My nest—a tomb of filth and bile,
Left to rot in wait,
Until the festering completes,
And slime corrupts my state.

When looking up from far beneath,
They never feel the doom.
I hide it under golden ropes,
Accented with perfume.

The smell alone is not enough
To lure them inside;
That’s when I lower diamonds down
To try and turn the tide.

Once they latch, I slowly pull,
Entrancing them with song.
They always take a while to learn
That something’s deeply wrong.

I dance and whisper hollow dreams
To keep them entertained,
But spells are brief, and in the end,
They all must be restrained.

I weave my blackened cord around
Their bleeding, beating hearts.
Contentment fills their minds,
As sorrow aches within their parts.

That’s when I make my move,
Striking them with mud and puke.
Forever here my victims stay,
Within my endless fluke.

The next time you tell a woman she’s beautiful,
you will mean it less —
because you have already meant it most.

She looks like a safe bet.
How boring for you.

She will never make your hands shake
when you try to button your shirt —
the buttons slipping like stones from your fingers,
like your body forgot how to be steady
because someone like me was looking at you.

It was never that serious.
Except, maybe, it was.

She will never make you reroute your whole life
just to cross her path.
She won’t know what it’s like
to catch you looking at her mouth
like it’s a dare you want to take —
but we know you’re all talk.

She wasn’t a hard person to love.
She was just a girl
who knew how to sit still.

And you —
you were just a man
who had only ever loved things
that were easy to set down.

You wanted something simple —
a woman like a neatly folded sweater:
wrinkle-resistant, polishes you up,
easy to pick up,
easier to put away.

But simple things never ruin your appetite.
They never make you whisper,
"God, what’s wrong with me?"
because you can’t stop thinking about
the car crash in your rib cage
that you wrote off as a particularly bad day.

But some bruises bloom twice,
and some wrecks keep ringing in your ears.

I was never easy to love —
but God, I was worth it.

And when I was yours,
you were someone better.
Isn’t that just vile?

It was never serious.
Except, apparently, it was.

Now I hope you choke on how simple it feels.
I hope you spend the rest of your life
wondering why you never had to catch your breath
when you kissed her.

I hope her laugh sounds too much like mine.
I hope you hear my name in her silence.

I hope she kisses you in a dark bar,
and for one awful second,
you forget whose lips are on yours.

I hope you miss me across midnights
and hate yourself for it.
I hope my scent won’t wash out of sheets I’ve never slept on —
like something you swore you imagined,
until you smell it again.

I hope you never stop searching out my poems,
then deleting your history.
I hope certain lines jangle like change in your pocket
over every street you’ll ever walk.

I hope the sharpest edges of my words
are so embedded in your psyche,
you can’t remember if it's a Vonnegut quote,
your own inner monologue, or me —
your real favorite writer.

I know I’ll never hear from you again —
but when you quote me in your head,
I hope you taste blood.

I hope you keep walking —
but never walk away clean.

It was never that serious.
Except, I guess, it was.

Manicure the landscapes of my gaze – a far-off forest whispers
sweet nothings before a lover fades into memory – growing
weary; the taste turns bitter, like rising *****. Lingering sweetness;
the flavour of honey clings to my lips, a hive buzzing with our
fantasies woven in dreams – yet this imagination comes tethered
to a swarm of bees.

A television muse; she’s a show looping in my thoughts,
preying on my moments, I’m praying pretending to be
faithful, my hands are little more faithful than I was to you,
never keeping you in focus.

We must have believed we were creases, yearning to love
beyond the inevitable wrinkles – beautiful, flawed beings;
yet even a beast knows it must seek another to thrive.

How humans are so vile.

my nature is vile
and pure and peaceful and cruel
and here i am now

My love is endless to loving plenty, for itself it does not show,
granted to love a penny. Possessions of man's ***** eyes,
Of their murderous hate— many schemes flesh has to conspire,

A change to thought, (I darest spare, lodged by Christ's
gentle love. I hope to know in the ends of prayer.)

Kind heartened I may prove, with gracious kind words,
As with wickedness stuck in mouths; as it's rotting tooth.
All that are wicked; too hide behind sweetest tongues, and
fairest smiles.

Vile, vile, vile. Oh how the world is so vile,
to us all living in denial. Greed has made them all blind.

I water myself daily, play my heartstrings like a ukulele
the music makes me smile, my art child
I can no longer blame me, for the times you were shady
cannot stay hostile, the negativity is vile
I move on and I move in, to my new skin
I got into my groove and I let myself in
to the world of violins that play for my smirk
I was ******, hurt, and overworked
but now as I rest in my throne of pillows
I realize true peace as I watch the wind bend the willows

I possess a
vile & extraordinary
mind

Regal,
vile—
the beast aims to ****
but I am frozen in place.
My blood's running still
in its frightening grace,
and I smile—
regal,
vile.