It starts as a gentle hum in my lower back
Then it becomes a twitch
This is when I should stop
But my eyes are just too wide
Absorbing every word
Until my blood is boiling
It travels up my spine
A burning razor line
I write some words
Then throw them out

This infuriating thing
So I pour some whiskey on it
It always makes my head spin
Then i smoke it back on straight
Face contorts and teeth grind
And then she goes away

"O son, hark ye to the rainbird's call." Said father to son as the golden light spilled out the fireplace, casting their backs into darkness. "O son, hark ye to the rainbird's call, for when the rainbirds are a-comin' the times are a-changin."

Son's wide eyes soaked in the golden fireplace light and the sound of father's voice.

"O the rainbirds, they's a-comin'. They's call ain't like the call of no other bird. Yer a familiar with the warblings and the cawings and the baying's and the singing's of other birds. The rainbird, he don't sound like that. When the rainbird a comes a callin', you best be knowin' his sound. For he don't warble or caw or bay or sing, on no, he don't warble or caw or bay or sing. He's a makin' a different sound all together. O the rainbird, when he comes a callin' you'll a-know its him."

Father puffed long on a clay pipe, his voice accompanied by the sounds of a thousand night critters a-haunting the outside world with their chitin wings and nightmare fur and ebony eyes, shining through the night. O yes, father puffed long on a clay pipe.

"Son, when the rainbird calls. He drowns out the other birds, ya wont be hearin' no warbling or cawin' or bayin' or singing. When the rainbird a-opens his beak, all ye hear is a marked silence from the other birds. O they is still singing, mind you they is still singing, but that ******* the rainbird, he dun drown them out with his silent call. Son. That is how you know the rainbird's callin'."

The golden light kept a-burning, and the fire was a-crackling as the night was a runnin' over the valleys skies. And father kept a-talkin' and his pipe; he kept a-lightin'.

"Son, that is the sound of the rainbird's call. He don't call much round here in the valley, but when he does, you hear the times are a-changin'. And when the rainbird sings, o son! When the rainbird sings! He BELLOWS! And he SINGS! And the valley will shudder with his song. When he sings, the valley will shudder and the darkness will come, for he be callin' on all dem other rainbird's. And they be comin' and the sky will darken like night and they'll a come, like a cloud, they'll a come. And they's flappin' wings will a-shake and a shudder the valley, and they'll a **** lightning and his brethren, his brothers will a-light down and they be filling the valley with their rain and their **** and the times will be a changin. Oh they be a changing."

Son's ears heard the tale of the rainbird that father told him, son believed the tale father told him. He believed, for the night birds did suddenly fall silent all through the velvet darkness outside the shack, and the air was a markedly different thing from what it was before, and the fire sputtered as the rainbird called. It sputtered…it sputtered…it sputtered.

scribbling through pain of
wrist and tensed forearms
brought bettered by repetition
thru peddled death of calves
and ruined bowels of pre-
cancered prostate. constant
film of excreted toxins and
another cigarette only suffo-
cates these already humid-
battered lungs. another trip
out of doors only brings
realization of the heat inside,
buried deep beneath time-
pressured skin. some heart
forcing beats even though
cells have hardened via emo-
tionally evolved polysaccha-
rides. perhaps times' gain of
addiction finds lack of release
of toxins, perhaps the devel-
opment of a superior being
detached. lies, and realized,
wholly-owned and flawed
chitin formed of prior life,
formed of shared chemicals
of plasma-like water shed.
and called abrupt ending,
and lack of self-perspective
found lead-in to ending the
reign of self. ending some
reign of I the Destroyer.

At the door again,
It begins as a quiet scratching
And then a thick, abrasive sliding-down
Like a heaviness upon the frame.
Then a barely perceived close-breathing
That seems to creep like dull lantern-light
Under the door,
And around the frame,
And through the keyhole.

And there is no talisman to protect him.
No bust of pallas above the door
He is no metamorphosing cockroach
Able to **** the gaps
With oily-black chitin feelers.

The darkness brings no tools but fear
Thick and impenetrable as the night
The ancient lizard-brain takes over
And leaves him waiting for the first rays
That will pierce the window like lances
And dissolve the oppressive world
That leans so heavy against his door.

I can only hold my breath so long,
Before the sirens echo around me
Yet asphyxiation seems so wrong
How can you love what you refuse to see,
Oh well, hold on to whatever will get you through, what ever makes you belong

Who do you love?
I can see through, to ya love,
Who do you love?

Do you love me?
OR just the thought of me?
I think the latter is the matter,
The problem in your skin,
Take your head, and make it spin.

Roll it off your neck
Blow the Job you do so ‘well’
I mean what the heck
**** your toes, burn in hell

Because from the bottom of your soul you’re a soiled mess
A cluster **** of paranoia and stress
Using and digging like a poor and dying *****
Seeing shadows play lamp light out across your floor.

Letting go takes a step forward,
On beaches of brighter days, sun burning your flesh
In its indifferent rays.
What puts a folded heart inside a lovers hands?
The anti-gravity that tells you to stay the hell away from me.
Depravity in your shallow soul-called-cavity makes this man
Truly understand.

Letting go takes time, a focus unlike anything.
Letting go takes love, that burns the candle of hate
TO emaciate, the marrow that creates blood for your mind so narrow.
Stung and dumb, and young and fake
You have no more love to take—
Not from me or the love locked in that position,
You and I are atomic fission

Listen,

You are my friend—you’re misunderstood
But your heart is infected with pain and to heal it should
Give up on the strings dripping poison into it’s chambers

Keep testing me,
Keep ingesting me,
Keep molesting me,

Just protect your situation
Waste that carnation
Take your mental vacation,
But as you push aside the things you don’t want
I’ll be out to war, the vanguard Avant.

I can stop a train, clocking 80miles-per-hour
But your hairs not long enough to save you from your tower.
That rises as I fall, I can’t take the speed it’s moving at,
Though honestly, for you, I’d never stop the train.

Because you need to grow into a real life,
Away from the fantasy of your ignorant head
So you can be a stay at home wife
So you can **** in bed,
And be divorced for trying so hard,
Even when your hubby went limp
And once you’re truly jarred
You’ll realize that you are just a shrimp

Headless into ****-tail,
Your chitin shell so frail

I orchestrate your violent butterflies
Fluttering and morphing into bees with big eyes
"Honey shed your chitin and be mine"
Your guardian angel and savior so divine

The strings of your heart as my violin
My grand concerto hypnotized you to sin
Made me your deity, my boat your place of worship
I welcomed your unholiness aboard my precious ship

Sailed through the clouds and into the stars
Set off on a light-speed expedition to Mars
When we returned to wander the Earth's seas
I found myself a slave to all your pleas

Mistress of this vessel yet so caged and lonely
When did I feed you so much power over me?
She was mine but I didn’t recognize
Tainted and defiled because of my lies

Her body and sails were painted red and blue
To much better suit and satisfy you
Irreverence to your deity, desecration to my shrine
I could only watch while you took all that was mine

A glimpse of land and gardens so close
Sparked a flame of hope in my life of shadows
I sprouted wings and the sun began beaming
Lighting up the rocks where waves were crashing

I raised her sails with one final goal
To free myself and take back my control
With cold confidence, I steadied my helm, directed my bow
Crashed her down like Dawson to Davy in the depths below.

momma said she found me
ten steps from heaven’s porch,
nestled in bloodied saw grass, flickering
fireflies circlin’ like anxious cherubs.

i forgot what i was doing out there—
waist-deep between heaven and hell,
sleeping in Shiloh where bones
rattle and beetle shells fixed with chitin
hum steadily in the dead heat.

“you too young to die,” she says to me,
face all red and sunburned and marred
with tears. sadness becomes a part of her,
alongside mother, and farmhand, and guilt,
and miracle.

my memories slip past me on copper scales,
swimming underneath the current. i am ten
again, wading in the river, pockets full of
rocks and sea glass. i am twenty and the river
has become a fragile stream. i am thirty and
there is nothing but dirt.

i feel my childhood bleeding out of me,
a mix of red crayons, red paper plates
cradling birthday cakes, red kick-*****
at recess, red tulips pressed into my
sister’s cold hands.

momma said she found me
ten steps from heaven’s porch,
just out of reach of the lamplight,
where i left my childhood.

It is on eves like these where
confinement to my quarters is perfection.
The crushing ideal to become the butterfly
who floats ever so gracefully
in the shadows of the neon lights
with fore and hind chitin
effervescently radiating towards
the heat source greater than my own
and pollinating each and every flower
gracing this beautiful Earth:

gratuitous metamorphosis

Tonight I will be the moth,
flickering near the light
and fluffing my feathered antennas.
My "drab" wings will shield me
from predators of land and sky,
an easy rest on this heart of oak.
Navigate me stars and Moon,
my essence attracts for miles round.

*placid animation

They call me a traveler
Come with the waves, leave with the tide
Find me where the surf breaks
Where I can wash ashore or go adrift
Find me in the seafoam walking the sand
Where I can find those gilled and scaled
Where my friends have armor of chitin
But will you follow

But will you follow me
Awash in a lonely sea

Where will you follow
Will you find friends armored in chitin
Will you find those with gills and scales
Found in the seafoam walking the sand
Where you can wash ashore or go adrift
Where the surf breaks
Will you come with the tide, leave with the waves
Will you be a traveler?

The fly,
drawn by its addiction
to sweetness,
enters the pitcher plant.
Tired and drugged,
slipping on downward
pointing hairs
it falls into
the digestive juices
that dissolve its goodness
leaving only
its hard
chitin
skeleton.

Traitorous wings droop and wilt from my body,
Layers of cerulean dust shedding onto the forest floor.
Oh, what a chore -
And I’m so lazy and so hazy, so hazy and maybe I
Am falling back down with a slowness like slow-mo.
Drowning out background noise like shrieks and my energy peaked
Too long ago and I
Can’t hear it at all anymore.

I wish I could fly, even if the air is toxic and obnoxious,
If the oxygen fills my lungs with carbon and smoke,
I’ll **** it all in and,
Boy, let me fly, let me try,
But I just can’t feel the pressure of the heavy air
Against the backdrop of my melting chitin
And I can’t bother to flap or to snap out of it
This is all drowsy thoughts now but it seems
They’re all drowsy thoughts now.

Like, trusting in the world is a tiring thing,

Letting yourself go to the pressure of the Earth.
And the gas filling my throat was sending me into throes
Now I’m crumbling into the ground and sinking into the asphalt like
The breath gets ****** from between my lips and I learn to breath coal dust
And I learn that let go of my trust and my must and the way I want to just fall.

It’s hard to give it my all when my all is all I’ve got,
When...
I know I’m the one searing off my own wings,
And it burns, and it hurts,
Just let me fly, just let me soar,
Into the sun and furthermore,
Just let me burn to a crisp.

I was too close to the sun and it took
Embers to save me.
It took the flames reaching the tips of my
Wings to send me back down to the surface of
Where I needed to be and:
Now my wings are ooze but
I can’t burn anymore and
I don’t know what’s worse.

My mother’s wings would be made of thin iridescent chitin. The kind everyone notices
because they absorb black light and give off a bright blue-green glow. I am certain this glow and the spiral of her womb  are what others sought to dominate. Her inner beauty,  her pretty, her numerous adjectives that numerous men wished to fish out and keep as keepsakes to make them feel like the bigger fish. She was never a small fish in a pond she was always fluttering in the sky. Free. Wild.Winged

Swooping, sliding, soaring safety
When I had my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Diaphanous as worldly knowledge
Veins, membranes, and spikes
Glass-smooth at eye-line
And in between all chitin clear

Comfort, cuddling, warmly wing-wrapped
When I had my wings, silk gossamer tough
Impregnable as guileless graspings
Steel, Kevlar, and gum
-- echoes at finest
No human copies quite enough

Earnest, peering through pale wing-shields
When I had my wings, light strawberry blush
Full optimist in rosy child-sight
Hope, trust, and ease
Lucent at sunrise
But sunset wipes the pearly flush

Thorny learning came at sunset
When I lost my wings, ribbed dragonfly sheer
Conspicuous in adult hindsight
Screen drawn, and lost
Sombre in umber  
World full of weeping, sweeping clear

Our organic architect leaves the stage
Her window-pane sails, in delicate rose
Better to know the world at its worth
All sad glory
In plain sorry view
Shoulders itch, remember their clothes

When I had my wings