watching for air                              a mad thing of static to do
unwashed  i hold it all foreign   my perspectives clothed as the enemy
an agreed muscle of tension       with pockets fracked into my hands 
i look out the window   wide agape guidance                                                     invasive drills of heat   the giving sunlight ; punishing,
a tree,   the grieving buildings
the whinging of cicadas
and here i am     watching for air

one point for the weather                                                      
one­ point for the view                                                            
­one big point for my ****** condition                                
one point for the passers by and their galling dramedies

and there it is ; the wiry plan that's built                        
from one small tickle of wild thought              
                                 formed long ago
trickling to the current day
some whipped wit of poisoned psychology          
     fed to the inbreed   (welcome   you panting imp)
decades of saved up fatty layers
a deed   of habitual sediment
retching until the tide laps become still
   a cured and congealed gladness
marbled, a butcher would say
i am full and hearted and heated and padded senseless
        turned under a heel   with my wastrel history
  i’ve accomplished this     a stifled condition
                               of poisoned obscenity

seated deep        almost fully incapacitated  
in my armchair   on this chummy day
my leisure clothes greasy     sluck against my blemished hide
a packet of cigarettes   to my side
rounded upon  by sounds of the neighbours affairs
with a gasp of energy   i 'skin one off' vigorously
my system trembling   with years of hard liquor
borderline   to a state of unconscious whelm
retained final       prime for ignition
i could manage a spectacle
a blinding flare
                                  a glorious incineration
and the release
                      of my true oder

i light a match for my cigarette

O' what I would not do to live in my dreams,
My mind is filled with voices and screams,
My head it feels as thought it will burst,
When I try to be happier it hurts the worst,
I try to be silent and sit in the dark,
But my brain just shorts and continues to spark,
The fire it lights consumes all it can see,
My mind is a prison and I will never be free,
It hurts like hell is only in my head,
Most time it flares up I wish I was dead,
The things they say it makes no sense,
I can be completely alone yet feel so tense,
I used to be loud and crazy,
Now I am sad and lazy,
Why cannot my mind be

Countdowns have always seemed bittersweet to me..
The steady ticking away of time
The trickle of sand through the hourglass.
The fading of connections not curated.

I’ve always been morbidly aware of my own doomsday clock,
Slowly beating, decreasing, releasing my
Seconds into the atmosphere around me,
As I wait, sometimes impatiently, for it to hit zero.

Some days, I hope for my hourglass to run dry,
And while I know that that isn’t a healthy mindset,
Some days it is all that I can do to not hurry it along.

Not to take that revolver in my dad’s lockbox,
Not to take those pills in the medicine cabinet,
Not to take that rope and the one wobbly stool
that has sat at our bar for the past five years…

Just beckoning me.
Just wanting me to take that final step
into sweet, sweet oblivion.
But.

If I do take that final step..
Who would be there to pick up the pieces for them?
To clean up the mess that this disgusting body left behind?

Who would be there to finish my paintings,
To sing my unsung list that is ever-expanding,
To write these words that have seemed so forced these past months?

Who would be there for them, when I could not be?
Someone, I am sure, but I have been told that I am irreplaceable,
And while I may not believe that,
I am scared of leaving a mess behind
That my mother cannot bring herself to clean up.

I am scared of leaving behind a mess that would irrevocably break my father,
A mess that would torment my brothers,
A mess that my sisters would never even remember.

And maybe..
Maybe I am scared of the call of oblivion..
Or scared of the unknowingness of it all, rather.

Or perhaps I am tired of thinking
of myself as a mess to be cleaned up,
Nothing more, and nothing less.

And maybe
That is all I need
To survive one more day.