The main theme of this poem is um, triumph
So uh the secondary theme of this poem is defeat?
How could that be? Is that even what a poem is?
Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

Something crawls up from the drain through the ***** dishes and out of the sink. It grips me! It’s got me!

[This is the part I want to hide]

I saw a man so beautiful
Rarely is there ever a beautiful man--
a man so beautiful you want to kneel
and scream “You’re so beautiful!”
But instead I’ll worship him in the ways he insists:
by stepping aside on the sidewalk,
by laughing at the jokes he steals from me,
by squandering the money he pays me to do his job.

Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

It took me three to four years to learn
the difference between worshiping and begging,
between faith and belief
And now I have neither and engage in both and yet
My life feels like a free coffee and bagel
My life feels like an unwrapped candy bar
My life feels like a compliment from a stranger
My life feels like a birthday card with cash in it
Is my life a song? Is this the ******* chorus?

This is my once-yearly poem.
It’s like a broken perfume bottle at the bottom of my bag.
Look at it-- read it. Smell it.  Literal swill.  Most things make me feel sad, even more things make me feel threatened, especially this poem.
What is there to do but put my head in my hands?
What is there to say if not sorry?

A pulsating longevity awaits in the longing hours.
Tick.
Tick.
A sulphurous coverlet crawls up to my neck.
Tick.
Tick.
It’s dark at the windows; it claws at my throat.
Tick.
Tick.
Someone, come save me – I can’t breathe; I can’t cope.

The layers peel back, constellations on show –
I sit with this pain while it grabs its dark coat
On closer perusal, a face lingers close
Broken, ugly, no joy does it show

It takes my limp hand in a gentle caress – calloused, hardened, its gaze set on my chest

“Dear girl”, it does say, as the tears linger close, “your being in this world hasn’t quite found its home”
I grasp at this hand I don’t quite understand – it coaxes me forward in a promising demand.

“Make friends with this darkness – feel how it chokes. It has a message to share underneath its black cloak”

Trepid, shaken, I follow its lead
The cracks shatter open and all is revealed.

Why are you afraid? Afraid of letting the world have your taste!
Zipped! Living in a bubble. No acquaintance with the world!
When did you lose the curiosity? It makes you alive

Your veil of ignorance makes you think they are monsters out to get to you
Look deep! Look deep!
The world is you & you are the world
It's a mirror reflecting back what's inside of you

Bring clarity! Bring clarity!
And tear away that veil
Look within, then look away
You may find yourself in a different being!

Sometimes the fondness
Of what we feel inside
Can't fill the void
Tragedy tries to hide

For we seem to long
For suffering, masquerading
As if it's happiness
We seek

But the irony's what's
Funny, 'cause the turmoil
Boasts of self-righteous
Anger

Where it's always someone
Else who is
To blame

And it's always us who's
Done the sacrifices
For the game

It's all nothing
But neediness, preparing us
To be accepting of what we ultimately are

Savages.

this wave of sadness hit me now,
no-where seemes a happy place to be now

it hurts to breathe,
it hurts to listen,
it hurts to speak,
it hurts...
it just hurts to exist

its not an even experience
it neither is overwhelming

i feel all these emotions bubbling
but nothing seems to leave me

no drab
no tear

no grab
no fear


i'm free and lonely
i'm free and hurt
i'm free and non-existent

i'm happy to be free and
unhappy when i'm here

i'm free and many things,
many things but happy.

I want to be part of the industry
To those in the know
This may come off as a confession
Of my ineptitude in joining music
Yes, Music, with a capital M
The industry of music
Holed off from the world
This however, is not the case
I am fawning over the Industry
A world of hard workers
A world of early deaths
And one where there is no satisfaction

I want to be part of the industry
I am deeply and utterly heartbroken
At my love of the arts and avant-garde
I want to be like the old man
From the bus station that one time prior
He was wearing a tattered hat
His coat was torn in places
His shoes were discolored from glue
His face was dark as soot from dirt
His beard was patchy, and greyish
Yet through his eyes, I saw a flash
A flash of a diamond nature
His veins bled gold and his brow, well
His sweat was pure *******
And even thusly so, he held something
That I could never even begin to touch
He held in himself no hostility
No morosity or animosity
He was a happy man and nothing more
And though I may live for far longer
I wish to trade places yet still

I want to be part of the industry
I want my body to be battered
I want my will to be shattered
If I were to wish for something
It would be to become a machine
In a factory, operated by a ******
Functioning in perfect unison
With my focused master
I want to be a slave to the industry
I want to be destroyed for a good reason
Rather than the war of attrition
That I've been fighting for 20 something years now

I want to be part of the industry
The *** industry
No, I am not professing that I would enjoy being on call
I want to be ***** by the evil that man wills
By the willing and heretical deities of this land

I dreamed of being cannibalized
A man of gigantic proportions stood above me
He had a tail, and a horse's face
His voice was the sound of charcoal burning
He whispered to me with malevolence
"You will never be who you desire to be"
I knew in my heart of hearts that he was right
He took all of his clothes off, slowly
In order to allow me a view of his many scars
Burns, stab wounds, scratches
All over his brown leather skin
His face changed into something else
It was my face, as a man
He ****** me, against my will
And after he had had his way with me
He began to tear me apart with his hands
Slowly ripping off my flesh, bit by bit
I could not move against his immense force
But I felt every single minutia of pain
I became nothing, and I was now one with him
I will never be a woman again

I want to be part of the industry
I want to be one of the many robots
That are tearing jobs away from good-willed working men
Or so I hear they are, anyway

I want to be part of the soil
I want you to walk over me
Maybe this way I would assist you in something
I would help you reach your goal at the ends of this earth
I want to be dirt, sand and soft rock
To be malleable by hand and to be useful in some way
I want to know why the Greater Will cursed me this way
Why I must see the earth in such a Wretched form
Why where others see color, I see monochrome
Why where others see camaraderie, I see crushing solitude
My becoming an Artist was a great mistake
I've always wanted to be nothing more than a machine

I want you to understand
You, You, You, with a capital Y, the divine You
That I do love you, if somewhat differently than they do
And I apologize for not showing it while I had the chance
I will miss the days when we walked this earth together
We were Wretched together, unlike the others
I hope in your sleep, your eternal and infinite sleep
You find the wisdom that I denied you
I will miss you like you were a brother to me, because you were
I am lonely without you
But so it goes, or at least that's what they tell me

it’s been a long time, old pal
does the pen grab your hands with fright?
i used to read your poems and songs
like they were lullabies and holidays,
soothing me to sleep and escaping the days,

have you forgotten how to put pen to paper?
how to make fingers type?
is this what it’s like for all the poets whose words weren’t borne of pain?
thinking too ******* what to write, what to say
if they’re not tears, they don’t flow naturally
these words are hard to create

you’re all out of practice
nothing to compose that feels genuine or profound
are you a liar to yourself? have you lost who you once were?
are you not ready to give up what’s already gone?

maybe you’re not a writer anymore
working 6 for 7 in a bar, big boss boy now
happy but frustrated, making money you have no time to spend
but it gets spent anyway
with no quality time to show for it
and you, lying there, awake

staring at a blank page hoping the words will write themselves

wondering if you’re a failure for moving onto something else

do you even want to write anymore?
or do you just miss the freedom?

cityscapes and heartbreaks
808s and carrot cakes
my life took a turn, a left
you tried to make me burn but I left
you at the alter, my destiny I cannot falter
I let me get softer, left the slaughter
watercolour paints and growing pains
deep introspection and soaking rains
get to the root of the issue, the root of the pain
elevate, activate
popping off like champagne

Then at noon
where I am one
equinoxed
my sun found me
a Icarus.