Can you smell the decaf
in coffee breath

or palpate the aesthetic in
clothes bought
secondhand

the former amidst
those groaning to work
praying to caffeine gods
to jolt nerves into existence

the latter walking through shopping malls
spying the guise on mannequins
without frays and tears
mocking the Dickensian reflection.

Is the placebo
the one without the caffeine rush
and the credit card debt

or is it the one
who believes it will all
make them happier in
the end.

The morning rained.
Down in the basement he lay flattened by bad luck and worse judgement.
The morning rained.
Despair seeped under the broken sill as his drained accounts stared back blankly and forcasted worse to come.
The morning rained.
Grey skies cut off the last hint of a silver lining.
The morning rained.
And he cried floods.

At the apex of the Empire State Building
Beneath a resilient misty gray sky,
A perfectly dreary day to die
She's at her lowest low
In heeled shoes a mile high,
Youthful skin, but nothing behind dead hazel eyes,
Rose red lips which never spoke their mind,
A purse full of pills she'd rather leave behind
Beneath rich chocolate curls,
Helena's madness quietly unfurls
Her courage to jump, her fear of death
Weighing the outcome of future incomes
Against the agony of piling debts
She came down from her delusional high
When daddy's substitute for love called money ran bone dry
With the sky the limit, her mind is trapped
By the lie they told Helena as her life was mapped
Line by line they fed her from birth:
"A scholarly piece of paper and a lovely figure will define your worth
Choose wisely little princess, or your life will be hell on Earth"
Turning her back to the street below
Her courage to end it begins to grow
She closes her empty hazel eyes
Cranes her neck towards the sky
And whispers "Death do you hear me? No longer am I shy"
In her delusion she heeded Death's reply
"Come now dear angel, let's see you fly"
A rush of adrenaline was met with demise
Now nourishment for the maggots and the flies
Antidepressants mimicked the body of their owner,
Fractured bottles, tops open, pills strewn all over
Beautiful bones shattered against the pavement
Released she was, from her own mental enslavement
Trickling down the drain, carried by unrelenting rain
Into a New York sewer towards the darkness below,
A bright crimson flow
Quenches the thirst of a starving rat king
Entangled in thirteen tails as he lay dying
Grateful is the king to Helena's sacrifice
For he is trapped in this sewer and awaits his own demise
A glimpse he tasted from the world above
Bitter-sweet is the blood of a girl without love

An anarchist
let paisley
die horse
in bracket
and wither
shy of
lead then
only a
shade darker  
in purple
again here
might recount
his race
until golden
track of
mercy wane
in debt.

I grow tired of you hurting yourself with me.
You learn to hate me.
We don’t talk anymore.

My nightmares become fatal.

I stop responding because I don’t know how to answer, and I spend Christmas alone passing out wine-drunk to Naruto. I’m not sorry. My mother calls and I don’t know what to say, and neither does she. Then New Years Eve approaches like a dark cloud to water our crop, and wash away our debts,

but

my acquaintances want to have a fistfight, and I’m asked to be a witness in the police report [but I clearly remember nothing happening, through shades of alcohol].

I clearly remember at the beginning of the night I told you I don’t **** with cops.

Yet, now you’re surprised it makes me uncomfortable.

My daydreams grow immersive. My gameplay grows sloppy.
My reactions grow dull. My body grows weak.
This stranger tastes like cigarettes.
I don’t clearly remember the rest.

As a wealth came fact
While chipper bound in glory
That move fortunate aspiration
Nigh as yore would shine discretely again

Where they once knew Kilroy
Would drag through today highlighting frills
Along the way when even tomorrow golf score
Mesmerize this type of play or not a squire left today