I wonder if you have ever looked around
and noticed that it’s all burning to the ground.
I wonder if you noticed yourself light the match
I wonder if you purposely locked the latch
so that we would all burn inside.
I wonder if you even cried.
I wonder if the gasoline stained your clothes

I wonder if maybe you’re in one of your lows.
I wonder if you see that the hug you’re giving
is really your hands around my neck.
I wonder how much longer I’ll be living.

I wonder if you see how much of my life is a wreck
I wonder if you know that you’re to blame,
And I wonder, if you look at your own life and feel the same.

i sit in the confessional, the lattice throwing shadows that in the corners of my eyes become demons.

inhale, hold, exhale.

Forgive me not, for it was not me who sinned. But God himself, who allowed the hands between my legs when my thighs were no more than centimeters apart, those who forced themselves to invade my space even as I cried and prayed for mercy. God who allowed their sweat to fall on my face, mixing with my tears. God who caught my breath in my throat until it was scratched raw inside my mouth as a bird in a cage.

It was God who sinned when this happened not once or twice, but so much that my body became a shell and my mind a mallet with which to break. It was God who stood by as I opened my veins and looked for an answer.

Forgive me not father, because you did not protect me, forgive me not, because it was you who did nothing.

Inhale, hold, exhale.

The lattice throws shadows across my lap and my legs have stopped trembling.

Forgive me not father, because you have pillaged me through them.

From the inside out,
we waste away.

I remember the first time I coughed
up a bit of dust, perfectly dry, and said to myself,
"this must be normal."

However, I have always been
much more than normal.
More hesitant than normal.
More fearful than normal.
More of an empty vessel
floating through life than normal.

Nowadays, if you knock
gently on my chest
like a door it will respond
a low hollow sound, void of life, free of emotion.
The dust comes and goes. I feel
the marrow of my bones
drying more each day. Eventually,
I figure, they will crack and snap,
pouring out more dust
until I am weightless.

And maybe then
I can be freed. Set off to sea
like an aged piece of driftwood. Floating out
with eyes for adventure and a fate
full of rot.

What happens when every image
becomes a cliche? No one
has had an original thought in years,
what makes you think you are any different?
Sculpting language so meticulously,
like you're the first to compare to seasons.
I bet you write about writing, too. Pathetic.
Love is not a feeling, it's a force. The words
write themselves and purely use you
as a vessel. Somewhere back in time
we did a seance of sorts and now sometimes
poetry drops in like a demon, possessing
the mind which tells the hand to pick up a pen.
Demons, whatever that means to you,
do not answer demands. They play their own game,
which we are indeed a part of, though
we were never invited to play.