Alliteration isn't cheesy
Not for me.
When I use words to stave off the clutching squeeze of
A panic attack
I can write:

"There is pressure on my chest and I feel anxious."
or
"Pain presses me into purgatorial prayers."

Alliteration becomes the stutter into which I
Skid to a stop

I fear you
Hyde hiding in plain sight
Jekyll murdered by his creation
His ambition
Gone the way of the monster
Victor's supposed victory

**** bookends
**** closure
**** the black and the white

**** the knots
******* neat
Cause that really ain't life

Life's messy
There's dirt
It's not simple and clear

It's the road
It's the journey
And the path you take there

****, ****, ****, ****
Fuzz through the brain
Zapping pain
Through icy passages of panic
Swell, flow, overflowing
With pain, doubt, hate, anger
****
Breathe in, Breathe out
Think about the seat
The air, it's cold
My ears ring
Count from 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
Walls are getting closer, life squeezes
God's cruel fist crushes
Air from my lungs
Thoughts from my brain
LET ME ******* GO
Why am I so broken and insane sometimes?
The ocean draws near in my ears
The shore creeps close, the tide stalks through my canals
Air, water, rushing, getting louder
Pounding, ******* pounding

Someone save me please.
                
                                -the claustrophobic mind

The wind that shakes
the willow tree
That slowly bends
the rods and reeds
My iron bones
and sulphured soul
The roots grow fast and deep

I twist, I give
I stretch and flex
The bark, it groans
from sweet duress
I crave your touch
your whispers' true
Oh blow now, through my leaves

I saw some old friends
Shared old jokes, old memories
All to make new ones

Time is holding out on me
Promising solutions to old conflicts
Granting a reprieve to pain
A contract on her terms
And me, equine-like
Forever chasing the assurance
That one day
I'll wake up
And not have this serpent 'round my heart
But for now
It remains a hair's breadth out of reach

              -a crossroads contract

My brain has become
An unavoidable trap
Filled with nostalgia

Obsessively focused on black ink swimming from my pen
Keep me floating in this storm
When writing stops, this craft sinks into the frothing waves
Poseiden's domain, beckoning.
Compelled to cling, to coping that only works temporarily
For this well now springs forward only from time spent held back
Dammed up, concrete walls held strong, but defective
This flood
This Flood
THIS FLOOD
I flee, not fight, furtive failings of final flips into the film
Thin membrane, now breached and spilling
Oh god why can't I stop this?
Oh god why can't YOU stop this?
I am done.
Despite dealing with doom, with despair
How strong the maelstrom I now succumb to

A nail through the skull
Repeatedly pulsing, hot:
A migraine headache

It's been long enough now
And enough has been said
Apologies and forgiveness passed back and forth
Like folded middle school notes
Yet here I am

"Ouch, I just bit my cheek."

As I let my rods and cones
Intercept the
Lies and smoke
The electrons radiating from my
Squared, glowing palm

I sigh
And attempt to release stagnant regret
As my mouth fills with the taste
Of
Metal

All the hijacker does is scream
And it is enough.
Blisters burn the brain until
A rancid tinnitus
Washes through my canyons, flooding everything
Total destruction
A later me may find small shells
Evidence that at some point
I lived
I fought
I existed
But for now, I go the way of the dinosaurs

Every noise slithers 'cross
My ear drums with
The cool slickness of a
Sandpaper serpent
My skin pulled tight
'Cross my raw nerves
Nerves
Stretched stiff as a drum skin
Upon which beats this
Percussive tattoo of wild instinct
I clamp my eyes, vice-like
"Please let me wake"
But no
In this misty dream realm
I remain tethered, chained
Stuck in a sarcophagus
               of
Strangled Silence

Most days I forget

That I have black ink marking
The top
Of my thigh

But the days I remember

I touch the
Thickened five stripes
Separate, just below this mark

Reminding me
That the insanity of a past self
Craved the caress of
Sharpened
Metal
More than the memory
That mark
Created

I ventured forth, again into the musty canyons
The dark, dank space that is
My past
Or more specifically
Ours.

A perusal reveals:
Hats in boxes, brims unmet by sun in ages
Creased shirts, bands' crests emblazoned bright
Clever titles scrawled in sharpie on silent CDs
And everything coated with brown hair
Crooked and curled as the smile
That I wear presently
Upon this journey

Upon further inspection:
Percussive rhythms, beats tattooed
Into slick skin
A laughing afterthought of intimacy
A private joke shared between us
Among many

The messy box:
Conversations held hostage by anger
Fueled on one side by deceit and fury at the world
While the other fights a war, at another's side: alone
Confusion racking both
Where once there was naught but desire
To care, protect, discover, and journey
Hijacked, a spoiled child upending a puzzle
That his insolence will never allow him the
Solace
Of completing

And the box that releases a torrent of whispers upon opening:
My name
Hands on knees, rage relieved in an instant
Your laugh
At my protruding tongue, a face fraught with focus
Poetry, lilted and simple
About the charm in how I climb stairs

Ending with the lessons:
To seek patience; with the large, and especially the small
To love fully; as they say, time flies
To face fear; naked honesty will conquer this
To rely on; there is no shame in support
To...

The grit of clenched teeth
Overcome by the solace of
Framed reality
I descend the shaking ladder
Leaving behind this echoing forrest
Mist clouded with
Shared impassioned melodies
I have sorted and cleaned enough
I will revisit from time to time

But. In practicing honesty:

I am a living memory of you

For as a sculptor
Slow and methodic with the clay
You have shaped and molded
My very being
And all can see
Your impassioned mark on me
A testament to kindness
Tried, and true

The brown liquor creeps
Into the gray crevices
Rye whiskey, you win

The marks on my arm
Now hidden, masked by color
History disguised

In a new place now
One last chance to start over
Breathe deep, you got this

I have now backspaced
Probably, too many times
All for a haiku

You end the static
Quiet all the noise inside
My head, now at peace

I use my shaded 3rd and 4th eyes
To hide indifference
And at times I feel a post-dentist numbness
Across the expanse of my mind
And it begins to seep
Leak
Sneak
Into the marrow and tendons of my being
Hey.
Ask me later if I give a sh*t

Creeping guilt
Haunting shame
Liquid burn
Checking out now
When my mind won't slow
Distilled rye
Filling the gray canyons, the crevices
Pulsing, swimming fire
Hopes that this poison
This pleasure
Will scorch
And end
This madness

The mist filled gaps
Of my mind
Leave small open doors
To
Leave
Through
Count down slowly
      And slip
              Away

The serpent, slow and winding
Rears its fanged head
As it again constricts the
Leaps and bounds
Of this Shipwrecked Heart

I am a living memory of you

For as a sculptor
Slow and methodic with the clay
You have shaped and molded
My very being
And all can see
Your impassioned mark on me
A testament to kindness
Tried, and true

I used to think I was messy broken

Let me explain

Like a stray rock,
chipped from a bat in some sandy back lot
Through a window
Now shattered

Through. Done. Finished.

My splintered little pieces scattered to the winds
And me, running after those small bits
Like they were loose handouts in a windy parking lot
Scrambling to catch hold of
My life
My dignity
My sanity
My love

But

The only way to amend
Is complete replacement

For I am now irreparable

A good warm flannel
Makes me immensely more pleased
Than most people do

Sometimes you hear words
Spill, careless from peoples' mouths
Their impact, unknown

Chairs and tables deserve to be
Wrecked
This silent scream
Piercing my brain
Causing mental destruction
Drives my craving to
Mirror this rampage
In the tangible world
Shaking hands that might
Break
Before
Hardened
Wood
and
Plastic

Tired to the point of
Weighted-sandbags-in-my-bones
That no rest can cure

I can't think of when
I remembered all my lies
There are too many

Isolation? Great.
Emotions drive me to ground
Want to yell and curse.

When those tired sad songs
Twist to melodies of love
That's when you know
You're in trouble

And as I stood
Clothed in my shame
The monster I'd created
Was me
Was mine
And
The most difficult part
Was turning to the mirror
Looking into my eyes
And realizing
There was no Jekyll
There was no Hyde
There was just me

Now, I always wait
For the other shoe to drop
Good things aren't for me

But I fight these thoughts
Incumbent storyteller
Perhaps, he is wrong

Manhattan is a symphony
Directed by her laugh
And the lines that trace her battle scars
Begin to fade at last

My Sylvia, you've fought a war
With more life yet to go
But I battle the same demons, dear
Please know you're not alone

When the smoke hits my eyes
Eyes then close
I left long before I last saw you
And your siren memory calls to me
A beckoning to a reckoning
Of
No closure
Smoke billows and stings
Like the memories of what never happened
Memories of maps you drew
Guiding me to my next destination
But
I forgot where I had been
I regret my lack of sight
Perhaps the smoke was in my eyes
Perhaps
That is why

Fear in the morning
Feelings fly, flapping and free
Bat-like emotions

I'd like to say
If I'd have stayed
I wouldn't be here now
But truthfully
Inquiring
Will only sink me down
Pass memories
That mock and tease
Ulysses' siren song
The jagged rocks
Seductive talks
Carry my soul along

Just a glance paints a picture
Images of some other era
Non-existent ideas
That maybe laughed, wept
Danced
Steam rising from slick skin
The starlight illuminating us
Perhaps we found unexplored places
Dined on fabulous food
Lived
Fought
Loved
But.
Here we are
In this circle of broken people
So just a glance
Lets me imagine

while I shove sleep
      to the dark corner
i slip more
hard caffeine
through my blooded canals
and ponder

how

the cotton cloth'd
and pastel'd world
now opens up
before me

I hide out beneath
The welcome shroud of music
And escape problems

i thought about cheese fries

and almost broke down

god d*mn it

this is ridiculous

Contortionist thoughts
Lurk, deep in the recesses
Twisting "good" to "bad"

Match me in fire
Match me in pain
And if my heart stops
Bring me back
Let's change where we've been
What we've been
Us
To roam and find that all along what we both sought
Was present in the mirror of the other
The same, but completing
Match me
Match me in desire
To hide away in the church of Shakespeare's beast
A sanctuary of naked truth
Unclothed worship
Amen and Hallelujah
Private Bacchanalia
To praise us
Match me
Match me
Save this soul