It’s always the way
my beloveds seem to stray.
I am here today
and they are gone away tomorrow.

She fell and broke her life
People rushed to help
It was touch and go for a time
The surgeon had to amputate
But he was finally removed
The recovery was long
Sometimes she felt he was still there
Touching her inside
Messing with her head
They said this would happen
Such intensity is bound to leave scars
But they would heal
Someday another would come along
She would be stronger.

Things doesn't have to be
Beautiful,
As long as they're
Real.

I do not enjoy the
busy highway.
So, I take a slow ride
on the frontage road
on my way to work
tonight.

Thin wisps of
dark blue clouds
curve over
a turquoise sky.
Then the day fades
and nightshades
are interrupted
by lightning
off to the left.

Past the gas station,
where buildings become
fewer and farther between,
glow worms work
the fields of grass
blinking like
stars on earth.

Tears work
there way
past my solitary guard
as I recall
an old yard
of childhood games
and familiar family faces.
Too many of those faces
are now specters
planted in a deadman’s field.

No time for nostalgia,
no signs of weakness,
I beat this melancholia
with exercise
and caffeine
before my coworkers
can ever see me.

“Tell me quick,”
the demon smiled
with teeth as long
as a crocodile’s,
threatening to
chomp down on my hand,
and turn it into a stump
of mangled flesh.
“Do you think
that you will survive
all the monsters crawling
deep inside
you fragile fractured mind?”
The slimy skin
was glistening,
with over accentuated
varicose veins pumping
poison and acid.
I turned away
from the shadowy form
to ignore the coming storm
of my madness.
But he smiled
deep and darkly
as if he could see
the very heart of me.
I shivered with despair
tinkling in all my fear
because the monster
made it very clear
that I would die
this very evening.
Though I cried
he ignored me,
while he walked away.
In all the terrors that I’ve seen
this is the one that made me scream,
begging for the angels to rescue me,
but the feathered hosts
of heaven never came.
No mattered how hard I prayed
I was on my own.
There before me
lay a silver blade.
So, I grabbed it while I waited.
The beast came back to fill his gut,
so I shoved the blade right up his but
and watch the filth and blood
drain from his bowls.
A smoking mass of ****** blood
made the strangest kind of sound
as it drained in clumps onto the mud.
He howled in rage and agony;
but I just smiled
with a sinister glee,
because I found the monster
was not as beastly as me.
Now the forest may be full
of demons, trolls, or goblins,
but I know that I can stop them,
so I feel no fear.

I like things that are ugly
Like dirt
but not the nice dirt
you know the kind lightly sticks to wrists
the kind that you can easily wipe off
not that kind
I like the ugly kind
the seep into your shoes kind
the ruin a wardrobe kind
the type of dirt that you didn't know a second ago
but the type you'll know for years to come
I like things that are ugly
like a broken pool cue
but not the nice kind
the one with the decent tip
the one that we all call "old reliable"
not that one
I like the shattered one
the one we fear will break each time
the kind that all the chalk in the world couldn't mend
I like things that are ugly
Like an unmade bed
but not the nice kind
the ruffled sheets that beckon you to enter
not that kind
I like my blankets strewn about
the pillow cases stained with ketchup
the overwhelming sense of discomfort
those are the beds I like
I like things that are ugly
Like a crying girl
but not the pretty one alone on a bus
crying about some boy from some town
wishing she remembered how it felt before she'd loved
not that kind
I like the kind that are shaken, disheveled
unfinished puzzles beckoning to be solved
but fully aware they came without all the pieces

I like things that are Ugly