Tastes like death
Tongue to the gallows
Winter in her veins

All flesh fails
Maggots run empty
Gorged headless
Enfolding
Imprinting

Limbs twined to the bone
Reap nothing
Limbs twined to the bone
Reap nothing
Limbs twined to the bone
Reap nothing

Hush little baby, don't you cry,
Mama's gonna feed you some cyanide,
If that cyanide don't **** you,
Mama's gonna drown you in the tub,
If you don't go glub glub in the tub,
Mama's gonna stab you a thousand times,
Hush little baby, rest your head,
In a few seconds you'll be dead,
La la la la la la la la la,
La la la la la la la la la.

I don't know if I want to live anymore.
To be or not to be, to see and not be seen;
those hermit eyes can see right through me.
And I feel ignored, passed over, strung out
on the wicked surface of a thousand liquid crystal screens,
on the lips of paltry kisses forgotten.  

I don't know if I want to live anymore
he says with a troglodyte twang
grappling crippled finger bones the keys of ivory sang,
dried, cracked lips with tight reed slicks the river bank.

And I am insane for being sane in an insane world.
Friendless, I feel forlorn, and like so many others,
self-reflection terrifies me more than death. Boredom,
on the border between depression and peace, between suicide and meditation.

Teetering on the edge of the abysmal,
fortunes fool animates an impetuous illusion:
the act of insignificance, the play of powerlessness.
May I die with insobriety, but in life, in spirit, inspiration.

a home of unrest survives in my old town where
madness seeps through jaundice colored halls,
lapping life from rotted brains.

grim photos of grandchildren
deform walls,
but old folks don’t remember.
they wear nametags.
who am i? residents wail
for mommy, their ’86 kitten,
a bus pass from chicago or
the wrong god.

her eyes are sallow.
tunnel vision, they say.
cloudy hues without purpose.
bags under gramma’s lids hang
          like dead gangsters
and bifocals settle around her neck,
in case she gains a pang
              of clarity.

Lovely Rita,
once a fat cook is now slender as a fang.
she forgets to eat.

my guttural granny, she stutters
incoherent, mostly.
but today, she babbles
        an omen.

watch o u t
      thing s are
    g o nn a
h h h appen
  
she retreats,
deteriorating.

I am only pretty when I'm naked.

I did not give you permission to **** me inside of your head.
Please get your imaginative hands off of my unobtainable soul,
and close your mouth,
you're drooling like a coward when he sees something that he cannot have.
I belong to no one but myself.
I am old enough to know the rights of my body.

I am only pretty when I'm naked.

Stop recording every moment we will never have with your undistracted eyes.
I did not ask for this,
I am covered in clothes that do not accent the curvature of my frame and yet still you gawk,
and I will be asked what I was wearing that night.
I was wearing my right to say no,
but to him I was wearing my inferiority.

I am only pretty when I'm naked.

I am a female powerhouse.
I am competent with my tongue in many ways yet you ache to abuse it.
I am inclined to tell you what is best for me, but I am a woman.
And I know nothing.
You will beat it into me until I actually know something so well that I choke on it.

I am only pretty when I'm naked.

I am incapable of loving because, to you, I am not justified,
so you will show me how until I cannot breathe any longer.
The bruises and scars will taint my porcelain skin like mud on brand new sneakers,
except the black, blue, and crimson cannot be rinsed from my body
as easily as my clothes were removed by you.

I am only pretty when I'm dead.

I've lost my mind again.

I sit here and I sigh.

The more I cry, the more I crumble.

I feel like I may die,

Though I haven't said goodbye.

This lie is overtaking me.

How can I learn to fly,

If you're not by my side?

You're tying knots within me.

I don't even know why.

The sky stays gray

And my eyes leak tears

And I'm feeling so shy.

I don't have the strength to try.

So I'll just sit here and cry,

And sigh,

And maybe die.

And I won't even know why.