this makeshift democracy
yearning endearing
breeding festering aristocracy
petrified on the sidelines

black hispanic asian european
the manifesting minority
which built this republic
political policy withered to marrow

echoes of Washington
fade in graves marble halls
politicians etches unsheathed
to feast in bribery sorts

the gleam of monetary value
blinded patched pockets
burning the fabric
to be later devoured

The Night King Ego died...

The time, the place, the setting:

T'is some hour for sleep, prescribed,
For me, the reality of sleep, proscribed.

The strains of Bach's
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major
Haunt.
Richard II's words
Give pause, precision refinement of my cause courant.

“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the ***** of the earth”

Two am in New York, sleep,
As advertised,
Literally, a passing acquaintance,
Doesn't make it to
The side of the bed occupied by
100% of me.
Seems he went
From chimney to chimney
This past Sunday morn.
Not having a chimney,
He flue right over me.

No matter.
Company aplenty,
Ego and moi,
We, had a long talkie.
A bit of a wrestle, a staring contest
In a mirror, we watched ourselves,
In the pitch black
where clarity is perfect,
For nothing else exists,
But ego and me,
To distract us.

“I'll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.
Give me that glass and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me!”

Called my lawyer just now,
ordered her to commence
the divorce papers, serve them ASAP,
I need to rid myself of
My oldest nemesis, my oldest friend,
Mine vanity, my ego.

Let me explain
myself to myself.
You may tag along for the ride.

Writing is more important
than any of the individual
Five senses
That feed this addiction.
Without sound, sight, touch, smell and taste,
I can live quite well,
Thankee.

But ****** boy mind needs to write
Simple survival.
No write, no life.

But ****** bad boy ego is a curse,
A contaminate of each and every
Line, stanza,word and verse.

"Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin”

At first, for an audience of three
I performed,
Me, myself and I.

But the suckiness creepeth in,
and etches my distorted face,
Salutations and gradations,
demanding confirmation
Of Shakespearen magnification.

Do you like me?
Do you love me?
****** all.

Curse ye King Ego and your vainglorious occupations,
Divorce me, from the sad isle of
Self
Self worth,
Pride, vanity insurance,
The most deadly of the seven
Deadly sins.

Ego desperate in kind responds:

"I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”

Slime and slippery, want is what you feel,
Taste grief, need friends,
Sly devil, you twist thy cunning tongue,
The reverse, your plain meaning!
You need nothing but subjects,
In earnest and forever praise,
Absent them, you mood and whine,
A pretender, a poseur, a drug addict cursed!

Let us purpose to dispose of thy spirit earthly,
Slow starvation too good for you,
Poison, arrows, the hilt of my blade,
The neck, thine bowel,
Let me embrace,
Prefer your steel hot or cold?

If we both must expire, then it be so, for
My honor taken, my life forsaken,
My poetry in disrepute,
Until that day when I write for me alone,
And ally my scripts, in coffin, with me interred.

"My dear, dear Lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away
Men are but gilded loan or painted clay...
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one;
Take honor from me, and my life is done."

It is said that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results

Call me crazy because I will repeatedly repeat and never learn

Maybe I don't want to learn because I love the cycle of yes and no and mostly no

Even though it kills us both
We are insane because we know that it is wrong and that's the way it has to go
And yet we try, and don't try again and again
And the pen etches into the page the same stanzas

The monotony sounds like harmony
Because in our insanity we are happier and unhappier than we will ever be

I would rather die waiting for change than to be without your sweet disappointment

To relent and reclaim my sanity would be a tragedy because I would have to write new stanzas and my pen is too in love with our poetry, to welcome a new subject

For the sake of my pen (at risk of her heartbreak) I will reject the cry inside of me to run to reality

While the hurricane proves pathetic fallacy outside of our window
We breathe lunacy and embrace


Insanity

She paints her hips the color of her blood
the way she paints the water light blues and greens.
Except the cuts on her skin aren’t beautiful
not like the trees and branches in the painting for her sister.
That razor hitting her skin and spilling her blood
it’s far different from her paintbrush hitting the canvas and spilling paint.

She etches her skin with this blade
the way he etched his lungs with smoke.
One is visible to the eye if only they look
The other is hidden and can’t be seen.
Both are deadly
but one of them stopped and the other has not.

The numbness takes over leaving her cold
She lays on the bed staring at the ceiling feeling nothing.
The girl hates it so she grabs that blade and finds a new spot to cut.
She winces as the blood begins to drip down her hip
and feelings begin to form in her chest again.
The feeling may be pain,
but to her anything is better than nothing.

The girl knows she needs to stop
she knows that on her hips
there are no beautiful pictures in blues and greens
but tragic stories written in nothing but blood.
The tale of a girl who would rather live in pain
than die in numbness.

Why are you sad?* I asked, giving him a kiss.
It’s because every time we part,
I always have this longing of
Wanting more time with you, he said.

I always want more of you.
It’s always never enough —
A day will never be enough,
He told me with solemness.

He looked up at me and made a promise:
I promise you I’ll be the man,
The man that will spend all eternities with you
And I won’t ever be tired of it.

I love you, that’s why.
I love you in all the curves and edges —
All the patches and etches
In my temporary body

For now, I’m becoming that man;
Slowly, but I will be.
I’m not saying that I will grab all the stars in the sky
Because then, all the glimmer in you will disappear.

All I promise is,
I will be the man that is right for you.
But for now, I’m only becoming
More than the man of your dreams.

I gave him a shy smile and thought,
You will be the man, I know,
You’ll be the man I’ll spend my entire life with.
*But for now, you’re still my rose bud boy.

Katherine writes songs about wheat fields and her father’s blisters
From the four-by-six closet beneath the staircase.
Aaron doesn’t write anymore.

Katherine draws music notes to record
The tune of footsteps and creaking oak,
While Aaron feels the rough grain of maple window frames
And avoids his reflection in the double-paned glass.

Katherine holds tight to her pen
Like a man who’s lived a good life holds on to his final breath.
Aaron, he never found it that hard to exhale.

Katherine knows love like she knows the Sun,
While Aaron, who once flew wax-winged,
Stopped studying mythology
And found trust in extinguished light bulbs.

Katherine draws stick figures in the collected dust
Of cracked-cloth book covers
And embraces every particle that kisses her fingerprint.
Aaron wears black leather gloves
Like a desensitizing second-skin.
But they both close their eyes
When the wind brushes their cheeks.

When Katherine cries it’s wet and sloppy
And when it’s over she usually giggles
At the feeling of being human.
Aaron’s eyes are desert moons;
If he believed in a god he’d pray for rainstorms,
But instead he picks tumble weeds from his teeth
With the ribcage he found when the vultures were through.

Katherine webs outlines with plot twists and foreshadows
While Aaron knows some stories
Are made up as they’re written.

Katherine collects crushed asphalt from both sides of divided highways
And mixes it with ****** wax to varnish her innocence.
Aaron drives the back-roads and keeps one eye on the rearview mirror.
He finds solace in sharp turns.

Tonight, Katherine curls her toes as she writes a song about
loving up until your very last breath
And caresses her lips.
Aaron chews on his and slides open the window.
They both recall the taste of someone else’s skin from the salt in the air.
Katherine’s candle flickers and pops when she moves
Her hand through the light to cast stories on the wall.
Aaron crawls down the shadowed side of hallways
And feels the grey grow in his hair as he starts up the staircase.

Step by step by step by
each breath is
step by step
loved a little bit less
An all but silent cacophony of creaking oak.

Katherine etches a treble clef but her pupils dilate
When she senses the unfamiliar feeling of a second heartbeat.
With stitched silk stockings
she tip-toes up the same song.
Aaron hears music for the first time in so long
And turns to see where goose bumps come from.

Katherine crescendos at the top of the stairs and
Stares into two full, bright desert moons.
Aaron finds it hard to let go of the breath it takes to say,
“Don’t be afraid.”
Katherine tumbles like fingers down piano keys,
But for a split-second in the moment their eyes met
They both forgot the weight of loneliness.

Although flummoxed by the gabble of hibernaculum I seethe with the verdant quiddity that is a cross-pollination that spans the gamut of historical memory and owns the usucaption of infrastructure equipping our bootstrapped capacities of literacy tethered to the ecumenical capacity for proliferation through amplified discernment that percolates at decorative gallop into the stridor of unified apothegms that quantify the visibilia of the broadened universe into the nexility of formula bounded by the parameters that equip synergies of space-time to envelope its own reification and magnetize urbane freebooters of coalescence to grapple with the ineffable mathematics of absorbed losses in the human fraternity becoming overlooked because of the providence of shepherded acrimony to escape the oblivion of barely marginal exponential extinctions of impropriety into fast-paced panoramas of expedited dalliance with optimums constrained by the effluvia of hinderbaggle which exist only by domineering mercurial lability of manufacture enabled by the siphon of Promethean reason to catapult the slogmarch of advancement by punctuated achievements registered by canonical gravitas to revolutionize society in longevity and interplanetary awareness that places a 1000:1 premium on a 165 IQ in comparison to a 110 IQ. Although bewildered by the beaucoup of raxed originality the anoegenetic flux of slogan achieves but a petty solidarity in comparison to the galvanized bronteum of registered invention that provides decisively seminal locomotive prowess to the foisons of promulgated ingenuity propped up by the capacity for raltention that exceeds the inherent longevity of humans on Earth into the permanence of memory to achieve radical vanguard frontiers within diminishing frames of a once vapid time recorded only through the lens of finicky preoccupations of crude retention rather than the kinship of the perceptive unity of the authors who remarked on history to share the same vantage with the distant onlookers upon that very history with such a convergence of judgments the photons that trespassed on inquisitive eyes of inquierendo are the very same blueprint for the modern savory traipse with selfsame perceptions embedded in canonical history like the spool of an exact daydream unfurled before inoculated eyes differentiated by context but achieving the same visual footprint of historical lineament provided by the original exemplar. The luxury of our provisional prosperity is the unique ability to browse spontaneously a two-century travail of perceptible records embedded in the same perceptual rudiments captured by the original vetuda thereby enabling the specificity of prowess to vicariously encounter distant gulfs of time with the simultaneous realization of past becoming present tense because beyond the revisionism of the censors the human lineage originates in approximated design tethered to the aboriginal photographs and hallmark expenditures of celluloid digitized into annealed constellation to provide separate junctures in space time with the same indelible percept decontextualized but potent by showcase of the verdure of the generosity of shared perception rather than cleaved faint traces of divergent imagination conceiving junctures by distal lurches of insular harbors of private registries of tact and discretion without the shared raltention of the plevisable entities that populate the fragmented lineage of space-time to achieve full congruence in percept first and abstract eventually as neuroscience slogmarches with the nockerslug of invidious depredation of sanctanimity. Adrift in iconoduly sustained by lambent monasticism of abnegation we were lost widows of insular idiosyncrasies of similar concepts separated by the longevity of imagination redacted into communicable formula to ensure the divergence of impact of liturgies heterodyne by vast distances but linked to archaic designs that formed the paradigms which eventually merged with the wiseacres of Renaissance conserved in momentum over centuries into the information capital that forms the futtocks of the girdle of a womb matrix of society sustained by a newfangled uniformity of exposure that slowly churns the collectivism of memory and the syndication of the cartel into the ubiquity of prominent thorns of perception magnified by iconography of the megalography of historical permanence evasive of censors and embracing the entelechy of coherent perceptions siphoned by different engineers but arriving at precisely the same conceptual imprint thereby unifying the perceptual world with the usucaption of leveraged networking of browsers of antiquity. The finesse of leapfrogs of modern human impediment is to scour the reaches of the troves of the most vivid imagination and expedite the turnstiles of conserved rollercoasters of enthusiasm probed by the cadasters capable of castophrenia to syndicalize the autonomy of human perception sejungible from indelible vivid footprints of abstraction upon an interface of truly hard-won vehicles of transmissible abstraction to win the arduous relish of once a vacuum of infested instinct into an algorithm of an intelligent source that creates the precise conditions of parallax to seed through celestial hosts the flourishes of stereodimensional traces of permanent cadaster into something that elects beyond the ethereal snatches of oblivion the provisional apportionment of sentiment above continence to set ablaze the rarefaction of raltention and quantify the intelligible impact of one artifact of civilization over the constellated taxonomy of all apothegms within the divine grasp of a sublunary eternity revived and recycled into syndicated scrutiny that bows to a convergent entelechy of instantaneous improvisation of perdurable registry into indemnities that litigate the humorous quizzical trangams of vastly outmoded obsolescence borrowing from panspermatism of technocracy to the edgy appeal of scintillating horizons of peerless scope that approximate the ommateum of approximated omniety but never span far enough for the distant riometers to see for deputized galaxies to be evoked in concrete human-alien achievements sempervirent and virulent guardians of the toil of sensation to refract off of its overhang because of redundant upbringing to shelve the incendiary impediments of the chary into the corsairs of revelation beyond gamuts of lurch and bypassing elapsed regress to arrive at ceremonial progress to trespass upon many minds with a unified concrete hypostasized entelechy of a fielded incorporation of organic life into a manufactured cycle of the most prolonged and beatific longevity capable of digestion and implementation from the toolsheds of hubris accelerated by the vainglory of subsidized harmonies that break through the barriers of language to sprout convergence in direct opposition to entropy to achieve oculate ommateum.The opponents to the logical syndicalism of positivism emergent as the verdant drape of homogenized pasteurization of raw lavaderos that capsize swallock and devour consciousness with predatory mobilism is the tregounce of the ponderous imprints of recapitulated stupidity which is easy to quantify in terms of human rarity because the difference between a 130 IQ and a 155 IQ is a difference in ingenuity power than exceeds 25:1 or an even higher margin of liquidation of indebted concatenations forming the flombricks of capitalized language finessed into burgeoned growth to radically shift postulates into abstract precision that observes the flanges of the dominion of inculcation into the filibusters of gainsay that supersedes hearsay in an evolution of the dialectic to exert transformative esemplastic rejuvenation that transcends creed and ingeminates the festivity of spectacle with the alvantage of albenture to such an extent it predicates new modalities of persiflage grounded on the aggressive patented expansion of the noosphere to inherit the instincts of orthobiosis while simultaneously inheriting the flair of redoubled ingenuity swarming with the vespiaries of predatory discretion working to ***** out glaring beacons of sapience so that intellectual capital is a local rather than ubiquitous emergence because of the prizes of urbacity enhanced by systems of masonic creed that preserved foresight with varying degrees of exactitude knowledgeable about outcomes but incidental in creating those outcomes out of the alchemy of the convergent sphere of spacetime to curve to synclastic pancratic refinement realized in the taxation of the most domineering figures of canon to indoctrinate the inkburch of wernaggle while the panorama of peripheral obscurity adduced by the resourceful few provides the progeny for a seminal equation that encounters the quandaries of precise retention amplified by the synergies of language exponentially grown by the depth and breadth of lexicon siphoned through mechanisms of percolation seeded by the convergent progeny of hindsight meeting foresight to a truce in the elected interests of the filagersion of the spotlight highlighting a universe that only exists with self-aware reification rather than plodding animated instincts of a stagnant match with a slowpoke evolution that scrawls the gabble of the vacuums of faint oblivion knowing only pain, agony and brief felicity but never registered into ecosystems capable of enriching themselves with artifices of origination rather than vapid retrenchments of the stale vapor of the exigencies that plague the intellectually bereft with tertiary deskandent perfunctory desuetude outstripped by the parsecs of the 170 crowd who secretly orchestrates the think tanks that run the furtive cryptadia of regional governance with foisons of fruition realized as dividends of exponential bypasses of even a linear route of the streamline by warping time itself to a spontaneous entelechy that triangulates a warped trigonometry that fathoms what can only be mapped on an imaginary flickering plane of fluxed existence that achieves sub-Pythagorean travel by altering the vacillating distances predicated by the theory of relativity into shortened tracts of abbreviation separating the bridgewaters of locomotion from the vast lurking prowess of reconfigured geometries lurking beyond the shadowy grave of reconnaissance into the penumbra of conservatory refinement. The punctual symmetries of thermodynamic decay met with a conversant offset in reverse acceleration of thermolysis converge with the centripetal prism of annulment to make stalemates of atomic precision appear grandiose to the economic principle of leverage acquired by debt because the discounted cost of symmetrical approximations of sentiment, abstraction and the already syndicated unity of perception vastly scale the scope of the reach of the amenable universe to tractions bound more by eccentricity of parameterized volumes of competing hyperbolas of a warped unity of tugging forces spawned by the differential weights of a flummoxed calculus that provides obeisance in ecumenical uniformity that was absent by degrees through the tinkers of time to adjust the orbits of consideration by tilted warbles of the songbirds that swim in abysses reaching sizable celestial tutelage providing reprisal for quintessential crudity mapped into a syntax of evolved refinement amplified by conserved concatenation accelerated into mastery by the coalescence of new lexicon to probe conceptual space unchartered by the nexility of normal human conduct and therefore bound to a different pattern of evolution that is oleaginous to the engines of revved ostentation in intellectual prowess that is selfsame from the majesty of heaven because of preordained populace meeting transitory flickerstorms twinged with the irony of discursive disclaimer and discretion of disclosure of emissary vehicles that power synaptic vesicles to burst with signal strength harnessing the unity of conscientiousness into a coenesthesia that fathoms interdisciplinary bridges rarely exacted by the formulas of a more rudimentary mind demarcated in taxonomies of scope that are taxemes for unrealized entelechy bristling against the headwinds of doldrum rather than zephyrs of accelerated approximations of the enumeration of elaborate sveldtang into seminal traversals of the inhibitory grasp of narquiddity exceeded by the alacrity of provident discretion in apportioned judgment enough to parameterize vast distances with instantaneous wiseacres rather than rippled mirrors of faint simulations of simultagnosia bounded by the regional scope of subliminal etches of harnessed flombricks invisible to most aptitude measures of working memory but evocative of subroutines that flourish because of the cross-pollination of exasperated sapience clambering for a perpetuity of renewable raltentions conveyed widely and succinctly in indelible tacenda broached by the wisest sophrosyne inclinations to survive the onslaught of traditional nexilities that make obtuse minds hardened by slowpoke myelination and hidebound parameters of achieved convention recursive on reiteration but not expansive on the tracts of genius reserved for the asylum boundary between insanity of delusion and bountiful riches of harvested non-conventional imagination which sometimes pollutes the integral provenance of rapid conveyance. True transcendence is summarily defined as outpacing pace itself to visibly outfox the forsifamiliation of events perceived as distance sworn by the ability of the accelerated frontier to understand the vestiges of the outmoded to the extent redintegration can surpass with imagination beyond the tethers of quddity that narrowcast swallock but refine the space that distances itself from magnitude and achieves a limited vetuda that phenomenalizes the redacted plucky perjury of self-anonymity to identify a novel visibilia of characterized clarity only specialized to the extent the vast sphere of retention exerts a gravitas over footloose fragments of disunity to surpass the skeumorphs of the trailing bolides of distant comets to avoid by meteoric trajectory the lapse incumbent to E=MC^2 which guarantees implicitly in the barter of nebbich chalky rigmarole that the energy of refinement is an abstraction limited only by the coherence of marginal dumose decay to estrange inertia as plevisable from motion and thermolysis as sejungible in partition what cannot be summarily be filibustered by the succedaneum of shortchanged shorthand convenience of the credulity of those who perceive dynamism of delivery as an easily fudged quandary not restrained by the logarithmic slowdown of conservatory inseminations of panspermatism of invention. The riddle of the enigma of neuroscience that presides over classifiable qualia is that the outstretched rax of rectiserial reorganization must gradatim invoke spurious prestige to predicate the entrapment of narrative exponentially slower than the impregnated literacy of an integral harpsichord of mind to finesse the octaves so that sublime majesties become superlative ringleaders of seditious conventions embedded more by absorptive brocrawlers than expressive werniques. We must fashion an orthobiosis that is leniency embodied but plenitude outnumbered by the progeny of its sculpted riches for extravagant spools of tapestries of refinement to be the imprints of legacy compounded by the complexities of inheritance in lineaments situated in the context of overhanging specters and domineering prospects swimming by commonwealth acatelepsy in a maelstrom of revived gammerstang notions of impetuous apostasy benighted by the macroscian and macrobian spans of the captive capture of a Taylor Series of infinite expenditure assuming perpetuity that necessarily converges on organization because of conscientious reversals of entropy into ladders of betrayal against the hegemony of ******* over the synquests of hortoriginality that spurn the castigations inherited from its immodesty of permutation to fixate on global problems of intricacy ragged in salebrosity bereft of the marginal galvanization of hidden inquirendos into artifice contingent upon elapsed epiphenomena of compounded rigmarole resonant with a simplified system of hostage complicity to a least common denominator that belongs to suboptimal refrains issued by Procrustean forces against demassified parsecs of bounded limitations exceeding the volume of perceptible shadows recessive in the alleles of culture but eventually transmogrified into teetotaler totalitarian principles of grave gravities of tabanids to the aceldamas of territorial joust rather than annealed irony of the recidivism of the plucky thorns of percurrent but latent vehicles for oppression to swamp the lethargy of durative formation such that the hambourne atrocity of hambaskets of hinderbaggle grapple mostly with the adolescent excesses of milked pleonexia becoming the downfall of cagey imprisoned syntax bereft of capable constellation and thereby stranded in vagrant proclivities that net positive only in the rare grandeur of my formative axiom of the axiolative excesses of my recensed definition of transcendence. The vacant harbor of asylum of abiding auctions of flexible transistors of wealth is inherently a poolswap of attractive chocolate-box travestime of incurred wreffalaxity suborning the lewd machination of funneled flipcreeks to the commerstargall of incendiary glaciers basking in boardrooms of ataraxic placations of commiseration found in dynamos lamenting degraded embodiments of regaled regelation as seasonal flictions of submerged vanity vaporizing the wisps of whimsical bloated grievances of paltry imparlance to the defalcation of a filigree of mind only sustained by the steady churlishness of preserved relic hibernating in brocrawler pleonasm to grindole the welter of spates of vapid deceleration of successful vibrancy measured in the gamut of hues to exact a penultimate ruse before the finitude of the capstone of capers of fiat remission slick with glamborge of gallionic sciamachy prone to revelry in the cretaceous extinction of monochromatic mathematicization of gradgrind visagists toying with the treacle of blue-sky action billowed into toxic spurts of contrarian aggression of herculean appendages of hackumber providing the bronteum of recidivism to vanquish a righteous trajectory on a pause of Canada Dry conveniences sultry in daft hipsters of tilted stage grafting conclusion prior to rapport of introduced variables of poignant tethers of necessary succor for a desiccated bastion of hidden unspoken reach fizzling into trangams of obsolescence because of perennial inebriations that thwart strong character to scandalize a pinhoked vessel of conscientious objection to the radiology of centerpiece hapless forlorn arid squelches of the vibrant verdure of macrobian dumose shelter for reformatories that invent incidentally accidents otherwise precluded by the ommateum of wasted foresight guzzled on the premium of disaster for a showcase of verve going awry steamy with livid filagersion aimed with a reluctant enmity against the cagey headwinds of recalcitrance inveterate to the scruples of the otherwise unscrupulous who foist lewd licentious philandered paragons of philogeant mysticism to forefront cowcatchers that eliminate kumbaya rijuice of gridlock impressionism guarded by the sentinels of rambunctious destructive attempts to evict intellectual propriety from careens of subtlety barnstorming with polyacoustic nuances of differential gradients of vapid bastions of strident but backwards versamily froward and bountiful of Head Hunter specters rather than heaved recombinations of orthotropism wed with mangers of savory dilettantism of the lionized array of brooks branching into rivulets and the fluminous barnstorm of pelagic awareness interrupted by the finicky prevarications of piggybacked fair-weather allies who secretly fund the slander for the mainour of dirt fundamental to meteoric rises acclimated to dissipated moral vacuums of disbelief of evidentiary miracles among the jostle of scientific regency that slakes opprobrium to illiteracy while benefiting greatly from my perceived barathrum that is rather a crowning ravenous achievement of appetite above substance and distinction varied from prediction that my Titanic zalkengur spared from the unnecessary sacrilege of less accommodating curglaff to the metaphorical hypothermia of albatross in dramaturgy rather than a pause glowering with mastery against my jarred enemies preying on weakened reach due to preeminent dirges of inkburch and swallock to ravage my sanctity with a hyped stage without a starlet daydream fantasia spectacle that is calculated to upstage even in the coverthrow of intelligentsia against the plodding boweries of pestilential raving resentment absconding with elusive enmity rather than cherishing a true trident champion of the seized seas and the traindeque of emulated intellectual accordions of claptrap chockablock pedigree that outlast gallywow afflictions of rapacious venality tenacious to the detritus of constructive detriment building the ashes of effigy before I am dead and buried with the storge of perennial legacy rather than scandalous privation of the obolary tenets of desecration above reabsorption of mendicant bodges of the bodewash of freedom’s counterstrokes of maskirovka ineradicable and plenipotentiary wit deniable but legacy ineffable by degrees of exponential long-winded flambeaus of filagersion swiveling with recessive rubble in a crenellated fortress guarded with tripwire insubordination against cordslave dependencies liable to recurrent reproach rather than sustainable filigrees of electrified balkanization toxic to the aquifers of modernity streamlining Roman imperium. To this flajoust I owe eternal behest as the captaincy of time is not a perishable whangam of superstition an affront to a provident rejoinder of verifiable prestige because the curvature of time favors the ripple effect of magnetized reninjuble charms alerted to upward soaring skies of inevitable peerless dominion in the  perceived symphily of competing benevolence with a shared stake in Earthly pulchritude emanating a sworn allegiance to the best interests of philosophical enlightenment

Etches in the ***** mirror, like ghost across the skies.
draw hopeful words in steam from all my weakened sighs
The morning brings bravery to meet the darkness with defiance
but night fills my heart with longing and the slightest stroke of violence.
The eyes in front of me,
reflections of what I want to be
aren't the eyes I actually see
the purest form of what is me.
Wrinkles pouring 'cross my face
meet the stretch marks of wasted space.
I check the clock.
My bank account.
The scale.
Numerical definitions of what I have and what I don't.
But I cannot check my happiness to see if I am overdue.
No check on Friday will fill my heart... which has been overdrawn.
How to measure the strength of soul, before the vault is all but gone...
The etches in the mirror say
"Tomorrow is another day." while advertisements of existence blur my vision.
They tell me this is life.
They tell me work your job. Pay your bills. Accept your place.
But I have slowly learned that I will never agree.  
What will I do when words run out and I am left with an empty wallet, an empty mind, an empty heart?
Let me body decay before my strength does.
Let the words stay etched in my mind.
Tomorrow is another day

I dream a million fireflies transporting me to this space
A Moon shadow casts a light upon my face.
A Young boy dreaming of tight lines on this Kinderhook NY stream,
Water droplets on frozen fly line, cast a prism sunbeam.

It's this time and special place that etches a constant memory,
Of Standing on that rock casting tight loops across the estuary.
Practice makes perfect as I make a presentation towards this riffle,
I can see a smile on my face, a moment in time that's purely transcendental.

With hope on the rise and a pheasant tail nymph tied to my tippet,
I make my way past the roily water to a calmer spot I'll inhibit.
Stripping line I load this feather chucker and place a nymph on the breezers nose
Zzzzzzz screams my reel and I scramble to fight this foe

As the snow begins to fall, I gaze upon this look of contentment in my eyes
And hover from above to watch myself learning to fly.
I whisper to myself, " Man life doesn't get any better than this",
As I kneel to release my catch, I watch him glide into the abyss.

And at day's end, I find myself walking beside the memory of Lou, Theodore, and Jack,
Three mentors who showed me the way, part of my Wulff pack.
Some Say "if I fished only to capture fish, my trips would have ended long ago",
And now I have something that money can't buy, the gift of learning to fly.

She blinks.
And such an ordinary unnoticeable movement
Creates movements in places he never intended to landslide.
She's a super natural rip tide
She's an extraterrestrial tour guide
To the universe
Of his dreams.
The
Space
Of her smile
Sends his pupils rocketing space-bound.
The black holes of her throat are cautiously slippery,
She wants him to drown.
She's ******* him down
Down
She's gathering him up
And escorting him around
Like shooting stars in a moonlit sky
His pupils search for the skies in her eyes
And she blinks.
She etches the disguise of his demise in her memory,
And she tattoos her name in his heart with permanent ink.

flipping through pages of his mind,
caressing unspoken quotes; I whisper
slang of lust in his ear, ******* his big
ego to the bottom of his page, while his
drool trickles between breast; uttering
syllable after syllable as I re-write his script.

his hardness speaks fluently, inking
parchment with liquid tipped quill, oh! the
thrill as I bend his will, to fluidly flow; dipping
in inkwell of thoughts, penning desires and
want in liquid diatribe of lustful pleasures; like
a moth to flame flickering, as I lick verbs in
hunger to peruse his re-written script;
gripping sheeted pages to uncover his
beguilement; drinking in acknowledgment
of his golden chalice.

I want to decipher his member in autographed
curlicues of calligraphic swirls, teasing and
taunting as he watches, awe-struck; as tongue
etches each throbbing vein in ebonized charcoal,
sketched upon pages of wanton verses making
him scream with passion in prose; on bended
knee tasting my rose, penning his moans in
quotes against throat.

in heat of our passion, pages and scripts are
flipped allowing him to drip ink upon lips as I
whisper softly to his mind; want of him to grind
his neb of ache within my archive, articulating
history of hunger; as limbs mime each cursive
letter, insinuating one vowel at a time; licked
against silken parchment in tender stroked
consonant utterances; shuddering inside  
walls as nouns clench and moans escape
in adjectives shattering mind as wet tendrils
slide down firmness, fore, only she can do this
to me; making me flip volumes of pages while
inside wetness she drips ink all over in
chaptered stages.

each chapter I lick her spine; cornering her
in my mind as a sensual adversary; claiming
her as I untie her collection of copious sighs,
my mind tries to deny copyrights to her library;
as I place her upon my shelf, while against the
wall; ravishing her like the wild section of animal
kingdom, lusting while I watch her body fall
prey to breathless hunger, devouring
and savoring her bookmark; paying full
attention to her glossary of delectability,
that melts upon tongued bilingual text;
her nectar leaves its imprint upon
our handbook of worded aphrodisiacs.

cherishing our artistic volumes in ardency as
we're ready to publish our first draft, but not
before I slide her lubricious cover upon my
shaft; we begin to lay strokes of signatures
against our first editioned copies belonging
soley to us, as we scream in accented jargon
every second I tease; easing in and out,
shouting out in voweled ecstasy; gliding
thickness, gently against taut bookmark.

turning each page with deep thrusts, into her
inkwell; as I swell with friction, speaking in
fluent diction, of addiction to her sweetness;
dripping, as I'm slipping in tomes; thinking
about how she begged me to re-write our script,
spilling ink in delirious closure, in *******
exposure while losing our artistic composure;
writing manuscripts as ink spills upon volumes
of pages in disclosure.

Paint each tempered vein
Time for us to begin
Love is dreamt within the pain
Passion in the tailspin
Each word that cuts like knives
Etches in the soul
Never good at holding on
Even worse at letting go

Blank stares grasp onto me
Chilling my very bones
A seashell called love in an endless sea
Senses dulled, skills unhoned
Making up words, wanting something in turn
Promises worth ****
Choices made and choices lost
Perfectly off pitch

Time a constant except in death
A warden to my jail
Looking for a key inside of me
Tired, tried, failed
Peel back this skin, searching in depth
For a reason, crazy or sane
Time to look within myself
Search each tempered vein

walking down childish roads
I weep spotting something rotten
a tree

& I wonder before tying my shoes
in a church
guarded by senile eyes
I think to myself
why must I hold
in my fleshy heart
one becomes itself.

& below after years
of walking & soaking
structures & small
soiled gatherers
I see teal stained pages
smeared red, white
with the doings of our past
only needing a page in books
to breed fear in rosy hope.

looking before as a camera wants
we fly into the upward
quickly with enthusiasm
a smile etches our glossy face
& we see me
someone is here on my road
I stay calm
next to me sets the biggest
jaw I have or will see
sure there are greater
in numerous numbers
strange unfathomable flanks
ranking from mine
created from my rust
& our immense patience

seeing or realizing
there are strange silences
between the peace you held.

no I don't care

Do you not know that in every spec of dust
and in each groove carved into the floor
and in all the etches of your skin
there is a grand momentum
building up, waiting to collide
with the essence of you and I in mind,
like the intricacy of your fingernails
digging down
                      down
                               down
into the soul with the speed of light
and only you and I
               you and I in mind
hoping to send us to expressions portraying nothing
--the numbness! the abyss!--
It notices us screaming
but it doesn't give a ****
and in every spec of dust
and in each groove carved into the floor
and in all the etches of your skin
a growing force is inching towards
the walls.

Prime Architect,  the absurdity of your art
fills me up like a riddle, bends the bars of
reason I'm forged within. A Byzantine
world - every fold and layer gyro'd in
astronomical administration, the scheming
of cogs clicking perfectly into place:
vast machinations leaving me windless,
birdsong squeezed entirely from bellows. Up
a lonesome trail; steep and narrow,
knowing faith is a sword too heavy to hold.

HAVE FAITH, they told me; prodded me
to constancy as a mother in S. Carolina backed
her station wagon into a lake with locked
doors and two sons inside. Evil has no horns
after all - it's a lozenge the flavor of a kiss,
there but not there, some puff of violet smoke
unraveling from a dancing brass censer.
The lance of Longinus pierces fleece;
the snake encircling the world swallows
its tail once more.

Jesus, be gentle. Come into me,
pop my doubt like an oozing fruit,
harness me to the light so I might saddle
and swing to the sound of your breath as it
sighs amongst the reeds. Test the
limits of my body as I have chewed and
swallowed yours. Communion makes
a cathedral of me, etches shadow
amongst the stars of the vaulted clerestory
as the nave shimmers with the swords
of flaming prayer.

HAVE FAITH, they told me, massage the
qualms from your dark marbles. Drop coins
down the wishing hole, let the godhead flow
through, like ink, to the parchment of you.
Alexandria burns again in the distance,
books yet unwritten exploding within us all
like the floral horror of a supernova.
Arcana lost, arcana found. Meanwhile, reason
and faith explode through the doors of the
friary, grappling like shadows draped upon
the thirsty Earth.

Iscariot, lay me in your bed of thorns and
mandrake, foxglove and myrrh; call me love,
drink blood from me as the moon sets over
Gethsemane. Let the light darken for a bag of
silver, let the bush burn down like a candle
smoldering cold. I've traced upon my bedsheets
maps of the world in its unmaking, lined shelves
with complete skeletons of extinct animals,
their hopelessness; the guts of this 7-day
world, veined with ribbons of gold, starred
by rubies and amethysts of the
deep-down. All of this, man's
betrayal of man.

HAVE FAITH, I tell myself; within the *****
of this bouncy ball clockworked amongst
the spheres, there's a place: vault
of the Animus, where God melts
away in your mouth, where Lady Macbeth
is still wringing her hands beneath
the font and the horses feast upon the
Eucharist of each other's bodies
like they were Easter hams, like their
blood were sweet wine. Where Abraham's
blade still shadows Isaac's binding;
where death has no power over us.

Going home from visiting a friend
I have walking this same path
Walked this way, countless times
Up a slight hill of a lonely street
To a desolate alley in summer darkness

But I need to take a call of nature
So I start to relieve myself
To **** against a unyielding wall
And I am blind to those behind me
Two youths of eighteen or nineteen

I feel the liquid pouring down my leg
Then in seconds it is a ball of flame
My left leg, burning in pain, agony
I turn and they are running and laughing
Leaving me alone and I feel the skin burn

I kick the right shoe off my foot
And intend to take off these burning Jeans
But the foot is a ball of orange flame
The liquid had not travelling down the leg
It had gone into my shoe, burning from inside

I am shaking, in my shorts in night summer heat
I try kicking this fire out against the wall
The agony has taken my mind, insanity takes the pain
Unknowing, three toes snap as I continue to kick
But the fire burns on, with the smell of burning flesh

No one is there to help me, I only want to sleep
Concrete steps keep me from reaching safety
From this alley up to the waiting maisonettes
So I hold the rail, and force myself to climb up
And still the left leg burns and the pain returns in fury

I make it and there is someone in the kitchen
The first maisonette that stands on the corner
He sees me and he sees the flames that hurt me
He looks at me in horror, and then there is screaming
The screaming is coming from me, I can not stop

The man comes out with a bowl of water
He throws it over the burning foot and I pass out
I awake and there is a neighbour holding me
I see people all around me and I try to remember
The pain and memory come rushing back

Firemen are there now, hosing my leg with water
I hear a crackling and realise it is the leg
The screaming starts again, and it never stops
Coming deep inside of me, for this madness to end
And again darkness takes me as my mind shuts off

I am in an Ambulance, but I do not feel safe
They are out there and could still come for me
Why did they do this? What did I do?
I never even knew who they were
And the horror etches deep into my head

That was years ago, and I still carry the scars
The leg was saved, full thickness burn
Skin grafts rebuilt it, but it still breaks down
Three toes amputated, the big toe and ones next
Yes it still haunts me now and it always will

the glass reaches out and grazes my cheek
its cold grip encompassing me
the surface shiny and sleek

it etches deep into my soul
every single imperfection
each taking their rightful toll

much, much too much
so sorry to tell you
binding's not that good of a crutch

A shadow of night
Hope festering among stars
My heart clutched in
The palms of my hand
As thoughts wield into luminous scars

A lost affection resurfaced by light
A habit, that is
Whispered as time etches Her might
And through the weight of Her fists
Need not to dwell for what is missed

So I collected the remnants of my heart
And began to ask from my very vain soul
What yet that is not the light?
I turned the coals from my eyes into rubies
And my heart opened to the entire world

Catatonic inscriptions etches through my textile discernment
Insidious cycles of turmoil encased within a festering distress
Uncertainty obscures my comfort into a chaotic complacency
Transforming the subtle movement of thought and bewilderment
Through the re-occurring sequences of paranoia and my uneasy psychosis
Haunting the whole of this psyche and the mental state I've come to fancy

A tell-tale apprehension of merriment and contentment may be a dismal reality
All the while being obsessed with the unfavorable outcomes I conjure within
But, I can't get enough of the disarray that breeds within my frail skull
So distant from what I feel in the ecstasy of my self-selected normality
The meek proposal of sanity has little to hold against these crooked grins
As this chaotic thought process leaves rationality as a vague ideal to null

Expansive introspection has no limit to what is perceived as validity
And, to be enveloped in the ambiguity and delusion of fact is so enticing
We all know that we've all come to recognize the fabrication of our own truth
The futile attempts to obtain an immaculate conviction in pure solidity
Is so wondrously perfunctory and constant as the life that i'm living
That I dread the day of departure from this hysteric observance of aging youth

the agony of endless clocks
burning deep red digital hours
into equally deep red eyes
like coming off hallucinogens
time etches into your mind
with endless delirious atrophy
screaming meaningless words
into the blackhole of your thoughts
******* you deeper into realms
where the night is ungodly
and you are an animal in its midst
breathing silently in the silence
facing a grinning monsters kiss
that will shoot you with adrenaline
right as you wish to close your eyes
right as you wish to close your eyes
the  sandman trips another line
in the murky distance a siren cries
"degenerating madly on the floor
love the ******, we ask for more"

The rouge from your supple lips
decorate my face still.

It's warmth radiates from
my cheek as ignited senses
beg for more.

The gentle red contours tingle
through my flesh as it etches
it's imprint onto my very soul.

You've conquered me with one gentle blow.
My only purpose for continued breath,
is to be kissed by you once more.

~~~

In the finer lines of my Mother's eyes
where backroads lead to secret tears
much is spoken when one explores
the map that etches those many years

expressed in smiles and subtle stares
when the world is harsh and cruel
calm washes through your tested soul
that stings of ridicule

in the finer lines of my Mother's eyes
life's riches are retained
and the wells that feed her loving child
through those eyes are sustained

I’ve researched about rainbows last night and I guess everything I’ve read about them reminded me of you. Yes, I have been cloaking you under the word “rainbow” for some time now and maybe it is only right to tell you why.

Science tells us that rainbows come after the rain, a storm, a sudden burst of heaven’s emotions. It does not always follow it but when the sun touched what is left of the rain, it bends light and etches out a ray of seven colors that point out different things. As light passed through the water in my eyes, I saw you. Maybe you really are the rainbow, the one after every heartbreak there is in this insane world.

Red. This is the first, the light with the longest wavelength. Maybe this is where our kisses fit. The work of art we leave on each other’s skin. We have always loved how our lips looked like after every kiss – crimson red and bleeding with genuine love. As red as my shirt, as red as your blood, left on your lips after we got lost in the moment. Red also shouts passion. This is where our love for every piece of art resides. When we walk on museums, holding hands, and inhaling dried up paint on every possible canvas there is, I let my heart melt in your palms, knowing you would eventually turn me into dust and make me your best piece of art. Red also tells a lot about security. How one can feel the warmth as the color red blends with the 4 corners of a room. With you, I found heat, warmth, and safety in a body. I have never felt I can find home in someone’s hand. I have always seen finding a home in a person terrifying, scared of the impending possibility of destruction. Here, in your palms, I found the 4 corners people have been searching for their whole lives. I have found home in you.

Orange. In psychology they say this represents equilibrium and control. I’m putting every ounce of respect we have for each other here. It is like knowing when to start and when it has to breathe and pause. It knows how to put everything in place, like my shoulder to the sides of your face, my tongue on your mouth, your thighs around me. We have been through shortcuts and the longest way back to each other but it always spelled out as just right. You have always noticed how we complement each other, and yes, we do. It is like every god gambled to see us fit our pieces together effortlessly. See the edges of my soul fit yours in the most perfect way it crept out those who broke us and left us like this. They have forced themselves to try and come up with a good picture but you see, we always made a better one. It has gone from queer to insane to all kinds of crazy, but balances out well with our sanity and clear minds when all of our monsters are sound asleep.

Yellow. It represents the clarity of thought and wisdom. This is something I have to confess. Whenever you’re around, my mind halts and seems to get off track. Full of all the possibilities that are in store for us. Full of all your words that added up to good poetry that I can never come up with. Whenever my brain wanted to lash out on all the good things I have left, you are the most peaceful sleep I get. Whenever I wanted to give up sleep, you stayed up late with your eyes half-closed, telling me stories about the times you used to feel something in your chest when you see me. Whenever I had to tell everyone it’s okay when it’s not, you tell me all the right words to show them it’s okay to not be okay. Whenever I punch walls just to feel something, you take my hands and place them on yours, telling me you are hurting, too. All my days that I spent drowning in your love came with a safety net, but I never had to use it because you were always careful about the waves, knowing I couldn’t swim. People asked me to always fill the gaps in silences, but you, you let me have my quiet. I have always felt like I am walking under the rain, under a strong storm that everything that happens to me seemed to take me to dark places. You have been the sunlight in all of that. You are my clarity.

Green. This is the middle color of the rainbow. Sandwiched in all this chaos is growth, our growth. In the last months I have seen you cry and wipe your own tears using your sleeves. You have seen me break down a million times, on my knees and finally calling on a god we used to believe in when we were kids. We have been thrown out by chances we didn’t take, or took but turned out to be lessons. As we saw broken, as we saw lost and defeat, we found each other cradling the hope of another chance to grow. We fed on bankrupt promises but now we know better – that words do not equate to actions, that the sun does not always give warmth but can also mean rain, that knowing the future is as scary as walking back to the past, that our teenage angst always brought the rebel in us, that our desire to run away is rooted in inconsistency and feeling the opposite of contentment, that love is not always good the first time you taste it. We have travelled around, tasting wrong mouths and savouring on bad poetry from people we thought we knew but just had more ways of masking themselves. They try to cover up the claw marks left on our backs but we show them to tell the world the pain was all worth it.  We were broken, yes, but one can always be whole again.

Blue. It is the color of the unknown, the sky, the wide oceans. As we go down this road I knew the sky would remind me of our always clouded but guided thoughts, and that oceans are meant to make us remember that salt water feeds our skin with the taste of life. It is the color that feeds on my obsession with knowing where everything will fall before I jumped. It is the color of distance. Of going the extra mile for you, knowing that it will always be appreciated. Of the 1911 miles of land and sea that will beg me to **** them just to touch you again. I have always feared going away, but having someone to go home to is just another story. It is the color of the sheets we slept in that night we confessed our love for each other. It is the color of all the blood running in my veins so fast when you call out my name. Stick a needle in my skin, a hum of your voice screaming “Stay” will flood your ears. It is the color of the future, of the out there we can never be sure of. The future is something my hands can never grasp, never breathe in, it is like swimming in open waters. I have always been smothered with choices. I will always choose you. I can only wish that you stop searching for a new sky to look at. I want to write a new sky for you, a new ocean.

Indigo. It is said that this color is sedating. Picture serene. I have seen this in your smiles when we talk about the things that make your insides curl into ***** of unknown feelings. I forgot rage. I forgot empty. I forgot sins. It is the tranquillity I only found in your arms. My appetite for your arms around me eat me up at night, craving for your every breathe, yes. We made a shrine for all our mistakes, laugh at our misleading thoughts. Picture calm. It is waking up to the nest that is your hair, stained with all our tears from last night’s confessions. I pulled you closer to me, thinking it is enough to keep us together for a minute, or a day maybe. But this calm is always snatched away with the question of how come these strong emotions are labelled wrong? My skin has been tainted, touched by hands that only wanted nothing but heat. You wanted friction, never ending battle between cold and hot. You touch my skin like it is the most poetic act you’ve ever done. I am worse than sin but you forgot your gods for me. Picture sober. It is that night we drank alcohol to test each other’s weaknesses, tip scales and push boundaries. Do not leave me breathing, keep me on my toes, and leave love notes on my skin. I woke up with a bad hangover but what‘s left on my sheets were your scent, spilled beer, and your last words, “Do not stop kissing me.” The gap between finite and infinite lies on my arms and yours, tell me we’d defy odds to keep each other. Your colors beneath my skin, crumbling. In all ways possible, you are my permanent. You snatched my baggage while I slept and when I woke up, I have the color of your eyes to carry. My poetry is yours to sink your teeth in.

Violet. Some says it ignites imagination. Artists crave this color so much. You were the first person to see my art as something to treasure and be intimate with. You are my favorite artist. You painted over the things I wished I never knew about myself. You spilled ink on my skin, thinking they will turn me into solid sculptures of hurt. Carve good things, leave your writing on my skin, I need them there, to remind myself you were there, and really wanted to stay there. Darker shades of this color says sorrow. As we counted days and as they come near the number we feared, stealing glances seemed to be worth more now, seconds drenched in our silences meant the world, shared meals are exchanged with uncertainties and salt on the table. I wish and sincerely hope I never live to see the day when this is left to pieces, in desperate need of repair. I can be your tragedy, but you can never be mine. I fear endings. I cannot face endings. I hold out my hand to tell people I will never lose hope. Delaying the end with delaying the start. My heart is a burning city but you made it out alive. You are my burning city, scorching my skin but I will never find the strength to let go of you. Do not leave me with your I love you’s because we will never end up in good terms. I don’t want us to end in good terms because hope will just eat me out alive. You said before you were in a place between red and blue, that’s violet. Was I a risk worth taking? Was I the safe place? This is close to your favorite color, isn’t it? That’s always how it’s going to be for us. Close enough. Almost there. Almost. Almost.

I don’t want your mouth, I crave your breathing. I don’t want your blue lips, turning violet. Death is for our bad memories, not for our bodies. I don’t want your lungs, I want heavy breathing on days we need not use words to express feelings. I don’t want hands, I want warmth, steady and consistent. I don’t want your voice, I want your throat choking on words rushing and stumbling, stuttering. I don’t want your skin, I want you here. Beside me, cradling me and telling me we’re near perfect, we’re almost there. I don’t want your red heart, I have one already. I want you.

*There is no real end to a rainbow. I hope we never have to find ours.

scientists say that a fingerprint develops when a baby is only 12 to 19 weeks along and that it is impossible for two people to develop the same print and although i believe in science i am still hoping there is a chance that someone in the world might have the same etches on the tip of his fingers as you did because to find the same hair colour and the same eye colour and the same smile is almost too easy but your touch against my skin made even the brightest of fireworks envious and darling something like that is irreplaceable

I remember back, to the time when I was numb.
All the way back to one of the darkest times in my life,
I remember the face of the boy who shined through my darkness.
I remember the first person to make me feel again.
It was one of the most excruciating things I'd done... feeling again.
You were like the ocean, and I, a grain of sand.
It felt like you ripped me out of my comfortably miserable little beach
and swept me out into your sea and proceeded to drown me.
But you had no idea of the effect you had, you were just being the sea.
I remember the first time I met you, my gaze swept right past.
And then you spoke.
You made me laugh, and it hurt to laugh but it felt so right.
Even on my darkest days, you'd be there to make sure I could smile again.
You'd always do everything you could to pull me out of my pit.
You became my best friend and I fell so hard, oh how I fell.
That's what hurt.
I wasn't allowed to love you as I'd wanted to.
You had your girlfriend and she was so sick and she needed you.
I watched you, dying to make her better.
You didn't sleep. You barely ate.
I noticed the etches on your wrist and my heart shattered.
There was nothing I could do for the boy I loved.
I wish there had been something I could have done for you and for her.
It's been years since I last saw you.
I still think about you all the time.
I don't think I could ever forget you.
The one I couldn't have.
The one I should've had.
We would have been so good.
It's funny..
I know you loved me too.

Charcoal, arbiter:
its equivocal
moral rectitude etches
the tableau off the dawn,
Swans too smudge the landscape.
The muses long gone ,
ghosts sit in red houses
once resplendent,
contemplate in whispers yet,
forever decisive in vacillation
their hands delineate,
the autumnal canopy
a symphony of coming despair.

Sitting on the park bench
The one with the little etches
Names of forgotten loves
Encircled with a heart that's probably broken by now
My hands are warmed by the cup between my fingers
I sip it, savouring the heat it brings my soul
My favourite beverage, Happiness
Checking the time, I figured he should be here soon....
But he wasn't..
I waited in that spot for years
Sipping on my drink until I was suprised and dismayed to find it empty
The sun was going down, painting the sky and the streets in fiery colours
Setting everything alight but me
He never came....
He said he would but he didn't...
My own Future stood me up.

The way she underlines
her favorite parts in this book
says more than words could.

She never draws straight,
but scribbles little lines
that connect the syllables
in the same way
she etches her little things
one by one, piece by piece
into something worth reading.

I want to highlight
each beautiful characteristic,
underline with sharpie
so her imprint is permanent,
write notes in the margin
to ensure I never forget.

*m.w.