I am a condemned robot,
on the verge of carrying out
the cruelest order.

An order of destruction,
a sacrifice.

To be my own executioner,
so that one day, I may be reborn.

Let nothing remain—
where there is pain,
there will be fire.

Where there is suffering,
there will be flowers.

Where there is lovelessness,
there will be love.

A button,
and a countdown,
separate me from my mission.

Only a few images
separate me from oblivion.

Yesterday, we were nothing.
Today, we are everything.
And tomorrow—our greatest version.

Are you a spider, traipsing around your web? Like an acrobat,
you swing from fly to fly, trapping them further. Your gossamer silk
Surrounds them, confines them, suffocates them, but you, black widow,
Deliver the killing blow. Your bite is not accompanied by a bark
as you sink your fangs into your victims like a thirsty vampire.
Drain them, empty them, free them of life, dear spider.
For it is your nature, your purpose, and your divine duty to devour.
Oh, spider, I am your devotee, your destitute follower, your dying breath.
I am your last hope of redemption in this dying, this killing, this ending.
Will you be redeemed in the end? Only I, the fly, decide.

Wishes, I never wanted:
But prayed for...
Include me, when a sun fronted
A song; justice, for a silence that were

An ocean of purity, a hat of redemption
I have yet to find, in misery
Apt or deft, a lover's few; contention
Of a word, I knew with ears of liberty

A chance's meeting...
Without a soul's music...?
Then, in though is a fleeting
Cloud, with a thought to name fury's, altruistic

Patience, am I dead, when you smile?
Paradise's praises...
A lie's prayer, that I created with denial
Do we earn a savior's smile, with patience's wages?

Curious, the taste in sunshine...
A tattered hat, with must to adjourn
A rational source, to a lover's whine
Was a smile our finish, to another wish to burn?

A sunshine, a clash of worldliness
Sent to rage, for a climate of pain
That has seen you, in the voice of pasts
Proud, vengeful and sated...

I see the presence of meaning...
Hearing your coy world, become a flower
The touch of patience, paces of a prayer beaming
The scent of sin, now just death's power...?

and though we breathed the same breaths
under different skies
and in different tongues
though the whispering birth
of one
was the death of another
both righteously tainted
both cut open
bleeding into me
and her
and us
and them
and god i wish there was no them
i know
i know i know i know  
the room was ink
and cheap leather
and there’s no room for god
in collars or letters
but have your bones been mended?
and
has the bleeding stopped?
because their hands
are still red
their wounds like honey
sticky
infinite
crystallized
so, my love
it’s time you learn to sew!
stitch up your broken!
sever the wicked!
make your mosaic!
and i’ll tattoo it on my sleeve
i’ll bottle it up
and swallow it
and when it sinks into the ocean of my body
i’ll think of them
and hope
that some day
under some sky
they can taste it too

The fire had  a chance to redeem itself once more But this time it will provide warmth to the people around it instead of burning them.

Is this what redemption looks like?
The agressive roaring of the fire now whispers soothing words into my veins.

Instead of ashes, embers rise,  
A dance of fire sparks in golden skies a warm light twinkling in my eyes.

I found the city a pitiless thing.
It smelled of steel, concrete and the bay.
I use to sit on the sea wall that edged
my old college condo, the one I shared
with a black cat, and sing Otis Redding-
skipping the whistling part of his song
because my lips could never purse the
right tune- and watch the tide roll in
catching rainbows in the sun’s glint.

It  was the inhabitants I couldn’t take,
all rude and loud, smelling of salt
and stale fish scales and crab shells,
so snared in tiny toils, frail and idle,
their itching needs thirsty and *****.  
I lost my wonder in the traffic dust,
the night haze and starless nights.
I avoided touching that life less
it should defile me in its lost light,
night terrors and phantasms.

Then, in the small church in
the out of the way corner,
I found her, a strange vision
trembling, ready to emerge
just past the reach of my mind
and the urge of my will. She existed
beyond all jaded aims and
drab  dissemblements,
something unfounded, unbuilt
but ready, waiting to be built on.

On my birthday she bought me
a lounge chair to grace my
unfurnished balcony, on the
very day I purchased my own.
And there we sat (my desire),
watching the city unseal itself
across from me in a sweltering love,
constantly revealed, being
forever built and rebuilt on
in pain and unfathomable will.

In the night of purple murky clouds
that fell from heaven, a heavy haze
envelops the old palace, a velvet shroud
that blinds all but the keenest gaze.

Yet there atop the palace gates,
a spotlight sends out golden blades
to slice the velvet and spite its weight:
gleaming swords by brighter spirits made —

A signal to the clouds, return up high,
cast off their shroud and kiss the sky.