I am running out of pretty words
to let them know that
my darkness
is not fictional.
It is hidden instead
under crimson lipstick dripping down
blood red sins on the white lace dress
I wore on my First Communion.
My mother does not understand
how my mind, of sixteen years,
has run out of purity—
casualties of fading light
and trembling hands that have forgotten
the dimpled smile on God’s glorious face
the day I was born.
I too, have forgotten that day,
instead dreaming of mornings spent
on my bedroom floor heaven
of rapidly-inflating lungs
and eyes that have seen the reflection of affliction
far too many times to be considered holy.
For I am the sacrificial lamb
slaughtered to the mumbled hypocrisy of praise,
blinded by the guilt
of every mortal sin collecting like bodies in silence;
the sound of shattered souls buried by seraphims.

How much grace can one mortal swallow?

I beg you.
Have mercy on me.

8am solo endless drives in
Purgatory
Will you remember me?
Will you still say say my say my name
Or have I disappeared into all these varying shades of 8am
Have I become the way I looked at him?
Will I fade here? Or will I reignite only to show you up
Turn up and burn up I know you never wanted me
Just wanted the person you imagined me to be
Now all I see is the white lines of this highway
Purgatory
Will you remember me?
Will this be
Forever?
8am fade out good so slow
I'm nobody's baby so nobody needs to know
My glass bloodwork and hazy brain
I know you don't see me the same
Purgatory.

i met your ghost at the waiting area
outside the emergency room
you were sitting on the laps of
weeping mothers and the ghosts of
their children were sitting on yours

they said your touch would feel like bitter snow,
but delicate,
like the drizzle of glass shards
they said your kiss would feel like a collision,
like the reason so many of the casualties around me ended up in
the emergency room in the first place
they said you would make me feel like painting red roses white,
like stitching stars into the shape of your eyes

but your ghost stayed in the waiting area when they wheeled me to the yard
and so i'll never know if
ghosts can see humans too.

sometimes i can hear myself think
each thought rustling from one
corner to another in this bottomless
pit of my mind; they enter each
chamber stealthier than venom
slithering through your veins;
sometimes i can even hear a
whisper of an idea spark from each
flame

now im a restless fiend who seeks
comfort in the darkest of allies, alleyways
comfier than any bed, nightmares
so real when i wake up it’s as if the
moment between sleep and awake
is prolonged for a century,

purgatory, the lapses of time our lips are not together
bliss, a faint of a second after you moan my name
tragedy, the blink of your eyes as you realize
i belong to no one and yet, everyone belongs
to me

cole 2015

Italy isn't Italy. It's only a metaphor. My mind has been stuck in purgatory for so long but when we both meet in Italy it means my mind is finally realized from the jail cell of my thinking.

If you drive down route 235,
the lonely parallel line of route 5,
running through St. Mary's County, Maryland,

between the intersection of Old Three Notch road
and St. Andrew's Church road,
and the liquor store at the corner of Mattapany--
you must do so with a fat wallet,
and a growling stomach,

who barks at the flashing signs
of the sparkling chain restaurants--
wafting their familiar scents out the windows
and onto the busy street.

Utterly beleaguered every which way by these olfactory factories,
your mouth waters and your wallet lightens
as the tantalizing sensations
permeate your vehicle.

So you cave;
another lost soul vacates the street at Restaurant Alley,
under the prowling searchlights
and the intoxicating smells lingering like a dense fog;

You linger in your purgatory with glee.

You exit satisfied, patting your abdominous belly
and lifting your smiling face to the sky
in thanks to the gluttonous gods
who rain down these chain restaurants
from the heavens.

A satisfied sigh seeps out of loose lips,
barely hanging on to your fleshy face,
so ruddy and fat.

You act like your stop was something novel,
like it wasn't routine to acquiesce to these temptations;
you return to your car to continue your roamings
down restaurant alley.

Sadly, a full stomach won't stifle a querying nose,
and your senses are soon at it again;
just as the waiters and waitresses,
cooks and busboys--
are back at the window, leaning outside
with their clamorings and bustlings and cookings--

You pretend to entertain willpower as your copilot,
but even if that were so,
your senses would still be at the wheel,
with your mind bound and gagged in the trunk.

Restaurant Alley goes on for miles and miles and miles,
seemingly endless in the permeating fog of
burgers and pancakes and pasta and chicken and fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and beer and pasta and wine and America and pancakes and steak and appetizers and desserts and entrees and specials and kids menus and burgers and chicken and pasta and fries and burgers and ice cream and salad and burgers and soda and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat!

There's nothing to eat;
there's nothing to do but eat in Restaurant Alley,
on route 235 in St. Mary's County, Maryland.

So fasten your seat belt,
and loosen your waist belt,
and take a doomed trip down the endless roadway--

where you are dragged, shackled to food chains
that haul you from the perdition that is the lobby's waiting room
to be seated with loved ones at the mercy seat of Ambrosia.

my mouth mechanically moves
wouldyoulikeabaghereisyourreceiptthankyousomuchforcominginh­aveaniceday
i wonder how many times i have said the same sentence in the last half hour
as those recycled, rearranged letters
squeak, tired, from the middle of my throat
a laugh, fake, tense, comes from my nose
as i feel what little soul there was in me to begin with
die
this can't be it
this can't be all there is
the helpless thoughts slide sluggishly by
what is the point of surviving so much
when this is all i have to look forward to?