The Devil lives in all things
In my skin, tattooing sins down my neck so bold I had to grow my hair to hide them all under it
In my grandmothers voice as she drifted back and forth across decades of indecision and compromise in a haze of narcotics and brutal nostalgia
In my best friends veins, always waiting until the lights went out before putting on a shadow puppet show of The Fall on his bedroom walls
In my fathers fists, clenched tight around anything that reminded him of an almost could have been,
In my older brothers brain, filling the holes that pride and drugs left there with a manic depressive war that can only be won through surrender
In my younger brothers heart, weaving together his arteries until he had grown too cold to speak through no fault of his own
In my sisters pen, scribbling out music notes to a melody that would remind her forever of where she had come from and the ghosts she could not escape
In my lovers tears, tasting only separation and the bitterness of memory and the pollution of rivers once pure,
I cross myself, once, twice, thrice
I speak the words
I exorcise the Devil
I show him a card trick
He seems impressed
He lights my cigarette
We keep each other company
We both have a long way to go,
The night is too dark to be alone
And we both know we won't keep till morning

I am writing this in my head by the first light of morning while you sleep beside me
I am lying awake
I am counting your breaths, translating each one as a confirmation that I transcribe to hieroglyphics with my fingertips on your stomach
I am memorizing where every part of your body is located in relation to mine and I am taking steps to maintain proportions
I am letting my hair become tangled in yours because I am afraid of not touching you
I am deconstructing this moment as it unfolds, letting it envelop the alarm clocks and my sense of self
I am reconstructing my visions of the future
I am reconstructing myself to fit accordingly
I am born again
I have never been touched
I have never been kissed or broken or ****** or bruised
I am letting myself be made clean
You open your eyes periodically, look me in the face, then fall back asleep
I am reminded of watching the sky for hours in my youth because I never wanted to miss even one shooting star
I never regretted the exhaustion then, and I **** well won't now

Flowers for loved ones

Reminders of mortality

Graves decorated,
The inconsistency of stories

Memory floating in on river breezes,
Bitter and sweet in cramped summer
Swaying with leaves and sanity, glimpses of history repeating

Movements in a piece of music,
Strings swell over sleepless city
Percussion beat urgency into angry hearts
Woodwind ease the beasts back towards dreams
Brass to commemorate the time lost in the between

Forests burnt entirely down
Wildlife returning in uneasy steps
Retracing paths lost to ash
Reconnecting with roots
Miracles in a slow march
Water from streams
Beauty in the remains
Finding a way to cope with the fallout

Light up a smoke
Start to cry
Relapse just enough
Rewrite your reality
Present a better narrative
Take stock of your surroundings;
Friends, lovers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, memories, psychoses, vices, recurring nightmares, moments of brilliance
Words that keep bleeding no matter how many times you write them down
People that keep calling no matter how many times you change your name
Spirits that cling to skin, absence of escape routes, confessions that never solidify into repentance, apologies that never pass through lips,
Heretic heart burning vicious under black sky
Bones aching for the weight of mourning
Take a breath
Stop freaking out
Keep your sense of humor
Give it teeth and let it draw blood
Dig yourself out
Kiss your lover
Kiss your friends
Kiss the sunrise as she relieves you of burden
Find the furthest corners of your mind
Keep a candle lit to view the writing left on the walls there
Take photographs of each moment in the event you find yourself missing it someday
Release yourself shamelessly into the night
Reinvent your language
Speak over people when they stop respecting your voice
Bleed it out bleed it out bleed it out
Fill your page
Fill your lungs
It will be enough someday

Talking in code
Talking in rhyme
Sitting up summer nights on balconies high up enough to reach out and knock knock knock on heaven's door drunk on gin and chewing mint leaves trying to come to some kind of solution
There are problems here that need addressing but how much easier would it be to just ******* about it?
Piecing together alibis from the body counts of tragedies, picking up as many fragments as we can with the little strength we have left
We didn't do very much to deserve to feel this tired did we?
We could never figure out how to remove ourselves from the equation
Answers are a lot harder to come by when you've lost all personal interest
Where is this going?
Where does this progression end?
I wanna see what else is on
When I was a child I had recurring nightmares about televisions
When they shot Andy Warhol all he could say was that his entire life had been television all along
I don't know how to find comfort in familiarity
I am missing the connection here
I wanna see what else is on

I am writing to convince myself
I am on the second day of withdrawal symptoms and I am kicking myself for using such juvenile metaphors
I am sifting through scraps of newspapers, each one bearing the face of Antichrist burned into my retinas
I am feeling myself swell with rage
I am clenching fists and biting tongues
I am limited in my capacity to destroy
I am becoming romantic about forest fires and wildlife again
I am becoming misty eyed at the thought of where we came from
I am speaking in tongues
I am establishing a dialogue
I am addressing Mohammed as if we met at a high school party
I am watching a child of Christ light a cigarette at a gas pump
I am trying to think of an excuse to leave
I am breathing in exhaust fumes
I am standing on Nietzsche's shoulders as if he owed me a better view
I am putting off calling my grandmother back
I am godless in my arrogance
I am strung out on my ideology
I am overdosing on words
I am fighting hard
I am losing
That doesn't matter

THE REAGANS KILLED MY BEST FRIEND

THOUSANDS MORE DEAD, THE PLAGUED MASSES PLEADING TO BE MADE CLEAN

THOUSANDS MORE INCARCERATED, THE JUNK SICK DESPERATION VOMITING UP DEMONS IN JAIL CELLS

THOUSANDS MORE HOMELESS, DEEMED WORTHY OF NOTHING MORE THAN SPARE PENNIES AND BARELY CONCEALED DISGUST

I will not let the blood be washed away
I will not let history paint you as Saint
I will not let you be made holy
I will not become another casualty in your war
Not while I still have a voice
I spit on your grave
I see red
I bleed red
I am red
I am a rifle
I am a nuclear warhead
I am a Contra weaponizing loopholes in the law to **** my enemies with
I am Osama bin Laden as the Crucifed Christ
I am the AIDS victim drinking drop by drop of toxic blood while the hawks of war stifle laughter from gay jokes in their capitals
I am the ****** bashing my head into a wall hoping to destroy the itch before it destroys me
I am the beggar who the wealth never trickled down to
I am the mental patient met with closed doors anf nothing but ammunition to soothe the screaming in my head
I am the workers on strike chiming out the death knell of the unions and my own autonomy
I am the Soviet child living one badly timed joke from holocaust

I AM THE DEATH MASK OF YOUR ANNIHILATION
I AM THE DAMAGE DONE
I AM WASHINGTON BURNING DOWN
I AM MOSCOW INSOMNIAC
I AM HINCKLEY IN MY DREAMS I **** YOU EVERY NIGHT
I AM WATCHING YOU RISE AGAIN
I AM TERRIFIED OF YOUR SURVIVAL
I AM READY TO DIE BEFORE I LET YOU RESUME CONTROL
I AM SICK OF LIVING IN YOUR SHADOW
I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE