rivers of salt; saccharine silicon and
iridescent nightmares;
kids carve their names into trees
because their concept of forever is
three summers forward;
entropy demands a tithe, a
forfeiture of lives; decimate your herds
and still
no, it is not enough.
know it is not enough.

don't keep your sweet little mouth
open too long; sugar attracts flies,
and pretty soon your
teeth will be teeming
with maggots and rot,
streptococcus sanguis
cheerfully wearing down your enamel
like you wore down my inhibitions.
"it'll be fun," you said, dropping
one hundred milligrams
on your tongue, firmly grasping the back
of my neck, and applying your lips to mine.
one hundred milligrams
slide down my throat, and despite myself,
I laugh, because even when I'm scared
I want to be with you.

the Black Angel is God On Earth; she is
lonely beyond belief, and I give her a hug.
people forget that monsters have
feelings too, and
God?
God is the biggest monster of them all.

God is entropy, and she is
unimpressed by the pyramids
on your dollar bills; she will devour
the stars and the planets and newborn
babies swaddled in blankets,
and she yet hungers:
redwoods and sequoias and aloe vera,
microchips and inkjets and MacBooks.

we are crowded around the bonfire,
s'mores and cheap liquor, your hand on
my thigh; the heavens have
opened up, drenching us
in starlight: I have never felt more
beautiful. you raise my wrist to your
mouth, placing a gentle kiss on my
scaphoid and my lunate; you swipe
your tongue across supple flesh
before clamping down with your teeth;
I am seeing stars and feeling lovely
and I am so, so enamored with you and
so, so happy you are here.

“You like too much!” she said to me.
“Make up your mind!” she cried.

An inkjet cartridge emptied of its contents
The things it could have produced, if given enough time.

She
was allowed to eat poetry, the ink dribbling down her lips,
Soaking her shirt in the black stains of abstract words,
Distracting comparisons, and personified stones coming to
Life.

She
resurrected lithograph golems,
who groaned at the consumption of their
Content.

But me?

Why does my pencil glide across the page?
I should have taken to the study of flesh and blood
unlike the girl who speaks in tongues.

Perhaps…
Perhaps she’s right.
Perhaps the world doesn’t need another performer on the world’s stage.
Perhaps… there are already far too many.

My tongue ripped out,
My brain purged and washed.
No more slicing into pages
With my graphite-knife.