Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium

Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.

Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.

So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a ******
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.

Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

We're in hell
Can't you tell?
No you can't
You only listen to the teller
All other voices are drowned
Because he's a yeller
For the useless things we're bound
That fill up our cellar
And our living room turns into a dying room
When the seller is the jailer
And salvation comes from tailors
Who can cover up the pain inside
With all the comfy clothes we buy

Money is the blood of our society
It's circulation provides oxygen
But we spill money into spilling blood
And we're funneled into killing love
So we can concern ourselves
With people not getting things they don't deserve
Rather than people getting what they need
Our blood starts clotting
In the fortunate arteries
As the rest of our body goes numb
It seeks medicine for healing
And drugs become our autoimmune disease
Redistributing blood to the suffocated areas
An unfortunate recompensing for injustice
When the persecutors
Become the prosecuted
Lives are exploded
Like Afghan villages
Lives can grow back
Like poppy fields

That's the score
And it makes me want to score
Until ****** drips from every pore
And ******* fills me to the core
I could just live at the liquor store
Where benzos are my father
And **** my mother
So I can ignore the death of my brother
My family is in trouble
Our society is in rubble

The Phoenix
(To Love and Lose Part 2)
by Ryan Kinney

It started with a broken heart. Through the crack seeped liquid fire. It engulfed me, burning away all that I was. The flames shall purify me. Boil me down to my base components, and then rebuild me. From the ashes will rise a new entity.

Who am I?

Following my divorce I began an identity quest dubbed The Phoenix. It is my own personal trial by fire. Fire is the essence of life itself. As it destroys it also creates. I will create a new life from the remnants of my former, a persona not defined by another.

Chapter 1-The Quest

Depression and Suicide
“…my life before you was very chaotic and unstable. You were the stability I needed and the foundation on which I built my life.  I never doubted that you would always be there for me. You were my rock. Of all the people that had disappointed me you never let me down. Yet you did, You pulled the rug out from under me without warning and the foundation upon which I built my entire life crumbled…” –email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008

It took four months to undo ten years of my life. A debilitating depression overwhelmed me. I never saw anything in my life, but Lisa. What did I have left without her? What would I do? Darkness clouded my heart.

A rusty blade in my hand. A message in blood written on the broken mirror.
I lay in the tub, leaking crimson life. In my haze I barely make out the words.
What does my final message to the world say? I cannot remember why it hurt so much.
In a few minutes it won’t matter anymore. What the hell did I write?
I can only think of one thing that torments me enough to drive me to this darkness.
Trailing down in letters, clotting on the wall…
“I loved you.”

This revolving drama played on a loop in my mind. I was lost, a walking corpse. All I felt was cold hollowness.
“All that is left is emptiness, an empty house, an empty soul.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I so badly just wanted the hurt to stop. In my tunnel vision existence I was oblivious to those whose hearts bled for mine. All my substance and passion was gone. Lisa took my heart with her and left nothing inside. Without her my existence seemed meaningless. The cloaked figure smiled, offering me the almost irresistible temptation of sweet release.
“Do I give in to the darkness? Let it consume me”-journal excerpt
Ultimately, though, there came a day when I awoke from the fog. I was living outside myself watching this unknown drone on a worthless trek. One phrase finally broke through the shell.
“What a waste!”
The Phoenix was born in that moment. The match was struck to light the way on the difficult road to recovery.
“The pieces of my soul are on the floor for everyone to trample on.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
I was in over my head. I needed help. A therapist helped at first, but the relationship quickly cheapened because I was essentially paying for a friendship. Antidepressants proved to work too well. I have a manic level of natural intensity. Lexapro ignited fireworks inside my brain. Both, however, gave me the nudge I needed to help myself. Eventually, I grew beyond the need for crutches. A previously unrecognized army of supporters each lent their kindling to the fires. One day at a time I battled my inner demons until I was ready to accept happiness again.
“You will be amazed on how much of the original Ryan is back. Why? Because I'm over my depression about change because something I feared more came to fruition.  I lost you.  I'm doing my best to survive from that, but my past fears now seems trivial and meaningless in comparison.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Sept. 8, 2009

Denial and Desperation
“Run, Run away Ryan. Open another book, turn on the TV, surf the Net. Delve into your fantasies and escape reality. It’s how you survived your childhood…”-journal excerpt; Oct. 2, 2008
The cracks in my facade were beginning to show. I shielded myself in delusions. I lied to myself to soften the full scope of Lisa’s betrayal. I more than lied. I was absolutely sure. I trusted her with my life. I trusted a lie. I was living a lie. I betrayed myself more than she ever did. The realizations came in shards, each piece punching holes in my heart.
I wallowed in self-pity and desolation.
I yearned so badly to feel some warmth, anybody’s warmth.

The New Girls
Upon Lisa’s departure I sought to quench my loneliness in the convenient woman around me. For a moment’s time, they took pity on me.
Rebound-I immediately sought solace in the arms of a good friend. She’s always shown me nothing but love and idolization. I was ashamed for disrespecting her and our friendship. I knew full well that our brief encounters were all that would ever be between us.
Crazy Chick-She was a brute of a woman, yet conversely, very maternal and comforting. She had a unique talent for forcefully ripping out my raw emotions, breaking through the masks. As she said, though, “I’m not Lisa.” Pathetically, that’s exactly what I wanted.
One Night Stand-ups-Several brief encounters fed my addiction for attention. Like a ****** with a needle, my appetite grew. Desperation was becoming my scarlet letter.
“…but it did seem that the thing we are most proud of and the thing we are most ashamed of are but the front and the back of the same coin. They torture and thrill all at once.”-Grotesque; Natsuo Kirino
I felt guilty and *****, yet loved for but an instant. These experiences were very cathartic. I had completely lost the ability to cry, feel pain, rage, or joy. They were the prefect drug, just so that I may feel again. Without these women to reopen the wounds, the numbness would have consumed me.
“Every angel has a little devil inside them.”-Manda; 2009
What attracted me to these women was mock chivalry. Each had their own “hard luck” story. So ingrained in me is the comic book ideal of heroism that I constantly seek to rescue the damsel in distress. Women will always be my kryptonite. However, as Crazy Chick put it, “ When is it time for you to be rescued?” The divine irony is, it was they who saved me.
It too, was not to last. A long period of isolation followed, as the women grew tired of babysitting me. Another lie to myself, a band-aid on a wound desperately needing stitches.

The Crush
Hers was the first light I allowed to pierce the darkness. She did more to heal me than any who said, “Yes.” Her secret, she said, “No.”
It has always been my curse to be eternally misunderstood and underestimated. I could see her scars bled the same as mine, although hers had begun to clot long ago. I am attracted to those who have a depth chiseled by adversity.
I identified with her. Her intelligence far exceeded my own, an Einstein in a circus. My eyes saw straight to her soul, seeing only the gorgeous woman she was on the inside. My friends would point out my eyes would sparkle whenever I spoke of her.
Yes, I loved her, but only in transition. We came from different worlds, but met as wounded soldiers on the battlefield. She was the catalyst to open my eyes. A sweet smile for my shredded soul.
“A worn beaten heart trapped in by bars.” From “Painless” by Tracy Reed
She held the key to my self-imposed imprisonment. My growing frustration with her opened the door for my transformation. For all her grace, all her amazing potential, she was wasting away in the same feeding trough as me.
“You can do better.”
Then it hit me…
“I can do better!”
I began to rebuild my empire. My never-queen rejected me…
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The Emotional Spectrum
“Stuck in a prison of abstract ideas and overpowering emotions.”-Zach; mypsace blog
Shock
1) ‘I don’t love you anymore.”
2) Letter…”I can’t wait until my divorce is over!”
3) Ryan-“So I guess this means we’re getting a divorce.”
Lisa-“Well, yeah. You knew that.”
4) “Ryan, they’re together, and have been.”
5) “I’m moving out.”
6) “By the State of Ohio, I hereby grant this dissolution.”-Judge; Dec. 30, 2008

Six bullets to my heart, six separate, devastating phrases that brought about Armageddon. I gave her a decade of my meager existence, nearly half my life. She threw me away like garbage, and couldn’t have been happier.

Fear
As the gun smoke drifted, I clutched my breast. I was frozen in horror that I’d lose myself along with her. Fear, you see, was the beginning of the end for our marriage.
I never dealt well with change. When we bought our house, the combat that ensued left me crippled. I ultimately built myself into a comfort zone again. “I don’t know what I want to do” was always an excuse for me. I lay stagnant and complacent with no true purpose or direction.
It was Lisa that first took action. She sought to elevate us from the ranks of lower middle class into which we were born. I fought her, determined to lay docked in the doldrums. “Leave me alone in my bubble.” I made attempts, but with each failure became depressed. She became frustrated and took matters into her own hands. It is obvious she loved me then. She worked effortlessly to give us a better life.
I was blind to the truth and in time Lisa lost sight of her motives. She plodded on, mechanically, no longer sure of why. She drove herself to extreme exhaustion, afraid, that if she stopped, for even a moment, she’d realize it was all for naught. She lost faith in our combined, bright vision.
So, she did the only thing she knew how. She ran away, straight to another as miserable as her. She kept running, further and further, taking greater risks. All just to not have to feel her own hollowness.
She left and my phobia ended there. What followed was a newfound fear. “I don’t know what I want to do” became “What the hell do I do?” I was afraid I was doomed to be alone the rest of my life.

Sadness
“Are you ok?”
“We’re worried about you.”
“How are you, Ryan?”…

“MISERABLE!”-Ryan

I always speak the truth. I’ve never felt so surrounded and alone in all my life.

Anger
“Like koi in a ***** pond, you can see your rage barely hiding below the surface.”-Erin Kompik
The most intense rage fueled The Phoenix. I lashed out at everything. Everyone was burned. I was ******* and the world would pay. The spectacle burned so bright it threatened to eradicate all that I was.
“I can feel bitterness and anger coming. I am fighting for control over the anger”-journal excerpt; Oct. 1, 2008
“The seams in my heart leak nothing, but hostility.”-journal excerpt; Oct. 6, 2008
“I’ve become a monster. I once loved someone so hard I would die for her. Now all I can feel is scorn and hate. My heart is twisted and black. I fear I will become the bitter man my father is. I hate myself for being so.”-journal excerpt; Sept. 30, 2008
Who was I so angry with? For all the hurt I felt from Lisa, I was most angry at myself. How could I let this happen? How could I have been so blind? My blood boiled as I berated myself. The loss I suffered left my heart festering with hatred, as nothing but fire and volatility overtook it.
“The red light of rage is violent action without consideration of consequence. It is uncontrollable. So I will unleash it.”-Final Crisis, Rage of the Red Lanterns
Then, the root of another anger broke through the fury.
“I know that you may not see it now, but time really will heal these wounds.”-Michelle Kinney
She was right. I had absolved myself of my original rage. I had forgiven her. I could forgive myself. I couldn’t be held responsible for another’s irresponsibility. The anger dissipated into the smoke. It left behind a few flickers, but I’ll not extinguish them yet. I still have a use for that rage.
“Do not be afraid to expose the darkness. Only by bringing it to the light can it ever truly be resolved.”-audio journal excerpt; Aug. 16, 2009

Love and Happiness
During my marriage, hers was the only love I let myself feel. Then, she took it with her when she left. I felt scorned and unwanted, a refuse of human waste.
I was wrong. I am a man that seeks love as an end all for my existence. Lisa unlocked my caged heart. Over the next decade I cultivated relationships with countless individuals. There was more love in my life than I ever realized. They were there when she wasn’t. My parents sacrificed everything to give me a life and family they never had. Lisa’s family had become my permanent family. She divorced me. I did not divorce them. All my friends gave all they could. Even my harsh enemies stepped off the battlefield, for they understood the casualties of this war. All of them, a shining sea of compassion, poured their hearts into mine. Their light overcame the darkness. When I finally crawled out of the pit, they got me to my feet.
“For them, I must continue.”-Naoko Takeuchi
I had to be strong. I owed it to them to survive. They gave me their love to fill in my missing pieces. For all I had been given, I could never give up or give in.
“I am meant for greatness. I am meant for happiness, for joy, for me.”-Zach; myspace blog

Chapter 2-Evolution

Picking up the Pieces
“I need to be out there.
Living.
Looking for my own life…
I need to open my mouth.
I need to be heard.
I need to live.
You’re gone…
I’m not.”
-Goth Girl Rising; Barry Lyga.
It was time to rebuild that which had been broken. My life was fragmented chaos. I needed an order to the chaos, or more to my tastes, organized chaos; anarchy with purpose. I learned to become a master strategist. The civil war I waged on myself demanded a general.
STEP 1-Stabalize finances.
My pact with the devil to keep my beloved home required emptying the coffers completely. How delicious the irony that I wound up working the same long weeks as Lisa.  Hard work and sacrifice were absolute necessities if I was ever to afford to live again. It was Lisa that taught me that. The only difference, I must never lose sight of why. Money is not the reason for existence. I simply needed enough to achieve my goals.
“Money is nothing.  It is an imaginary concept.  Its only value is what we put into it.  While often a necessary evil to survive, it is not important.  The only possession of true value is time.”- The Most Valuable Possession; 2009
STEP 2-Tear down the Mausoleum.
My home had become a testament to a dead marriage. Lisa’s five day moving notice threw a grenade into my living space. It was disheveled and disorganized. It was no longer Ryan and Lisa’s. I had to reclaim it as my own. Out of respect for our past, I kept a few pieces of Lisa as a constant reminder. I will never forget where I’ve been.
“Your spirit helped build this place and it still flows through its walls.”-email correspondence to Lisa; Nov. 21, 2008
Physically putting my environment in order likewise put my mind into an order. As I rebuilt my home, it became the new foundation for my life. The Phoenix had a place to perch.
STEP 3-Know Happiness again.
“I seem to find that my great periods of change, evolution, and growth precede an ultimate betrayal from someone I’ve let close to my heart. Is survival mode the only way I can fuel my passion? Where do I find the love that ignites my will, yet does not drive me to complacency?”-audio journal; Aug 13, 2009
The answer, I needed to love myself again. I could not rely on someone else to complete me. I had to become independent, to be ok with being alone. I deserved to be happy, to be loved, above all, by myself.
This was going to be hard.

Breaking Codependency
Not having another physical body in the house left a void. Without another heartbeat close to mine, I stopped sleeping at night. My appetite was lost and I started shedding pounds. With my depression receding, I awoke to find I was living in a desolate wasteland. What would I do in this solitary confinement?
Utilizing survival skills my mother taught me, I used it. Ever the artist, I took the pieces and created an existence. Then I improved it, again and again. Loneliness is a disease that attacks only if you let it. I had to learn to accept myself, before I could expect anyone else to. I used the loneliness to redefine and rediscover myself. I would not rely on anyone to do for me. My honor and respect for my loved ones demanded I do for myself. The stifling quiet, the sleepless nights taught independence. The silence used to frustrate and anger me. Now, I use it for peaceful reflection and meditation. Th

The blood vats
Stirring clotting goo
A tepid sticky stew
Crimson mess
Spilt on the floor
The hungry goblins
Gulping the pulpy gore
Plasma swimming
In spider web veins
The dripping fluid
Sticking to you
Soaking through
The stained washcloth
Swirling in the warm bath
Cloudy dispersion
Smoky mass
Dark diluting
And disappearing
Through time
And loss
So here we are
Generations of
Vampire blood
Leaching the life force
Spreading the plague
And bleeding
Life from one generation
To the next

The groove, the rut, and the cut
were walking down the street.

As good friends do oft,
Cousin in name and in shape,
They strode sided, but said not a word.
Still understood that three
So different, nonetheless, one design.

The cut was old yet still bled
From time to time.
The groove and the rut, always in touch,
T'issued spear-carriers, armed and
Loving, dabbed and blotted the cut clotted.
For that is what the friends are 'the for,'
For the clotting, the knitting and the closing.

The bleeding came when it came,
They jested that they could never leave him,
For tho he bled regular, there was no schedule,
No knowing the when, but the why, that they
Understood. They would not have left him anyway
Exception of course now and then, but leave
Their man, their cuz, was not to be conceived.

The rut was long, thin, you had to look down
To see his full length, for he grew bottom-down,
Every day another ring, another inch, on the soles
Notched, they dared not, count them, so many days
Rutted in the tedium of a blood count of unable,
Incapable of being broken, his enemy, arch, was his friend.
Tedium his companion, his drug dealer,
When groove and cut were at work, failing to supervise.

Rut could only sigh. Sole solitary sound, except for the
Quiet ringing only he could hear, rings forming,
Day after day, and he could not count that high,
So instead each rut was given a name,
For blessed endless the world of words that say
I am a daily existence, nothing more, nothing but less.

The groove, hero to the cut and the rut,
Had his moments.
But he had secrets he did not share with them,
But as an outside-looker-in, I was privy to the
Privy of everything.

The groove was oval, wiry, snakey shaped,
But prone when prone to twisty turns when
Objects like objectives met, in counter ed.
But when groove was grooving,
There was full blown full mo, the world observed.

Strict silence for the poems that
Shook lose from his frame,
Bad his eyes, wept he,
Lines of ones and twosies,
Fat and wide his fame,
For when the groove was
Cooing and cooling,
Life infused him and sips of tea,
Each transformed into the heat of ooh and the ahh,
When the cup was empty, he had his finished 'aha,'
Of a new parting, gift giving in his heart.
For he she see saw the angle of simple, and thus could
Groove on grooving.

The rut and the cut were happy for him,
Watch with incredible incredulity and an itty bitty
Jealousy of which they never rudely spoke.
But they would board his poetry-train sled,
Down they rode, the white snow
Of being a a lookalike groovy kid,
Even if and but, for just a few minutes.

Everyone loved groovy, and watch his every movie,
Licked the whiskey wooden snowball words from his lips,
but would not admit they kept them hid,
So they could be reread when they were at home
In the closet with flashlight, and the weeping was easy.

The three cuz went to the carnival.
Fun house with mirrors that made you look like
Who You really were.

But not them, for "the for" was different,
For when they strode sided before those mirrors,
They could plainly see that the
Groove, the rut the cut
Looked exactly alike,
Exactly alike,
All looked
Like
me.

pale lavender half moon
freshly bloodshot whites
dried pearls clotting in your jaw

she was in love.
she was in love with a boy.
she was in love with a boy who didn’t love her back.
she was a beautiful girl when she was sixteen.  she was the most insecure girl you’d ever meet, but you’d never know because her award winning smile hid all of the insecurities. black curly hair, olive skin, beautiful big brown eyes, cherry lips, and naturally aligned perfect teeth.  she knew she was beautiful deep down, although she hated to admit it, because of an unfortunate series of events that occurred in the past.  she was the happiest girl you could ever meet, or at least that’s how she came across.  she acted as though nothing was wrong, when in reality, a lot was wrong.  she knew her peers thought of her as a person who tried too hard to be different, but that’s who she was.  she was different, and she knew it.  
he was a breathtaking boy when he was 16.  he was just as insecure as she was, but you'd find it hard to believe, since he was so picturesque. blonde hair, pale skin, pacific ocean eyes, bright pink lips, and very white teeth.  he didn’t know he was breathtaking, because of an unfortunate series of events that occurred in the past.  he always thought of himself as a person without a place, even though he believed everyone had a place in the world, he just hadn’t found his yet.  he bottled things up inside until they sunk low enough to go out of view, until he forgot about them.  he knew he had a place, he just didn’t know where.  he was different, too.  just as different from everyone else as the girl was.
she told him everything.  more than she told her other friends. more than she told her best friend of fourteen years. she didn’t know it at first, but she would fall hard for him, harder than when she fell off her longboard the first time.  just like that first fall, it would hurt.  it would make her bleed, and it would transform her.  from it, she would become a better person, and definitely a more cautious one.  she wasn’t aware of it yet, but he would change her in two ways.  for the better, and for the worse.
the background knowledge of this tale isn’t important.  all that needs to be known is how she has now fallen in love with him, harder than she’s ever fallen for someone.  however, he’s since moved away.  how far, you ask?  3,000 miles across the ocean.  her love for him has grown dramatically since this, and she’s told him, but he doesn’t feel the same way.  he’s said it straight to her face, on multiple occasions.  to directly quote it, “the feeling is there, but it just isn’t prominent.”  naturally, this kills her inside. the hardest thing to endure is watching the one you love, love someone else. in fact, this makes her want to curl up in her comforter and cry, and hopefully never come out.  she loved this boy, and she loved him completely unconditionally.  no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get him to see her that way.  the only time he ever takes any interest in her is when she’s undressed. she would use her body for love, and he used love for her body. she was blinded, and she didn’t want to see him using her, so she refused to believe it.  she’s confronted him about it, and he’s said he isn’t using her, so she was convinced he wasn't, mostly because she could never make herself believe he was lying to her.  
he knew everything about her.  he knew her full name, which not a lot of people did.  he knew about her past; the past that involved a small wrist and a large blade.  he knew about her future; the future that involved a small apartment in new york and a job at vogue. he knew about the husband, or wife, she wanted, since she was bisexual.  only he knew that. he knew how much she loved him, as well. he was well aware of that, but obviously he didn't know how much it would **** her inside to know he didn't think the same of her. he didn't think it through. if he did, he would have saved her a lot of pain.
she was sitting in her bedroom one day. she was thinking mostly about him. she kept playing the sweet things he'd said to her in the past back in her mind, and suddenly she found herself smiling and feeling warm inside. she loved him. she loved him more than anyone she'd ever loved before. just as she was thinking, he messaged her on facebook. her heart fluttered, she couldn't wait to see what he said.
"i have to talk to you" his tone was stern, which somewhat scared her, since he was never sincere like this.
"okay sure, what's up, deary?" she always called him deary, it was the most natural response for her.  she was trying to lighten the mood a bit, as well.
"as you know since i've moved here, my feelings for you have somewhat gone away. and with that being said, i've found somebody."
she could've sworn she heard her heart fall down to her feet and break into one million tiny pieces.
"you have a girlfriend now?"
"yes."
she logged off of facebook without answering his message, and went to the corner of her room where a tiny piece of her carpet was cut into a square and ripped off the floor so it could be lifted up. she lifted the piece of carpet up to reveal a bag and a blade. a tiny plastic bag, and a tiny metal blade. a tiny plastic bag that had an assortment of different pills in it, and a tiny metal blade with dried blood tracing the edges of it from her past. the pills were things such as ibuprofen or acetometaphine, and the blade was a replacement blade from her dad's razor, since his was sharper than hers.
her past wasn't particularly something she liked to remember. she had once been suicidal. she had cut herself. she had intentionally burned herself. she had snapped a hair tie against her wrist during school. she's tried ending her life with those same pills. she kept them there if she needed them.
as of right now, she needed them more than ever.
she opened the bag, got two bottles of water, and began to swallow the pills. one by one.  as she swallowed them, she found herself taking the sharp piece of metal to her wrist.  she caressed it gently before dragging it across the noticeable scars, going deeper and deeper with each ****.
after about thirty five pills and twelve lacerations, she began to get terrible stomach pain, and her blood wasn’t clotting any longer.  she strayed away from her wrist and moved down to her hips, her v-line, and upper thighs. she could feel her demise coming, but she wanted it right then.  she didn't cry as she threw the pills down, her heart was too heavy, her body too frail, that she couldn't produce the tears, even though she wanted to.
twenty more pills.
three more cuts.
five more pills.
two more cuts.
one more pill.
and just like that, she was gone.
about an hour or so later, her mother knocked on her door. she made sure to leave the door unlocked so her mother wouldn't find her and be angry. her mother hated when she locked her door. she walked in, and once she saw her daughter laying on the floor near the piece of torn up carpet, she collapsed to her knees over her top of her. she noticed a small paper laying next to her body. she unfolded it. on it was this:
"you know, it’s funny. now everyone will care. now he’ll love me. if you all had felt this way when i was alive, i wouldn’t be dead."
it’s almost like she knew her death would be one of the biggest news highlights of the year in her small town.  it’s almost like she knew photos of her would be everywhere.  it’s almost like she knew her suicide note was going to become the most viral thing to hit the nation in four years.
her mother had no idea what that meant. she couldn't think anyway, for her teenage daughter had just mutilated her insides with common household drugs.
with the little energy she had left in her body, she stumbled downstairs to where the telephone was. she dialed her husband's work number, and was completely hysteric when he answered the phone. he told her to calm down, so she tried to. when she finally stopped crying long enough to get words out, she told him.  he said he was about to leave his office. he didn't care about anything else in the day, he just had to get home. he had to get home to see his little girl for the last time.
her mother told her friends, and the entire town was a complete wreck. memorials were hung everywhere. pictures of her death note were posted in newspapers and on street corners. a segment was even on the news about her. she had never felt loved in her life, but when she died, everyone turned into her friend. girls who called her fat and ugly in middle school said she was beautiful.  boys that called her obnoxious and annoying said she was fun to be around.  teachers who told her she would never get into college and didn’t have a future said she had her entire life ahead of her.  just as her suicide note said, if they had all acted this way when she was still here, she wouldn’t have left.
the boy messaged her one day, wanting to tell her something again. when she didn't answer, he sent her another message. he obviously hadn't looked at his facebook news feed in a few days, considering everyone's status was about her, and there were pictures of her everywhere; pictures of her and her friends, her and her beloved cats, or her alone.  looking at the pictures was painful for everyone, since her beautiful smile was only lived on in the pictures now.  her eyes sparkled in the photos, but not as much as they did in real life.  now, the photos were all that was left.
he sent her another message, saying this:
"well if you aren't going to answer me then i guess i'll just tell you. i broke up with my girlfriend already. i realized a few things when i was with her. she isn't you. i love you, i really do. i hope you can forgive me and i hope we'll talk soon.  bye babe."
he only called her babe when he felt closest to her.  some days, where they would flirt a lot, they would both feel warm and fuzzy inside and completely loved.  neither ever admitted it, but they both knew exactly how the other felt.  among the pet names and multiple kissy faces, they had great conversations.  they were so open around each other, neither of them had ever been like that with anyone else.  she knew she was made for him, although he didn’t realize it until after it was too late.
after he sent it, he decided to check his news feed. he saw the pictures and status messages. he couldn't believe it. he didn't know how much he hurt her. he killed her inside so much that she actually killed herself. he was the one that always made her feel better when she was feeling down. he's the one that got her to stop hurting herself. she told him once that she was going to stop for herself, when subliminally she stopped for him, because she knew he didn't like it. she didn't think he could ever love her with the cuts up and down her arms, so she stopped making them. she was alive because of him, but now, she was dead because of him.  he gave her a reason to want to live, and a reason to want to die.
life was still odd for him after her passing. he'd think about her often. she would come to him in dreams. he’d listen to her favorite song, which was one of his favorite songs as well, called “i wanna be yours” by the arctic monkeys.  he introduced her to the arctic monkeys, actually.  he never realized how much the lyrics meant to her, the more he listened to them he recognized the relevance of them.  he's sworn he’s seen her on street corners in his city. he knew it couldn't be, but every time he thought he saw her, tears would well up in his eyes and he'd have to turn around and go home. he didn't speak to anyone, nor did he tell anyone about her, especially not what he felt for her. everyone would think it was out of pity, pity for her and her death. he regretted making her feel worthless when he told her he didn't love her, because he did, and they both knew that.  she always knew deep down there was more feeling to it than he said, but she couldn't get past him saying those things. and that's why she killed herself.
years passed. he never found anyone, and she decayed in the beautiful tiffany blue dress she wears for eternity. it would've been her 25th birthday when he first went to see her at her final resting place. there was a photo of her on her stone, one of the last pictures ever taken of her. his breath was taken away by her beauty, she had the same warm smile he remembered when he saw her the last time. her eyes bright with playfulness, and her cheeks round and rosy. he could still hear her laugh. it was almost contagious. he was in love with her all over again, and she wasn't there to tell.
although, she was there. she heard every thought inside her head and saw every emotion he was feeling. she regretted her decision. she hated herself for not being patient and not going with her instinct. now, they could never be together. they were made for each other, and they both knew it.
he flung himself onto her burial site, weak at the knees and tears down his face. he missed her just as much as she missed him. he regretted never kissing her when he had the chance. he wanted to take back every time he ever told her he didn't love her. she took her life because of those things, and he was too pessimistic with the thought of "i'll never see her again" stuck in his head that he couldn't hear what his heart was saying.
he never married. he continued to visit her, almost every day. he couldn't stand to not see her, even if she wasn't there. she visited him every night as well, just to watch him sleep. she still thought he was the most breathtaking boy she'd ever seen. and she was just as beautiful as she was before. just as beautiful, and just as breathtaking. just like when they were 16.

In Lalitpur, a small city,
a poem in
and of itself,
near to the capital city,
Kathmandu,
in the magic
word-world of
Nepal.

Who in the world is Simrik?

Girl, 15, apologetic,
with the heart of a deer.
who unlike most
kindly requests your criticism.

Ok, here is my criticism.

Your writes are a shotgun blast.
It cannot be that fifteen years
has been granted
a simple eloquence
that writes and feeds
tastes of visions
of a spiced life
far away, but
close by.

winding roads
and the trees,
the train station,
train tracks,
jeeps for taxis.
the market at night.
a few bookstores i wanted
to enter but couldn't/didn't
benches at chowrasta,
aloo chat.
penang momo,
the "aum sweet aum" poster
they had there.
pretty girls in chowrasta.
so well-dressed.

at fifteen I could not
see so well, see so fine.
not I.

i have fallen for boys, and i have fallen for men.
i don't know if it'd still be falling if i only ever
fell for pieces of them. and as for you, you were no
exception. my eyes never knew the ridges on
your body as soft as icing on a cake, or the
veins in your arms and they've only read
your words, your tastes, in pixels, but i
fell anyway, briefly. the heart is a muscle
the size of a fist, an ***** that has nothing to
grow and fit into. you never really know where
exactly in your chest it really is or if it's the right size.
there'll be growing pains in your ventricles and
dislocation to your spine or your stomach to tell you
of that before the cardiologist, and when you find the
cure or place it back to where it was, you'll have
stories written like prescription notes.

One time, when I was fifteen,
(For I have been
fifteen
many times),
I knew that
I didn't know
how to express
the potpourri
of what
was inside
of me,
the desire was
compelling,
the skills lacking,
for I lived in amidst a
family of writers, critics, historians,
and saw the birthmark of my incapabilities
embarrassed rosy red on my face every morning.

my incapabilities.

not Simrik.
oh no.

here's blood clotting where i got bit by a leech at a
monastery, from after the day i told you we needed to drop
to being friends from lovers. deserved it, totally. you had
blisters on your knees, from the day i sent you back.

you said i still had your heart with me.
when i reach the sea in 12 days,
i'll return with the crevices on them
mended with the pieces of
toughest seashells i can find,
wrapped in a sheet of prayer flag
i tore from the monastery,
so that when you place it back
between your ribs,
you'll have prayers
and the sound of the sea
flowing in your veins.

At fifteen, I read Camus
and the sport pages.
At fifteen, I peeked  
at my neighbor's *******
dreamt blonde dreams.
what I knew
was
what I did not know.

so here is my criticism.

you remind me now, this day,
of what
I still do not know
nor can ever hope
to capture as well
as you.

when words are few,
or stuck in dictionaries
unused or unknown
like
compassion,

tyrants and wife-beaters
scream
with iron fists,
silencing fluent lips
in clotting streams of  blood

...and machetes,
severing lucid limbs
from able bodies
in active states of articulation

...and guns,
the kryptonite of cowards
and buffoons,
the callow voice of philistines
and goons,
blasting cogent words
and vocal women
into oblivion

....and laboratories
where forensics of
fingerprint and dna
scream loudest,

sending tyrants and wife-beaters away
to sleep with the devil
in a shallow cell
on earth
or
hell below...

~ P (#Pablo#OTAWB)

(8/11/2013)

The leaves can’t control what trees they grow on.
Shoes don’t choose whose feet they will be covering.
We don’t choose who we fall for.
We can’t control that feeling we get when we glance into someone’s eyes and realize they will soon have a piece of our heart.  

Our brains create emotions that are impossible to stunt or stop.
Rejection after rejection. The same people can still consume our minds, even if
Our common sense knows, it will never be an option.

At times, I want to look my feelings right in the face and say,
“Curse you” why do you allow me to feel this thing called love
When you know deep down this time will be just like all of the other times.

I can’t control the boys who look into the eyes of my friends and instantly the emotions of attraction consume their lives.
I can’t control the boys who are just a little off, and look at me with that feeling.
I can’t control myself falling for someone who looks into my friends soul and makes that connection.

Life is on constant repeat. The sun rises every morning. The seasons changing every few months, every year. Babies being born, and bodies being lowered into the ground.
People falling in love with complete strangers. People leaving other people behind.
It is a reoccurring event, which in my life will never end.

This constant change and betrayal has become so common I am afraid to say it is almost a scheduled event like the Saturday morning cartoons. Always on, always there, every Saturday morning. No matter what.
This change in my life, this constant repeat of life’s hardest moments is becoming so comfortable my heart aches with the thought of it all.

I can’t fathom the thought of every heartache coming from betrayal coming to a stop and having the security blanket of knowing who ever is in my life, and who matters the most will stay.

It is safe to say my heart is becoming an ***** of scar tissue. Clotting the cuts to keep me from bleeding out. This rejection, this betrayal, this feeling of being alone, it must stop soon. I’m not sure how much more I can take.

Little does my brain know, the feelings that I can’t control, the feelings that no one can control, those are the ones who make me bleed out more and more every passing hour.

To crave,
Wails of agony, voices soaked in terror?
Call after call, message after message.
Care, love, sympathy?
Succor, surveillance, support?
Tear after tear, hands shaking and grasping?
Pity, solace, warmth?

To receive,
Levigating guilt, being disintegrated.
Evanescensing from reality.
Blood clotting and drying.
Those who are paid to give care,
Who seem as though sympathy;
Hadn't glazed over their eyes in decades.
A room so cold and sterile,
That not even the warmth of my breath
Could stop my bones from shivering under my skin.
Desolating abandonment,
Hums of fluorescent lights,
In chorus with sobs of despondency

It isn't what I wanted.
But it is what I deserved.

Thatcher vacuum seals nicotine
Slurps cigarette like mosquito
Ravenous lungs gnaw and grind for the slow pander,
Thatcher’s just another name for the labeling
We plaster and pine for an out,
Stitch that finite lie beneath squeamish child skin,
Thatcher’s the black lung paradise,
******* infancy coddling cigarette stifle,
The caloric crack of his canines fletching out lust and sickly groove
As he’s scopes out fiend and vexed vandals,
Clutches the sick theistic *******
Cuddle those bruise licked hips
Give God the gross percent,
Cause heaven’s in those greenbacks
and God’s in the ******* kick,
Suckling bout the American tip
The Christian capitol,
Seething on shadow puppet ****** and American dream,
Gods got nothing to do with the slickened crinkle of gain and glamour,
Thatcher’s just the candy man give and cult,
Cough the crutch of contagion greed
And clutch the cuff of your porcelain sleeve,
Thatcher gleans your blackest suite tight,
Struts raven blade shoulders perched on American made spine,
Thatcher does as Thatcher please,
Thatcher thinks as Thatcher bleeds,
And Thatcher bleeds venereal blend,
Gout with the American veneer of broken girl and scabbed moral traumatic,
Trauma tastes as the hollow pixies give out the get out,
Bandaged baby girls,
The teenage horror show,
Just another blazoned hit of one two take the hand me down generic give away,
Desensitize the humanize,
Girls got to get the days glossy puff and sniff,
Thatcher’s content to satisfy,
Callous coroner a spectator suckling Marlboro lick,
Lodging thick smoke and toxin between spittle slick lips,
Albino plumes clotting and unfolding,
Thatcher clicks back the cartridge
Filter and cigarette,
Thatcher gulps back the need because brain’s got a favoring kink for the buzz,
Thatcher sings with the screaming in his straggling lungs,
Hums the western creed
Laughs fickle with God at his need,
Thatcher’s the true American dream

My fist crushed his angry eye
A desperate mother begged for my sixteen year old assistance
Her egg whites rolled back into her vomiting head
The personalized presents I picked out still unused
Clotting never came, I passed out dripping blood on the toilet
She screams for help at night, though now it’s less often
The ****** wore off and she found herself in an empty lot, **** recent
You cried when your knees failed you on each stair, each day
The irises never grew this year, dead roots
It was a freak accident, no way we could have seen it coming
He was mangy and homeless, but man was he resilient
They took paid swings at each other’s hairless faces, we filmed it
The bottle left my fingertips, I heard her yell in pain
Money is easily removed from unprotected leather
I probably said some things god wouldn’t forgive on a good day
She tasted smoke on my lips, boy was she ******
I wonder if people can hear the evil **** that lives in my brain
Like ugly sea serpents mulling about in an aquarium getting restless
Little kids with sticky hands pressed against the glass
Thankful for land legs and transparent barriers
No one would swim with the sharks by choice
Except an equally wicked leviathan
I imagine they will roam in circles
Until I die

An unrequited love that still offers a seemingly patronizing hand of rapport
Is just another way to say "friend zone"
But you'll be dancing in the end zone
After you finally pay your student loan with money from the job you needed a degree to get which called for the loan in the first place

The salt has spilled off the Lazy Susan
Throw it over your right shoulder

Is this my alter ego?
Or do I have a split personality
Maybe this is my light skinned doppelganger
I've got to get these bats out of the belfry
I've got claustrophobic, roided-out butterflies in the pit of my stomach

Busted paper thin lips
A blood sport
Stop it from clotting
Vaccinate me

This vacuum is a rare find
The national demographic is going through culture shock
Assume a surname
Put on the gargantuan pennant
Go to the pulpit and beg for penance

Gridlock
The paleophone is cracked
Study the topography
And pay the bus fare

The squatters who are on borrowed time
Take a swig from the half empty bottle
After searching their whole lives for an even break
But are forced to cut ties and make a clean cut from society

All the lent hands and ears
Are lodged between ungratefulness and exclusive pity parties
Sweet nothings and forget-me-nots
Do a clean sweep

It's imperative to have a method to your madness
A portrayal of eccentric narcissist
Painting self-portraits
While on some kind of wonder drug
Longing for some moral support

Double-dealing
Double crossing
A hypocritical traitor
Who has the right away

I will watch your blood coagulate around the bullet holes
As your body goes into Rigor mortis
I will commit this picture to memory
I would have bet dollars to doughnuts that it wasn't you
But who wudda thunk it?

It's all just an impromptu turn on a dime
That encumbers you with cabin fever
When you're on display in a human zoo
Where unproductive bull sessions are a dime a dozen

Pale skin drained of blood and life,
Dark hair covered in snow flakes of dead skin,
Voluptuous curves forcing your walk into a limp,
You intoxicate me with your tarnished beauty,
A dusty copper coin aged green,
Lost in a cabinet of old tattered books and decaying heaps of trash,
Crushed paper clotting the corners of the window,
Blocking the sunshine,
Yet through the dust and grime you brought forth infrared light given off from the warmth of your heart,
The creamy red fluid running through your veins,
Ugly or not, you were beautiful,
You were my shining star,
My chase,
But I left that tattered rotting room for one moment,
To open the blinds,
To let the light shine in upon your crusty copper,
But no light came through the window,
In a panic I dusted and dusted,
Trying to free the amorphous glass of the gray particulates,
Someone had switched off the light,
I knew at that moment god was against me,
Turning off the sun in a rage,
Protecting his pure daughter from my tendrils of depression and cold romance,
For when I came back,
Looking for the coin,
It was gone,
Claimed by the man with the candle stick,
Using artificial light to seek her heart,
He was gone in a flash,
Tumbling down the stairs to his steed,
As he raced off into the Marsh...
I tossed myself out the window,
Breaking glass and bone as I slammed into the ground stories below,
Struggling to get up,
Love pushing me,
Yet with everything I had,
Every little last cell and emotion,
His steed was too fast,
The chase was over.

Flowers shot in the dark like hearts shot through with darts
Clotting blood in the voice box
Time moving slow as the clock tick tocks
And more bricks are laid
Between me and God

Children smearing on war-paint
Grandmas spitting against the devil's taint
Broken churches, corpse of the saint
Images listless and visually meaningless
In a long array of destructive days
As more bricks are laid
Between me and God

Overlarge toads bellow in the park
Green slimy beings croaking insults in the dark
What they're singing has meaning and the meaning is stark
Rhythmic insults haunting the night like the bark
Bark, bark of a wolf seeking prey
As more bricks are laid
Between me and God

A murderous man has a knife and he stabs
A touring killer with no remorse as he jabs,
Jabs, jabs whilst their blood coats the floor
Serial killer with an unquenchable need for more
Though the police are paid
The case runs cold
More bricks are laid
Between me and God

Chanting children there, with the devil's eyes
Urchins that smell fear, young weavers of lies
They encircle a dog and they throw it with stones
A cold-blooded giggle surrounds the dog's imploring moans
Little demons are made
And more bricks are laid
Between me and God

Are you friend or foe
Rattlesnake or doe
In the night or day
Do you fight or pray?
Curse or hymn
Hate or love
Does it differ?
As more bricks are laid
Between me and God.

I am but a leech, desecrating in lilly glossed waters;
Clotting beautiful beads, like bracelets, across wet flesh.
Desire is a horseman in this world, coming to close the curtains on the day.
Why stop? For lashes from the scepter that was to guide us?
Fractured and rotten; yet we still cling for a taste of a crumb of the life once held within it's dead trunk.
Death. But an old friend and a forgotten enemy greedily tickling this slicken frame.
Fingers float tempting whispers to my every nerve and I long for my senses to set ablaze in those writhing clutches
Screaming from inside for release that teases and tingles like the ****** that never comes. Shaken and slightly shrunken
Light blazes at the doors, searing and scorching the very flesh that holds a withered frame
No longer seeking escape,
I slither back to the darkness I seem to have forgotten was home once before

As a Borderline she suffers through ,
a kind of emotional Hemophilia ;

Lacking the clotting mechanism
needed to moderate her spurts of feelings .

Stimulate a passion ,
and she emotionally bleeds to death .

handrail, wall, ceiling, stair
tumbled down the whole flight
by mistaking the door
for the staircase as the door
for the bathroom
as doom loomed near
nothing had been more clear
I've been falling down stairs
my whole life
bruising, aquiring contusions,
bleeding, clotting, bones snapping,
regrowing,
I'll be okay, I'll be okay
if I can just manage to crawl
back up to the party
to the... party
to the...
to...


**blackout

I want tendrilic night to descend around me
And wrap itself, drape itself, like a curtain
Velvet and thick, choke and be sick
***** all over the carpets

When the blood slows to more manageable
Clotting, destroying everything it soaks
Tarnish the mainstream, the day dreamer
Wrapped thick inside of winter coats

Baby blue mist making it's way through land
The liquid just beginning to drop
Ivy vines, they wither and shed from sunlight
And grow back into the ground

Medicine is made from the dead flowers
That grow from the pits of Hades realm

Maybe I was an ocean in a past life
Drifting in and out of hearts  
like old blood and clotting wounds alike
And maybe I sank memories at sea
And threw overboard emotions raw
That drifted to the beach

And caught in nets the pain, regret
Mourns over and is swept up back again
Failed attempts at revival
New swimmer drowned
in deep waters ****** him
below candescent surface thinly veiled
and out of oxygen

Warning signs on sandy beach
Hard to miss, at every bend
But enticement, loneliness led you in
Those vices, magnets, human virtue
Lead swimmers to my muddy waters
each and every time

The Last Doughboy
went marching home

mustered up to heaven
to rest in perfect peace

never went over the top
when he was over there

drove an ambulance to save
the last dying bits of humanity

excavated from the craters
reeking with mud and blood

the turgid stench
of blessed death

wafts through the
muddled labyrinth

a ghastly kingdom
of rats and men

intractable mazes
of hate, hope and waste

led by inept generals
vainglorious politicians

promising triumphant victory
while begging disastrous defeat

bold shouts of advance
lead to routed retreats

global trench warfare
the sweet earthen coffins

empathy's last gasp
compassion's last stand

gurgling lungs
gagging on gas

imploding on
clotting blood

liquid ammonia
sears sensitive retinas

wafting flash of fire
burns eyes forever shut

concussive bursts
bludgeon eardrums

ripped bodies of friends
splayed onto comrades

the macabre rouge
a terrible war paint

liberally applied
with stunning result

by the industrial rattle
of cantankerous Gatlings

better minds thought it
the war to end all wars

the horrific scenes of waste
the pleading lips of starved children

the last Doughboy saw it all
a lucky Johnny who marched home

he thought the horror of WWI
would be enough to end all wars

yet all is not quiet
on the western front

Johnny's still got lots
of gruesome guns

distressed humanity
remains very busy

carting away human rubble
from our apocalyptic trenches

go to your reward
valiant Doughboy

"leave us citizens
of death's gray land,

drawing no dividend
from time's tomorrows."

Siegfried Sassoon

Dedicated to

Frank Buckles
(February 1, 1901 – February 27, 2011)
Godspeed Beloved


Oakland
3/1/11
jbm

come up to where i am
i've been there
i understand perfectly
it's a thinking man's movie
no mother of god
i'd be tied down to her schedule
it's a hassle
they would make it his cross
they could make up their minds if they knew the difference
8.47 and the clock's still thinking
i don't want to go looking for calvary's eden
it's like being evaporated
he knows what he wants to do
i understand what he wants to do
it's not a dead end
it's the same thing
you've got a lot
do you know how fast three days go by?
this is not my armageddon
this trot is very limiting
that doesn't sound right
that would be a complete, utter waste of time
hooves clotting beneath the sick steed
i just hate that sound!
what are you proving?
she's afraid you'll break in martyrdom and bag groceries
it's still familiar to me
what are you doing?
get over here and do it.
where's the chocolate?

another blocked satellite

beaming black mountain transitions

                   molars full of moss

       burning up the dogwood.

the scales aren't nearly as round around

the edge as you are ; you made me kiss you in the

dark.

                flies by fire

tree splinters into fractal spirals.

          am eye the one you want

         or do you just need to feel wanted?

haha, *******, eye am not your Evangelion

burning on my faces marks the sun

it's my minds that's been idle

               yet the existence of my voice

implies merely my slight existence

                                                   in this pit

                the water is blood the blood is clotting

                choking, pushing, on my chest.

Outside with tea and blankets:
a Fortress against the

August cold.

And so begins another typically English evening.

night is marching,
marching on and

unusually

we are not glued to our phones
nor the daily grind.

we catch a handful of

Shooting Stars

and find that this is an addictive occupation.

One moment I wished I could drape my room with starry waterfalls
but then considered how they would

dull
      
       and
            
            darken

if I breathed too deeply in my sleep.

(a subconscious effort to absorb some starlight into my clotting veins.)

So leave me now under the
Flaming Sky and all its anger.

Leave me alone so that I may fall asleep,
at last.

I have an appointment with the moon about my dulling temperament.

The stars have sworn to let down a

r
o
p
e

l
a
d
d
e
r

my own Stairway to Heaven.

So rip my heart out,
let my arteries unwind.

Haul me to heaven with my umbilical cord.

There I cling to the back of a comet
and hurtle through space
alive at last and full of stars
until the nausea takes hold

and puts me to bed.

My nose, it just bled numbers--
Bled for years on years unnumbered
'Til I lost my youthful hunger
For anything but numbers
And coagulating blood

But with figures cold and clotting
And with innards now unknotting
I clear the corridors of blotting
And begin to finally breathe

Know pens belong on pages
In your pockets, in your hands
Not in lives, or heads or veins
Most certainly not in plans.

The stars are watching us
for no reason, vibrating mystery
or nothing at all. What will
we do, in regards to this passage
of leftover life? Our heart in heat,
either flowing or clotting.