you spoke with your back turned
like nothing was wrong
the kettle sat screaming
its blistering song

your eyes crack with thunder
I don’t look away.
I taste every stormcloud
and swallow the rain

you asked if I loved you
then smirked at the floor
i said it too slowly,
you moved for the door

We fought in the hallway,
half whisper, half snarl.
Your silence more cutting
than anything sharp.

you find every fracture
then press where it stings
You say, “it’s devotion,”
and tighten the strings.

We moved like a secret
too brutal for light—
no prayer, just breathing
breaks open the night.

Your hands then remember
what you never confessed,
you kiss where you hurt me
and ask for the rest.

but still, when you’re shaking,
and all fury’s gone,
I gather your pieces
and whisper a song

I stitched up the silence
you gave me to keep
and rocked us together
til sorrow found sleep

We curled in the ash
what didn’t survive,
and found even ruin
leaves something alive.

Aftermath  

The crash happens, and then everything waits.

The tow truck arrives—sleek and gleaming,  
its midnight-black paint absorbing the streetlights  
in a perfect, polished hush.
It is not a wrecker—it is a machine with purpose,  
its curved chassis hugging the ground like a race car—  
the quiet arrogance of a predator.
The hydraulic arm unfolds with practiced precision,  
chrome glinting, not a speck of rust anywhere.

My car, foreign but familiar, hesitates in its wreckage.
A midsize sedan manufactured in a plant  
where workers assembled it with American hands,  
yet its heritage lingers in every curve,  
a design caught between old and new.
Its paint—a muted slate, unassuming—  
shows years of careful touch-ups,  
my own hands smoothing over time and dents itself.
Next to the tow truck, it looks misplaced,  
a junker entered as a joke for the Daytona 500.

The insurance company—AllFarmressive—  
calls twice, their scripted reassurances tumbling  
into contradictions.
"We’ll expedite your claim," they promise,  
but attach an additional note:  
"Due to unforeseen delays,  
processing times may be adjusted  
without prior notice."  
The website insists everything is  
"streamlined and efficient,"  
but each link loops back to the homepage.
Every representative sounds the same,  
pausing at the same beats,  
reading from a script that never quite  
answers the question asked.

The rental car resists.
The screen blinks erratically,  
menus nested inside menus,  
each button press yielding nonsense—  
"Safety Belts Huggings Allowed,"  
"Start Not Start? “  
I jab at the touch screen,  
scrolling through untranslated menus,  
attempting to override locked settings.
Each swipe resets the interface,  
bringing me back to the same blank screen,  
blinking in stubborn refusal.
It moves with a sluggish, uneven pull,  
dragging toward the right,  
forcing me to correct, over and over,  
a silent, insistent opposition.
It does not trust me.
It wants to remind me what happened.

The bumper stays on the sidewalk for three days.
A fractured artifact, curled at one edge,  
its metal warped—something half-melted, half-chewed.
Every dent tells a story,  
some shallow, some deep—  
one an open palm shape,  
another., the edge of a key.
The torn plastic lining exposes the layers beneath,  
each piece folding inward,  
a body returning to itself.
By day four, it is gone.

The streetlights flicker when I drive past.
The pavement hums under my tires,  
a restless, steady vibration.
Somewhere ahead, a distant car horn wails,  
too long, too sharp, disappearing into silence.
The shadows stretch unnaturally in the glow  
of a traffic signal that no longer changes.
Something has shifted.
Something is lingering.

I watch the headlights stretch ahead,  
the road tightens, then vanishes into silence

I know the crash is over,  
but I don’t think it’s done with me.

I look back at the wreckage
of my life
mass of twisted emotion
car crash of desire
watching the beauty of bridges
burning out in the night
how can you understand me
when I barely know who I am
searching for personality
a place to call myself
mirrored in your eyes
I'm who you're looking for
an oasis in the desert
full of the promise of disappointment
leading to so many dead ends
that never had an entrance
lets skip the intro
move on to the overture
I don't do goodbyes
just change the music
and onto the next show

You told me I broke you
That you fell apart
Without me you were wreckage
Broken bits of a heart

And then you moved on
You found some new parts
Started making the repairs
Built your own heart

Tell me is it wonderful
To be whole again
The guilt has destroyed me
Long after you didn't

Shipwrecks
and underwater ruins

Dressed as shiny
moons and stars

That shimmer
for the sandpipers

When the sun drops her guard
and shows a little skin

my heart is on fire
one half cup espresso, a vape
and a song that drapes my heart in a purple fire,
with the same purple glow inside the go go bar
where that dancer handed Bukowski a dried lily
But only for a moment.

lesson #104 and the
music rides a sine wave into
my left ear.
I sat upon a lotus pad and kept
a straight back
the Angelus Novus couldn’t (insert link)
close its wings against
the winds of Paradise so
elated were the Gods by the
progress of man.
so high the rubble of the wreckage the
view from its summit rivaled the
vantage gained from
standing atop the Six Grandfathers within the
Four-headed Dog from across the pond.

national broadcast in the jungle and
all the box would do is
talk
and all the cockroaches would do is
persist
and all the machetes would do is
hack
and all the bodies burned
and Felicien Kabuga was kindly granted asylum by the West
and remained at large for over 25 years.
THANKS A LOT SWITZERLAND.
(insert link)