~Many people rely on the convenient, easy ways of living in this age of fast food, plastic packaging and rapid development. Most people do not care to see why they live the way they do or what it takes to live in such a way. Toxic pollutants leaching into our earth and water should not be worth the convenience! Third world women working in dusty, cramped factories to make designer purses for fifteen year old girls. Garbage is America’s biggest export and it ends up in China, on the coast of Somalia... anywhere that American citizens won’t be bothered to see it.

~What does it mean to buy a pack of plastic razors? Some metal, some chemicals, some plastic, more plastic for packaging. Use a razor a few times and toss it in the garbage. Somewhere, maybe at La Chureca, someone will pull the rusted metal and plastic from the landfill. They might make one US dollar per day collecting scraps of aluminum, glass, plastic and other scrap metals. What does it mean to wear deodorant? The plastic stick isn’t reusable. The ingredients are highly toxic. Aluminum-based antiperspirants have been linked to Alzheimer's and cancer. Soap comes in plastic bottles, coffee makers made of plastic, water bottles made of plastic… hell, my plastic shower curtain came wrapped in plastic packaging.

~Americans are lucky. Indoor plumbing with quality water. Green lawns and exotic flower beds. Buy and use, throw away and repeat. Big corporations pay off politicians to pollute. Industrial waste, land erosion, low air quality, pesticides. Why are we so quick to trust an artificial sweetener being promoted by a company that makes poison? They call you a hippy, a conspiracy theorist. They tell you that you only live once and to stop being so worried about it all. I ask them, how can you look away? Deforestation and destruction are all around. Those that profit are not concerned with what happens to the land after the loggers and miners have left the ground scarred and desolate.

~Modern living is a hoax. Yeah, you get around quick in your car but at what cost? Carbon dioxide, greenhouse gasses choking us and everything alive that lives with us and cannot speak. Can’t you walk to the corner store? Can’t you grow a few things in the garden or in the windowsill? When was the last time you saw a sunset and didn’t take a picture of it? Dairy cows packed together so tight they can’t turn around for your glass of milk. The disconnect is everywhere. Overpopulation. Overconsumption. People don’t care.

~They can choose. They can choose paper over plastic. They can buy a water filter instead of 20 plastic bottles. They can bike to work. Anyone can lessen their impact, anyone can think more deeply and live more sustainably. But we’ve made it so easy to be lazy. We’ve become so dependent that we’re forgetting to use technological gains to make the way we do things better. We’ve come so far that we’re forgetting what brought us here.

~

‘We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire – a crackpot machine – that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate.’ Edward Abbey

‘In the developing world, the problem of population is seen less as a matter of human numbers than of western overconsumption. Yet within the development community, the only solution to the problems of the developing world is to export the same unsustainable economic model fuelling the overconsumption of the West.’ Kavita Ramdas

‘Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.’ Jacques-Yves Cousteau

‘Globalisation, which attempts to amalgamate every local, regional, and national economy into a single world system, requires homogenising locally adapted forms of agriculture, replacing them with an industrial system – centrally managed, pesticide-intensive, one-crop production for export – designed to deliver a narrow range of transportable foods to the world market.’Helena Norberg-Hodge

‘Throughout history human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonise-destroy-move on.’ Garrett Hardin

...a diary of the falling dominoes chapter

invisibly dying from the inside out
no one is looking into unseen eyes
no one can hear a muted voice fading
no one is close enough to be near

the deafening thrums echo
anxieties’ racing heartbeat
within morphing flesh shell ,
gasping for new breath
in a hovering stale silence

from a distance
the broken mirror ricochets a subdued light ;
much closer the reflection reveals
someone I once knew by heart

now an unrecognizable mask
enshrouds a terminal emptiness
inconspicuous at a fleeting glance ,
impossible to discern what storms rage
from the inside out ,... unnoticed  

an uncontained wildfire
smoldering within,  lies in wait
for the imminent winds of change
to fan the flames into the final
eternal silent ashes

a poet reaches out demurely
offering a candid look
into the window
of the imperfect human soul

there is no poetry
met by indifference
just gathered unread words scribbled,

squandered time
dripped slowly on an empty page ;
moments turn into days
days turned into years

invisibly dying from the inside out
an unfinished life trickles out
like seeping blood evanescing
from a bottomless puncture
wounding ... penetrating the heart,
leaching out the slow death of a poet

for poetry is only words unless they touch someone ...

befallen to indifference is poetic death
by salted paper cuts ...

a muting suffocation
that hiddenly erodes away,
silencing the passion
of a musing soul
one unread word at a time ...


© harlon rivers ... all rights reserved

I am an artist of love
and I am painting
a canvas over a canvas,
A colour over a colour,
A vision over a vision
And a scenery over a scenery
Thinking...
That maybe someday
I paint a perfect picture
But every time I tried
A colour merged with another
A knife scrapped a brush stroke
A vision embedded in another
And the scenery lost its form
'Twasn't the one I had erased
Nor the one I had planned
Neither the hues of the past
Nor the ones coveted by tomorrows
But somewhere in the middle
A blend of all.
With the fragrance of fresh and old paint,
A scenery with the meadows in hues of the sea
A morning sky painted like a blue-black starry sky
And somewhere in between the leaching colours
Was my bleeding heart!
Somewhere between the layers
I was standing still in love.

(c) Dr. Prerna Singla.

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

Gnashing of teeth,
Tearing of vestments
Crematory waste
Smeared upon my face.
Angst

God has died,
A wanton suicide
Her ******* children
Now run this place.
Angst

***** stained covers
Adulterous lovers,
Depart smiling,
Not hiding their Faces.
Angst

Wounded skies bleed
On terra infirma indeed
It’s poison leaching  
Into bubbling brooks.
Angst

Bonita Muerte
Erasing the pain
Setting the corpses
On the pyres again
Angst



AD

I dreamed
there was a evil man
searching for wealth
beyond all riches
hidden in the hardened
sculpture of a woman
there was a hero too
I could not see his face
he journeyed to a sacred cave
to guard the precious treasure

he climbed inside
the statue's hollow center
and held the treasure to his chest
where it radiated
with such intensity
he had to close his eyes
it gently pulsed in his hands
calming the anxiousness
leaching sour
in his throat

the villain
shrouded black
entered the cave
a belligerent pirate
yelling obscenities
where are you *****?
when I find you, you'll be sorry
you think you can hide from me?
no one will ever love you
the way that I do

his craven hunger upon seeing
the lost prize glowing heavenly
beneath sapphire stalactites
left this dreamer cold
he began to tear
at the sculpture's *******
with hands encased in forged steel
spiked fingernails slicing
until shimmering gold bloomed
in the statue's chest

zealously the villain tore deeper
molten yellow dripped
from his over-eager fingers
when suddenly from the center
came a flash of scorching fire
the villain dissolved to ash
without a single sound
the hero too transformed
into a luminous bird
not unlike a phoenix

he shook fresh wings
flexed honed talons
raised his crested head
and from hooked beak
there came a sound
like a choir of voices singing
the hero flapped three times
and soared out of the cavern
into the bluest sky
I'd ever seen

Dear  School,

I hope you’re doing well even though you made me absolutely hate myself and made me feel like if I didn’t get good grades that I wasn’t worth any of your time or attention. We’ve had so many memories together, none of which I want to relive, all of which reduce me to tears. My favourite part was when you’d ask me for my opinion and if my opinion wasn’t the same as yours then you best believe I’d either get shut down or punished.

When I first met you, you told me you’d love me with all your heart. You even talked to my parents and promised them that you wouldn’t disappoint. You sold yourself to my parents and they looked at you like you were worth exactly five hundred thousand bucks (not including all the “romantic” trips you made me pay for). The fact that you promised me more than you could afford should have been a warning signal but I couldn’t see past your charming demeanour. Our relationship was always ups and downs, but lately, it’s gotten a lot worse, and by lately I mean the past two years.

I gave you solutions but you ended up just giving me more problems. Our relationship was a lot of give and take, except the only thing you were giving me, was bad food and mental breakdowns. And the only thing you’d do that was remotely close to taking something from me was leaching off of my successes and money for your benefit.  

I would wander into your bathroom stalls on the verge of a panic attack, time and time again, and even if you noticed, you were really good at ignoring it. You got what you wanted because of my hard work, but I’m still the one who ended up getting more depressed. Isn’t it funny how I’m supposed to miss you, yet everyone that’s left you is so much happier without you? You never listened to my problems, you never cared about my mental health, and you never wanted anything good for me (and if you did, your actions never showed it), you were like the toxic boyfriend I never asked for.

You were so good at showing us off to the public which is probably why I still stayed with you, you put me in newspapers when I did well and your empty eyes danced with lies and a smile crept across your face when you met my parents. My parents loved you so much. My parents would praise you and I let them because how could I tell them that I hated you, that I didn’t want to be with you anymore when you deceived them with all your manipulative tricks. You weaved a web of deception and trapped more and more victims, but you were never satisfied you always wanted more.

I cried to my parents, one day, telling them that I couldn’t get myself out of bed to go to you again, that every minute I spent with you took a toll on my mental health. That I couldn’t be with you no matter how much I tried, but of course the blame came back on me. They would ask me how I couldn’t appreciate you when you took such good care of me. They asked me how I couldn’t appreciate you when you displayed my name across a wall, with numbers scribbled beside name as if I was a barcode number for a new product on the market. Before my parents could confront you, you had already called them and told them that you were concerned about me, that you were just trying to save me from myself, that you loved me. Then why didn’t I feel loved, if you loved me so much then why didn’t you do anything when you saw that I was struggling, why did you ignore all my cries for help, why did you turn me against my own parents.

I wish I could leave you but I’m tied to you with these invisible strings that have cut deep into my ankles and wrists, I will never really get rid of you, the scars will always stay. I can’t leave you, a part of me doesn’t even want to because you’ve brought so many amazing people into my life, and I reminisce about the first years of our relationship when we were madly in love. I remind myself of the times you took me on trips, surprised me with ice cream, and all your spontaneous outbursts of speeches that left me more in love with you even when I was mad. My friends say I don’t give people enough second chances, well, this time I’m giving you 228 more, so please don’t make me regret it.

I will still love you no matter how many times you make me feel worthless because how can I ever stop loving someone I’ve spent seven years with.

Thanks for everything,

sad gal

Man is  born unto the  rainbow of opportunity.
The dazzling palate before him as he draws his  first infant breath.
Perfect and untainted, this tiny being as he  enters this vast world.
His only purpose being his very existence.
The sheer wonder of this colourful land in which he finds himself.
A world of moments, of sounds.
Of touch and scents.
Of visual exploration through those eyes that have yet seen no horror.
Skin that has yet to feel physical pain.
Soft and unspoilt as he nurses close to his mother.
Skin not yet a fortress behind which he will hide many ills.
A skin that will learn to shrivel in shame.
Harden in the face of fear, like armour.
And wilt  in the absence of love.
Bloom  turning from rosy red to sepia.
For though man is born unto the rainbow.
The horror of humanity is diligent on his heel.
It’s hulking cape of  blackness, angst and despair.
As man destroys all he has been given in nature.
Turning his hand then against his fellow species.
Born into a roiling sea of corruption, control  and greed.
Where the myriad of healing greens,
Of mysterious purples and creative oranges,  lost forever.
Their brilliance fading like an aged tapestry in sunlight.
Turning to browns and greys.
Leaching their beauty through a lifetime.
Until there becomes only  blackness.
Until his is the dark heart of despair.
Bleached and brittle like driftwood on a desolate beach.
Washed up and empty.
The human condition and its agonies too much to bear.

I'm not the oldest, the middle, the second, or the only child
I'm the lonely child
The child by itself
No friends, no love
I'm a prisoner in my own body
In my own mind
1 and 2
Look at you
By yourself
Feel pity for you
Not the oldest, but the youngest
This is for time
Climbing bridges
Climbing your own life
Staircase sinks underneath
No one comes for you
Sirens in the distance
Sirens run past
Parents screeching
Emotion leaching
Preachers preaching
And here I stand
In the empty land
In my head
Falling instead

tea leaves sit soggy, sad
forgotten  at the bottom

of the cup

leaching, bitter tannins
now, forgetting the life they led

no one willing to read their fortune
no spilling of the secrets
they never truly had

just detrius now
from dust to dustbin
the cycle of a tea leaf
long or brief,
happy or sad
a parable, in hot water

once green and lush in colour
in essence, verdent's liquid fame
once used and now just *******
every life has limit, every limit claimed
as we sup, we suffer the race of time
running through our fingers

clamouring at our mind

one day we too,
will be *******
waiting for the dust,
one day we too
shall leach our liquids
in the unforgiving  dust

The earth is tired
Like the lids I peer through
Back to you
And your pursuit 
Of endless hungry words,
So spill, tell it all;
The words that ****.
Poison, it’s an intimacy
Like the tattoo sleeve you lean on,
Dreams that fill your ego
Feeding lies of which you dream on
But what I know you reach for
Is more hungry love
So continue draining life or love from me
Leaching words,
— Just keep them

The white bleached corpse of day is fast
- reddened, bloodied -
torn to scarlet shreds of evening
slashed by wild and fiery crimsons.

Light leaching and passing westward
from bridge to bridge
garlands of mist drift up the river

Shadows dart, shelter and linger
blackness creeps and claws
the shades of night

Darkness spills down docks and ditches
fingers through the strands of light
by midnight every dock is still

Moon hangs full, naked and weary
slow stiching silver threads
through tall ships rigging
in the dim and dreary night

A yapping dog disturbs the quiet
more insistent than the stars.


© M.L.Emmett

Twisted around your finger tightly
Master, schooled in the art of manipulation
Do they had out degrees for that?
Many victims fell before me
How many will follow?
You play the wounded soul so well
Drawing the adulation of hapless idiots
Professing empathy and compassion
With a heart void of any sincerity
Emotional vampire, leaching attention
Savoring the taste of ultimate control
Puppeteer, yanking fragile life strings
Of a frantically dancing marrionette
Its face contorted in a rictus of pain
Till you tire of the pathetic show
And drop it like a bag of old bones
Thus satisfied,
Walk away looking for the next dummy

Through the halls footsteps clambered unearthly
Searching for those of choosing deemed unworthy.
Never did she gaze with eyes upon their moral coils
She would wait till shunned and glance upon her spoils.

No arms outstretched just entwined in a jacket of covering
Apparition of no form leaching on life, she became uncovered
To show what was beneath this jacket of soulful corroded white
Leaching forward did strands seep entangled in her blight.

Screams were silenced as strands did inhale every noise heard,
Death was warped, in a state of purgatory both were blurred.  
A vessel of anger, her wrath fed others who slept in darkness,
They tormented her soulless form, a vessel of corruption incarnate.

A puppet to inhale all essence of what shone dimly bright.
But every time she glanced upon a light that was finite,
An echo remained in her now blackened gaze a tear fell
With each soul devoured a essence in her did linger, dwell.

Though she was a spirit that fell, corruption was expelled
In all droplets that descended, not all went dark some was withheld.
That which matter ascended beyond the cloths white glimmer.
Though they were consumed, a portion flew even though dimmer.

She hungered for the warmth in the recesses of her dwellings
To consume all that was uninvited, cloth is her telling
Her pain is felt through every touch consumed in her obscurity,
Depleted but hidden there still linger a tear of soulful purity.

she smiled at me
through lab goggles and
a light, latex-gloved touch;
I blushed, looking down at my feet;
I caught sight of
the unseemly lump of
flesh on the table between us.
strange, that this dissection was so
[Russian Nesting Dolls]
meta; two brains with bodies
dissecting one without.
technicolor dreams drenched in
formaldehyde leaching out
upon the stainless steel table
parietal lobe corpus callosum Brocke's
area god I think I love
this girl I

I feel keenly the quiet of many dead suns
Growing inside of me,
A biting blackness
Leaching out towards my fingertips.
It reverberates back, again
And again, swelling in my chest
Until I feel I could burst from the abundance
Of nothingness.

How horrible this could be!
Such quiet, inward rage...
The mind consumes itself
And turns to feverish delirium,
Enshrouding me in a blanket
Of bitter, tacky sweat.

In this empty, blazoned state,
I swallow worlds of men
Like syrups from a bottle.
O, the ravenous binge!

I devour it all to a hush.

that initial feeling
of water as
it seeps
through the seams
of a boot
finding cracks
in the leather
supposedly
   waterproofed
against such leaching
of puddles being
drawn in by
a traitorous sock
willing to sacrifice
the fraternity
of dry comfort
that once it held
flooded with irritation
that will be quenched
only with the offering
of an inane
expletive or two
muttered
under breath
carrying the weight
of a week's worth
of frustrations

You tore my beliefs from their foundation
I lay, cut and broken, looking at a calm blue sky
While thunder threatens a repeat and rain soaks my skin.
I’m too shocked to realize this is not my imagination.
The fierce wind took my breath and I can’t get it back no matter how hard I try.
Words stumble over my tongue and don’t make it over the din.

I sensed something brewing, yet went forward with blind eyes
The anger rising like heat waves from the concrete.
The sadness leaching from the pavement, fueling the air.
It never ceases to amaze me, the fact that I’m surprised.
My thoughts, flailing about like a child’s tantrum, never complete.

Suddenly, it's upon me, and I walk into its lair.

Welcome inside the bear’s cage.
You won’t see me coming in the wrapping rain.
I’m going to tear you apart until there’s nothing more.
Everything you ever wanted, exploding in the windy rage...
           till nothing remains.
                       Choke the inflow,
                                    transition to a new tower,
                                                          ­       repeat as before.

It was on a crisp autumn night that I
sat alone beside you
for the first time in nearly four years.

The shadows of the looming pines surrounding me
seemed to press and pressure my eyes to slip
down six feet under along with

the bleeding sun as it continued to
decamp from the sky.  It slid so smoothly
past the towering pines while the
silvery fist of the moon
shoved it roughly back to the west;
I thought about how you mustn’t like the night
because of the chill that often comes
hand in hand with the darkness.  

For a moment, I considered
the slight possibility of my body heat
leaching down through the earth
and into your bones.

I wondered how cold it is to
sleep underground and then I
wondered if angels felt the
creeping chill of the
foreshadowing frost in the first place.

I thought that everything significant
must happen on Thursdays because
your book began and ended on
                  the fifth day—
born on the same day of the week
you and I compare and contrast
like long
                  lost
                             twins.

Sometimes I half-expect to see
your ghost staring back at me
when I look in the mirror and to be
completely honest, I’m not sure
what I’m more afraid of—
the possibility that you might not be the same
or the chance that you might be so
disappointed in what you see in me
now that we are separated.

The divide between us runs deep
into the earth and creates a whole
new fault line, rent and ruptured
beyond all forms of repair.

The breath I breathe is the
bridge between us;
the bed you sleep in is the
total distance.

death is
just

cold.

not the fading memories
leaching, lost, into the soil,
and warped as jaded speech
woven through the livings tales.
death is seclusion from the sun,
to stall, to stop, to lose ones way,
forever left at last breaths point,
as time continues on its way.
a coldness deep, to lock in place,
persona lost, caricature replaced.
unknowing darkness keeps
the new unknown,
as coldness claims
the final home.

(for Kiwi - 06/08/2009)

Windows rolled down to catch the hint
Of the first faintest salt-tinged taste
Of air as it rushes into our eyes and ears and noses.
It arrives long before the destination,
Expectations increasing as sandy patches
Begin to burst into view.

Never before witnessed by eyes of these occupants
The palm trees, seashell shops, and forever blue expanses
Plaster our faces and finger-pointing hands to windows.
A flying fish breaks the surface as we skim our own sea
Curving and turning the contures woven for us.

The stop is long-awaited, long-sought, long-debated
But soon, as in a dream awakened, our feet touch
Something other than carpeted floorboard.  Sand
Gives us one second's pause until shoes are discarded
Where they lie unguarded as toes touch the sandbox.

Hot sand guides us quickly to water where white waves
Rush on its newcomers, greeting with kisses the blue-white
Eyelashes of the ocean eye.  Splashing and crashing
Waves beat us down, then again pick us up, lifting
And twisting till our faces wear red-sun masks.

Collapsing in sleep, energy spent by ocean's leaching
Reconvening in silence as bed's teaching leads us
To dream and desire, the new advantages of energy
The ocean, with no ride to slow us, wakes us with calls
"Rush on! Rush on!" as every wave turns.

The one day of driving, seems so long compared
To the week of fun flying sooner than thought.
The best trip, this trip, had come unexpected,
And its end, abruptly so.
A trip discovered with the flip of a coin,
heads: east, tails: west.

what do you say to the ocean at your door?
lapping at your welcome mat
leaching dye with every push, every pull
slip sliding under the foundation
rendering it sodden. fertile ground
for the mold that you breathe in
with every pull, every push
of salt air entering your lungs.
what is there to be said to the ocean at your door?
there are claims that
making sand castles on the shore together
knowing the tide will come in
is still worthwhile
journey as opposed to product
but this is your home
being eaten away
this is where you live
and the tide is coming in
can you talk to the ocean at your door?*
anymore than you can talk to the ocean
in your mind, eating away at the levees
you worked so *******.
eating away at you.

Sometimes I want to shake your head from your shoulders
Try to dislodge the barbed twists of your perverse thinking
And the ideas spearing through your tissues
Like whaling harpoons that hooked their many heads deep
Latching and Leaching

Because you might have ****** your packet of Love Hearts a little too hard
Until it crumbled and fizzed in desperate ecstasy on your tongue
And the rest in the tube read MISS ME
Whenever you asked

But you are not Isolde,
Capulet, Karenina or Earnshaw
And as much as you desire the piercing pity of your broken collar bones
The caress of the lost-souls melody and the razorblades of a ribcage
The bitter corset of an appetite that pays for itself in crocodile tears
And the romance of a noose of flaxen hair
You are not Porphyria
And he is not her lover

It rolls in slow like the fog
Helpless to stop it from stealing
Stealing every emotion you're feeling
'Til you're a bump on a log

Colorful, vivid trails of motion
Consuming visual acuity
Leaching verbal perspucuity
Making reality a useless notion

Wringing  beauty from stagnation
Colorizing gray cement
Brick by brick it paints lament
Into farcical animation

Taking over fantasy
Cartoon smiles and laughing fits
All the fruit without the pits
Beautifying all you see

mold spores sleep
in the blood of a girl
three floors and
a wing away, leaching
poison into her bones.
they will cut them out
in pieces, shine light
through them like
ice cores, and still
she will die. until then,
she is beautiful.

we look more or less
alike, shadows splitting
the spaces where ribs
should be. girls wrapped
in red stripes visit her,
reading poems, leaving
trinkets. I haven’t had
a visitor in weeks, and
probably won’t again.
across the hospital,
they send me ***** looks,

cursing the unfairness of
it all – she is beautiful and
she will die, I am ugly and
they might be able to save me.

Andesitic magma
was leaching from a tectonic collision deep below
and burned itself out
on the side of a newly formed rend in the landscape
A languid lava flow both ruthless and viscous  

pyroclastic madness settled in a cooling atmosphere
forming ash and raining tephra which fell
quietly to earth  
to suffocate the burning
and everything else.

under ash clouds
under grey powder and stillness
no movement can be made.
Each breathe is sulphuric but the burning goes on

You asked
And it was given
You asked for trouble itself, and you asked for it by
NAME
Foolish animal, not even a girl, you
Had the world.
You had everything I wanted
You had
The
BodyandfamilyandinnocenceIlost
But you cast it aside
Which is why I suppose
Your petty God learned
Really learned
Not to cast pearls before swine.

Everyone at your school knows.
How do I know?
The rumors. They spread between SCHOOLS, girl, they know what you do.
Leaching off of boys you don't like and admit to your distaste
For food, presents, false love

You lacerated the heart
Of my lover and my love of YOU
With your falsehoods
Your random, fatal, pathetic snaps
At his weak, soft, sweet confidence
YOU hurt him
Worse than your ex ever hurt you
And my LOVER did not LIKE the HURT
Unlike YOU, or so you tell me.

I've washed my hands of you.
I am not angry at you, because you do not deserve that much of me
My anger is at the memory
Of my
Best Friend.

The day you left me was the day the world flipped upside down
It was the day we hit absolute zero,
The day there were no wars, no conflict, no death
The day you left me
Was the day everything I thought was impossible happened
You were the nerd, the perfectionist
Always memorizing facts of the arcane
Leaching Wikipedia articles for all they had
Too busy with science to prioritize matters of the heart
And I was too busy dissecting muffins, picturing my bones as a perfect xylophone
Imagining myself shrinking and shrinking until I was as hallow as I felt
You wanted a science experiment so bad, too bad you never realized you were dating one
You’ll never know how much I loved you
There are archives, poems stashed away of our love
Snapshots that force me back to the days when you loved me too
When a writer falls in love with you, you can never die
You will live on in the words I wrote, spend years in a dusty box tucked in the attic
But you will never be gone
And I will never forget
And you’ll never know how much I miss you
Oh, God, I miss you
I wish I’d told you I loved you more
I wish I’d counted all your freckles
I wish I’d made the time spent with you count
You told me you still wanted to be friends
But how am I supposed to be friends with someone whose lips are still stamped on my brain?
How am I supposed to be friends with the person who I thought would be my beginning and end?
How am I supposed to get over you?
I miss you so much
But I also miss the feeling of hunger, I miss sneaking off to the bathroom to rid myself of guilt, I miss the sadness that was so strong I couldn’t tell where I ended and it began
I can’t hurt myself anymore
My hands are as red with guilt as yours are
I chose depression over you
Every time I canceled plans,
Every time I pushed you away,
Every time I hid inside myself
I made you a third wheel in your own relationship,
Took the hand of depression while you watched on
Forced you to see our inside jokes
Paraded my infidelity in front of you
I have other loves now
I am head over heels in love with the human brain
I’m not much for flirting
But talk to me about the self-fulfilling prophecies and cognitive dissonance and I will fill your mind from dawn till dusk
And I am in love with words
With flipping through the pages of a book and knowing there’s a story there
With the greeting of warm papers from the printer and the click of my keyboard as I fill up empty space with life
Would I be alive to enjoy these things if it wasn’t for you?
I don’t know
But I am not obligated to take your outstretched offer of friendship
If I have learned anything in recovery it’s that I need to put myself first
I don’t owe you any friendship just so you can feel better for breaking my heart
So If I can’t be your girlfriend and I can’t be your friend
I guess that makes me nothing at all

With a firm grip,
I bring the pear to my mouth.
As a great white does to a seal,
And to my terrible surprise...
The core was spun in hair.

This was no hair from Royalty,
This hair was grey, and flaked.
It smelt of rotting corpses,
And crawled across my teeth.

As the tentacle like hair ventured,
It crawled to the back of my throat,
And it crawled up to my brain.
Leaching to my insides I feel it,
It begins to work, begins to change me.

My eyes grow heavy, and begin to ache.
A grey filter, it seems, slides over my vision.
I feel my heart shatter, and the shards,
They slide down my chest, slicing.

This is it, this is the end.
What a way to go,
Taken over by something,
Something we care to much about.
And now its time I forgot about it.

i. smoky fingers curl around the heart-beat
   pulse-beat song-beat and wrench out the
   bricks one at a time
   the rasp of flesh latching on cement, the
   grating grinding of stones lunging out, and
   the scream as they fall in the dark rabid
   waters
   the building erodes in the fog
   the building erodes in the storm
   the building erodes like everything erodes
        and my heart erodes with it and in it
        and among it

ii. he has never known fear and that is why
    he climbs up scales up cringes up the
    never ending walls
    that is why he clings to the bricks as they
    are torn out and that is why he hopes that
    he too will fall and
    that is why he wants to erode because
    erosion is the melting, the harsh corrosive
    acid leaching away, erosion is the secret
    to a long
        and beautiful
        and happy
        and irony-drenched life

iii. gray mud spatters - no, it swallows - no
    it consumes like a monster, a monster
    with tendril claws and poisonous fangs,
    and it eats you with a flick of its jaw - no,
    it erodes
    gray mud erodes in the twin way of the
    world, gray mud is the thing that erodes
    you and your love and your lover and it's
    the thing that is eroded until one day it's
    gone
    and nothing
    will ever
         erode again

iv. he is covered in gray mud, and i am covered
     in gray mud, and my skin is rebelling against
     the cold slick slimy tingling creature that *****
     the bruises away, but he welcomes it
     he always welcomes everything more than i do
     and maybe that's the reason
          maybe that's the hidden reason
          why the world is eroding

Are your eyes as plaintive
as your made up face,
reclining on this polished chair
could a few words make the difference?
between wishing something true
or a lost dream leaching on the still