She’s the same old
Country girl
When she settles back in
With plentiful rice in mouth;
Dry and yet fulfilling with
Words echoing
In between chopsticks,
A sentence upon,
And within,
Every other mouthful.

She has a way with
Talking while drinking tea
Wherein her hands,
Once left to grains of Mao,
Speak nearly as much as the
Sound of
Slurping mountainsides,
Leaves telling stories
And roots shaking rock –
A little something so very
Ancient, so very practiced
And so much so,
That the burden of “old”
Overwhelms her “new”
And 25-year old back.

She rattles and he’s a way,
Away, a way away,
With tinkered thoughts of
Mirages buried silk screens,
The gentle sweep of
Fingernails upon back,
Shooting stars,
Dodging cars
And failure.
He’s the man on the run,
On the road, wherein –
He never ate,
He only watched her
And he never drank,
He only watched her;

He’d watch
Until the faint dreams of a
Sunrise’d give birth,
The new day’d be promised sleep,
And twilight’d be labeled,
“Escapade” or “escape.”
When came the closed eye,
He be the same ol’ boy,
The “other” she’d never known.

“Here’s your morning PSA,
Laced with saccharine and anaesthetic,
Unfortunately the missiles are on their way,
So leave the sick and try not to panic,
Ignore the hysteria, and those calling your name,
Avert your eyes as the world sets aflame,
We apologise for keeping this from you,
Secret for all of these years,
But please keep in mind, though we’ll aim for your rescue,
Death is the least of your fears
This will be our last transition,
I’m afraid the president must catch his flight,
You may wait to hear from us but until then,
Goodbye, goodluck and goodnight.”

We were the PVC plastic barbie dolls,
Waiting to be burned alive,
Unlucky enough to live,
We woke up to an absence of we,
No Nevada left to test in,
So I’m a model mannequin,
Melt me down,

Tick-Tick-Tick,
The light was white and empty,
Tick-Tick-Tick,
My madness steeped in silence
Tick-Tick-Tickety,
Geiger is telling me to run,
Tickety-Tickety-Tickety,
But it’s no use now,

I threw up on Monday,
Tuesday, I choke back fallout,
Ignore the bubbles when it hits my skin,
On Wednesday, my gums blink bright red,
Thursday I know I am all alone because the wind has ceased to blow,
And Friday I realise I am not,

They came with rubber masks,
Silicone,
Respirators and coils of filters,
We both had ******* eyes,
But neither of us saw people reflected in them,
I counted three,
Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
One smiles by exhaling clean air,
Reaches out a hand across the barren wasteland,
Fingers tipped with lead and tells me:
“There’s a prize for the last standing.”

I am not ionised,
So I bruise every time they touch me,
These guides through plagues of acid rain,
The graveyard of monuments stripped bare by a world of rot,
My hair falls out as I breathe dead air,
I don’t remember what PSA stands for,
I don’t remember my name,
I bleed sand and the echo of a failed civilisation,
But with heavy breathing and a muffled voice,
Gas masks filtering what used to keep me alive,
I wonder if there is anything behind those masks at all,
I know there is nothing behind mine,
None of us are human anymore,
And we haven’t been for quite some time,

Together, we watch the sky rain black ash.

Obscured by this ornately designed day ****** covering
Is a damaged mind that's still recovering
A broken heart that's still recovering
Love, life, and friendship again
Behind this mask is a dead man that's been resurrected again

He is becoming a new
Without the mask he is no longer blue.
The old world behind him
His new world will find him
Without out this mask his light can shine through.....if you wanted to go that direction of like New life

Behind this mask memories pass straight through it's eyes
When you stare at it slowly your faith dies
The mask was the man's demise The mask is where the darkness will rise

i take on other people's fears
find their masks lying around
i put them on for fun

i pull threads from people's coats
make a cocoon of them
of the weaknesses
the dreads
the sadness

but why

i want to know what it feels like
want to have pity on their starving, naked souls

but they eat me alive.

let them be keepers of their own darkness
i say
let them reach to you through the prison bars, the high bars set by society that most can never grasp
but i have to take off my shawl and drape it round their shoulders

it's all that i have left

there are two sides to me
one wants to give and give
the other wants to take and keep and scowl at the rainbows as they form overhead

one loves the sun
the other wishes that the rain would stay forever

how to pull me out of myself
out of the dark abyss i've created for my soul

I loved you and you couldn't see it
You put on your mask and hid away
Every now and again letting a glimpse of yourself out,
It was beautiful like the sun on a cloudy day.
I loved you and you couldn't see it,
So you pushed me away.

Maybe I did the same.

In every stillness lies a whisper.
Gyrating bodies smoulder quicker
than the wick that sickly flickers
from the wind that will not kiss her.

In every kiss there is a silence,
ruled over by tapping tyrants
that exist within the quiet,
No one denies their raucous violence.

In every mind there is a fear,
slow to speak and hard to hear.
In every heart that safe appears,
there are veins that bleed soft tears

and through all the lonely years, I've found
nothing is as kind as it appears. I frown

as she whispers in her sleep, through dreams silent and severe.
Her heartbeat softly weeps, and her demon softly cheers.