Way past 12
yet still I am awake
the world sin,
in a pen
conforming lights,
this is the world now?
digitized in bytes
digitized in bites and bytes.
we are ever distant, we don't
gaze at each other on these nights
we just digitize , digitize bytes
process instead of feel
and distract ourselves
forever encased in the mud of the machine.
Lets jump on the lifeboat
and find ourselves homes
to root in, not another boot that breaks the skin
Emote, and feel
don't process
with a zeal that begs

You were the last act,
Now trailing in the wings
You're a carcass
Confined in my hot car

You are all the pain
I now choose to ignore

All you need,
Yeah,
All you need,
Take a look inside yourself
Strip away the seems.

You are a black cloth
Who wants to engross my light
You're just a dog
Weeping in the night.

You only stuck with me
Because you had no others.

All you need,
Yeah,
All you need,
Take a look inside yourself
Strip away the seems.

You're all wrong, but it's alright.
You're all wrong, but I'm alright.

If we were all special,
then no one would be.

I'll be eaten alive one day:
one day, i see it in my mind
so close to closure along an empty street
late at night
(owls just retired and birds
not yet up),
orbs of light tethered to tall electric poles
cast dappled circles on cracked pavement;
illumination and safety
(for that two metre radius).

Stepping between them
like a girl child on stones
across a garden,
I anticipate each missed step
as sinking into sand or frightful waves.

Singing drunk back-alley lullabies
i'll soothe the skelebabies in their sleep,
their poor crusted noses snuffled against
a cold shift of air
(their private torment plastered over billboards
with corporate logos and dim colours,
suggesting the city's lights have gone out and
the local government is in frantics.
That is, after all, what you'd focus on)

Girl child games were so tipsy and magic
(and so close to real coldness);
between two orbs of light i'll slip
through the cracks
in the pavement.

THE END.

(eat me alive,
eat me alive,
eaten alive by the
wolf at the door)

deep we drink while sleeping
slow we slap
long we lap
darling chap
be mine?

please you slow.
now I know
we are so sublime.

long we lie while lying
how we spoke
(I you broke)
in words soak
your heart.

how I cry
how I’ll die?
we have played our parts.

(slow we sleep)
(deep we drink)
we are so sublime

I froze up** on the staircase, staring at space much like a jigsaw falling in place. I was high and dry like a lotus flower in bloom. Lost in the fog as I tried to sail to the moon. I was searching for the subterranean homesick alien on Planet Telex to ask him the million dollar question he spoke in codex. So I’ll never find out the answer for the talk show host just like how the spooks won’t give up the ghost.

© Matthew Harlovic

I fade a little more
I don’t want to disappear
But some of us are special
And some can’t belong.

There are thoughts burned in my head.
I wonder what they’re made of
I wonder if they’re real.

I’ll never know the truth
There isn't any truth.

We’re all just misfits
And we don’t belong.

© Ben Ditmars 2014