Once upon a time
there was a young adult
who spent time on the dark web,
Searching for the most obscure and exotic substances humanity could offer.

Late nights tracking down vendors with the most up-to-date wares:
Drugs.
Research chemicals,
Novel psychoactive substances.
Illicit pharmaceuticals and exotic materials.
Pills, powder, liquid, tabs, any material one could find.
Uppers, downers, dissos, deliriants,
Psyches, anti-psyches, stimulants,
Depressants, anti-depressants,
*** drugs, study drugs,
'noids, 'roids, and
even vitamins.

There was the standard battery of illegal narcotics,
******* knockoffs of more popular drugs,
Drugs designed to evade anti-doping tests
and then the more experimental stuff.

Suffice to say this part of the internet is a strange and lawless world.
Not like the Wild West, more like the backstreets of Seoul.

The goal was nothing more than knowledge
of this rapidly evolving-world.

One night a vendor's listing flagged their attention
and on an intuition they acquired
a batch of synthetic cannabinoids for nothing.
A few days later a letter arrived
containing several unlabeled bags of power.

It took many months to even partially identify them.
The vendor went dark before the results came in.

One compound was entirely novel. It did not have a name
so it was assigned one. It did not have a history of human use
but had entered the wild human populace.

After identification they were destroyed.
The properties of that novel compound remain unknown.

I fumble for my next dose
Blue chalky circles spill
Onto white linoleum
Clicking for every lost meal
Bounce like My shaky hands
No interest in obeying
Nobody ever stopped asking for an answer.

My first vice
Dependant on malnutrition
addiction, in fear
fists coming down, off the high.
there is no such thing as a familiar crash
Always a new drug.
hands struggle without muscle
We shake together.
Indulged in recall
Dissolved in water.

I sometimes feel bad for my first upper
Too quick to cheat
Carbonated me fat
Made my teeth fall out
Drew me into television
Tom and Jerry became my bedtime
I gorged myself on escapism.
After a seisure I would regret that much of this new drug.
I ration just enough
She forces my shaky hand
Insist I never talk to her while the show is on
the show is everything.
a vacuum, dusty room, spotless television
There is never a crash.
Only crippling mania

I won't **** this new addiction..
Her absence is a gateway to new powders
this Killing drug gave me the power to stop craving more.
There is closure in calling a poison by it's first name.
We call ourselves poison from the very beginning.

the little blue pills are my escapists cure.
I always go back to coffee
kept warm, by an indulgence I can hold around family.
I've a curious tongue, an educated pallete.
Seven years slinging uppers, black.

Before I learned how to read a clock
All I wanted was for it to snow
In maine, I'm skeptical when not frozen.
If I made a snow angel, I would never come down.

Snow makes beautiful quicksand.
It's hard to inhale when drowning.
I am also more likely to expand my pallete on oxygen alternatives when drowning.

The ocean has infectious curiousity
Sirens dwell there for a reason.

if I had a boat.
I wouldn't make it past the poppys

Thankfully, I do not have a boat.
Only weak Coffee

Empty hands and love wasted
Wasted, the state of being wasted
Drunk on love
Or high on life
Perhaps intoxicated with the idea
Breathing in the fumes of both
Hookah and happiness
Crushed up pills meant to calm anxiety
Only calm their mind
Not the body, not the syncopated motions
Not the actions in which they're partaking
Crushed up pills, crushed up souls,
Uppers and downers so that maybe
While their mind is numb,
Their body sure isn't,
Maybe for a moment they don't have to think
About what love actually is.

Hello snorer, I hope you didn't sleep any poorer
when I stayed up all night typing this not-poem
I meant you no harm, but I had to stay up
Because I couldn't make music out of your obnoxiously loud cacophony of windpipe crap, er "music".  Time to not-pretend to absolutely hate your snoring under the guise of being perfectly okay with it for the sake of setting the tone a bit nicer to all who must hear it, so they can BEAR to, for otherwise it would be absurd.  Not as absurd as anyone hating to have aural drills applied to all their chakras all night, but still absurd enough to get a chuckle out of me (I hope it didn't wake your fine specimen here). It was never my intent, though it was always my ethical concern (if only everyone could be as reciprocal as you and I).   Oh, my not-pretend hatred is very thinly veiled.  I wasn't totally defeated by your snore-sound armies so that I couldn't type words, but I may have lost some of my desired effect due to the sometimes wincing distraction they caused to my piece of mind at this or that time when I needed it the most (even though I was awake, which is no crime if snoring at night and keeping me that way isn't).

Well, I did ask you if you'd mind if I typed,
I did tell you that you could tell me if its quiet purr of clicks would bother your precious sleep
But I never felt a need to be concerned, because whenever I
was typing, I heard you snore, and whenever I was in the heights of
some new discovery or epiphany, your sharp sudden thunderstroke of near death
corrugated metal vibrating in the torrent of some sudden gale force gust of wind.

These were signs to me of your restful sleep.  So I simply didn't worry about your sleep.  I was certain that my electronic beeps were every now and then music to your ears, just as they were to mine.  This is because in the midst of these I heard you snore, and when you snored, I took you to be asleep.

Ah but then again, then again, these are fanciful constructions which simply say that what is wonderful for me should be just fine and dandy with you, at a bare minimum, and on those grounds of very unsymmetrical attitude about right and wrong I would have to begin my music tirade of words as well.  But I don't view justice and propriety along such selfish lines as these.

What I see is that duplicity is your thesis.  I have anecdotal accounts which are marvelous to behold first hand, but the details of the absurdities cannot be done justice in the language of men, for the intensity of such insanity can only be borne lightly by the frailest frayed ends of my sanity for having lived through your acoustically maddening inanity.

You didn't ever admit to me that my noises were not music to YOUR ears.  Indeed  you claimed never to be bothered by them because you never voiced up against them.  I suppose you might as well voice up against them in the street as well if it turns out not all of you snorers-go-a-viking types like to hear my mouse clicking away like a tapping noises on a metal plate in your skull.  Sorry if it is another non-snorer-who-must-stay-up-late-and-so-be-occupied person whose nocturnal joys were misinterpreted as direct assaults on the dignity, spirit, or just basic mental viability of your wounded snoremonster troop of anti-late-stayer-uppers, because in fact, we used to be sleep-at-night-entities like you, but that was before you showed up, thoracic marching band in tow.  Marching bands are musical also, to some people.  And for some all hours of the night are perfect for a marching band.  Who am I to tell them otherwise.  

Well let me know the next time a marching band is given special permit to come through your neighborhood at night, and I'll be glad to point out to you the first Snorer'sville, because only they should be expected, in all justice to live with the macroscopic manifestation of their personal narcissistic paradises.

Let you all go to your own place and form your own nation, and see if you can consistently demand everyone else find music in your ****** and accursed racket!  But until then I expect some of you will have to take the damage returned by the growing number of people who are very much tired of living under the horrors of your infliction upon us, your demonic and evil tyranny of mind-crushing hate that is your ****** noise.  We will do yoga and breathe, and stretch, and some light calesthenics to relax and seek some focus and composure, whenever our spirits require, and this will be unchallenged by you so long as you are asleep, and it will be unchallenged by you so long as you are awake too.  For in the latter case you are already awake (and so still are we, usually) while in the former case it is far quieter than your snoring, both in its valleys and peaks.  And moreover it has not kept you up, but in fact I have noted that you wake yourself up with your own music when it reaches a certain crescendo.  

Unless you want to say that those crescendos are some sort of involuntary complaint about MY crescendos of spirit, when I start typing about 20% faster than normal, with perfect focus and accuracy while reaching an aesthetic pleasure approaching ****** as I realize that it is almost unerringly in the midst of such an experience that I hear your crescendo resound. And since it was no more intended to be a distraction for me, then surely my music must have also gone undetected by your ears, as well as your spirit. Or is it fairer to say it was the very cause of your crescendo, or at least its inspiration?

Therefore I needn't worry that it is I that is keeping you up, even if for only brief stints at a time, especially by comparison to my all-night vigils.  Not so, but it is you who are so enraptured by my occasional laughs or giggles as I edify my weary, sleep-deprived mind on some bit of morale boosting entertainment.  With headphones on of course.  It's also courteously plugged into the computer to prevent my favorite bit of Judas Priest from hurting your ear drums, or else overstimulating your music appreciation centers, which are verily attached to your ear-drums by a nerve bundle (and what nerve you all have there).  This means I've spared you too much distraction from any already-abundant music of the spheres effect you may be savoring which might have emanated from my bumbling around in the dark (to keep the lights out of course, after all people are sleeping).

Yes but that is a minority of you perhaps, who would lie about that and in fact who ought to say that our nocturnal emissions are not what you'd call restfully mind-relaxing crickets in the dead of night with an occasional hoot in the distance...  But they are a minority, the rest of you are so definitely in good faith.

But then why do I always run into those of your tribe who have strange and unethical habits, such as destroying others' lives by ruining their one perhaps most preciously personal and inalienable need second only to air and water, and that is sleep.  It is, in terms of acute necessity, in many ways more needed than food, though in the long term food catches up.  But food catches up only because not eating food is a  lot like not getting sleep, but just a lot more intense on the body when it drops to some critical point because we know from experience it is on raw nerves that we can go for a while in search of food, but if the food can't be found (perhaps because of our lack of sleep ruining our cognition in some way), then we will not eat, nor sleep, because we'll be dead.  

But either way, we'll be dead, for lack of sleep kills, both directly and indirectly, if suffered over a short time and/or in a diluted form over a long time.  That would be poetically commensurate to the sadistic similitude of the types of snoring sounds with the types of ways to die from being deprived of sleep according to two modes (acute and chronic), over many keys of incident, accident, lost opportunity and ill-stared fate, all of which can be mapped in some way back to that auditory persecution of our very souls of which your kind are in some swelling numbers quite proud.  Just think of all the car accidents, work accidents, altercations, fits of rage, inability to concentrate well or sometimes at all, and other life-damaging conditions of the mind, and also of the body, which accrue from lack of proper and healthy sleep at night!

Good thing for most of you though, right?  Because surely our music is also sweet, and I really hope I've inspired many to face this need for equality, and be on their guard against any unjust whining or groaning from those who seem in point of fact to value their sleep just a good deal more than they value anyone else's.  Not only because they really really love to get those zzz's but because they think that in the natural order of things, before people suddenly went mad and evil, people went to bed and slept well even partly BECAUSE of this brachio-esophageal orchestral lullaby.

But we'll be on our guard against those complaints, because we know you have plotted to take to the streets against us to defend your noisiness-all-night-every-night rights.  So we'll be on guard to defend ours, TO THE LAST FIBER OF OUR BEING.

Because you insufferable ******* are cruel, and cruelty no one should abide.  No one in my world, in my society of people, will be allowed to inflict cruelty on another person, nor be callously prejudicial in their own favor when injuries do occur because of their actions merely on the grounds that the damage it causes coincides with the fulfillment of a need on their own part, even while that fulfillment is of a need which is obstructed from satisfaction in the other part, and by THAT VERY SAME REASON, so that your sleep depends on keeping others awake.  UNLESS you can somehow con or coerce them into developing some form of Stockholm Syndrome and confuse the torment you inflict upon them with a sign of your love and wonderfulness to be around.

Yes, I know you hear me typing now, through your well-behaved proxy.  I feel it. If not he per se, then in a parallel universe not too far off, there's a version of him who does.  Perhaps not the one I know now, on day one of having moved into this room, but perhaps one represented in this universe by someone who has found himself in some sort of circumstances found later on during his stay, this mixed with the fact that familiarity breeds contempt... He'll start making some righteous demands of some kind, and I might not be in a such a good mood about that due to lack of proper sleep, and this will coincide with said contumacy against my own rights (such as to breathe, type, surf the net, or do other nocturnal things other than snoring which might keep others up).

As to that last point in parentheses, snoring is an activity which you perform in conjunction with your getting sleep, and it therefore means not well for your notion of fairness to say things as they are, and simply say the truth, which is that your getting sleep deprives others of theirs, but it can be logically deduced.

It can also be logically deduced that the don't give flying **** if you don't like the fact that we don't like your ear-**** night after night, which is a good name as any, but should perhaps at times be amended to body-demolishing soul-****** of a mortally sinful nature, and with an ethical incongruity to good character of a person to maintain it, all the more to sings its praises to us and call it "good poetry".

Adderall tears burn red lines down my face
Heart stampeding over my cracked ribs
The earth stutters a tipsy beat

As I shake on a train to no mans land
Orange eyes watching green lights zooming past
Living life as a watercolor stain seeping through ***** newspaper

Whoever you are I miss you

1-When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.........

#2-The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

#3-The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason.

#4-“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#5-We can't stop here, this is bat country!”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#6-We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of *******, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of ***, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#7-“You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#8-Hallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#9-“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#10-“With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

#11-The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

If you're a celebrity
For medications come to me
I have them all, come see, come see
I'm the devil in disguise

I sign prescriptions by the score
If you run out, I'll give you more
I'll bring your pills right to your door
I'm the devil in disguise

Dr. Robert, Feelgood too
Names I'm sure are known to you
If you're in need call you know who
I'm the devil in disguise

Uppers, Downers, oxy's....well
Imagine what is down in hell
I'll keep your secret, I won't tell
I'm the devil in disguise

Elvis called, and MJ too
They both liked pills in shades of blue
No one else does what I do
I'm the devil in disguise

It's up to you, which choice you make
I fulfill, and you....you take
I'm here all night, don't need a break
I'm the devil in disguise

If you're in need, well...I'll be there
You pay for service, and I care
I've got lots, and lots to share
I'm the devil in disguise

If you're mute, and lost your voice
You know I'm your only choice
I'll be right round in my Rolls Royce
I'm the devil in disguise

You'll end up dead, but I'll keep kicking
With pills and needles, stars keep sticking
I'm the doctor all the stars are picking
I'm the devil in disguise

I am the devil, that is true
I am around, that's not new
I'm known to them, but not to you
I'm their doctor...till they die.

The beaten path is hardest to go alone but it makes one stronger. One never wants to admit to oneself that misery is the predecessor to change, ushering it like the pilot ushers the plane down upon the runway.  This is a new destination you'd never have known. That is why we go up and then down, otherwise you wouldn't care for clouds. They'd be like stop signs posted on every street of every town you can't escape from. Don't you think whales like to take a dip in our atmosphere with the same exhilaration we dive down into their ocean? Marine life has it's trials, it all seems so buoyant and peacful, but its another jungle down there. Beautiful until you live it and predators lurk every corner and algae field. Everyone eating the next guy, if its your residence, it is no vacation. Its not so simple just cuz they've not got rent to pay and corrupt politics. Babies on the way while no financial burden make most species crazy. Try being a single mother just trying to keep your kids well enough hidden just to go off to find good eats for them. They have very emotional lives out there, full of pain and suffering. If whales could get drunk, mermaids would charge and set up breweries. But the ocean would dilute any profits, and two tons of blubber each would call demand too high and so whales throw themselves into our world just to escape. They could gulp the air so low key, surfacing like submarines, instead they splash mountains with their ferve, the same way we get down, tossing cares across dance floors. And we wonder why when  they take a breath, they reach for the sky, they just want to be free, where nothing of their world can touch them. And we wonder why when it's not enough, they just give up, just like us. Massive escapists desensitizing to the joys in the depths of their waters. We wonder why we find them so sad layed up on our beaches, you see it in their despondent eye. They just want to die in that memory of exhiliration. One. Last. Time. But they're not happy. Cuz they were always chasing a high that fleetingly springed them from all worry. They lay knowing its the last time and they wonder what's gonna become of them when its all over. They just figure what lays on the otherside, or even nothing has got to be better. Maybe they're right,  or maybe all the off kilter chemicals got the better of them. Full moons got them all emotional just like us, gravity pulling all their painful memories to the surface, pulling them up out of the ocean all hopeless. Shoot maybe some of them dont even mean it, they were just so tired of the krill or baby seal murda life, or sharks poaching their babies and needed longer and longer til oneday they got too sleepy and the tide snuck down too low. Like when I pass out in the shower when it's hot enough, I swear I was about to get out..then, ****. Maybe that's why they're so ******* sad. They didn't mean for it to be over, they just got caught up in that feeling. I bet the old ones though go on purpose, just to spite the sharks that took their babies out they'd rather rot in the sea breeze they loved. Or maybe they're so depressed at the loss of their child they just want it to be over. They carry their babies in their bellies just like us, I bet they get depressed like us or the smarter dogs. Being a whale, or any sober creature can be very hard, but at least if you're not running from it, you might see through the storm for the beauty of its strength, releasing fear to just stand in awe of it. You can learn to cope with pain in at least better measure to sprinting in laps, without intention, you're just on the track, even if its as vast as the pacific, adriatic, atlantic, doesnt matter all the waters you cross, they all just ran back into themselves. See, the whale can only cope, no emotional escape route, so no matter what comes, whale is miles wiser. Their calls sound a little sad but so hauntingly beautiful. Do not beach yourself humans, in your little ways everyday. Stop feeding this disbelief in yourself. You were given this brain to choose to overcome this pain, to communicate in new ways. If you get tired of something just cuz you're used to it, you've done fell off your rock, you slipped to drown in your own riptide, to get pummeled to death. Or as my Papa woulda said, you're not playing with a full deck. You drown in intoxicant, whatever your vice, liquor, uppers, downers, shopping, food, flirting, ******* to numb life's beating. You're running from sobriety, from reality, from those people you don't love anymore cuz they can't jive with your illusions. You'll look for every reason why your psyches not the problem. If you'd not only accept but seek the need to heal,  you wouldn't need constant change of scenery just to feel something, to feel snippets of sanity, mini vacations from your daily miseries. New people, places and substances are just so exhilarating, cuz you can't handle yourself. If you could, each listed above would be blessings of oneness, not necessity. Running is only blocking your life from mattering as much as it should. You squander potential wandering in circles inside yourself. I smoked **** habitually since I was twelve, it didn't really hurt me right, just my dump trucked loads of brain cells? Wrong! Sobriety is the hardest but most rewarding excursion so far. I delight everyday in the opportunities I can receive just cuz I can think so clearly. I have an occasional shot or glass of wine with coworkers and think God I feel good. Then go home and think and plot, how can I attain that joy without consuming a dollar, compromising my body?  How can I be so at home in my skin that I don't need that just to feel like this?  I'll let you know if I ever figure it out. It's the big ******* mystery, isn't it. I THINK my point is,  we would never know what's so good to be cherished if we always had it made. They call it a beautiful struggle, and i really think they're onto God with that one. Wherever your feet lay, next time you look down at them in dismay, remember your pain is the best teacher you never had to pay.  It makes you great, it makes you an epic ******* trilogy of the past present and future.  You'll get through this day, I promise you. Whatever it proves to be to you, I pray oneday you hold the kingdom. Oneday you'll praise yourself for holding on. Oneday you'll stop running. You'll just wake up and feel at home inside yourself how the wise whale makes peace with the ocean. Tempering the binges to the surface. As above so below. You just have to find the thrill within the hand you're dealt and make yourself better for it.

throw some ****** coal in this steam locomotive
fueled by drugs, fame, money, *******, and notierity
all them girls know its me,
and some think its Reid,
but they not in the game
muhfuckas know my name (Charlie Sheen)

all these ****** uppers in my nasal passages
can't handle this
parents goin through my phone and they check my text messages
they like - "riddle me this
all you do is talk about drugs and spittin game on *******
when you gon make us proud son
you sling dope but we aint seen one
penny - and we gettin sick of it
not because your raps are ill
but because you're selfish
clean your room, do your homework, and get a job
or you'll be homeless
suckin **** for crack
and you don't want that
then you won't be able to attack and conquer
Make some change - cause you're drivin me and your father bonkers
and your ****** moniker is Reid Donovan not Charlie Sheen"

Uh...

And i be like...
"don't fret Mom, urrbody love me
i'm a terrorist droppin bombs on these rap songs
and one day
i'ma be rich as ****
all because i'm a genius
ballin, swag my *** out like Josef Stalin
and i dictate, reiterating as I weave my words so great
too late, to stop my hostile take over
i'll show her, how to ****** peddle and be stellar
mean smokin green
well up, runnin these streets
watch me take over the world
cause the name I sign my checks with is Charlie Sheen
I be, conducting
noxious, fallout as I spit
cause my saliva is toxic
white *** *******
but i'm still hood rich

We gon take over the world
while I'm on my Charlie Sheen ****
watch me stand tall
high above all the rest
see me on national TV
believe they'll remember me as the best
stick me with a knife
and watch me bleed liquid gold
nationwide tours, sold out shows
winning - throw my fastball
three strikes - all the oppositions out
wolf gang **** them all

and you know I be on those strikes
cause I aint about them ***** - no
I'm Charlie Sheen *****

I'm gon take over the world
while Mac Miller's getting mad
you're only seventeen kid,
how you write **** like that
Its because
the only present I ever got for christmas
was a big box of swag
just messin take some lessons

man i'm jonesin
8 am, gotta hankerin for a fixin
call the operator cause i'm on a ****** mission
big dave answers my call
and I reach those outer limits,
all he says is press pound and i'll connect you to the mooooon

When girls ask me if I be on that Charlie Sheen ****,
I just tell em no - I AM CHARLIE SHEEN *****

He weaves slowly between the tables
at Buongiorno's

stooping over each diner's ear
close and intimate as a lover

He asks if they can spare a little
money for his lunch

He's gaunt each cheek shadowed hollow
his skin bleached white as bone

Each vertebrae is marked prominent
Each finger skeltonic thin

Unsocked, in shoes laced with knots of string
leather uppers baked, cracked and crazy creased

His hair is dry-straggle stalks of corn
Eyes hold a stare that fixes fast the lies

He cuts a powerful figure under that cosy awning
though some name him worthless beggar

Fearless of taunts and titles offered from shamemongers
and well-respected-men-about-town

there is no guilt in asking for your basic needs
from the latte-ccino mob who have so much to spare.

© M.L.Emmett

I am so afraid of becoming White Collar Micheal.
He likes to act like his life is so hopelessly blightful, because his name is White Collar Micheal.
On the weekend, he throws on a tie-dye.
Goes from Business Man, to Mr. Nice Guy?
Deep down you know it's a facade, aka,
Your big life's a big lie.  
He does so many uppers you may as well call it the tweekend.
He fills his mind with illusions of grandeur.
I look at him and think "you need to be a man first."
Instead of filling my head with candy and dreams, I face my demons.
And it's utterly delightful because I know I will never become a
White Collar Micheal.

I am one of three –
Shadow, skin, and light.
A triplet split from the same egg and *****.
**
Make it 3 and you’ll have me
Explicit.
It’s so ****,
Being cleaved into thirds.  
A ******* with myself –

The shadow is morose.
A needy, demanding *****
Begging to be cut up.
I want to,
So I can see the blood wring around my –
Her
Wrists like shackles pinning her
To my bed.
I know it’ll shut her up
But I can’t bring myself to do it.
I’m not that *****.  

The skin is boring.
A virginal flower
Dreaming of understanding.  
She’s too wholesome,
Always waiting for the right
Version of herself to come along.
Saving myself –
Herself
For the right time.
My tastes aren’t quite so
Vanilla.

The light is adventurous.
A psychotic, brilliant ****
******* herself into the ground.
Necrophilia just got a whole lot hotter,
Bodies piling up thanks to her STDs –
Stupid, thoughtless decisions.
Protection?  Ha!
That’s for normal people.
There’s no need for me –
Her
To slow down;
We like it fast.

The skin doesn’t participate.
The *****, virtuous ******
Fidgets as the others 69 –
A disgusting yin yang
Of low and high.
The shadow drinking downers
Until she can’t remember
All the bruises covering her heart,
Too distracted by the bile
Smeared across her lips.  
The light popping enough uppers
To strip herself of her
Consciousness,
Naked and raw
She often wakes bitter
Of her restored senses.  

This ******* takes place
In a womb,
An amniotic ocean
Swaying toward the shores
Of existence.
Two will drown –
Vanishing triplet syndrome.
Only one may be pulled from
Mental waters and placed on the sands of reality.

The labor takes 33 hours -
Finally I emerge.  
Who survived?
There is no way to tell.

Deathbed Confession

“In 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked
a plane from Portland to Seattle, demanded parachutes
and $200,000 in cash, then jumped into the night with
the money, never to be seen again.” — fbi.gov

So little seemed to be at stake.
The bomb was real; the threat was fake.
Neither was difficult to make.

And I was in my element,
or almost there. Yes, the descent
was cold, but warmer as I went,

and yes it was coal black and raining,
but I had uppers and my training.
I’ve spent my whole life not complaining.

When I could see the woods I wandered
out with the twenties, which I laundered,
safety-deposited, and squandered,

and with the oddest thing — a name
I’d paid for but could never claim,
a private riddle, private fame.

That’s been the hardest part: denial —
remaining of no interest while
the Bureau opened up a file

on every former paratrooper
who in his final morphine stupor
discovered he was D.B. Cooper.

I’m D.B. Cooper. There, I said it.
It’s decent work if you can get it,
but it pays cash. There is no credit,

or blame, or pity in thin air,
and I’ve spent forty winters there.
I’ll take whatever you can spare,

although I don’t suppose the guy
whose last confession is a lie
deserves it any less than I.

*This piece is written by Kansas Poet Laureate Henry McHenry. The rights to the poem are completely his.

Life gives my stomach knots
Dread conquers my thoughts
I am weak, for I can take it no longer
As life goes on, it gets wronger and wronger

I look to the pills; I look to the bottle
They are kind and act as my throttle
Uppers and downers
My friendly encounters

People: my enemies
Hates and jealousies
They are all better than I could ever be
They have more than I could ever see

So what will I take today?
What will make these thoughts go away?
But they'll be back, just  like a pest
What I need is eternal rest

He’d been able, after some gentle persistence,
To wheedle his way into the place
(He’d been vaguely recognized by the caretaker,
A certain affable familiarity his stock in trade, after all)
And he had been decidedly deliberate in his search for the shoes,
Though he’d been quite certain where he’d left them,
Simply hoping to drink this all in just one more time
But though the rooms were ostensibly unchanged
(He'd noted the odd knick-knack and piece of bric-a-brac
Had been secreted out, to be preserved or pawned)
They held no fascination for him now,
Simply concoctions of hardwood flooring,
Decorative wall coverings, staid pieces of furniture
(Indeed, the paterfamilias of this whole mélange
Increasingly beyond his recall-- he could hearken back
To a certain hail-fellow-well-met in his demeanor,
And he'd had an affecting smile,
But he was unable to conjure any further details
From the recesses of his memory)
And with nothing else to moor him to these silent rooms,
He'd slipped on the ostensible reasons he'd come in the first place
(Their uppers maintaining their whiteness
Through any number of bleachings,
The soles worn to a near smoothness)
And, nodding perfunctorily to the mansion's steward,
He slipped away, heading to some other party
Carrying on in more or less perpetuity,
The battered bottoms of his shoes
Leaving just the faintest marks as he crossed the dunes,
Soon to be buffed away altogether by the breeze.

I inhale your scent

subtle sweet sweat;
similar to sunrise after a
dreary drizzle
I want
to crush you up,
inhale

melt you down,
swallow you like syrup
pour you over my pancakes-
you are so warm

subtle sweet sweat;
similar to the sounds of saxophones on Thursday night
I want
to crush you up,
inhale

crush you up,
inhale

A circle speaks volumes.
Revolutionize and tidy up.
Instruction manuals are read automatically.
Privacy parts the talon and now,
how the sky blinks a feather ever so unusually.

Ever wake up in your sleep to your head fully stuck in the sixth sense
stomach of a pillow, and thought to yourself in bed about how much of
a dream it must be to be stuffed turkey?

I haven't.

Or thought to your self made bed how making the bed as an edible
symbol of thanksgiving
is like taking a stand
on a landmine,
for eternity?

I haven't.
I also lie and lay awake to myself.

Although a traveler tends to do all of the above,
below the radar.
A farmer tends too.
Eats an earthquake,
aftershock, rattled rim, pacific clarity, clear the oceans, tremors, tremors,
Noah's ark is a humpback funeral home.
Noah riding a hearse by the hubcap, clean teeth grip.
Noah in my mouth, reciting odd numbers on my taste buds.

Noah licking a polished nail, course matte for me,
three by three, the poor
poor bones of a humpback whale singing sad on a mountain.

You have to wonder about coffins when it's death out.
And water among amidst when your lungs are thirsty.
And since it seems the tried and tested walk has all but run away,
some metal wood rubber leather latex silk wool boxes spit out tickets.

A materialistic downer on uppers levels off at acceptance.
And yeah, smoking will **** you, but this is about me and I need to inhale.
This is not about me, but about you, or was that nature?
The nature of nurturing seems as good a point to start this conversation.
But it's dead end talk to talk in line segments, and well, ****,
it's time for an advertisement:

This cylinder tin is full of everything your life is empty of!
Forget the cost; be content with the contents,
rehearse the ingredients, unload the all and do it again.
Infatuation is hot-air gas inflated in the belly of outer space.
I love the way those stars look and those stars love looking at me.

The cut and paste of our human race is unfairly lopsided.
The northern blade has a tumor the size of misdirection,
the scales are tipped, the whips are tipped, and the weapons are gripped.
Sudan doesn't own scissors; Angola is the axis of axe-less
but their ******* skyline is incestuously bright,
their constellations all make sense,
and their astronauts haven't lifted off, to jump and jive in the very
same sky we share with them.
No, not yet, there are animals to be slaughtered sedimentary still.
Ones with tribal names that come off the tongue like mouth sound effects,
they are almost people, without horns hammered in their heads.

Eating on all fours from a license plate.
Dig in, Donesia.
How is life in amnesia, brain pulp square?
Psychologically disturbed map and memory loss, southwest Asia?
Your address is a long walk, but the **** citizen on the roadside exhibit
is a refreshing remix to our boring, bragging billboards.
And your suffering is art to the skull and cross-bone pale cube galleries
that we call home sweet, home sweet merchandise.
And rest assured, your lack of rest will insure western survival,
North America will steal your toddler corpses
and sell them at the front gates of your orphanage ghettos.
It's the least we can do after gouging out your eyeballs.

I didn't even write this, it was drawn by a blind boy in India.

The black market pencil case people are going to a blow-out sale.
The sales on them and the jokes a bomb.
The jokes on them and the sales a bomb.
The bombs on them and the jokes a sale.
The female holds her breath and suffocates a male.
And the genders collapse in heaps and heaves, recycled and broke
like natural leaves caught in a mythological fighter
jet's propeller.
Like aeroplanes, several even, oddly amount conclusive crash-like.
Like, like, like, if the globe of green and blue were to still be alive
I would colour co-ordinate accordingly, and wear whatever hue
the big bang theory wasn't.
Dust particles getting it on and such.
Finger painting *** with a rag and pan pencil case.

The black market Darwin drawin' is on fire in the pockets of our youth,
elderly lint in same corduroy bent knuckle nameless, places
an introduction to i.v. and a never un-shook from his hinges
living room magazine holder.
So the flinching milli-metricks betwixt our beloved booklets brings
gratification, satisfaction, and eternal life.
And gravity with a runny nose.
Oh, oh!  My first ever and last edit: Make that ******.

So I'm infinite pass-time, tedious rusty grime
and dead llama on the zoo-way.
"Look Ma, a dead llama!"
"No dear, she is just sleeping with her blood out
and cage on".

No more rides for the unknown, let it be known.
Call your superiors, mega-impose their posteriors, an emphasis on
brittle lives.
And chew the fat, chew the fat, **** the marrow, narrow
weight-scale bound in chain-mail, accidental prediction protection,
magnify, mortify, modern sill overdosing on wake pills, horticultural hi.

I am coherent when the setting is all tens, when
the plot is all tens, when the characters are all reaping tens.
The catch is in the ******, looking scared cloth-less elevens.

Judges, what verdict gives you
the right to wig wear an oak arm chair
with an all too obvious worn-mallet-beating-desktop syndrome
bashing your would be innocent until proven rich-boy lashes, err, guilty?

Was that even a question,
or merely a stir-fried rant?

The master chefs are coming after us all in our under garments,
over bridges and mountains and tiger stance wisdom and
we need a Messiah like we need horseshoes on our foreheads.

Mule yoke split on the frying pan of till death do us cook.
Separation nation; a river plain, a barren abstract.
And the artists are painting droplets on their toes,
kissing themselves after a game of Chinese checkers,
determined to squirm sweet nothings while riding
question mark shaped seats from Sweden.

And under a hail of Mary's, Jason's, William's, Susan's, and missiles,
they touch their ankles where they know
nails should be,
extinct.

A circle sounds off,
a sky sounds awful,
a bomb sounds right,
a body sounds circles,
and a circle speaks volumes.

Not much happens in these parts, he would demur,
As if he’d be asked in the first place,
He one of the dwindling few remaining in this dwindling town.
Nevertheless, he has seen his share in four score and change years
From the vantage point of his place
Which sits just off the corner of the Penoyer Road:
Boom times and bust,
Snowdrifts threatening to lick the roof lines of houses,
Boys running through the embers of fallen leaves,
Shirtless and barefoot on improbably warm October days,
Young men in hay wagons and rattle-*** Chevy pickups
Laughing and singing, confident and carefree,
Making their way to the old train depot down at Apulia Station
First step on their way to show the jerries or the VC
Exactly how Upstate farm boys took care of business,
Windows adorned by placards with a gold star
Illuminated by a solitary light bulb at odd hours.
Here and there, younger types have begun to dot the landscape:
Professors with a romantic hankering to get back to the land,
Neo-hippies with their own reasons for embracing the rural life,
Each in their tune walking about their yards
Holding keyboarded and wi-fied replicas
Of that which Moses carried down the mountain,
Their fixer-uppers or double-wides adorned with small dishes
Pointed forlornly at the horizon in search of some satellite supplication.
While he has seen enough not to be too ******* sure about things,
He suspects that complexity and contentment
Rarely walk hand-in-hand,
So he keeps his needs simple enough
To be met by the ancient radio
(Huge, wood-cabineted shambling thing,
More attuned for Amos and Andy than All Things Considered)
The three-checkout grocery in Tully,
The Morton-building sheltered family practice over in Cazenovia
(The squalid, sooty skyline of Syracuse,
Split by six lanes of high-octane madness,
As remote and slightly terrifying to him as Mars itself)
As he has learned enough from thickets of trees
Which all but shriek with torrents of crows in September dusks,
The subtle changes of stream banks
Tinged by the stubbornness of frost on early May mornings
Or blanketed by the pig-iron forge heat of July afternoons,
To know that there are sufficient and possibly necessary limits
To the places where two legs or four wheels can carry a body.

Either I'll see you in ten minutes,
God

or I’ll be lying in bed
self-induced coma
oatmeal upbringings from my esophagus

tremor stricken
shrunken sobs
grasp onto life
or onto toilet paper

in my bath of uppers
ill insist on decency
wear white
forced affection
carry me on chairs
and take my candy

and my daughter will exasperate
at the end of the lane
MOM
and will see the triple entante of assistance
and will choke
and stroke my forehead

and ill meet prostitutes
and color
and expel black liquids
from all crevices of my body

make this easy on me
God
or I’ll see you in ten minutes

The pub under the hands of some fellow madmen and
my divorce already in the works I set out cause why sit around a place and be misreble when ya can be heartbroken and drunk off your ***
somewhere else.

That and and my new wifes boyfriends were stealing all the dam covers
dam you Dallas Cowboys.

The trunk looked as if i had ran over a drug dealer and knocked over a liquor store ****** had i been sleep walking again?
There was uppers downers wild turkey and beers chips dips chains and whips oh my.

Yes this would be a journey that would test the limits and like a boozed up college girl.
On a ******* video would expose many
things for a T shirt  and a chance to make dad proud and kinda weirded out at the same time being he was trying to have some alone time to ummm   do some deep thinking  and touch apon  well yeah.
But enough with the foreplay children.

I was loose apon the highway bound for the place of true insanity
home to killer thieves perverts and the rest of my family.

Knotts Island N.C. is but a small island off the Virginia border
but remeber kids it's not the size of your island that counts.
or at least thats what your girlfriend tells ya cause secretley she's
******* half the state of texas  but hey who's bitter.    
  
Yes there was a smell of outdoor fires corn whiskey maybe
some organic  umm tabaco  that was green and Dr Jerry  had prescribed to me for my vision although i still couldnt see ****
but after awhile who gives a **** I never liked that guy anyways.

So after dumping the body in the marsh i had arrived.
Home where i could smell the microwave pizza burning cause mom
was to busy  helping 16 year old Brain  with his homework.
Yeah public schools ****** good thing Momma Gonzo loved to teach
and who better to teach *** ed than the town *****.

After there session had ended there we stood.
John how the **** are ya  you little *******?
Well it was a moment of only true gonzo  understanding and after are usal  conversation like hey did ya bring a bottle? And hey are we related?
And hey mom do ya think ya could  put on some clothes cause its kinda awkward im just saying.

We laughed we cried we turned on the tv and watched are family reunion on jerry springer ahh memories all alone in the moonlight.
Hey mom great left hook you really showed that ***** although
grandma did put up a hell of a fight.

We drank my mother knew her little Gonzo was hurting
and so we spoke over ten, tweenty cases of wild turkey.
Well son did ya pay her after ***?
She wasnt that kinda ***** mom.
What a stupid ***** hell she could at least made some money i mean really though look at you.

Thanks ya heartless *****.
Your welcome honey.
Going home it really reminds ya why ya left and went in the witness protection program to start with.

And looking at my okay kinda perverted lush of a mother I relized
****** no wonder im ****** up.

We drank talked I relived the old times as i held
her hair as she puked.
then she spoke to my heart once worried me that just maybe she had finally drank herself sane.

Ya know son sometimes people's are just a plain pain in the ***
but no matter what mom always loves you.
But ya gotta leave cause the Hells Angles are coming over
and you know your uncles Skull and Eightball still are a little sore
over the whole   you turning state witness thing.

Yes the thought of getting drug behind a mottorcycle for a few miles till your flesh was ripped from your bones really did sound like a downer.

So as I hugged my slighty weird kinda crazy okay perverted demmented  hell of a gal i called mom goodbye.
I realized the journey had just begun and Mexico was a calling i needed a save place to relax  and where better to than a semi insane drug cartel controlled  country  hey but other than that it was swell.

As I herd the chopper's apraoching
And had to ask for my wallet back now mom.
Really i havent fell for that since highschool  when we were on are double date at the prom.
i know what your thinking the Gonzo clan are nuts and momma Gonzo really shouldnt had me at such a young age but she was very mature at 13 and corn whiskey and football teams  happen.

Hey she said suprized looking at the pic thats Skeeter?
Umm  yes.
Hey can I have her number?
Ahh family moments.
And as I sped away like some
hyped up teenage girl  after there God Justin Beiber.

I thought well no matter where the road takes me  
as long as I have the blood of that  lush, perverted,kinda insane,southern bell in my veins it will always be second nature to forever stay crazy.

The seed of joy is now gone,
the men on top trying too hard,
just let the drink hold,
and let everyone taste the drink of gold.

The men up top have not done that,
driving the great drug away,
thinking they are doing right,
oh how they don’t posses great sight.

New distributers have come around,
the uppers oblivious to all,
basically letting the drink hold,
oh how I love the taste of gold.

I think the top believes they won,
but I hope they realize what they did,
crimes of innocence now arise,
the marvelous drink I do not despise.

The saga ends with fault,
new people come here to supply,
men living in the wretched clink,
all because of the golden drink.

Shooting up the uppers and downers
To relieve your life away

Taking care of you was your number one priority
Having your children start a new life
In suburban Ville
Only to grow into the fakes and cowards that you present yourself

The water gradually never
Being too shallow for you
The sparks and whirlpools
Surrounding this family
Engaging us in a ball of hate towards each other
Never seems to fail

He has the heart of a tattered harlequin
Patched and re-patched with rags of broken times that were once good.
The cloth of its chambers is worn and threadbare
Held by the shreds of borrowed nights and comical stolen mornings.

He has the heart of a battered harlequin
And regret has turned his blood to the colour of rust
Unanswered questions congeal and clog his pulse
When he is lonely and aching, time - not isolation- is his worst enemy

He has the heart of a knackered harlequin
Kept moist by whiskey and gin, and uppers and downers that he pops like candy
He has a patchwork sack of a heart
It can never be filled and often feels empty.

I wake up and feel something is askew.
Then I remember what I heard last night on the news.
Then I push it aside and turn on the TV.
I’m sure someone can deal with it better than me!
Our politics are failing. Society’s flailing.
Getting’ crushed under the weight of our own pompous detailing.
But I don’t mind, there’s nothing I can do.
I’ll just grab a bite, get another tattoo.
Maybe by the time I’m done, it’ll have worked itself out.
If it hasn’t I’ll just shut my eyes and think of something else!

I guess I could try to make a difference,
But I’ve got more important things I have to deal with.
Like the season finale of my favorite show,
A bottle of Jack to finish and a party to throw!
I guess I can try to help out, if I’ve got the time. We’ll see.
Hey, look! Beer over there is buy-one-get-one-free!
I gotta stock up for the big game tonight.
Gotta go. I’m sure you got the problem covered, right?

Drunks and liars and posers, you’re fired.
Idiots, *******, worldwide mob masses.
Outcasts that walk alone, self-loathers, homophobes.
Jesus freaks. One more drink. Intelligence levels sink.
Dumb jocks and ******. Gangbangers. Guerilla wars.
Drop the dime, save the time. Pretend you’ve lost your mind.
Uppers and downers. Immigrants, minors.
Emos and cheaters, and ******* wife-beaters.
****** ex-girlfriends, freaks, frauds, text message sends.
Alcoholics relapsing. Governments collapsing.
Oil spills, anything for thrills. Hold on, just one more ****.
Suicide bombers, no mothers, no fathers.
This world’s so ****** up, how will it end up?
I don’t wanna know, don’t wanna see.
Don’t make me face reality!

Paint
Glitter
Highlighters
Water
Glow in the dark
Sharpie markers
Canvas
Red Bull
Cigarettes
Lighter
Sparklers
Feathers
Chronic
Uppers
Downers
Middlers
Extravagent
4th dimension
hyper being
Nocturanal Drug Fiend
Best Friend to the Speaker
Bass
Middle Fingers
Breakdowns
womp
womp
womp

never been one whO̲ contains much
faith in the human race, but
now it's just about bo[ɑ]ttom-low
which reminds of a squa[ɑ]tting pose (bottom low)
sometimes, it's like I̲'m on a ride that goes
down the dark misanthro[ɑ]pic road
I̲'m not the driver, though
[but I guess I sort of chose the "vehicle" & keep staying in it]
and to descrI̲be humankI̲nd, I'd go
with the following cO̲[ɑ]mment: "inside a post
apo[ɑ]calypse truck that rolls mindlessly, like it's no
tomorrow, down the dysto[ɑ]pic road"
sometimes, I'd li̲ke to be one in rose
tinted glasses, like some pretty lA̲ss dis—
—played in some fashion-oriented mA̲g piece
but the mind of mine is wired otherwise
but forget it, for rI̲ght now, I would like
to continue the dystopy theme fro[ʌ]m the prior lines
autocracy, AI̲, with both
on the rise, it's like into the dark we go
do you know why it's ca[ɔ]lled
"high classes"? 'cause an archetypal soul
belonging to a high class is all 'bout
self-indulgence, dough (power, high on power)
[since, according to Ted Kaczynski, the power process is the process of satisfying needs]
[having power in its different forms makes living humans delighted (high)]
[just like mood-elevating narcotics called "uppers"]
[what I imply with those lines is high social class[-es] is/are called "high" due to]
[its/their members being under the influence of their power acting as uppers for them]
and for the mass to throw down
the system, there's a lack of civil drive & know[ɑ]ledge, so
it seems like no way of sto[ɑ]pping those
two, except for legislation that prescribes
development, usage, & spread limitations to[—]ward AI
[should be worldwide]
and (with regard to autocracy) an armed overthrow
by antiauthoritarian-minded folks
who, at some point, would pro[ɑ]b'ly grow
corrupted like wrong ones dethroned (dead end)
tragical, but at the same time, it's kind of co[ɑ]mical
[the way humankind is throughout its history]
humankind is like an utter dolt
who keeps stepping on a frO̲nt end of a ****** ***
like a ****** getting her tyrant-minded clients croaked (****** ***)
but AI, which is obvi' gon' be utilized to exercise control
[in fact, that's already the case]
["RoskomNAZIor" with its **** "Oculus"]
or even have the might to exercise control
and autocracy itself are no[ɑ]t the sole
pro[ɑ]blems known; humanitarian plights provoked
by warfares (look at Africa); with enviro holes
being dug since Brit's industrial
[the "dig oneself in(to) a hole" expression]
revolution & the people number growth
someday, there'll be a time the globe
won't be the sentient species' lovesome home
but environment
is among stuff chI̲ng-corrupt jerks
that rU̲n or get
investment I̲ncome fro[ʌ]m firms
speciali̲zing in
fossil fuels gI̲ve not co[ɑ]ncern
toward, hence the climate change denI̲A̲l them
filthy rI̲ch schmucks support
[as if they don't have or aren't gonna have offsprings]
but there's always an abrupt turn
to take to end this f#cked world (sort of end)
I mean, do no[ɑ]t for—
—get about dA̲[ɛ]mn nuke bo[ɑ]mbs stored
both in the "eastern world" with authoritarian govs (madness)
[China; North Korea; Pakistan; India; Russia, with Belarus as its nuke base]
and in the "western world" with somewhat liberal ones (lesser evil)
[USA, with some NATO states as its nuke bases; France; UK; Israel]
what I imply's the sapiens kind
is doomed; even if the final chapter's not nigh
it's still just a matter of time
[doomed to be a dystopian civilization with: constant control & oppression]
[by the powers that be; violent crimes, incl. warfares]
[starvation (in some regions); worsening environment]

I,
Art,
Pointed vocabulary.

You,
Me,
Or I,
Combustible,
Inexcusably,
Irrevocably,
Unattainably,
Plated,
And jaded,
New years faded,
We,
Are geometric.

Mathematically methodic,
Periodically pinning,
Hot and heated,
Razor folds and sharply pleated,
Fascist fad,
Plaid,
Bellbottom dreams,
Up do uppers,
Down right downers,
Freedom from freedom,
Morals for the meat grinder,
Hamburger politics,
Methodic politics,
Periodic politics,
Political politics,
Politics frolic with a devil,
And an angel by its side,
For a fast food meal,
With hamburger policies,
And fascist fries,
Supersized and supervised.

Love felt like ripping apart your lungs and then trying to breathe.
Love felt like Smashing a glass bottle then trying to piece it back together.
Love felt like Being on so many uppers you'd have heart palpitations.
(Love felt like a night that you know the stars are out but there's too many clouds) (C.M.)
Love felt like A gust of wind knocking you to the ground.
(Love felt like finding comfort in a casket)
(Love felt like building a house with Popsicle sticks and glue instead of cement and bricks because he was afraid of commitment) (S.F.)
Love felt like Being punched in the stomach as you hunch over afterwards.
Love felt like Fainting at a sight.
Love felt like climbing into the comfort of your bed after the longest day of your life. (AG)
Love felt like Feathers running across my skin.
Love felt like Flower petals kissing my lips.
Love felt like Hammers knocking at my head.
Love felt like Cutting down a tree and then yelling at it to grow back.
Love felt like The consumption of alcohol.
Love felt like The first sip of coffee in the morning.
Love felt like Chain smoking cigarettes.
Love felt like The way he kissed me while I was still in a slumber
Love felt like Flowers in a field on a sunny day
Love felt like How my mother hugged me everyday before I went to school although I could smell the alcohol on her breathe
Love felt like Music
Love felt like The tears running town my cheeks
Love felt like His name running through my mind again again again again
Love felt like An invincible smile
Love felt like The way his eyes set sight on mine
Love felt like A new beginning
Love felt like Finishing a book you couldn't put down for three whole days
Love felt like Him Making me his world  
Love felt like puncturing my ear drums because I kept playing the voicemail you left me over and over
Love felt like Many sensations
Love felt like Love

They pull the strings behind the scenes, they think themselves queens and kings controlling everything.
And we're the poor pawns that fawn on and on and on, day to day, from dusk til dawn.
We need to stop the cycle. No, we HAVE to stop this cycle. Get off the bike, though, we might not like to, Because we're prisoners and though we're lacking actual shackles, our rights are *** backwards, and the rulers are money-hungry psychos.
We the people pay the price,
The price for living paid in pain and constant suffering,
Nothing's really what it Seems,
And no one Sees because We numb ourselves through drugs and Vicodins,
Pill-poppers, downers, uppers,
Blunt-puffers, paint huffers,
Wrist cutters, coke snuffers,
Methamphetamine intravenously-injecting stupid *******.
Drug smugglers, crack stuffers,
Mother struggles, baby suffers,
Speed lovers, glass crushers,
We numb it all so no one bothers.
but sitting comfy at the summit,
Watching the planet plummet,
Are the ones pulling the strings behind the show.
The ones without a soul.
The ones behind it all, yet few of us do know.
It's time we all wake up, stop confirming to the rules, it's time we cut these strings and put the people in control.

She is a spindle on my bed
Reminding me of my mumma
  Sweating on my sheets,
naked, lewd, romanticizing me
  Not knowing I hide her
from my friends and family
  Not knowing I drink, pop
uppers, downers, as I prop
  Up against the headboard
and as I watch her cradle
  Her head between my
Half Caucasian, Half ******
  Thighs, riddled with scars
Seven years old, one year older
  Than the baby I gave up.

I wonder how I taste, how
  I look, Do I taste like shame,
Do I taste like love forgotten
  Do I look like the ******
The city girls gossip that I am
  Can you see the removal,
The crib I threw my child from
  The trauma that caused me to
Abandon him, to abandon me,
  What will cause me
To abandon you

  Sarah, my love, where have I gone
Why have I left you, bloodless,
  Soulless in the pitch black dreary
Gravelled upon the smoothness
  Of my deceitful, coarse projection

Sarah, I am sorry that my shame
  Coerced me to run from your
Eternal rays downward on my
  Dimpled, crooked smile, on my
Dimpled brown ***, attached to
  My snakey spine, what holds
My ribs, what protects my lungs
  Which do nothing but breathe
You.