“You’ll never get in. You just can’t. You don’t understand.”,
she says. in this, i can’t help but hear that constant chorus.
she sobs softly in a room i can’t open; door locked.
she can’t help herself. she always cries in the morning.
i can’t believe she’s the same person as in the evening before;
in fishnets and spike heels, vying for attention, can’t take no,
no, won’t take no as an answer. in fact, i can’t take no
so well myself. in a growing rage, i can’t hold back.
can’t stand this helplessness in my own home.
i try to get in with a slam and a kick but can’t.
she sounds out louder in fear, can’t help herself.
in-side, i burn angrily at the sound. i can’t stand it;
can’t shake it, like a potlid in the throes of boil.
it’s strange. in my mind, i can’t remember how it
started. in memories, we can’t keep our hands to
ourselves, intwined at the hip and mouth, can’t stop
or don’t want to. in reality, i guess we still can’t,
though i can’t say it’s in the same ways. well,
i get in. she can’t hold back her sullen tears.
she can’t hide the hints in last night’s stockings,
torn into large holes. i can’t help but growl and
she can’t help but weep heavily in that old, familiar
way. and so now, we can’t stop it. it’s in motion.
the ritual complete. can’t help that, in each other,
we summon the worst.

I will bury you
your bones and mine
first above & below
then slowly into each
our entrails will form
radicles and shoots
blowing past the past
to entwine in the rays
of some future sun
unspoken & bespoke

I will bury you
each gift given freely
consumed whole
seething, staring down
with unseeing eyes
another morsel
demanded of you
which you bequeath
lovingly, for love,
to love, to be loved

I will bury you
lips smeared with
pale juices, an elixir
to transform
you, from your youness
inhaled hungrily from
saccharine statements
in offering to some
eldritch thought that
sits just between us both.

dark & light dance left
horizon a glacial crawl
spectrum shifting sable

watched closely enough
she was as an old TV,
diode warm, alive

and yet, undead too.
not gone but going. she knew.
her silent song set

a winking line of
signal, weeping out her last
lacrimal notes now

waves rushing to shore
sounded bent, for a moment
wobbling, unmoored

i heard the hum of
a **** turning, clicking to
off. electrical

bubble burst. picture
crushed into that same long line,
like an eye mid-blink
but never
blunk

there is
inside me
at my deepest part
a little black ball
of rage

i don’t know how it got there
well, that’s only half true
i don’t know how it quite got there
at my core
at the heart of my being
but i know when it got there
hewn hard into my flesh
my mind, bones
tempered into me each night
my matriarch’s take
on hephaestus’s forge
and each morning
quenched in the light of day
each walk to school
under the sun’s yawning beams
miasma erupting from my pores
the liminal release before
the cycle began
anew

so, suffice it to say,
it’s in there deep.
DEEP deep.
and it reminds me every day.
hissing out from my heart
seething out of my skin
the steady sssssssss
of it always in the periphery
BGM for my life
like whatever that Animal Crossing theme is called
but sharper
a slicing sliver of steam

most days
she’s content to rest easy
in the wet dark alcoves inside me
a passive hum of her slumbering ember
rattling from my chest

on others
she demands her freedom
tells me i don’t deserve the reins
tells me i need her to lead us
i say “no”
she rouses
sizzling note rising to a low rumble
she says yes
i say No.
first
a jet of flame
burning bright blue white
like the first blazing pinions
from a piece of fresh firewood
seared sap seeping into
sssssssss
down to deep crimson
a spider lily dancing out of me
showing me
beautifully bouncing
and it’s tempting to get lost in that
get lost in the beauty of a renegade part
of your very own soul saying
****. That.
saying
****. You.
there’s something profound about it
(and someday, i hope a wiser person than i can tell you about it)
but getting lost in it is a snare
a distraction
more importantly
there’s the
ssssssssseething

if you listen hard now
the little black ball
she says
sssssssss
no one will ever understand you
sssssssss

another burst of light
that sinks sallow
from it
she shrieks
sssssssss
your only talent is pain
sssssssss

now a cascade
SSSSSSSSS
she roars now
a lioness tearing her way out of me
into me
she says
you know it would be better if it was just all gone  
my back erupting
a billowing cloak of indignant ignition
stoked by memories of midnight visitors
with knives or less
and christmas eves in dank dirt rooms
of ****** tears and well-tended wounds
and this is part of the temptation, to be honest
to just              

                                burn
with
it

to let go and feel
fall to it all
to succumb to the anger.
sorrow. vengeful vigor.
ambrosia would feel like this
ultimate release
my metaphorical form Usagi mid-transformation

                                 We
Burn

and i’m gone

there’s no me
just us
just her
we’re a phoenix of rage
she sneers through my teeth
a cheshire grin in smoke
she leers through my eyes
unblinking and vulpine
together, we cut down forests
burn and salt the earth
in devastation there is clarity, ya know?
we seethe
we embrace
in that flame
we connect
we seethe
shrieking a banshee’s call
unheard to all
but us
We
Seethe

and it feels amazing
truly
but as we all know
there is a cost to such things
and the cost of flames is steep
so. not plan A.

she needs out though
my little black ball
and i think she deserves to seethe
she deserves to rage
and so, some days,
i let her out
i let her out
here
right here
she reaches for you
wants you to know
the burden and blessing
the sorrow
the anger
the hiss of her voice
she wants to be known
she wants you to know her
you're almost there
it only burns for a moment
can you hear her?
can you hear her
sssssssss?

when i spilled onto this earth,
i was born with a human head
and a mane
no one thought anything strange about this
of course
not so strange to have a mane
i was just ahead of the curve
(which would not be a trend)

i grew and so did my mane
it blossomed bushily
i got my name
and, when the first fist arrived at my ribcage,
i got my first fang

sulfurous and shaking
rank marlboro breath
reeking from sorry bones he called teeth
the first of many came
and showed me that my human head
was soft
resilient
and surprisingly springy
bouncing with less pain than i thought
off of banisters
and landings
(ironically named the moment you land on one,
don’t you think?
but i digress)

must have been from all that bouncing
that my human head began
to shift
into something else
but it was made real the moment
those haunted knuckles knocked on the door to my heart
my jaw snapped
like my mind
and i bit
just bit
deep and visceral
his glazed eyes wide
with surprise
maybe fear
(although not for long
before the first was joined
by the second
but
still)
as i sailed away through the air
about to bless a landing with its purpose
i saw the arc
monument of my malicious maw
broken into skin
an insidious smile
but not that of a child
my head was a lions now
as my follicles foresaw
on my zeroth day

i was eight when i got my horns
it was surprising actually
third week of third grade
prismatic fissures of light
creating colorful schisms
in the asphalt of the church’s parking lot
i drank in the bittersweet view
as my face fell toward it
my travel sponsored by another boy
more sadism than sense
and two years past the rest
a fact never languished on for long

as most trophy hunters do,
he inspected his ****
a little too much hubris
about a little thing he just did
my chubby form rose
like Dracula from his coffin at dusk
stiff and unyielding
despite the protestations of my body below
and delivered my forehead to his own
the eponymous number of times
face newly painted in a scarlet shade
half blood below the skin
half above
he said you’re crazy
i didn’t know he was right, you see?
so that statement very much offended me
and so i added one to my quota and left
the nuns told me not to be so stubborn
not to hurt other kids
Jesus would turn the other cheek, they said
but Jesus also turned up dead
they said i was stubborn as a goat
my hair wild and unkempt
canines glistening wetly with blood
and, as if to suggest it knew what a goat was,
a **** on my scalp split open
just a bit more
just enough for sable spirals to rush forth

i was thirteen when i got my venom

i lost it

there was a thread here once
i had it
just here
between the tips of my fingers

i lost it though

cursed, i tell ya.
they say about me, in some circles

eyes hidden under indistinctly specific
iconography of ships past their prime
grumbled under half gagged swallows
of whatever passed for palatable ***** past
those
discerning lips
or, perhaps, poorly applied mascara
downturned eyes, downtrodden
but their feet?
find purchase on my back
when you look like this
what else are you for?

and sure, about the curse thing
they were half right
which is a stupid turn of phrase
isn't it?
half right is just

******* wrong
rights aren't piece-meal thoughts
they were, in fact, wrong
But

somehow right enough.
black eyes put a dark period on that
(do you even know my name?)
the universe is a strange place
what can i say?

but we digress


cursed was the vibe tho
an idea carried through
some three or so decades
to now

our dying father fishing
for breath in the dusty light of morning
the sun, weimar conductor that it is,
demanding awareness for the passage of time
“are you still not ready for the day in there? tsk tsk”
he’s thinking it

probably. and that’s not all
because of-*******-course would we
get sick the day we get back
bb death riding shotgun
the very help we brought
to show appreciation
to the rock
that kept us from sinking
eons ago
now a threat to his life
cursed, i tell ya

or stupid. leave that for another day
but today, we flit to and fro
pathos ponging pitifully
a small white pixel
but capable, of self criticism
of despair
bound uselessly
in cognitive dissonance
intensely considerate
ironically exposed
through gentle spritz of lysol
and heavy sighs
each wrenching open the wound anew

and we knew curses too
don't get me wrong
this is no fresh hell
we know but do we learn?
now that’s a good question

for someone to ask
someday
when we are ash, i hope
for now, we wait
breath bated
afraid to take too much of the air left

how much is left, I wonder
we think on that
for a while

we wait
for nothing
for meaning
while he fades

i had a point once
something sharp and poignant
but it’s gone now
i lost it
we lost it

that thread cast out
cascading across my
fingertips
we lost it
away it went
a taut twang as it did
and, yeah, we all lose
all the threads
will slip
this is true
yet
no one tells you
once released
it is
not lost
just






gone

i still remember your voice the last time we spoke
distant and aloof. a far cry from our first tryst
twenty-six stories up, cries of all kinds that night
and, i know, i know. consistent crying characterized us after too

i still see your face, eyes downcast. you already knew
knew i’d let you down again. crush your heart again
in the middle of Essex, we stood. last bits of
love falling away, rose petals in abscission -  to memories - nightmares - nothing else

i still taste those tannins on my tongue, Ernesto's
best vin transfusing through our veins, future fallout
fueled. red, rosé, i can’t recall. unctuous
though, and rich. it sat heavy in my mouth, like transubstantiated blood of christ

i still feel the thought of your breath warming my neck
the light of your smile, unencumbered by the
reality of me. we didn’t know what i
was yet. then a variable, an unknown. but we know now. i was pain. plague. pestilence.

i still miss you. your idea, your memory
but i don’t have roses in my eyes anymore
i know. i stole so much from you. too many firsts
you should have shared with someone who saw you. who knew you. but all i knew was roses

this dirge is yours, dear Laura. not for your demise
but for mine - the last lamentation i can give
may my memory haunt you no more - may your days
be bright, blessed, and bountiful, far and away forever. may your roses be real

farewell.