remember when you told me sleep was just practice? remember how when i asked what for, all you could manage was sea-foaming at the mouth and tired eyes?

funny how i see in black and white now. funny how i can still see sea-foam-blue.

one of the many things you taught me was to always keep eulogies tucked between my ribs in hopes of memorizing them by heart. i never knew heart break until words i can't remember writing—or, maybe, wont remember writing came spilling out of my mouth like reverse lockjaw.

but i remember the way you choked up and coughed out apologies as if you were fighting tides of pride; words getting caught in your throat—a foreshadowing of salt the water in your lungs.

i know i tend to ramble, and i know you tend to hate that but i swear god this had a point. i guess what i'm trying to say is, i never meant to be your anchor. i never wanted to drag you down.

I lay on a bed of asphalt.
People walk over me
as if I’m not there,
like I’m not important.

And I suppose I’m not
I’m just a thing for them
to tread on,
they don’t need to acknowledge me.
I am invisible.

And I suppose I don’t mind.
if I’m invisible,
no one can care for me,
and I can’t care for them,
only to disappoint them
and break my own broken heart.

I’m alone,
and it’s meant to be that way.
I’m bad news,
so I’ve been buried away,
I can’t hurt them anymore.
But I’m slowly killing myself,
let’s get this over with quicker.
Help me,
I deserve this.

Shadows slash across the field as smoke and saxophone lull the tense muscles of my back.
Inhale smoke.
Exhale soul.
Streetlights paint the road orange and pollute the night above.
Sirens and hum of the city permiate the air.
Inhale smoke.
Exhale mind.
Doors locked to keep out strangers sweating with desperation.
Lights off to hide from supposed watching eyes.
Inhale smoke.
Exhale self.

I want to scream

For that gut wrenching feeling
The feeling that is keeping my words stuck in my throat
The feeling that if I say the words my mouth refuses to mutter, I'll be pushed aside

I need to scream
The words I want so desperately to show themself to you just cower in the corner

Words that I want to say, that I want to be heard
...words that I want to be understood
Understood by more than just me

I want to let the words flow but instead I keep them wrapped in a cloth, hidden away from your grasp.

he tugs at my sleeves
hands rest
rise and fall of his chest
rise and fall of a relationship
human connection lasting a mere 30 seconds

finite

yet we
as people
crave an infinite wealth of attention

validation

you say
with your thin lipped grin
your knock turn smile
your eyes
they are so, so clever
they draw me in
selling yourself as a product

you say
everything tends towards
e
  n
    t
      r
        o
           p
             y

my heart alights like a glow stick whenever I see you
yet,
glow sticks must break to achieve their fluorescence
and a glow stick last only if for a night

a slight in our daily schedule
a slip in the synchronicity
a slur in spoken word

until they are left behind, the carcasses of the party

as you elapse into adulthood
and I relapse in this primeval state of living

what will it be like without you walking my hallways of thought?
as one has harbored themselves like a hermit in my ribcage
will the pressure of you be relieved with your passing?

or will the infinite ache
of those who have been driven apart by circumstance
fill the hole in my chest?

Hexagonal yet
fashioned into a pattern;
process of dying.

Sleepless before day.
"Sunlight"; a curse for vampires,
not wretched function.

-Not impurity,
the presumptuousness of
those who point at us

and call us sinners.
They pray and sacrifice their
children [pentagon].

-We preach free speech, but
stab the tongues of fascism
deliberately.

Gaslighted by a
genocidal culture, we
fight back [pentagram].
~
Carving sigils in
frantic vanity eating
death incarnate, whole.

Hell is paradise,
and here we relish the filth
built up in corners,

where history fears
to show it's face and be struck
back into darkness.

Back into process,
simple pattern of dying.
Machines that grind flesh.

War machines by name;
"Liberty", "Freedom", "Safety".
Sleep can be wicked.

Where it interprets
the death of the innocent
as "necessity",

or claims tradition
is inherently wisdom;
"That's just how it is".
~
Sleeplessly in night,
I tap my finger against
a cold damp window.

Mass paranoia
for doomsday ticking downward,
not to zero though.

We wait for midnight.
Perpetuation of fear
is hexagonal.