Spotlights burn confessions from the sinners pockets as their penance is paid penny by penny in spare change jars and guitar cases all along the interstate,
Go and tell the gutters of our suicide and leave a note in tomorrow's obituaries if they wept for us
If not, just ******* spare me
Neurotic breakdowns in melting rooms filled to fever with strung out felons just now crossing the lines of the tally marks that denote their resurrections,
And I long to start trash can fires with my wasted chances and apologies from former lovers mixed with equal parts sawdust and gasoline,
I've got more than enough to light up the backstreets I take to get home every night at least, but you know how melodramatic I can be
I'll be dressed in all black back against vandalized brick walls on some steps somewhere claiming to be able to read the future in a deck of hand-me-down tarot cards,
I'll be hearing the whispers in stuck tongues about my hair and how it's grown as I listen to the horizon waiting for the crack of thunder to begin the storm,
I'll be contemplating connections between drags of cigarettes in the hum of static evening with the drifters drawn like moths to the glow of empathy,
I'll be ready to go whenever I'm called, and I promise I won't cause a scene,
But now I think there's a girl walking calmly towards me, ignoring the traffic jam of my speech patterns and I find myself catching fireflies by the hundreds to illuminate her approach,
She tells me she'll see me in the morning if I ever decide to lay my head to rest,
And we wish each other good luck

Prepare the arrival
Begin the ritual
Cut your veins open to bleed your sins into the river, then cup your hands and drink from the basin just for one last memory of the taste,
Then start over
Try to take yourself seriously, for once
Have a shot to take the edge off,
andanotherandanotherandanotherandanotherandanother
Till you waken from your car crash nightmares on the ceiling of your sanity suspended by your disbelief in anything and everything coming apart piecebypiecebypiece and trying your best to take it all in stride,
Read the terms of your surrender and convince yourself it is the best you can get,
Lie as much as you have to,
Lie as much as you can live with,
Then lie some more,
Shed your skin and spray paint an anatomically correct depiction of your deformities on a T shirt, then wear it until everybody else in the room becomes so uncomfortable that they have to leave
Let the door hit them on the way out
You've really ******* done it now,
If what you need is to tie a noose for every wayward ghost knocking at your door asking for a smoke and a place to stay, then get your rope boys because it's gonna be a long ******* night
If what you need is to realize that your hair is not your prison but your home then tattoo your own reflection onto your eyelids because today is the day you quit hiding
Prepare the arrival
Destroyer,
Your confessions are dead and there is no time to mourn because now we go to war
You didn't start this one but you know ******* well you have the power to finish it,
Destroyer,
Accept that you can't ever be fixed,
Get angry about it anyway
Destroyer,
Do what you were born to do,
Or failing that,
Do what you created yourself to do,
Destroyer,
Do not repent to the wreckage, do not bleed yourself dry in pity for the scorched Earth and shattered skies, do not make sacrifice of yourself on the broken altars you learned to fear, do not weep for the dead left in your wake,
You did what you had to
They'll understand someday

**** the connection & circle back - begin again at the original sin and I'll conceive another immaculate excuse to explain myself this time, I always do, trust me,
Desolation angels blazing weary epiphanies into the highway lines, viewing crop circles at ground level, knowing we should be impressed but not sure by what, and I never drink alone anymore because that holy ******* cowboy is still blocking the warped door frame - I'm ******* trying to lighten up, I don't know what else you want from me (yes I do, it isn't this)
I weep the mirrors shattered luck, I weep my mothers bitter tears my fathers clenched fist my crazed manic adopted brother's visions of inertia salvation - I weep the thrown bricks and ****** fires of youth bled dry, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up
Wisps of my ***** hair catch on sighs of wind and carry off through the trees dead of night - I envy those who can live without context
I need to take myself seriously
With 12th cigarette breath mid week mid summer mid west midnight I will whisper in cracked refrain the vows of my idle retrospect -
I will haunt this city all year, sleepy eyes holding interstates hostage in preparation for the coming doom
I will sit atop the hill, feign wisdom for the ages, and preach melancholy my fondness for the earth, but now that I've made it I'm not sure I can go back
Maybe it's for the best

Blessed are we who have fallen from The Tower
Blessed are we
Scraping fingernails ****** on the glass ceiling,
Licking at the heels of heroes with broken knuckles who tried to bust through to heaven,
Burning sage for the sake of all the dead spirits waiting around to come alive,
Contemplating reality through thick rimmed glasses wreathed in flame,
Counting credit card taps on tables while buzzing out of fragile bones for the next high,
Sleeping half awake in dreams of red wine and brighter futures,
Hallucinating city lights on balconies in a gin soaked haze of grandeur,
Holding out for wayward outcast brothers and sisters to come by and hear us preach revolution,
Selling burdens in parking lots for the price of a pack of cigarettes and a ride home,
Sobbing on strangers shoulders on Greyhound bus rides to ruin,
Offering confessions at the feet of angels we couldn't begin to understand but loved regardless,
Zigzagging through tree lines on another half drunk run from the police,
Shooting for the stars from the hip and blowing violent holes in the roofs of the places we called home instead,
Living indefinitely in the crawl spaces between endless Purgatory cycles of rise and relapse,
Blessed are we sleeping restless in the suburbs,
Testifying to the suffering in Dayton,
Swimming strung out through the Cincinnati streets,
Robbed blind in Columbus,
Praying the South  might take us back if we just said we were sorry
Blessed are we who have fallen from The Tower,
Blessed are we who still have so much farther to fall

$1.60
May 6th, 2015
A ****** diner outside Dayton, Ohio
My city steals ragged breath after breath
A defeated boxer calling for an ill-fated rematch
And to her I will answer - yes
Yes I have seen your name illuminated in broken neon
I have seen your love run black on the asphalt to fall again like rain on the undeserving
I have seen you lose time after time with excuse tempered silver on your tongue and rise to return to your tomb by morning
I have seen the marks the centuries left when they stripped you naked and left you begging,
But I just don't have it in me to feel sorry for you anymore
I have bared you witness so many times your testimony buzzes white noise to my ears
I have seen the sacrifice you would have of me but my blood and my ink are no longer for you to drink
I wept with you one night, and I swore I would never show you mercy again
I have no idea when I got this ******* cynical
Is it my fault or yours that my empathy has run out?
Please tell me it isn't mine

Mother, I'm sorry you birthed a ghost
Mother there is a song of mourning rising from the streets but I'm not sure I know how to cry anymore
Mother they're calling for me, at the gallows, at the sermon, at the university, at the madhouse,
and maybe they're right, but my voice is too weak to tell them that
Mother you know I'll have to go to them, sooner rather than later
Mother I am praying to a clocktower for the end,
I am on my knees speaking in tongues between twin pillars of apathy and boredom,
I am tying my tongue to nooses to hang my shame from the trees where I carved my switchblade prophecy when I was young and angry,
Younger and angrier, anyway
I am singing with the homeless & the dogs on the street corner, burnt out anthems of heartland heartbreak too ******* sad to be classics
I am with the junkies, the proof of their gospel is tagged on the walls of my sinus cavity
I am with the anarchists, they put a pen in my hand like a rifle and told me aim for the head
I am king of nothing on a throne of empty words
Don't pray for me mother, I won't hear it
Mother I can barely hear you speak
From behind salty seraphim eyes you speak
"Where are you?"
And I speak
Where were you when the enemy was at the gates?
When the bombs fell like rain?
When the world went silent and I woke with my crown soaked in blood?
When I was a lion backed into a corner by the wolves?
You knew I was strong, mother
But you also knew the wolves would never ******* rest
And that one day they'd tear me apart
So you spent that time stitching my epitaph together from caved in walls and shattered glass,
From rage and love and rage again
Blowing the dust off your grandfather's Bible,
"Forgive him Father, he knows not what he does"
I know not what I do, Mother
My ruin is mine alone
Do not let me destroy you, Mother
Scatter my ashes in your garden and sing my praise to the congregation
For you brought me the Gold which made me grey too early,
and it is for me that your gold will be made grey,
Too ******* early
Mother, look at me
It is for you I am restless, for you I am discontent, for you I am burning out my nervous system seeking a ******* answer
And for that, Mother,
I will thank you to my grave

No matter what they say, I am still the king

Come to me with damage sewn into the denim of your jacket,
with week old bruises decayed a beautiful yellow
And I will show you the scars from two souls cut each to each from the same magnificent stained glass
Come to me tripping manic on your delusions of heaven, with brilliant cross laid eternally upon your shoulders
And I will show you the Earth laid bare, stripped naked of supposed grandeur
Come to me timid and unsullied, knees scraped black by the chains of the altar
And I will show you the grave where I buried innocence, and the half-hearted epitaph I wrote when I was young and callous
Come to me yearning to believe, veins itching for a Hallelujah fix
And I will show you the words of my prophets inked into frail skin, testament to minds destroyed by madness before I'd even thought of the idea

Come to me pure and holy, hymnals dying in your throat with each breath, and I will show you sin
Come to me curious and I will show you the withering fire,
Come to me a lamb, and I will show you the slaughter

Come to me broken and deranged, revolutions pounding drums of war in your skull and I will show you mercy
Come to me sick and I will show you the desperate solution
Come to me a madman, and I will show you a liar

Come to me unwashed and sleepless, burning yourself out as a wheel in an unworthy machine and I will show you rest
Come to me seraphic and I will show you the taste of gold
Come to me craving, and I will leave you wanting

No matter what they say I am still the king