I dreamed that I finally met you.

The apocalypse was at hand.
The sky bled as it came undone
Brother murdered brother
Monsters roamed the land
Beasts spoke in the learned tongues of men
Elementals emerged
From the hidden corners of the earth
To take back what was once theirs.

It was in the bleakest hour of mankind
That we crossed paths.

Stranger greeted stranger
Like old friends,
A warm hello
With a twinkle in the eye,
Before one took the other's hand.

The apocalypse was anything but
If its conclusion is so serene,
Rendering the torrent of fire and brimstone
A drizzle of petals and dew.

Eternity ended too soon
As the tolling of the church bell
Called in the sunrise
And chased off the cobwebs of slumber,
Along with it,
All semblance of felicity.

If it had to be a dream
At least make it a prophetic one.

If it will take the end of days,
The death of a star,
A cataclysm of the celestials,
For me to meet you,
Then so be it.

Let the world burn.

Poetry is a healthier alternative
To picking fistfights with strangers
(OI. THE ******* STARIN' AT?)
Or stalking your gigs
While groping the knife
Tucked into my waistband

Because convalescing in silence
Is still better
Than having quack doctors and faith healers
Crowd over your body
Touch, rub, probe, poke
With their grubby fingers
Write you illegible prescriptions
Charging you a king's ransom
For 'professional advice'.

You just need to get out more.
Fresh ***** is the answer!
Pray. Have faith.
Geez, you're not over it yet?

It would've been better
If I just kept my **** mouth shut
And kept up the facade
A walking picture of health.

I don't need your ******* platitudes
Your uncomprehending stares
The drivel you proudly spew
Like how you so lovingly ladle out swill to the homeless
Assured of another mansion in heaven.

*******.
This is not a soup kitchen
And I don't need your pity.
(And condescension does not save you.)

Convalescing in silence
Is still more logical
Than rallying people
To eradicate sickness from earth
By arresting viruses
Putting them on trial.

A virus does what it does.
It is in its nature,
Like how stray dogs bite
And how ****** ****.

Poetry is the best choice.
It's active non-action.
Reflecting
While the seasons change,
The fullness of time comes,
And news of your impending demise arrives
Of when your moral destitution
Finally catches up to you.

And by the time it comes around,
My youthful ignorance will have bled out a bit,
And I will receive the news
With a smile, a cigarette, and a new poem.

Four bottles and counting.
It's still not enough to dull my senses
Or tranquilize my still-racing mind.
Not enough to dull my ears
To your voice whispering
In between clumsy lines
Blaring from the radio,
Not enough to blind me
To your face etched
in the writhing smoke of every exhale.
I've finished a whole pack already
Just to see your smile again and again.

When they told me that smoking would **** me,
They had no idea how true that was.
But they never told me it was the face in the smoke
That would be my undoing.

Six shots and a beer chaser --
Enough to make me dead to space and time,
But not quite dead to the world of dreaming,
Where your lips await me,
Where everything was still perfect,
And my happy ending was within reach.

My mind drags me down
To this infernal paradise
Time and again,
This quagmire of delightful lies,
Despite my feeble protests
About moving on and recovering.
Waylaid by my own consciousness,
What can I do but capitulate?

Thrashing about in this thicket
Of denial and disappointment,
All I can hope for
Is a toehold
With which to stand
Up against this onslaught,
Just to preserve my shaky hold
On sanity and normalcy.
To, at the very least,
See the pinprick of light
At the mouth of the abyss.

I've withdrawn from the sun
Busied myself with the amusing distractions
This world has to offer,
Buried myself
In work
Video games
Thai boxing,
But still pursue you in the dreaming,
Unless I down another bucket of beer
And guarantee a blackout for the night
And a screaming hangover in the morning.

When I die, dear Mother
don't give my body away
to science.

I'd rather have it given away to poetry.

I want people to cut me open
and observe
how my bones were riddled with
melancholic verses of joyful pasts.

They have to see
the scarlet of my blood was the hue
I stole from the sunsets of
wishful thoughts.

Dear Mother,
give my body away
to the art of writing:
for they have to look past
everything they have ever learned.

They must know
of how much I loved and I lost,
and how that made the twine of my ribs
a story to tell.

It's a lot of work
Having to drag myself up here
Before slicing you off of me,
Piece by piece,
Tossing the already-rotting morsels
To the raptors
Lurking from the crags,
Anticipating
With rapt hunger.

Those poor birds
Having to settle for gristle,
Already spoiled by rancor and impermanence,
I hope they pardon me
Like how I'm starting to forgive you --
With resignation
Accepting
That it was all you had to offer
In your desolation and brokenness.
And maybe I should have known better
That you didn't know better
Than to sear your conscience,
That betrayal was all you knew.

The trek back down
Ought to be easy.
How can it not be
When I am divested
Of these memories staining me --
Of us flashing sickly sweet grins at each other
Breathing each other in
Serenaded by the music of our souls,
Each asomatous snapshot
Titanic in weight.

I'm surprised
The winds haven't carried me off by now.