connection.
In the echo chamber of your affirmations,
The resonance of deception, a dissonant undertone.

"The Truth in Your Lies," an exhibition of realization,
Where the canvas of affection reveals concealed motives.
I dismantle the gallery, unframe the illusions,
Confronting the naked truth beneath the painted veneer.