Another bottle down,
Hoping it can distort truth
Maybe if the mirror’s fogged, it can’t reflect
Can’t show him the middle-aged wreck.

Another chug of warm swill,
Hops molded, no bubbles, flat
Looking at baby pictures and a bag of teeth
Mummy left them, he feels the pain in his jaw
Maybe with another swig, he’ll be rid of it all.

Father watches from his sick bed,
Colostomy bag overflowing,
The excrement covers the scent of shame
As eyes barely raise to see his progeny

No he’s clicking the button to call the morphine
Drips entering to send him to a new dream,
Unable to stand the sight of his kindred,
As the boy that became a man, indigent.

Bryan takes another swig of clotted wine
A Merlot collecting dust upon his desk,
The keyboard is crusted over, white film, flaky
As he tends to his perversions, hoping a spark can awaken

On here he can be anyone,
But his lungs fail to inflate fully
And the liver shrivels to a freeze-dried remnant,
It’s only been minutes, but he shakes
Begging with forgiveness
Needing something to wash down the pittance
One more swig’ll do her!
Another drink to soothe.

As father watches on,
Glazed eyes and singing Aussie songs
He’s ******* post the catheter bag
Flowing yellow rivers down his bedside

Dreams fill his head,
Hoping Bryan dies,
So he could mend and heal,
Watching as he sips forever,
With jaundiced, glassed-over eyes.

If he could write it,
Or murmur sound
He’d say he was disappointed
But all he does is frown

While Bryan,
Consumed with trauma
Caught in his self-made prisons
Drowns in a sea of sick
And cheap bourbon.

Forever a child in a man’s husk
Daddy’s little burden.

Mind on the brink,
Sunk thoughts in a blink
Who’s there?………
                            ….Where are you?….
….What?…
                                                    …no..

Scotty didn’t know,
What brother did in tow,
How greasy hands touch upon the innocent
A daughter doesn’t tell,
The scars they never show.

Scotty doesn’t know
Wife got out the papers,
The lawyer signed and notarized
Waiting for the right time
Manilla envelope creased with sweaty hand prints.

Scotty was fond of rope,
But could never buy a vowel,
Clues left him clueless to the truth
The pills make him expel the bowels.

Scotty doesn’t know,
The voices aren’t real,
Brother looks like a nephilim
Wings made of goose down and paper meal
He’s dancing upon the tree tops
Trying to write the words,
Striking out as the swing tightens.

Scotty was playing hangman,
Tire rope swing, swung
Saying goodbye to the demons
Voices that ring his bells rung
How his brother never loved him,
Only the fruits of his own creation,
And with her lost innocence premeditated
He offered to solve the puzzle,
Eyes dilated.

Sticks and stones break bones.

Words and feelings shatter my heart.

It’s like a poet with a whip like tongue.

You lash me with your words and I stagger back.

Begging for the ground to swallow me whole.

Words hurt.

Words are hidden behind sweet tones and kind voices.

But underneath they are *****, derogatory, and filthy.

Don’t call a woman a w—re just because you think it’s funny.

Don’t call a man a f-gg-t just because he has a different clothing style and doesn’t dress masculine.

Words cut deeper than sticks and stones could ever.

Words.     Hurt

What is beauty
Is it that perfect skin
What is beauty
But that perfect body
What is beauty
But happiness
But I give it the *******
The fact about beauty is that
It causes a walking skeleton of
Our daughter
The fact about beauty is that
Boys pump themselves
With steroids
The suffering that beauty brings
I see
Soon, I will have it the
*******

is my desire to have those meaningless but oh so meaningful exchanges back and forth through the day, push your hand to taring the town red?
        I want to hold your hand
bite your flesh cause I simply can't take laying
quietly across your bare skin and control myself.
         why do you poke at my insecurities
when you're the one who's seen me raw
                                                    rare
    ­                                         and over
                                               cooked.
Where have you been?
     the dogs eaten your homework
   two lefts and a right?
       And here you are always right.
Pick your teeth with my ribs after feasting
     on reactions to your lack of reaction
              
                I'm ******* you off huh,
                good feel something beautiful
     because you've taken me on a tour of a
      side show odyssey and I hate the view
                from the passenger seat
                                        I'm mad about you,
                                        for you
                                 and this makes me hate
                                   myself.
                           the heaviness on my lungs
                 and being put on a backburner.

kiss me
don't touch me
pull me close
as you run away

                              Finely dice chives
                              sprinkle it sparsely
                             don't forget the vinegar


                can't spell sane and logic
                        with out l-u-v

When water became water, not lemon and lime,
I drank for the pleasure, not to pass time.

When bread became bread, not pizza and cake,
I'm hearing my stomach, and it needs a break.

When danger becomes danger, not fear on a screen,
I stopped checking corners for foes unseen.

When fire becomes fire, not mirrors and smoke,
my friends sit together, and nurture our hope.

When food becomes famine, and future unknown,
we'll treasure our friends, instead of our homes.