I want to scream until my lungs give out,
collapse on the floor,
tear off this paper-thin smile
and spit out the lie of “romanticizing life.”

“It’s just you and me again,” I mutter,
staring at the mirror, a blank, colorless canvas.
Eyes hollow, face streaked with tears and a half-formed grin.
F*ck, you’re unbearable. I want to punch you so bad.

If I stop, is it release or just cowardice?
The thought drifts away like smoke.
I drag myself upright,
patching the cracks with silence,
fastening the mask once more.

The mirror waits,
its hollow twin whispering,
“If not you, then who?”
breath heavy, fingers trembling on the doorknob.
Feeding myself lies before stepping out.
“It’ll get better…” I promise myself
like a broken prayer
time and time
and time
again.

August, the Red Line,
connected tanks
of bolted plastic vertebrae.

Every seat gone except
five rows up, where a sea lion
sprawls across two,
stuffed backpack, jacket
spread like barbed wire.
His grunt a wet bark
at the glow of his screen.

Middle-school deer slip into the aisle,
chatter clipped when the sheriff drifts past,
their ears flicking, smiles bitten shut.

Not a predator- just a gelded ox,
chest puffed, badge sagging, glass-eyed,
chest rig clattering with blanks.

Two lemur-children cling to their tortoise elder,
her shell steady against the sway of the car.

She filters them from the surge of riders:
loud Dodger blue parrots in cholo socks,
moth-women with painted lashes beating the stale air,
a stray dog, gutter musk dragging at its haunches.

And one gray bear

muttering alone,
arguing with her reflection.

Between Koreatown and MacArthur Park
I feel feathers forcing through my skin-
an alley gull knifing into this clamour,
scavenging inside its exhaust.

The car rattles, its ribs plated with blistered posters:
museum wings open to no one,
‘register to vote’ fading into graffiti script,
flu shots promised by smiling ghosts.

A bruised hatchling staring out beside the words
See something, say something.

The warning lights glow
like eyes hunting in the dark.

From its flanks the train
unfurls iron claws.

They rake
the tunnel walls,
the city’s bones,
the dark itself.

Strike like a dove with boxing gloves,
And mop up the trepidation
That spills from your mouth.
Punch into the heart of fear
And leap from the cloud that cascades
Into thunderous rapture.
Dance into the bossom of peace
And let love be your compass;
That guides you toward enlightenment.
The plumage of your soul is ruffled
By the ecstasy of the marching wind,
And the comprehensive gallop of hope
that stomps in the psyche,
flows fancifully from the hip.
strike like a dove with boxing gloves,
Climb into your spirit and let her rip.
To dance, to feel, to love.

I could have gone to the cemetery,
or back to my high school lab,
find him lecturing from a podium,
bony finger raised,
demagogue of the dead.
I could break him down piece by piece,
cram him in a duffle,
a femur jutting the zipper.
Ignore the groan-
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

Instead I found myself
in the carnival lot,
The dog was long dead,
the sign kept guard.
Rusty rides slouched like tumbleweeds.
Cotton candy in memory-
blue tack crunching my teeth.
Lewd.

Skeletons fixed on poles,
spiked up through pelvis and spine.
Use ****.
Grip shoulders. twist. lift.
When one slid free,
he collapsed into my arms
all bone-light, lovely,
mine at last.

I just brought him home.
Sat at the kitchen table.
Named him Curly.
Zoom howled: WAG’s gone weird!
What’s his name? What’s his name?

His name is Curly,
I said, but I knew
his name was You.

We drink wine by the pool.
He never sips.
Sometimes I pour a second glass for the glint.
Sometimes he tells me Danny Elfman
wants to play his ribs like a xylophone.
Sometimes he sighs,
he hates Oingo Boingo.
I laugh. Obliging.
So do I.

When the wind kicks up
he smells of sugar and rust.
Sometimes he rattles the glassware.
Sometimes he won’t sit still.
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

boy who craves a darker shadow
not just shade, but hunger wrapped in smoke and bone,
under headlines wife’s sister’s affairs rot at the root.

hemlocked, nameless, hair knotted with cuscuta string;
ghost-vines rope his wrists like hungry knuckles.
the hollow-eyed boy carves a bar and calls it scripture,
trades green for powder, profit for blood;
he’d slit a throat before he spares a leaf.

how does that nameless leaf keep grieving?
how does it stay alive?
it roots in rot
it drinks their blood and keeps on green.
.

Before sleep I knot a cardboard tag
to my big toe with baling twine.
Sometimes I think of stapling it -
ritual wants a clean edge.

She tolerates my oddities:
a posterboard of errands above the sink,
tea mug with its brown ring I refuse to clean,
I stand too close when the train arrives,
or climb ladders with one hand full.

Last summer a rogue wave flung me under;
I surfaced broken, collarbone split,
came home wrapped and aching.
She kissed the bruise and laughed,
as if I’d slipped the ocean’s grip,
as if the sea had lost its claim.

I call them accidents to sleep easier,
yet I flood the stove with gas,
strike a match, laugh at the plume,
convinced the fire means I’m alive
even as it scorches my hand.

At night she circles the bed,
tugging at my toe tag
as if it could bind me to her,
carrying me into the cabin,
a weight she won’t release.

skin to skin i lure you in,
rip you apart from limb to limb
in the deepest shadows

oh the almighty,
you don't know
i lurk behind every corner,
impatiently trying to watch,
your sight as always a catch
i thump and drag along
a bag to carry, for you to last

in dark fantasy i taste your flesh
your blood drips and drops,
but you stay fresh
i store pieces of your skin for later,
stirring your meat to neat batter

your bones do break
but your heart wont shatter
pure lust glides through my fingers,
touching up your moveless figure
i yearn in obsession, in dreams it lingers

in light you shimmer, brighter as ever
moonlights kiss caresses your body,
its getting thinner
your pulse fastens each push i make,
you will get better
fallen apart, i sew you back together,
pins and needles push through you like softest butter

pray, pray and cry, feed me your tears
show me more,
show me, show me.
in despair, i waited and caught you
wretched and ruined,
now you loathe me.

i tell you,
i’ll wear your teeth on a necklace,
your eyes will see salvation
for you are the prettiest you have ever been,
one last rest before i begin

how redeeming, as in death to still be not lost in darkness,
how fortunate to live inside me,
finally you found the meaning of life,
you have been searching, i know.

Alls my life I has to hop, brother!
Alls my life I...
Hard times like, “Yah!”.
Mad tricks like, “Yah!”.

Fatalist, I’m all lost
Homie, you are all lost
But if God got us, then we gon’ be alright

We gon’ be alright!
We gon’ be alright!
Brother, we gon’ be alright

What we need is a way to lose the radar
Of the creatures of gluttony that resembles
a bar.
So, I hop in hope that I’m still afar
From the clenches of them ****** piranhas
Chasin’ me like a cop car.
Call this eternal for no solace is there
And this frog won’t ever give in to that
Joker’s flair.
Twisted it is that a kiss pronounces exit from
this lair?
Yeah, sure do adhere.
I’d rather die and state my mind clear.
This circus denounces hell, I fear.
Joker’s the devil and piranha’s sin, my dear.
It’s clear what they intend to do here.
Mere resistance is futile and it tears
Lingering hope and steers
My fate. My life. My ideas.

But I take a leap of faith Cause
If God got us, then we gon’ be alright.

Brother, we gon’ be alright.
                                 -Asher Graves