ive fallen out of love.
ive slaughtered an innocent bird that has settled into my hands by nothing short of grace
ive lynched a light and suffocated it into an oppressive darkness
ive fallen out of love.
i dont care if i have to drain out the hemorrhage youve set in
it does not matter to me if its rare or beautiful
if youre a thrashing  typhoon in my lungs,
an atelectasis will naturally expel you
i fell out of love, and there's nothing for me but to exorcise you

I have resigned myself to this;
time stretching onwards a pale weak grey like that of a dove, promising peace
-- sod your peace, after all, heaven is a place where nothing ever happens --
-- heaven is Las Vegas -- everything and nothing all at once,
and around the corner of my hesitation
comes a voice as lifeless and mutilated as the rest of me:
"shut up and live."

I have walked unshoon through dust-choked wastelands
where they strung belief and imagination up
from the flagpoles, by their throats
and burned all our dreams to light up
a night grittier than a mouthful of gravel in a desert.
tracing my tracks and trails by the bloodprints
left by bare soles lacerated by shattered dreams underfoot.
"just shut up and live."

I have dreams, curiosities, wondering too deeply
what the last moment on Earth would be like,
what it would take to breathe through the end
and run face-first into oblivion or whatever's beyond it.
I sicken, and weaken, and wake up gagging on my own sweat
and the echoes of a voice made harsh by dysagapi:
"shut up and live".

The pendulum is a bull shark.
The hour of the savior is a pregnant bride's swan dive into the water.
The mighty mile is a figure 8 in the scoot of
non slop socks across the bare linoleum.
Blood and bright are the redness of the blanket.
divine terror at one hart beat per hour.
Finger nails green and black against a back drop
of the brightest, bluest eyes you've ever seen;
deep pools of liquid light that will shine when least expected.
And the obligation isn't one at all,
for when i breath in,
you breath out.
And when I gave consent 1000 years ago times 10-
you performed the exorcism under the shroud of my amnesia
and the spotted light from a crystal disco ball.
Shards of light moved upon the face of all the space between the stars.
My heart was in the highlands but now its in your hands.

I have possessed myself,
In the evening of my
own becoming;
I lured myself
to sit alone
with no one
watching; I
cast my net
of torments
like hell stone
upon my own
Head.
I whispered
To myself in
a legion of
Voices until I
wished
To die. I watched
myself call for
Gods
Unknown while I,
my own
Hell's hound,
gnawed
on my own bones;
II summoned
my own inner demons
to join me for the
feast, never suspecting
that If I was
my own
demons I was also my
Own priest. And now
I've been exorcised
by myself and pulled
back from hell;
forever in service
of the angel
whose name
I call myself.

On such days black paint is all I need.
No shading reaches my palette.
No fine detail or delicate strokes of brush.
No intricate patterns of light to master.
No shapes to angle just correctly and in proportion.
No tones to give expression or perception.
Canvas of any size from white to black.
Imagery catching perfectly the mood.
These words the only weapon left to keep some canvas untainted.

i exorcized you from my thoughts
from my heart
you are no longer possessing me
i love him now
i let all the dead things go
turned some into newer and better things
deleted the words i wrote about you
rewrote some and dedicated them to him
i'm not sorry i replaced you
you've done it to me on many occasions
i hope you know you are now a ghost
lingering in my memory no more
all the words you said, forgotten
all those lies you told, learned from them
all those places you touched, i'm loving again
all the broken pieces of my heart, he healed them
forget you
you did nothing good for me
you made me afraid
and he taught me that no matter how ****** a person is
i am still worthy of love
he is the complete opposite of you
a man, not a boy like you
and i know you'll never find someone who will love you as i did
you broke me
my whole being
i love with all of me
and now i get to watch you drown beneath the waves
the end
you'll see what you lost
i can tell you miss me
why else would you ditch your girlfriend to walk with me?
i won't let you back in
i hope you realize you lost me for good this time
and i hope it hurts as much as it did for me
but it won't
because you're heartless
you won't feel a thing
and i really thought i could change you into something more
something better
a good person
but another thing i learned is people don't change
no matter how much you want them to
i don't care about you anymore
all i want now is for you to permanently leave my life
good riddance

A thumb pulls back on a lighter, fire flies up, eager to grab, to please, to warm, to
Ignite the tip of my cigarette, eating up the paper at the end as I
**** in a breath, a pause, a moment of tension as the world
Waits
For me to exhale
And when I blow out plumes for the night sky to devour, I send with them all of the past parts of me that have lived in this world for too long.
An exorcism of the past, an offering to the night:
Please do not haunt me any longer.