Take back your records
I'm moving out west
need to fill up this hole in my chest
Take back these pictures
you left in my head
in my bed
but no copies to hold in my hands
as my memory alters
the state of what was
and what is
but honestly, I'd rather forget
and my height fell
too short
now you make me feel small
all
i'm left with are stories to tell

Take back the skin that you left in my clothes
'cause I don't want nobody to know
Take back the song that you sang in your sleep
'cause I don't think
that you even know what it means
and your heart is a piston
I'm pulleys and weights
you're an engine
and
I'm easily moved by your hands
but I ran this machine
for you
my dearest friend
in the end
I'll be with you in dreams

Take back your records
I'm moving out west
I was wrong
I was you all along

pushing out the centric whole,
this vacuum pulls my soul inside;
stitching rags with threads of gold
laid over bones too old to hide;
inside myself this vessel holds
a sense of me i’ve not contrived
made into being by the hands
that work this living threaded bind

that ghostly hand binds ribs to lung
now thickening the air i breathe,
the specters have stirred up the dust
that clouds the halo over me.
a mist of dust from the chiseled stone,
or the rust of ancient foreign locks -
concealing rooms where all is filed;
time, reason, risk and cost.

the dust will settle, still until then
i’ve solder’d soul onto my skin
there are no shadows, we’ve bathed in light
new magnet pulls through, spectrum shift turns to white.
as howls ring out, carving through stormy dune,
the sun is eclipsed by the pivotal moon.

ive been starin a long time at this body mine
ragged, alien, hollow, watch me give a ****
shattered frames leanin walls, been and gone
talkin times too long
before my shoulder glance got permanent
he says that now i cant quit
starin up from in his pit
i done been done writhing with
but hes right aint he
dont like bein told
where to be

aint heard him since, aint no one
aint none my goals done
hesitate and die, son
it aint about you
bout the goods
lemme getcha eyes pretty blue

got a whole stash upstairs
sleepin with the *****, nightstand
ima take advantage of all this rain
playing the game
and ill see you shakin, chained
to ya fear, past choice, belated invoice
shoulda kept ya ride clean

from dusk to dawn,
I wish I'd catch a wink of sleep
it certainly isn't pleasant to be going to sleep
when the rest of the household starts to rouse themselves
but such is the life of a closet insomniac
such is the life of one who lives in paranoia
such is, after all, the life of one who only ever comes alive
with the Night City,
my Night City,
identified by the purplish-black clouds that blanket
the city and the neon lights that adorn it,
once again letting
us insomniacs become ourselves,
the ones who laugh and dance
and live and breathe when the world sleeps

the ones that return to existing as mere
shadows with the dawn of the sun
for us though, the awakening of the world is
with the appearance of starlight
with the quietening of most of
the sounds that plague daylight
random fires on streets are put out and
we are left
to delight in the fiery-orange neon lights.

aah.
but what a sad time for us
when we become shadows
unable to do anything, with heavy weighted limbs
that refuse to obey any command,
with woolly heads and sleep deprivation,
almost-vampires for we don't sparkle
bruises under our eyes are barely noticed
for they are always there
during the day, shadows we become.
brushed aside and barely noticed, yet
in silence we choose to remain,
muted revelry, safe in the knowledge
that night will return again.

I love you more than life and death,

and all the words of earth combined.

I'd give you even my last breath,

and in your heart I might just find

the thing that I've been looking for,

the love I crave so frightening.

You're not my lost and loved Lenore,

but something much more quieting.

I'm speechless in you presence, though

I'd never give you up to doubt,

and all my feelings I can crow

will never let you run about.

I love you better than myself,

and that, my dear, defines itself.