Through the soft rolling hills of a quiet lush field,
The breeze carried the scent of lilac in the air,
Those pale, purple flowers upon which I longingly gazed,
Were placed in the waves of her braided blonde hair

We feasted upon daily, the fruits of the land
And passed the day humming a harmonized tune
We slept in the fields, where evil had no home,
And drifted off under the eye of the moon

Until one day the breeze died down
And the lilac scent grew weak,
She became the first to wonder
And first desired to seek

Heaven’s water flooded the fields
Burying the flora in a grave of sod,
Abandoned us, had the eye of the moon,
Our life seemingly ruled by an angry god

We decided we must go someplace else
Settle down to another blissful home,
So we left the hills with only linen on our shoulders,
And sought out a utopia; that great unknown

The hot, heavy sun hit our necks without mercy
As we trudged endlessly through that unripe land
The only beauty there lay in her unmolested cheek,
When she pressed to it my calloused hand

The emptiness of our guts was an unbearable pain
I looked over and saw misery in her eye
How could I fail so horribly, to keep her from want?
I couldn’t stop her tears, her hurt refusing to subside

One day we came upon a gravely wounded bird
After days of feasting on air, we rushed to the creature’s side
I mournfully brandished my knife up high
And ****** down and held it there, till the bird had died

O’ cruel fates! What a trick you did play upon us!
Our lost innocence from that ****** was no small sacrifice
The irony there is but a horrible joke,
That there had to of been death, to give us sweet life

She ate its heart, and I its brain
And after, the rosiness returned to her cheek
A state of shudder-inducing blushing I’d so missed
I trembled with joy and felt my knees go weak

T’was a couple days later, and we’d found another creature
A squirrel caught napping up in its tree
The deed was done, and we’d just begun to feed
While a shadow silently slithered and stuck a knife to the back of me

All my muscles then clenched, I dared not to breathe
She tried to help by disarming the man
He slashed at her violently, wounding her cheek
Then through her cries, grabbed our meat and ran

Over the starving weeks, her cheek did heal
And memorialized in her skin with a scar
Was a realization of the brutality of the world
Leaving our fragile psyche’s permanently marred

The incident damaged me less than it did her,
She couldn’t seem to move on
“It’s so hard to get up in the morning.” she sighed
Her lust for life had gone

The grey cloud took over her brain
And one day to me she said
“Perhaps the bird and the squirrel were the lucky ones,
And you and I’d be better off dead.”

I pleaded with her to keep going on
Life without her would be too great a pain
I begged on my knees to no avail
She said “I must cast off this mortal chain.”

The next day I awoke to find her dress, like a rope around her neck
The other end, tautly tied, around a branch of a weeping willow
With blurred vision I got her down, my tears fell on her cheek
I laid her head down on my lap; t’was her final resting pillow

I buried her in a hand-dug grave
And left the next day at dawn
I marched on to find a new home
To distract from the fact she was gone
  
Trudging along, alone with my thoughts,
To converse with there was no one else
After a while, the guilt had fully come
Because there was no one to blame but myself

On rolls in the grey cloud
My once calm sea grew rough
And the same question arose, again and again
Had I done enough?

I no longer bothered to search for food
I soon stopped drinking my water
I walked for days, without any purpose
It was like leading a lamb to slaughter

On the third day of this
My body gave up and quit
I collapsed in the field and waited for the end
I felt body and conscious split

I had a vision of a speck of light
That grew bigger and brighter by the second
Then with a flash appeared a beautiful angel
Whom to me she beckoned

I awoke from the darkness in a cave
In its mouth stood the fair woman
It tore at my heart to see such loveliness
That I thought she mustn’t have been human

Her long brown locks intricately braided,
Ran down the length of her spine
With skin as smooth as porcelain
I longed for her to be mine

She tilted my head back
And poured down my throat water so pure
She fed me fresh fruits and savory stew
Till my shaking hands were sure

She asked me of my past
I told her of the trip
She asked about my companion
It was then that I bit my lip

The gates swung open, out came everything
And by the end she saw a broken man
I told her I didn’t think I could continue to go on
She replied “My love, let me show you that you can.”

Over time she took my body and soul
And brought them back to health
Just let me say that a well man
Is worth all of the world’s vast wealth

She helped me find some purpose in life,
The meaning of it all without my darling
And in the process I found my heart
Belonged to her now, my precious starling

She spends the day foraging for fruits
And I hunting animals for meat
We drift off at night in the cave
Together we lie while we sleep

It’s not a new perfect Eden
But my love of life and happiness there do grow
For I once again, smell that lilac scent,
And can bask in its fragrant glow.

Step down through the tunnel
To where sanity is the exception,
Not the rule. The reception is
Disorienting; the detoxers laugh
And the head-cases cry, or else
Silently portray the visual tome of anguish
With eyes dancing from the harsh, white lights.

Contorted bodies cry, buried by
Smiles, seemingly faked for the sake of normality.
Mutants scream the totality of their lives.
The Big Ship’s communications are grim,
Where once hope was laced in it
Now there are only omens of death;
There’s brevity in my breaths.
Guided by what seems to be deceit to me,
Panic guides my steps
Into the unknown. Dear god,
What have I done?

Guided in silence
By a uniform of darkness,
With no bark and no bite,
Through back passages, kept hidden
By anonymity.
There’s discomfort between us both
For different reasons, though
A weight around my wrist
Anxiety builds my fists.
Le Jeu Commence.

The mountain path cuts close to the bone;
I scrape by subsisting on mud & blood.
I've not seen a face in months, I'd guess
memories trickle, they no longer flood.

Where has Eva gone?
Each day she loses her grip on my mind
take me back to her little cottage
where each face of hers mesmerized and shined

to the point where heart & hearth were so moved
they saw certain scenes in brand new ways.
They captured doomed love by the heat of their hands
and separated us till the end of all days.

Now I trod and plod my way
to hell and back on through the path,
content in a way to waste my whims on nothing
as forlorn mountains still show me their wrath.

I silently sit in sin and ponder
how it is I wound up here:
a drunken fool with no promise
of brighter days ahead.
I remember nights spent
awake thinking of her,
replaying the dreams I've had,
like the one where she
lunges into my arms and
proclaims with a kiss that
she loved me all along,
while I smelled the scent of
cinnamon on her breath,
persimmons on her skin,
and lilac in her blonde hair.
Now the clock strikes 2 am,
and misery gains another companion,
as I'm forced to use my sleepless nights
to remember dreams of better times.

The firs started small, as they often do
some brave souls tried to walk on through;
the fire devoured them before my eye
it turned to me, I was next to die.

This high-rise offers no solution
I cling to hope & a resolution
looking right out the window
I see the pavement below.

The sky has left me bewitched
I see that heaven & hell have switched
as blazing as what lies behind
to go up, I go down, in my mind.

Release the latch, feel the wind
knowing I won't feel again.
Step off the ledge, to the ground I fly
the disgraced angel awaits me in the sky.

I remember those days, sweating down in Savannah
muggy misery washing over us as we schlepped
across a city that was as hot as hell could be,
yet an angel like you was able to glide
through with no problem, demons all in awe.
Transformed at night into a beautiful disaster
spending all night drinking and dancing,
I carried you home and was by your side,
holding your hair as you hurled throughout the night.

I look fondly back at the cooler moments,
in that air-conditioned museum,
and I remember thinking to myself
the true art walks around the place,
these sculptures and paintings don't know
how lucky they are to be
surrounded by such beauty.

Hands clasped in Forsyth Park,
a sundress simply stunning,
trying to hide weird sweat patterns on my shirt
******* in the gut I've got.
I'm self-conscious, but then get lost
in pale green eyes that chill me.

Nighttime highs of holding you
in ungraceful, crooked arms
are usurped with force by the thrill
of knowing you're safe from harm.

But memories like these are all false,
that trip to Savannah never taken,
all this an exercise in making my own misery.
I have nothing but my realizations,
like realizing that I'm in love with you,
and realizing that I'm thoroughly ******,
for it's agony to fall in love with a friend.

Let this serve as a eulogy for a Love left wanting;
god help me for the pain I've welcomed.

Weeping as they dealt away my hand, there's nothing
in my fingers but the trembling
of my panicked state; I see that
my future holds nothing for me
except the same misery of the past two years.
My first decade on this earth was
bright & optimistic,
as I went along naively
with the misleading world.
The latter half of my second act has been fraught
with the abandonment of my mind and state of bliss.
Now I'm just a broken boy
terrified of what the third act will hold
and if I'll make it till the end
or if I'll abandon the show
in search of a better ending.

A last breath
isn't even a chill
down the spine of him.
The difference between life & death
are mere semantics to a vile god
who spits on his creations, and yet winces
at their bravado via a defiant response.
They won't capitulate to an entity
that created them in vain
and mocks their purpose,
or lack of.

In the foggy hills of Appalachia,
through thickets of trees and brush, stood
a hidden house that was falling apart
as mold ate away at the wood,

and inside lay the palest being
that had hooks stabbed deep in its flesh.
It had cracked lips and a throbbing throat
that the sweetest water could not refresh.

"Come close cousin, and cry for me,
"I'm breathing my last." It said.
So closer I came, then it opened its eyes
they were colored the purest red,

and dazzled with innocence against the haunted house
they brought forth bright light from the dark,
red and white seemed to contrast well
and created quite a spark,

till the pure red did begin to fade,
and white turned to ashy gray.
I tore my heart from my chest as a sacrifice
but cried when the reaper said it couldn't stay.

It turns out a pale outline is much preferred
to empty space in the broken place
for I see nothing within that simple frame,
and it sticks out as the end of an unjust face.

I no longer see the desolate plain
Blue and green haven’t any distinction
Fauna are gone, extinction is here, and
I raise up my cup to see
If its emptiness has anything to yield.
There’s nothing in the field but
Radiated heat that meets with my mind
And tries to tear it in two.
My head shakes its sanity,
I sing of the sun, my inspiration
As I am on the edge of my mental frontier,
Holding on to, not hope, but desperation.

The dark is the worst, as
There’s something harsh in the night.
I’m by myself and I hate having to await
The dawn’s first light,
The song of the birds in flight.
The moon circles around me
Around my head and in my head;
Cicadas play dead and moths surround
Each exhale of frost
Caught by moonlight.

The sun awakes me, just the thought of it
With a couple hours to go.
Each buzz in my hand is the hope of Her
Rescuing me from my trap.

It’s both a feeling and a lack of feeling
That’s why it’s black, not grey;
Both a color and a lack of color.

I can’t be conscious.
I can’t keep going.

I wake up in a daze
Still a little drunk,
Skunked, take a walk to take a ****,
Feeling like I’ve missed something,
The agony of the day begins.

Kicking myself over fictional sins
The sickly stench of solitude
Sweeps me into silence.
Too much caffeine to jog my mind
My body is nauseated already.
Steady hands left me long ago
Sorrow and saltwater is within my eyes.

I can’t be conscious.
I can’t keep going.

Black thoughts are my wife
Prolonged by life, the ultimate depressant.
Wasted days are ever present;
Not the exception, but the rule.

After nap time, slurp up the drool and
Go to kingdom Cruel where
No self-aware being escapes its own glare.
Thoughts are frantic and fragmented
A stagnant mind, fragile it finds
Relief in not thinking, to be found
In drinking Aristocrat. But it wears off too soon;
It’s a depressant they say
Have they forgotten about life?

I carry baggage all over my body;
under my eyes
I don't sleep much anymore,
nerves eat at my stomach.
I carry baggage in my gut,
it's filled with guilt and despair.
I carry baggage in my heart,
it's getting heavy, and I
will have to set it down soon.
I carry baggage in my mind
with all the thoughts, unkind.

I know what caused the bluebird to cry:
'twas the deluge that necessitated the ark,
and the fact he was forced to fly the entirety
and couldn't seek refuge in the broken trees
he once had as homes.

His love, one of two on the ark,
the second- the winner, of a competition
that he'd never thought existed.

He flies close to it
to still have her near him
and he hears her chirp
with what seems like a smile, at the winner
of a competition he'd never believed in,
because he was taught to think
that love wasn't a thing one
could win or lose at.
Yet there he was, trying to catch up
in a race he'd already lost,
because his mind was telling him to keep trying
for something his heart knew
was long gone.

I remember the nights spent with you,
under the stars and sharing a blunt,
back when my life was better,
and the **** only used for a bit of fun,
instead of the necessity it has become
as the alcohol was, once upon a time.

I've learned to blunt my pain with apathy,
choke back sobs with determination,
and to go into the bathroom
when my panic attacks come on.

I try and hide the pain from
my closest friends because
I'm afraid my misery will push them away,
and then I'll be alone again.

I've stayed my hand from
the hilt of the blade, for many reasons,
but you're the biggest; the person
I love most in the world
and the fact that I'm not ready
to leave you just yet.

I found heaven on this earthly plane,
it lies in the hours of a gentle night
spent whispering, to not disturb the elders.

A hazy greeting, good food consumed,
A dog barking at the strange people he sees.
A restrained heart throbbing from a rare excitement shown,
A surprise unknown was a sweet green delight.

Returned from the darkness, the haze ever stronger;
for dessert, apple pie, that American treat.
My smile threatening to burst at the seams,
till we bid adieu with long hugs and goodbyes.

It was everything and more than I'd dared to dream,
by far the best birthday I've ever had,
though age has robbed me
of the memories of older ones.

It makes me want to fall to my knees and pray
to a god I don't even believe in
to thank him for bringing you both into my life.

In the catacombs lies my love, reposed
in the throes of darkness where demons roam;
dim lights shone on empty tombs
a guilty verdict reached before the trial could begin.
Let the dust mark the passage of time
and make divine the smallest of specks.
The wretched stench bespoke of rotting flesh,
fill our souls with musty cement,
and gouge out my heart so I can feel no pain.

Sip the poison with the cherry wine
and find out which one is more bitter,
but never figure out which gets you drunk,
just regret each gulp you take,
then make yourself ***** with anxious hands,
and omit the passion the runs deep within you.
Fashion a mold to sing a hymn to you.

Waltz upon decaying tile
until you've danced for miles and
find yourself at the intersection of
future passions and past despairs.

Then you have a choice to make,
to continue along the crumbling road,
sacrifice your life for misery's sake,
ration the odds for your salvation,
and insulate your heart and soul
from the whims of wicked winds;

or you can make the turn,
burn what's behind you, build
skyscrapers to fuel your highs,
and go full force, higher and higher,
then your apotheosis will be complete

Cannibals rust on the dusty plains
the roots erode in the acid rain
trek towards the carnival grounds
enchanted by the torturous sounds.
Survived too long on rotted grains
the barker introduces me to his game:
dunk the mayors of ghost towns
into water, till they all drown.
I can't make out the weather
singed into Eva's feather
'cause Thalia's eyes conquer my mind
and leave the devil's contract unsigned.
Rapists and thieves, in equal measure,
indulge themselves in mechanical pleasures,
while the barker calls out in lucid rhymes
Ulysses rolls on the wheels of time

On through the night, to 3 a.m.
the price, in blood, is what we're payin'
to roll around in pre-dug graves
hoping we're the ones the preacher saves
to crucify us for what we're saying
lamenting on the carnival's decaying
till it's gone, and over it is paved
the barker's tomb, with his quotes so depraved.

Why do I think that
small gifts will curry favor?
I can't give my friends what they deserve.
I'm a cockroach in the dark
desperate for the light of their love;
let me feed off the wreckage of my damaged hopes,
my daring to dream of simple pleasures:
the embrace of camaraderie,
the gentle swelling of our hearts together,
a reassurance of their caring for me,
and the space to let the insecticide to work its magic.

I can't fathom my worth,
what is a star's worth in a universe of light?
Precious little, I reckon.
Their existence will carry on unscathed
by the dying of the light,
and so I go now, wearily,
into the loneliness of that night.

Why do I think that
small gifts will curry favor?
I can't give my friends what they deserve.
I'm a cockroach in the dark
desperate for the light of their love;
let me feed off the wreckage of my damaged hopes,
my daring to dream of simple pleasures:
the embrace of camaraderie,
the gentle swelling of our hearts together,
a reassurance of their caring for me,
and the space to let the insecticide to work its magic.

I can't fathom my worth,
what is a star's worth in a universe of light?
Precious little, I reckon.
Their existence will carry on unscathed
by the dying of the light,
and so I go now, wearily,
into the loneliness of that night.

I miss the stupor of a drunken night
spent singing softly in a room of dim light,
not even sad, so why did I cry?
There was a plea for help behind every lie
that I gave them to keep it all under wraps
to throw off the stench of all the mishaps,
like when I blew chunks all over the couch
or nearly got caught with a mini bottle in my mouth.
My hands shake while I'm awake all night
comfortably crying in a room of dim light.

A sweet reprieve for a dead man
penning poems in the bathroom
harsh creatures whispering
trace a familiar path.
Listen to a ****** song
just to mark the passage of time.
Take another swig
give your hand another reason to shake,
30 minutes later they'll find you
with tears cauterizing your wound.

I've hidden amongst the hidden shadows
of a corrupted universe
spoiled by beings that deserve their fate:
to be kissed by flames for all eternity,
ravaged by the hounds of time,
and kissed by demons with poisoned lips.

I say farewell to my future's plans
and fall in line with the depths of my despair,
hoping my offensive death will change the tide
of regression back to the putrid mean.

Do whatever you want to do:

pick apart my faults to the point
where I can't utter my own name,

free my demons to let them
circle me like salivating vultures,

stomp on my face and all the while
say I'm nothing more than a common *****,

piece together all my hopes
and force me to watch as you smash them again,

grind my feelings to a dusty pulp and
spew venom on my skin,

make me wish I were dead,

tell me I'm not good enough,

make me feel inferior every day
till I learn to do it myself like a dog,

just please don't leave me
all alone.

Let me blunt my pain with a pretty phrase
the way a disciple of Kierkegaard should,
the way all poets do:

I Panic with the clarity of the night sky,
all turned about like the captain of a boat
leading his ship of the Absurd
through Sisyphus' strait
till I slip away smoothly
on a rowboat to the immortal land of death,
naively thinking I had cheated my creator
of playing the cruelest trick in the book
(and the oldest too).
But he still gets the last laugh;
an Immortal always does?.

A beach is roughest in winter
As snow and sand run through my hand
I lie in the dunes
Awaiting Doom and Death
My brethren in fighting life’s last joys
We delight in lighting the ocean aflame.
Lions are tamed in their cages, when
The strings of a harp tighten around their throats.
Analyzing the ragged fabric of my fantasies;
How can they be so dark, when they’re mine?
I’d like nothing more
Than to envision my paradise:
Drinking milk from the ****
Spitting cherry pits out, with
Gregory’s soft voice filling my head. But
The visions and sounds are murky,
It’s always lurking nearby- muddying up the water.
My fantasies instead, are of the beach.

The fire is spreading now
The flames are tinged blue
Doom and Death are collecting my dues
Their fingers leave bruises.
The fire is hungry
And milk will no longer put it out.
Human sacrifice was fine for ancients
Barbaric now, feed to it the sacred cow.

Because I'm a **** up
who sees nightmares in all his dreams,
the sun won't come up on the days
that are replete with bleak scenes
of a fleeing dove with broken wings;
poor, tortured thing, all stuck in chains,
acid dropped upon its head
till nothing but its bonds remain.
It whimpers as it dissolves away;
gone from a trickle to a pour,
there's no way to ease its immortal death.
The sweet demon screams forever more.

Stretched out taut over a drum
is the skin of a dead man
who died at the hand of original sin.
Guilty from his very first breath,
till death he worked to right his wrongs,
only to always fail in the end.

Born a crook, his first steps
were taken in the sand;
left behind and blamed ,
the cup overflows with blood.

Bruised fruit hanging from a tree,
they dance through the flames while a drum
as dark as the night that's about to come
is beaten until it's broken by time
like his forebears' souls throughout the diaspora.

We've all seen your eyes as they are,
redder than the sea he parted
to escape from your path,
swollen like the womb from which we all have sprung-
but you not gingerly enough-
misshapen and bent, and as glassy as the ceiling
you has hoped to break.

But only I've seen your eyes as they warmed by the fire
and caught the fire in a passionate fit
of determined grace.
And only I have seen your eyes
when they are at their peak,
brighter than the sun when the rapture comes,
surrounded by lines from a smile so wide,
and on a head with brightened cheeks,
displayed for the world to see.

Her crayons are sprawled out
Across the steakhouse’s table,
Drawing the star they want her
To be. The mood lighting casts shadows;
Their wrinkled, withered faces dampen her eyes.
“Can I show mommy my drawing?”
“…”
“Do you guys like it?”
“…”
She stops trying, they munch on flesh
A cash cow is more tender than most.
She’s hungry, and gets nothing,
Told to smell the sweetness of an apple
And spend the rest of her life chasing its taste;
Never achieved, they empty her of her dreams
Replaced by frauds.
Then the check finally comes, but at what cost?

Let these words be your Northern Star,
a beacon in the darkness of night.

Heavy is the head with the noblest of thoughts,
hair laced with forget-me-nots falls
over shoulders that carry Atlas' burden
with a firm and determined grace.

Soaring is the heart
that's lighter than the feather
that Anubis will one day use
to proclaim your worthiness.

Beautiful is the soul
with the purest of intentions;
your soul is truly
god's greatest invention.

Hold on tight when life causes you pain
for it's just its way of teaching you
all the lessons worth learning.

You may wonder why I did what I did,
it was for the many times I've leaned on you,
in my most tortured times you've given me peace,
so it's only right that I give
as much as I can back to you.

Forgive me for lying, but I was afraid
that you might not accept the gift I gave.
Had I kept it, it would go unused,
you have more need for it than I do.

Maybe I'm presuming too much but
whatever happened, I think you've suffered enough.


I hope this world won't
make you jaded and cynical,
that's why I wanted to show you that
there's still humanity left in the world
and if ever there was a person who
deserved the world's kindness and love,
it's you my dear, you deserve it all.

She died drunk as desolation
played her a gentle hymn
with flies crawling from under her tongue
and leaving her to her grave.

My tears made spots in
the dirt on her face,
we were in love with the chase of
highs we no longer attained.

Like sunken bug bites on her arm
with cuts all along her thigh,
I couldn't keep her from harm so we
cried through the nights as our highs
damaged us as much as the lows.

One day she moved no more,
having begged and beaten on the door
for too long till her hands were bruised,
and her soul failed her after so much disuse.

It’s faded, my future is jaded and
Is paraded through my line of sight like
A mangled, malnourished show pony that looks
Older than it is;
Old beyond its years, in terms of exhaustion.
It’ll be a work animal soon enough, a day laborer
With nights spent with the moon around it
And days with remembering the sun, imagining Her
Finding some other demented soul willing
To drive himself insane over Her.

Take each step one at a time, and only once,
The detoxers know this well.
Cling to the hope of getting better
And becoming whole again.
It seems so unlikely, I know,
But hope, no matter how slim the edge of it is,
Is worth grasping with every ounce of strength.
Then you can pull yourself up,
Drink from the cup,
And see the sun
Shining Her warmth with a smile.

Pearls of protection on a ***** palm,
angst-addled fists seeking refuge in the wall,
we hold on to hope in different ways.

I hold my anger the hope of a hidden heart
and she ties her tears to the hopes of tomorrow.
Our grievances of the past are not forgotten.
Our grievances with the present are never-ending.
Our grievances with the future are not even aired
and already they grow weary with our beings.

Capitalize on the cost of seeking peace
by creating conflict within the conscious
and find out which one will prevail:
the anger or the sadness;
the fists or the pearls.

An apotheosis awaits me in these streets,
from a lost, timid soul, scarred
by the shallow depths his heart can't reach,
to a vivacious creature, that
only a being like me could create.
The lights dance with the crowd, color crumbles calmly
and cuts through the chorus of lovers
all intertwined and tied together
by the sweet scent and essence of the night

Why won’t they set my siren free?
I shake in fury miserably.
Grant me my pain,
you with the two French braids.
I contemplate my grey-zone state
& regret riding with my instant whims
that carried undercurrents
of desires held deep within,
that go against the tide.

Sitting in the haze of smoke, arranging
thoughts of mine that are so quickly fleeting
and flying from my mind towards my thumbs
as a Dante singing praise of Beatrice,
or a man in black walking the line for June.
With you and misery as my muse, I stumble
to my room, dazed, focused on remembering the words
and the arrangement they first held in my head.
And here I am, a long-haired ***,
a beatnik marching to the beat of his own drum.
This is too much about me, not enough about you,
here’s your spotlight, it’s long overdue.

It’s a frigid night, I peer through the window and
you’re there, wearing ripped jeans, a faux leather jacket,
a punk rocker somehow avoiding cliche.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve
instinctively smiled just at the sight of you, knowing
that for at least a while, in my mind,
all is well.

You reach to give me a hug
and I don’t shy away; I’m not one for hugs,
I don’t even like hugging my mother, but
with you it feels right:
a one-armed hug with a two-armed intensity.
Food is ordered,
seats are taken,
chatting commences.
I don’t particularly like the food; that’s fine,
It’s not the reason I’m there anyways.
I’ll barely remember what you said afterwards
but I’ll always remember how you made me feel.
Even with the brief time we have
we find ways of making it last, after all,
happiness has the longest half life of all emotions.

Like that, it's over, as if a snap of the fingers
is all it takes to lose you. I tell myself
it's better to have loved and lost,
then to have never loved at all.
But that doesn't help in the moment.
In the moment, all I can think of is how I'd ****
to be by your side, for just another minute.

I am the cat that Schrödinger hypothesized,
prophesied of, to be in the purgatory of existence.
This nightmare I've dreamt of
in every waking moment spent
on what feels like broken time;
I reel in my awoken apotheosis
into a devil's living hell.

He knows my speed
but not where I lie
that's wherein my danger lies.
Clasp the trunk
speak of triumph through my chaos.
My deeds are punished
though I receive nothing;
I believe it's time for me to leave,
on towards Bethlehem,
to watch my little demon be born.

In the clock tower the flames are out
The angels grab hold of the dead.
Streets are swept with mothers’ simpers and shouts
Who’ve aching hearts and pained heads.

The beasts of burden have begun their retreat,
‘tis time to find the survivors,
And show them heart, good wine, and sweets
And forgive the sins of the liars.

The town begins its journey back to health
From the ash a phoenix will rise.
Then the town can put this fable up on the shelf
As pits of iron flash in their eyes.

See dawn & dusk all morph into one
as I bid my friends adieu to
the city encamped below,
make my way through the hills up towards
the shrine of the harlots and hymners,
and feel a release in the blood-red sky.

Chanting,. prancing, panting in the heat
of the desert mountain night, I found love
in the eyes of the duchess whose
temperament screamed into the lake of fire
and whose broken fingernails were the result of
digging into and consuming the earth.

Once returned to the city, never the same
the game has been lost to
autumnal shame in niches everlasting
into the abyss of our future
Let these words serve as a requiem for
the lost lives of our future kin.

The game was played, some hot summer night
and the humidity's entrails scattered the darkness' winds.
Though I recall with ease, my opponent-
my honorable, forever-cherished, predatory opponent-
the game itself blurs with the ticking forward of time.

We played over hand-rolled cigarettes and gin & tonics
seeking, not fine spirits, but the depressing buzz
we sat on the porch of the cabin, surrounded by forest.
We played, to lose ourselves in some worthless pursuit
and instead the life-affirming quality of the trivial.

The game began; his face spoke to me throughout
the wrinkles were relaxed, yet the eyes stayed bright;
the game lasted for hours into the night
nicotine, alcohol, and the tension of that game
yielded a high-like trance in our sleep-deprived minds.

Back and forth, turn after turn, an upper hand was never gained
respect for each other formed on our lips
in smiles from the heat of our joy.
The high from the night grew stronger
with our solace from isolation.

Then the sun cruelly rose, and he won.
I felt empty with the end of it,
like the death of one's father, the death of the moment.
I'd kneel before a deity I don't comprehend
for one more of those eternal moments.

I haven't seen him since; I left the next day
dreary, muggy rain marked my departure.
I think of him and the night, when my melancholy takes over:
the dim porch light illuminated the stoppage of time.
What beautiful power we grant, to the smallest of things.

Two pairs of tearful eyes part at dusk
Bodies pushed apart by a hurt to brusque
Can’t the cruel gods let our love get through?
Or must we pray at this forested pew?
Why let what we were die a painless death,
When choking it could take its last breath?

Unlike a light bulb that goes out slow
Ours leaves behind no defiant glow.
And as the moon sinks into the sea
We are bound by time’s eternal decree
That separates lovers from aging desire
And leaves them empty at its haunted pyre.

We fought our cannibalistic insecurities
But became their unwilling allies with frightful ease
They entered as parasites into my head
Upon my horrors they were well fed
And now they angrily push us apart
And feast on what’s left of our once beating heart.

I’ll weep for the day that I forget for forever
Those innocent, youthful memories, we had together.

Conflate this with the contents of my heart
and hopefully you'll find a
glimmer of what there was for you; you,
the playwright of so much of my pain,
self-inflicted though it was.

Hush your heart and feel
its beats, are they in rhythm with mine?
I suppose they're not, we never got
on the same page, I'm afraid.
I'm scared of the irreparable damage
I've caused by daring to dream
and touch you, my sun.

Now my feathers gleefully flee from me,
and they land in the sea lightly,
where soon I'll crash,
and enter my watery grave.

A freezing of my frigid soul
it has rigid wrinkles etched
like calligraphy put into stone; there's
a permanence to my way, I've debated change
too many times within myself, I know
there's no hope in the fickle throat of one
who cannot walk the walk.

I rest my head at the
rotation of the light,
pray for a reprieve in the night, and
cast my lot with the hopeless youths who've
been lied to by kith & kin, or else
heard their own delusions in
each utterance they were given.
Either way, we've frozen souls and hearts melted
by warm tears pouring from
our own roaring storms.

I see sanity replaced
       by the despondency of a hopeless feeling.
Look how the sea is placed;
       only determined ones break the watery ceiling.
A school of fish
       break through, towards the heavenly plain;
communicated their wish,
       made a mockery of by his disdain.
Sent back to the surf
       to watch seashells all turn to dust,
his humble serfs
       wait solemnly as he allows their scales to rust.

I ask them all these questions
about their lives,
their loves and passions
and pains and promises.

I ask because I love them
and care.
                 But what questions
do they return? A fraction
of what was given;
is friendship now
just a one way street?

Do they dislike me?
Do they despise me?
Do I even deserve their
fraction of affection?
And they wonder why I say
that I feel all alone; I've forgotten
what true friendship is, and wonder
if I ever really knew.

The sled is overfilled with gifts
Given by friends to friends,
Lovers’ quarrels have begun to shift
They dance in the streets again.

It’s a light fog, not smoke, that romances the air
We don’t have to weep for our sins.
There’s atonement to be found at the local fair
Where today is the day that forgives.

There’s hope in hearts and laughter in lungs
No beasts around to rob them
No longer trying to descend the rungs
To solve a short term problem.