A disconnected fool
A dying boy
A public enemy
Broken people
Burned bodies
Scarred for centuries
Never erased

Amaryllis in the Spring
because it's a pure & innocent thing

before a summer of rockets,
debris of hope—

              the Age of Discovery,
              the Punishment of Lust

an intravenous poison of decline forms
the new math: eye value minus itself

in waltz-time the body is radio-active,
there is no such thing as labor saving machinery

ask Garbo or Monroe, very happy one moment,
the next there was nothing left

their machines did the heavy lifting,
but one was not the loneliest number

They blindly follow
the soulless who'd  launch missiles
to destroy us all...Kelly McManus

Want a sugar coating
then find another poet
to frost your cupcakes...Kelly McManus

my roots are growing in ashy
i can't stop looking at my acne scars

i taste everything good in me
and lick the sin off my fingers

but no one told me that loving myself
would be this exhausting

All I know
Is how
I feel

And sometimes I
Wish I
Knew nothing

i’m numb,
no i’m not sad, not happy
maybe i’m fine

but i’m numb

when you give them your all
and you often don’t get it back
it leaves you empty

no.

it leaves you numb