Sitting at my workstation I kept swirling my chair around,
Battling the strenuous drowse that tried to yoke me to the ground,
“How could this happen? This is the first hour of my job,” I wondered,
I chuckled. “How fool of me! It’s Monday today,” I remembered.

I peeked to my left to see an empty chair,
“No-one to talk around; hey, that’s so unfair!”


I cringed viscerally at the thought of spending the day without uttering a word,
I tried to re-task my focus on my computer screen when a soft voice I heard,
Made me turn, and as I did, I veered myself to the source of the euphonic voice,
I felt the dumbfoundedness of a person bewitched by a magical spell, twice.

For some moments I couldn’t decrypt the words that her lips uttered,
As I just kept staring into her graceful eyes, helpless and all cluttered.


She asked with a soft smile, “Is this person absent today?” and  motioned to the workstation on my left,
I felt my dopamine surge at the possibility of what might happen next,
I nodded as soon as I realised my tongue has gone numb,
She ensconced herself and smiled, her cheeks as rotund as a plum.

I swallowed a lump in my throat that I didn’t realise had formed,
I wasn’t hoping for anything like this but I liked what my day had unboxed.


“What is she? Are humans allowed to be this beautiful?” I questioned my mind,
Was she a manifestation of my dreams or an angel in disguise!
It seemed like her eyes possessed a power in them like Midas in his hands,
A sight of innocence that could even force the flying time to land.

I leaned forward a little to catch a glimpse of her pretty brown eyes,
She turned to me with a gaze of a doe and my tongue again got tied.


“Any problem?” She questioned me with a raise of her brow,
“Yes, your eyes. They’re too beautiful,” the response I couldn’t let out,
Instead I shook my head and turned my eyes away from her,
My peripheral could see her blushing; it seemed the bubble has finally burst.

I tried to venture a conversation but failed to remember the morphemes,
The anonymity between us allowed the nervousness to sweep in.


I sighed deeply and turned about to do what I’m paid for,
But her presence beside me made it harder for me to stay calm,
An unexpected “Hello” came from my left and an introduction followed the greet,
Although stunned by the suddenness I tried to smile at her, from cheek to cheek.

We exchanged our names and conversed a little for a while,
Before she got engaged in her work and I in mine.


After hours of punching the keyboard buttons I stretched my arms and yawned,
She giggled at me and I took it as a cue to move my first pawn,
I embarked, “I’m going to the cafeteria to have some tea”,
I hesitated for a moment and resumed, “would you like to come with me?”

She rolled her eyes and I understood she has refused my kind and genuine offer,
I began to walk away. “Wait a minute, let me lock my PC,” and then I saw her got up.


We walked our way to the cafeteria, slower than two people normally would,
My chivalry erupted as I held the door open for her as she entered the room,
We occupied a table for two and  it appeared like a date-night is about to happen,
With she in front of me and  the stories that we shared, it seemed like all the troubles in the world didn’t matter.

I mulled over the thought that I might have a crush on her smile,
But there was an absolute certainty that I had fallen in love with her eyes.


She shared some cheerful stories about her childhood and also the moments in her life she remorse,
She had a way of crinkling her nose adorably that made her appear cuter than she was before,
“You may have a body of a woman but you have a sweetness of a child,” I abruptly blurted out,
She smiled deep into my eyes and I could feel the brightest smile I ever had form on my mouth.

“That’s the sweetest thing someone has ever said about me,” she flushed a little while she said this,
It took us a moment to realise that we’re holding hands; the touch of hers was something I couldn’t resist.


We got up as we finished our beverages and sauntered our way back to our daily routine,
I tried to rein my thoughts that our day was  about to end, but my efforts were all just futile,
I just wished this night shall never pass as I wanted to spend more of my time with her,
We logged out of our PC’s as our shift ended but I craved for one last conversation with this girl.

While ambling towards the exit in silence I turned on my heels to look into her beautiful brown eyes,
I sighed as I looked at her and tried to settle down the feeling to hug her that was about to rise,
“I spent this beautiful day with a beautiful girl I wish I could see more of,” I said with truthfulness in my voice,
She smiled at the ground and then looked up, “You will. Tomorrow at 8. Here’s my number. The place is your choice.

========================================================­===

We are all birds of a flock
That is pervaded by hawks
Predators who sympathy block
Until it's in conflict we're locked
Brought on by hateful conclusions
Conjured from shameful delusions
Trying to avoid societal fusion
Based on a diabolical illusion

They claim to love the man who digs the ditch
But this comes off as a hollow pitch
Because they all seem so rich
And say that the poor have a glitch
And their worst nightmare would be to switch
They're aware of other's values and interests
But they ***** their brothers like ******
Using hatred and ignorance
To make up the difference

They're so jingoistic
Creating misfits
To shift focus
Away from them
They're the locust
That chew the stem
Obtaining the power of love
Inside of their glove
That they use to shove
A misappropriation
That strangles a nation
At the rate of inflation
Yet the hawks show elation

When the going gets tough
We hear the same old stuff
Something about 9/11
Or who gets into heaven
They find simple answers
For complex issues
I hope their sinful cancer
Happens to miss you
But their negativity takes many forms
Anything from budgets to bullet storms
Tearing down bountiful fields of corn
To build another convenience store

These vultures keep consuming
While resources dwindle
Their desperation causes fuming
So they cheat and swindle
Surviving by eating the dead
That died from violent words said
Coming from the greedy vulture's head
Until every single animal has viscerally bled

These hawks used to look so regal
Until we experienced chemotherapy
Now they've become bald eagles
Always trying to steal my hair from me
But we're different species apparently
Because I have no feathers to offer
To further fill their nest egg coffers
So they forcefully take what they want
And then their shameless riches they flaunt
Using perceptions of status to tease and taunt
Hoping we'll forget they're the ghosts that haunt
A world of immutable truths
Even the richest can't elude
They build a curtain that's crude
To protect their fortunate brood
Fearing it will be dismantled
By an activist carrying a candle
So the vast majority can get a handle
On a future other than slavery
But to finally fight back
Requires the utmost bravery
And it's courage we lack

Donald Trump's presidency
Is one of the greatest achievements in art I have ever experienced
And Trump is a true artist
He takes words from the page
Like corruption, disenfranchisement, xenophobia
And brings them to life
Highlighting fear and paranoia so clearly
Contrasting the blacks and whites
Emphasizing anger
While reminding us we're mere infants
In the digital age
And warning us of our seniority
And capitalism's

We all like to think life has meaning
Until we hit an animal with our car
Then that's just the way things are
And I'm staring at an absurdist painting
Of a child driving a car
Through a herd of sheep
As I watch a heist film
Where the robbers turn their guns over
To the mentally unstable guy in the group

Trump is a national artist
Placing riots on the map
And drawing infernos on the Internet
His art forces an opinion
Everybody has something to say about him
And it's all true
Even the pages he ripped from his own cabinet
Tried to villainize him in their script
But he was already an anti-hero
The humor is that the mud slung onto him
Is dirt kicked up from his own tires
I guess if you surround yourself with hateful people
You're surrounding yourself with people who probably hate you

Trump's art is deeply conflicting
He reminds me of the people who want me to live in shame
Yet he embodies the individuality that separates me from that shame
His insecurities remind me of myself
High school is the White House in the eyes of a kid
And I had secrets I wanted to share
But felt I couldn't
I learned things
That changed my entire perspective
And didn't think people would understand
Afraid of being assaulted for my indiscretions
I hid behind a boisterous personality
And a nonchalant attitude
Trump's art evokes sympathy and hatred that feels so strong
When he holds a mirror defining our worst qualities
To a man viscerally opposed to his own reflection
The confliction of emotions
Is the hallmark of great art

We are all artists
The lines we write or the strokes we brush
Are in our actions
And Trump's canvas displays
A life filled with accomplishment
Inspiring me to live my own life
But I still wake up in cold sweats
From the American dream
That anybody can be president

my future partner,

Hi, I’m anna. I guess we’re co-writing this chapter of our lives together. I’m sure it’ll be epic. It takes a while for me to viscerally latch onto another being, so congrats to you for stealing my heart
because if I’m with you, that probably means I really love you.

I like sushi a lot, empty bookstores, and tea sipping sessions with my cat, xiaoxiao, who you will probably hear me talk about twenty-four seven. I hope you’re a cat person.

Within the realm of the arts, I like to write poetry and play piano. But my secret hobby is photography. It’s the best way to know someone without really knowing them. And if you hurt me, I’ll probably create an entire musical composition or a playlist of poetry about it. But I’ll forgive you instantly.

I might make mistakes, too. For instance, I’m horrible with directions, remembering events, deadlines, or anything unrelated to pedantic learning. My erratic and changeable moods can be quite the predicament as well, but I promise to be as tolerable as I can be through my storms.
I’m a biomedical science major with a minor in neuroscience. Assimilating an array of medical innovations, education, and terminology is, personally, my zenith of academic interest. I have a love and longing to help others. But sometimes, moving towards this ultimate vocation is strenuous and I do hope you understand how much medicine means to me. This means late night MCAT study sessions, mountains of neuroscience books, stacks of terminology notecards, homework, and paramounts of stress.

But I want to work on that. I promise that whatever I love, I love to a seemingly boundless depth- “from the tip of my apex and beyond,” if you’re into medical puns. I promise I’ll take you out to dinner, plan cute dates, and spend as much quality time with you as I can. I promise, we’ll travel to so many places, eat all the food we can in all the countries we visit, dive in every ocean we can find, and fly over every country we can point to on a map.

Most importantly, I promise to give you reasons to continue the chapters in your book. Because I struggle with that too.
Whether it be in a month, a year, a decade, or a lifetime...

I promise to love you, see you soon

the shadow works, 2005-2006

might as well keep them all together ...
a journey through the shadowz ...
through the possessions ...
through the hell ...
through me ...
through!
whew!

during this time, i sought support from an indian medicine man, a shaman, past life regression therapist, and a variety of other spiritual healers ... some of those, narrated in depth, elsewhere ...

the enclosed is probably not of interest to many,
understood, yet offered up,
as a journey,
narrated through times,
via rhymes


Heavy

May 6, 2005

I feel knee deep in a bog
Tackling responsibility for emotions
Are these weights a lesson
Projections reflected

I want things smooth
Light and carefree
I don’t seek control
But expect absence of impact

I can’t buy, reason or work
My way out of this challenge
Each time faced head on
I give up ground and accommodate
To point of compromise
No side is right here
What is, just is

I have my perceptions
And filters
And the weight intensifies
I want to dissolve it
Haven’t figured out how
Depression, heavy
Rooted inside

How do I break free
I feel alone
Even within myself
I don’t know
The reflection
In the mirror

There is a longing to be free
Unchained
Unbound
To live
To sleep
To find balance
Chasm

I want to be
What I feel I’m not
I don’t celebrate
What I perceive
Myself to be

I seek void
Death
Rebirth
Ha
Do this again
Easier
To take flight
Black
Grey
White

Tears
Rip across my chest
Seeking
To release my heart
Bound and chained
I want them to flow
Pent emotions
Seek exorcism

I haven’t surrendered
I don’t accept
Open I bleed
Closed I store pain

I want to feel flow

Nothing aligned
Empty I know
Torn
Shredded
Fragments and shards
Differentially
Scattered

Ungrounded
Not whole
I want to go home
Here come the tears
Smiles


Dark Envelop

July 9, 2005

Feeling my way through the illusion
Finding no solace in delusion
Have my angels found another to watch over
Are my whispers no longer heard and contemplated

As I believe I do my best
I don’t convince even myself
So much struggle and challenge
Why do I even travel
Away from my bed

Prodded along
Voices and dialogs
In my head

I could start again tomorrow
Wait, I have done that before
Somewhere within, my shadow sneers
Chaotic and off balance, I’m fodder
Material for my shadow’s jeers
******, ***** and stripped bare
Seeking a single reason to care
Am I victim to want it all fair

Now

I recognize this place
Hell etched in my face
I could so easily quit
Leave the game’s race
Always another will replace
Scripts each written on ****** mace

Not yet ready

Lessons to learn
Though I yearn
Tis not my time to rest
Not until this unconscious
With which I wrest
Is balanced and addressed
Then, only, will it be my turn
I’ll find some sun
Seek beauty and joy
Transcend this marathon run

I’m not the universe’s toy


Reflections from the Void

August 21, 2005

So, this is death!
all distractions departed
leaving emptiness, not loneliness
gnawing absence of purpose, manifests in tears

Purgatory,
between somethings that felt to have mattered
without logical linkage
between then, now and the next then

Transitions require momentum
energy is here, but failing direction
what pursuit of new experience calls
none … these moments

Sleep comes easy, frequently
no dreams revealed in the aftermode
void … passionless … lethargic … empty … void
emotionless?

Looking for some elixir
to heal, to know, to feel …
the game continues / with tears of the void
the potential unknown
I guess I do feel alone …

why … what the **** is the point … anyways …
does this rub … offend … ????

this, my creation, my expression of infinite potential, capacity, too bad that
I have no TV to distract …
guess I need to process through …

ps …
if you receive this – love you …
for what it is worth ...

I guess I am ‘OK’, just feeling my way through ………..


Heart of Sadness

November 6, 2005

Incredible, my heart screams of sadness
as I accept and surrender
Surrender to what I have wrought,
what I did from my state of pain

Our pain breeds more pain, often,
and feeds back upon itself
Amplifying toward a crescendo
of intensity felt viscerally

As our hearts ache
In deepening depression,
I feel spoiled that I want more
than I have
I feel I should harden up
and move forward,
towards, what …

If I harden up, I harden my heart
and it feels now is the moment
to dive into this pain,
to learn from this pain,
to grow from this pain,
to understand from this pain,
to rebuild my heart in an open way

Experience the pain in full color
experience the loneliness,
experience the emptiness,
experience my void,
experience my sorrow,
experience my defeat,
experience yet another death,
experience my drama,
experience my immaturity,
experience my dysfunctional self,
experience the consequences,
experience the responsibility,
experience the resentment of myself,
experience the anger at myself,
experience the pain,
experience the bleeding,
experience the desolation,
experience the emotions raw,
experience the tears,
experience the shredding in my heart

grow in compassion,
grow in empathy,
grow in unconditional love,
grow in reverence,
grow in acceptance,
grow in maturity,
grow in awareness

I don’t need to sacrifice,
I need to celebrate

I don’t need to enable,
I need to empower

I don’t need to think,
I need to feel

I don’t need to protect,
I need to love

I don’t need to speak,
I need to listen

I don’t need to hurt or project,
I need to heal


Returning Home, Changed

November 8, 2005

a lover scampered off
then returned past time
after everything shifted
in another’s heart
and mind

old windows shuttered
no quarter taken or given
thus tears held reign
from processed pain

now at an advanced arc
on the circle of love
lessons in alchemy
seem sent from above

this journey now vectored
with independent trajectories
finding different connection
within renewed reflection

the cat broke the home
the archer wandered on
now on new paths
each does roam

the cat is changing
experiencing nature anew
with life rearranging
deeply ranging

in love with you


Shadow Teachings

November 14, 2005

We have known all along
yet didn’t trust those feelings
As our subconscious takes charge
when we fall asleep at the wheel

Just as we continue to breathe
within each moment of slumber
Some segment within us
will always surface
to chart our courses

With each emotion left
unexpressed in the moment
another is drawn forth and purged

Cycling
Withhold, Withdraw, Project
The truth will set us free
If we have courage to reveal
And the truth clears out
emotions, two by two
one new, one buried
Creating space
allowing

Love,

Courage,

Creativity,

Understanding,

Joy­,

Celebration,

Illumination,

Growth,

LIFE

Express or Suppress

a Choice

of Voice

Opportunity found
in stormy weather
repairing the roof
in the rain

We may heal together
With whomever
NOW, then or never

It commences
via
loving thy self

Reinforced in experience
beyond words from
books on the shelf

WE WRITE OUR SCRIPTS

WE CREATE OUR EXPERIENCE

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE

WE ARE CREATORS CREATING

HOLD REVERENCE IN OUR POWER

FOR TRANSMUTING ENERGY

WITH LOVE


Be Impeccable of Word
(seasons of silence and truth to be expressed),

Don’t Take It Personal
(while observing the internal CHARGE!),

Don’t Make Assumptions
(they are mostly our projections!),

Do Your Best
(while ready for universal fireworks!)


Reflections Forward

November 30, 2005

Where am I going
with what I feel today
finding pure simplicity
laughter, being, love and play

Wisdom’s foundation built
on wisps of reflections past
absorbed experience
never allowed to wilt

My soul
has been heard
that incessant screaming
now
finally ceased
still raw
yet healing
moment
by moment
with each regression
new levels encountered
it was always
my lessons
cycling
for conclusion
the tool is divine
yet a challenge
to master
wanting
to be there
faster
just where
right here
presence
in now

Tao

honor in flow
faith in it all
no withdraw
from my call


Crumbles

Whelp, that was intense
Wrong words
Wrong tone
Wrong subject

How fast creation
changes
dissolves
and begins
Anew

Suddenly
all the discussion
all the plans
all the harmony
evaporated
reminding me
to look back within

I didn’t know
we were that fragile
without enough
foundation
relation

What does this circumstance
reflect about me
never independent
at least I remained calm
and found compassion
without projection

I honored the four agreements
as I watched you cry
as I absorbed the barbs flung
and chose not to deflect
mostly
silent
as I elected
to simply reflect
on your pain
your sorrow
that I couldn’t
prevent
heal
or soften

The dream has faded
the future now foggy
I know depression
I know sadness
I know empathy
and love

I choose life
I choose growth
I choose to heal
I choose to love

Paths feel divergent
with new adventure
just around the corner

I gave my love
my attention
affection
and soul

Angels!!!!!
support me now
as I shed these tears
listen as I call

I won’t stagger
much
I won’t fall
but face
unknown years
unknown fears

Nobody Knew Me

2006.01.31

No other soul
Experienced me
Fully authentic
As I lay hiding
From myself
Doubting
I could survive
Naked

When my Mother
Declared
My friend
And Lover
Was EVIL
My delusion
Fractured

Within moments
Over days
Illusions crumbled
Imploded
In fragments
Then shards
Of recognition
Crept
Then flooded in

I found myself
In darkness
Exposed and bare
I had strove
With my unique intensity

To be
Validated
Nurtured
Wanted
Touched
And Loved

To obtain these desires
I Compromised
I Manipulated
I Projected
I Overwhelmed

I would then Withdraw
I closed my eyes
Then my ears
Then my touch
Then my mind
And finally my heart

I wove stories
And swam, immersed
In my lies

My truth and core
Thus illuminated
In both peace
And tears of sorrow
I have been alone
I belong alone
I shall be alone
While I meet
Myself, now
Innocent
Again

I release Mom’s rejection
Transmuting her reflection
And transfiguring
Her projection

Thank you, Mother
You missed just one aspect

The EVIL was MINE
I created my experience
To break my own chains
Script complete
Curtain falls
No applause
No audience
Now
Silence

Nobody knew me
Not
Even
Me

Tears
Joy to follow


Unwelcome Back
2006.03.17

The dark visitors have arrived
and tears stream down my checks
are these demons
another component of ‘me’?

I call, sincerely
on angels and help
yet remain feeling
disconnected

Tonight was supposed to be
about sharing, growth
and healing
yet why, again
am I left reeling

Am I paying
for karmic bonds
both instant and past
is it time,
yet again,
to merely fast
to turn off these emotions
suppress yet another round

I have again
found the deep pain
why is it so hard
to love
and transcend my pain

There are keys
I haven’t yet found
there are messages
silent in sound

I don’t know myself
though I look with intensity
I apologize
here and now
for exposing myself
projecting myself
dragging anyone down
to my despair
felt beyond repair

Harr!

this IS the trap
feeling alone
feeling the sorrow
missing the balance
reveling in another tomorrow

This game is ****** up
get over it now
bring forth the light
shine in true essence
become
in presence
it is easy to quit
resign and give up

Hail beyond!!!!!!!!!
Creators transcend
right up
from the muck

Library books, we tuck and nestle
Forgetting our parents, whistle
Don't look at them
But southern text books, performing
In ballet flats, I popped--performed voice
Give me that trophy, if it means
If it means
First place in my own heart.

Defining myself through opportunity
Its only the best if I'm the best
Mama Bear thinks she has a lot of rights
But she and the dogs
In a large house
I wonder, ponder
If she feels loneliness
Papa, papa lawyer
He argues and debates that case
As I grew stronger and wiser
Riding around around in his Mercedes-Benz
Oh to be in sixth grade again
But I check my white privilege.


Scavenger hunt adventure
I felt everything so intensely
So viscerally
I fought for those brown eyes--blue eyes
To a joyful and steadfast hazel
Love finds you when you don't search.

Everything was so important
So deep, so sensational
Smoking in my bathroom like a bad *****
Alabama.
Philadelphia, we danced a fighting partnership
As I peacefully and hectically
Piece together
The me that has always been there
In Chicago,
But this is by no means
My last stop.

So I cough up my heart
Stained in ****** vulnerability
Empowering those who gaze at me
I dig my hands into the dirt
Because its time
A young woman did so.

she was the first
to act as though
she wanted to be my beretta,
to hold a holster to my thigh
and accept the badge
of partner in crime.

she spoke without shelter.

pool days of marination
in monsters and taurus,
a kiss for pity
as i'd yet to be corrupted,
and she stole some joy
in taking what wasn't hers.

she was bigger than me.

she showed me
how shattered touch screens
can look like dried petals,
but cut like cold *******,
and when you're in a field of dandelions
how they come in handy.

she wrote the book on flagellation.

she promised it was all for me;
calloused fingertips from
loving me with lighter fluid,
scratches for feral adoration,
and the damocles' above my head
or rather hers, and hers to drop on a whim.

she wrote a chapter on manipulation.

i wasn't ready the first time
she pushed passed denim
and plaid as easily
as she waived my concern,
nor the second --
nor the third.

she had daddy issues.

i still didn't know
how tampons worked,
or vaginas for that matter,
and so to be forcefully
and viscerally introduced to both
behind a tree in Henessey
****** up my brain a little.

she called it "mad week."

ear bud cables
became garrotes
around my neck
in the suspended
movement of a pulse
through my aorta;
and as every day with her,
i felt she crossed a line,
and as every day before,
i never called foul.

My father was born in an outport community of 2000
On the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland
Around 1950, to a school headmaster and a homemaker
Attended Memorial University of Newfoundland (as did I)
Studied English, and eventually Education

He was a brilliant man, often quiet for long periods of time,
Then viscerally eloquent like Occam's Razor when he spoke
Remember him telling me how "taking their maidenheads"
From Romeo and Juliet act one, was about taking virginity
Always had an answer for my million questions
Rarely lost his temper

Taught me to accept others as they were, and to resist the temptation
To judge

A spiritual man, not religious, always taking care to differentiate the two

Without him I would never have access
To the home library in our den, my muse
Or all the gruesome movies he shouldn't have let me watch

Without my father I wouldn't know that
I like Jack Daniel's on the rocks with afternoon paper or
A Farewell to Arms with Spanish Rioja from earthenware cups,
Like Hemingway drank during the Spanish Civil War

I would not have wallowed with the downtrodden and the vilified
I would not have seen the base human weakness
The fundamental vulnerability that dwells within all of us
Had I not seen it in him first

Some four years ago, my father experienced weakness on one side
While on vacation in Europe
Flew back to Canada, diagnosed quickly with brain cancer
By the time I spoke to him, his mind was already rapidly fading
The spark of brilliance snuffed out like so much wick and wax

Died 6 months later in his sleep
We spread his ashes on his father's grave
And in the Bay St. George

Taught me what and how to believe,
Who to be
For better or for worse
Taught me how to ask the right questions
Showed me the books to read
Let me know it was OK
To be me

Love poetry is not about
The joining of man and woman-
****** or otherwise.
That is too simple for love poetry.
It’s about separation
Longing for
Searching and waiting.
In the longing lies the divine.
In desire is faith-
Reaching for something
You know is there
Reaching back for you
Like a hopeful horizon,
No proof that her arms are
Outstretched towards you.
But you feel it,
Know it somehow,
Viscerally,
Can’t help but know it
In a way that others don’t
And never will.
The faith of reciprocation.

You are special for having been
Touched
By this beautiful agony.

I'm afraid that if I die

People wont know things only I know

Like how N likes their carrots

Or how L loves her dad

Only I know this, like this

Of course others know some of this too, some of the time

But no one

Not one single person knows that you

You two

Are perfect

I mean this literally

I was gifted this knowledge when you were born

I know this viscerally, like this.

Or that you're beautiful in ways that make me hate words

In ways that render language hollow, meaningless, obscene

I am not being dramatic.

And also that you are good

By which I mean loveable

Like very and always

Fundamentally, inherently

This is not something you can ever change even though you'll probably try

And you might convince other people

Maybe even your dad, or your therapist, or your lover, or yourself

But you'll never convince me

I don't know why

I just know this

And I need you to know this too

Recurring reversal
Mixed up signals
Anger through the roof

Divergent beliefs
We get no relief
From the battle of me vs you

All alone
Vacant phone
Not a ******* thing to do

You don’t hear me
You don’t believe me
What am I to you?

You stay away
Sabotaging the day
I’m beyond viscerally blue

A long time ago
We thought this would grow
Now we’re just destitute

You’re cruel and biting
Blaming, blaming
Reality blind or elusive

My vision was clear
You are the most dear
Our love most certainly true

Hence this pain so severe
Please help me to breathe —
To become something new

Waiting, worrying
Planning and unplanning
Mountains of things to do

Unable to focus
Unable to care
About anything that isn’t you

What can I cling to?
Please give me the energy
To help this love continue

Days turn to years
I love beyond my fears
The well of pain is deepest for you

I will ignore all concepts of adherence and maybe, just this once,
be blunt about my fear;

I’m a stuck oriole in a window.
I’m a pedestrian somewhere in VV Soliven underneath the pouring rain
with my parasol jammed, won’t spread out.
The petrichor from the ground rises and like dust,
I settle and cave in, like an unsuspecting dagger making its slow crawl
towards the back of the next face I see in this deadlock.

They say when you stick it to the man,
stick it good, and whatever beating or punishment may follow,
face it like a man.

but what is a man to do to the higher man
when he has his guts spread on the floor like an inkblot
from a shattered glass?
this working classman status isn’t for the weak,
and it sure isn’t for the brave either – what will become of the fools
sitting atop our heads when we have learned to outgrow them?

Sooner than it is later, I will go back to the pit like some soldier
cleaning his Lee-Enfield in the endless snow.
I will be faced by inbreds, imbeciles, rebels,
dilettantes, proletariats who have their necks leashed, their arms
puppeteered and their voices mellowed down by some defunct ventriloquism.
I will crank open the mailbox of my home and see that there
are notices: some from the bank, the loans, and the bills – all of them screaming
pecuniary, all of them bludgeoning soul.

If this is what a man has to deal with when he comes to
learn that life’s no downtown street promenade, then I’m willing
to slit the throat of the next child that’s giddy enough and filled with life
to search meaning through the bleared image in front of him.
I see high-stake rollers and proletariats, bigshots, and darling boys
roll down their car windows and flick the smoke out in the **** freeway

while I am here, watching myself slowly rot in the cubicle mirror next door
wary of my somber entrails. I think of a pub somewhere in Magallanes, and I dream
heavily when I am awake. The beaded body of the Hefeweizen is waiting for me
like a paramour, but I have to clock-punch my way out first before I can reach
some sort of truce: as long as I have myself sign these contracts, as far as my freedom is
concerned, what keeps the ball rolling for me might be something I would
despise as long as I breathe in this disgustingly thick air of deceit and consummation.
There is no life in here. All of us are dead.
Buying things we do not need, doing things we don’t want, fooling ourselves
in the complete process, marry wives and husbands and breed children
who will do the same in this cyclically deadening circus. My god is filled with
cotton and the streets scream ****** ****** against the spring.
There are enough violence in the thoroughfares to cast me back to my
home and coil, fraught with unrelenting demand.

There’s no other way to look at it rather than simplifying the equation.
Some do it for worth, that’s your tonic.
Some do it for fun, that’s your senseless beating.
Some do it because they have no other choice: they are not looking far enough.
As long as you have yourself beaten to slave-bone and driven mad with
downtime, then you have yourself laid down on a silver-platter catching
the swill of such riotous rigor: to be shaken out of sleep and shove
meat down your throat and thank the Gods for a wonderful day when all I see
outside are streets blackened to the teeth with distortion and the automobiles
like limbless children leaving no trace.

Some take the easiest way out, but I am not crazy enough to bring
myself to sanity. I have other caprices to go with.
This is enough a suicide than it is on the other side.
Whenever I look at my superior, I see nothing,
and whenever I gaze at the surrounding scenes I see people
sticking knives at each other when backs are turned.
I see people swallow everything that is given to them without
the slightest inch of askance: to complain is the inability to withstand
the current situation – but I am no fool to close my eyes.
I have still the guts to face everyday like some old friend, death, in my arms,
singing blues from the 1980s. When this is done,
I will go back to where it usually does not hurt: in the silence.

where no faces bid me hello – they do well in their own discomfiture,
and I do not wish to see them any longer.
where no automobiles tear the streets and cleave the moon farewell.
where there are no sparrows outside, where there are no laughing children,
where there are no hollow men and women greeting each other tenderly
and blighting each other safe in the resignation of some dull home.

if I am mad, then what does this make you? better? privileged?
I’ve had other people look deep into me like some deepwell without
water and they tell me, “there’s something about you, something about you.”
and when I turn my back to search for some sameness,
I figure there is nothing else to find but the same trapping fate in this
burning cylinder of a home.

Waking up and filling in shoes and dressing up for nothing,
earning money and throwing it all at our own expense,
buying thrills and wasting away as time lounges like a cat
at the foot of the Victorian. If there’s better enough a fall than this,
I will sign myself to have my bones broken, my ribs opened

to let go of my famished soul while all the others
keep themselves clean, putrefying themselves viscerally.

i’d scrub it; really, i would,
but i don’t want to get the dirt
on my hands.

it exists: the dirt.
on the floor and the walls
and the bottom of my wardrobe.
i hate the mess
but i hate cleaning it even more;
knowing it’s there, putting my hands
in it. the dirt—god, it’s everywhere.

it takes courage to clean.
it takes a hell of a lot of work
to make it go away
when it wasn’t designed to.
it feels like i’ll never be clean.
i could kiss the palms of lady macbeth
and feel like doubting thomas,
but my lips don’t want it.
my body doesn’t want it, viscerally
rejects it, and it exists.

nobody asks: did the whale really want to swallow jonah?

there’s dirt everywhere
and i am not clean.
maybe i won’t ever be clean
until i am no longer lazy and afraid.
i, coward designed, am lazy and afraid.

and so i let it settle. i’ll let it
settle like pompeii, and vow never
to visit ancient rome.

i don’t like ash, either.

Atop the frail ego she mounts her merciless machine gun with which she mows down any speckle of personality that dares flicker amongst her immediate surroundings, until only her presence alone can remain untarnished and unfettered by sadistic, sardonically summarized ridicule, luminous and majestically radiating with solitary supremacy. Oh, the splendorous grandeur of self-indicted superiority, the rush of power and authority from diminishing another's essence with ruthless categorical association, the incomparable ecstasy of using their own positive attributes as their rudimentary flaws. Viscerally volatile, the cocking of the mocking gun's hammer is to be recognized as the phrase "You're just trying to be__". This is critical, for all too well she knows to a certainty that at the most essential level, one is only simply trying to be. And when you attack a person's will to try, their will to be, then you are taking aim at the one vital aspect of their existence which they hold any discernible dominion over: their character. The slaying is heinous and orgasmically fulfilling, for how can the perennial, separatist worship of Self be indulged in among so many of these "others"? But oh how exhausting it must be, the perpetually cyclic nature of the task. How can she ***** a light that doesn't exude from a distant source, but is a brother beam of the source they share? How does she extinguish the reflection of a flame off the water? Like fireflies on summer nights they disappear only to reappear again, somewhere else, reminding her of the irrevocable, irreducible power of being born and reborn again in the new moment. The self-aware *******, audacious enough to love themselves. How much of it do they really think they can withstand?
Reload.

Pretend to me, like a clown/actor, to be strong and violent. You fight like mothers ease their children into sleep, begging and praying. The fight in you is a cartoon predator selling candy to stoners. I never considered myself someone to contemplate the legitimacy of strangers, but I don't know you or your motives.

I don't know you.

I love like a hawk tears into a sparrow.
Viscerally, yet naturally.
Savagely.

Can not distinguish my breaths
Why I take in these threats
That takes grasp
Of my fair air
That clears my internal affairs

And though it seems my anguish
Is lost to the polished scheme
I have ingrained within my eyes
I am reminded again and again

In abstract I contract a line
That fools the absolute
To the Fin
Only finding the rules dilute
To a drinker of truth
Facing the sky

With the clouded justification
To find association
In the tone
Of the polarities
Sincerities
To merge into
Middle linear ties

Overtaken by java sages
Virally programmed by ages
Of systematic impulses,
All false
The need, strength, and balance
Is a mediator
That is an open instigator

Over and moved closer
Holding on
I might lose her
Not in my own right,
Of emotional plight
But a fight fought long
Within each song
Fused for this muse
Doing wrong to my mind
All along, is this poet wrong?

Have I exposed it all?
That there is nothing left
To transpose to proses
Or is this a step
I have yet to step on to

These words these mere
Entendres in parallel to
My daily tears for fears
Vice viscerally seared

Repeatedly, incessantly
To attempt to understand
That Socratic it is, to withstand
The frantic resolve, to accept
That there is something
In nothing

I am a refugee from the City upon a Hill.

My homeland once a resounding light to the nations; has become a convulsing black hole, threatening to devour any semblance of civility.

My City, once a radiant promontory of enlightenment, its illumination of liberty’s searing torch revered, it’s practical striving for democratic wisdom shaping the long arc of the moral universe emulated by people of good will across the globe; now lies in state as a mordant corpse, serenaded by a funereal chorus of laughing griffins, a dead patriarch surrounded by the ruins of a once opulent now sacked city, a bygone home to the scattered disassemblage of a once noble people.

I recoil from the rancor of extreme partisanship, the gerrymandered apportionment of citizenship rights, the buoyant vindictiveness celebrated by small minded ignorance.

The blind allegiance to jingoistic nationalism, the adulation of Blueline authoritarianism, the fealty to imperial militarism and the dangerous trajectory of it’s awful consequence yet to come, enthralls me with dread.

Compelled patriotism enforced by threats of faux patriots, amoral ammosexuals, their small hands stroking quick triggers of long guns, genuflecting in mastabutory glee to the preeminence of 2nd Amendment atrocities, angling crosshairs of resentments to firmly fix a promise of ghoulish body counts, a rationalized apocalypse a captive people must suffer to underwrite profiteering gunrunners who blindly defile the constitutional tenets of life, liberty and happiness, the blood splattered keystones of our true exceptionalism.

Xenophobia and racialism, are stoked and celebrated by the City’s chief executive, his impish smile mouths Blood and Soil sloganeering, he solemnly salutes the Confederate flag while cheering torchlight processions of enraged White Nationalists marching to the drum of the Grand Republic’s midnight dirge along the once hallowed trail of Jeffersonian Democracy and a sacred place of secular enlightenment and higher learning. His gleeful decrees tweet the destruction of families and his police agents mouth holy scriptures to justify the imprisonment of children.  These vandals rhapsodically paint images of phantasmagoric nightmares trampling and mocking democratic ideals, resurrecting long settled conflicts, terrible tests a once great City rose to extinguish, now swelling numbers of craven citizens ardently embrace Klansmen, insurrectionists and ****’s as righteous brethren.

The madness of chauvinism and racial supremacy has fully metastasized within the body politic, polluting the mind, infecting the bloodline with a virulent strain of a white blood cell disease coursing through the veins of republican citizenship.

A City stolen from the Native inhabitants, ethnically cleansed and its former inhabitants remanded to the prisons of reservations, a City constructed on the backs of chattel slaves, erected on the graves of exploited wage laborers, provisioned by the ruthless denigration of the earth’s bounty, law and order mandated by criminalizing the marginalized, repressing the civil liberties of outliers and subjecting women to a perpetual status as the second *** underclass; has failed to repent and steadfastly refuses to make reparations for its sinful past has made the City uninhabitable.

The embrace of tolerance and diversity is the balm, the curate that can salve the oozing sores crippling the City. Nativist prejudice is a long protracted path that City citizen’s find impossible to exit. The malevolence that consumes the mind and moves the soul of a desperately spiteful people, who take delight and find it necessary to dehumanize and imprison alien races and creeds to maintain vapid notions of superiority, profane the ideals of a republican calling. They ruefully ignore the beacon of light warning of the dangerous shoals that lay ahead. The ideals of the great democratic experiment on course to be dashed on the jagged rocks of ignorance, fear, and anger. The doomed City has set a course that endangers its embargoed citizens. Travelling in steerage, a captive body, believing they are on a course for the rebirth of the City’s greatness are emboldened and chained by the delusions of their self destructive steadfast resentments.

My home City has become unknown to me.  I have become a stranger in this strange land. What was once beloved has become insufferable. What was once treasured has become burdensome. The familiar has become fully alien. A terrible avenging apparition haunts and mocks people of good will. My heart is disheveled. My spirit bruised. My body literally aches from the wounds exacted from the deconstruction of my beloved metropolis.

I stand stranded at the border of incivility. Bewildered I peer through a protective wall of concertina wire, eyeing the imprisoned haughty souls of fully enfranchised citizens, bellowing self righteous psalms, singing interminable lamentations of terminal ignorance.

Condemned by their belief in the salvation of violence and recrimination, secure in their faith that their moat of self righteousness shelters them from the gulags of perdition they eagerly proclaim for others, feeling recused from the bane of sinfulness by meager tithes, tumidity and scriptural specificity and the sweet delusional conviction they are the chosen tribe of God’s favor; their aspirations viscerally dashed in blizzards of metaphysical illusion strewn like meaningless confetti onto a passing parade of barbarians who have taken the City as its grandest prize.

Sadly I must withdraw from my beloved City. I retreat to a refuge where the barbarians dare not enter. Their ignorance and stasis weds them to a place far from my sanctuary of choice. May my sanctuary restoreth my soul!

I find refuge in the temples of jazz. I sing arias of lucent improvisation. The freedom of unbridled expression reinvigorates the mind, alighting the emanation of our better angels. The music calibrates my soul with the syncopated beat of an irrepressible life force, the humanity of my welling heart swells on the sonorous oxygen of a lyrical free spirit.

I take refuge in our vanishing mountain wilderness. The natural world offers a solace of solitude, a unrequited impression of scale and a transcendent communion immune from the trampling cacophony of gleeful vandals running rampant through the streets of the City. In winter the summits are capped in crowns of viginal snow, spring awakens a dormant flora, autumn leaves shout the chorus of a seasons glory and summer flowers bloom in multitudes of brilliant colors marking a startling contrast to the fifty shades of gray tattooed onto the City’s restive souls by the purveyors of power.

I find respite on the friendly banks of rivers and breeze swept ocean shores. The perfume wafting along a rivers streaming eddies or a briney snort gulped from the foam of a cresting wave invigorates the lungs, strengthens the heart and clears the mind. The flow of living water heals lifes wounded spirit. It quenches a thirst for justice and nourishes the hope of freedom for all incarcerated souls. The ceaseless roll of the ocean waves prove the enduring power and inevitability of liberty.

I find a good refuge in books. Here I discover a fleeting glimpse of our forgotten love of knowledge and pursuit of truth and rational thought. Enlightenment is the plot of every storyline.

I take refuge in art. I escape into the multiple dimensions of aesthetic beauty trouncing the twittering banality of fad, pornographic affectations and consumer fethishism. Glimpsing beauty while beauty is there to behold and the diligent practice of its creation is an answer to a higher calling.

I take refuge in my dog. Unconditional love and trusted friendship are values at peril in a transactional world; virtues nobily demonstrated and freely given by our canine and feline friends.

I take refuge in late night comedy. Working the midnight shift, whistling past the graveyard with a hearty laugh helps to while away the desperate hours. The rancid fruits of our labor leave a bitter taste in our mouths, humor is the bread of life that clears the palate and makes the terrible sufferable.

My lasting sanctuary is the stronghold of faith, forbearance and tolerance. I trust the long arc of justice will bend toward the righteous and offer a pathway of redemption for all desecrated souls.

I take refuge in the Blues. Let my lamentations turn to songs of joy and deliverance.

I take refuge in prayer. May my places of exile restore and heal my denigration. May God deliver us to a good destination. May our generational wanderings in the desert of desolation end in the discovery of a good place of habitation.

In the solitude of prayer may I experience catharsis, may my petitions find an open ear, may I achieve clarification, may my pious supplication be genuine , my conviction firm, a direction found, a decision made, a call to action clear.  May I become a healer of the breach.

May Your grace be sufficient for me.

I declare my exile over. I will return to my City. I will attempt to rekindle the extinguished flame of liberty to dispel the darkness enveloping my City.

Selah.

Mark Almond: The City

Puyallup
6/30/18
jbm

You must think I feel fine without you
I hate to disappoint you

a lifetime of gestation;
of making myself,
of bringing myself
back from you,
of trying to get over someone I was
only ever under.

bend me, shape me
whichever way you’d like me
for I could be the apple of your eye if only you’d
let me;
- kiss me to
      pulp

you turned me inside out,
naked,
viscerally
      exposed -
heart beating tenderly not upon my sleeve but
atop my inverted chest;
I asked you to cradle it,
care
      swat me like a fly;
      a throwaway affair.

saying you care about ‘this’,
but not me, I think

      lacklustre lover lacking the
      love in the
      - making

and above all, I keep thinking about how unrequited love
is the sweetest kind of self-inflicted wound.
something that never was shouldn’t be so much,
      oh but it hurts just right.

I’m forever pulling cells,
bits of myself apart to
examine, deconstruct.
cytoplasmic, holding it all together,

I'm just looking at your scars, you said.
      would you like to add another?

suture me then pick me apart
- I’d let you.
It's not your fault you didn't
know, don't
know how I feel, not really;
I don't want you to run
better to have a piece of you than
      none.

we only do this to ourselves,
I don't blame you.

this mouth tastes like an ashtray
I'm sorry,
it’s just that a lot of sweet nothings have died and
burnt away in here before they could be said.

everything changes yet it all stays the same
we know how this story goes,
so please don't tell me I'm
beautiful from all angles
because I can’t take it. I can’t.

rising for him, a flowerbed for the spring
blush as pink, which,
bleeding into the edge of the skyline at sunset,
anamorphic, consumes.

      [HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT
      HE LOVES ME HE LOVES ME NOT]

my heart is so heavy
with the ways in which I love you
quickening,
the birth of something new -
or maybe I just have a penchant for self-destruction.

and on getting out alive:
we’re all here,
doctoring our hearts,
recovering from the cataclysm of it all.

If I could only express
how fiercely and viscerally
I long to be loved —
Oh, but I have
and it ended badly
and I still have the scars on my
wrists and ribs.
Loneliness is a
cruel and cutting thing.
And I only wish
that I had not
sharpened the blade myself.

it is in dove's ways how i love you

and it is no common sight
to take glory out of what this
life ever so defiles with its
uncouth hands.

in the way that i soar with my
unnameable wings over your
territories finding shade,
clinging with the wind, my mothered world in the eclipse of a day's turning - where together with the fleshly rivulets i am unafraid
to trample the night with lithe sound: a wing's flutter echoes
through the caves of your mouth deepening in primeval silence. stones woven earthly, intricate as a bed of mendaciloquence where truth lies stripped to the bone of the very voice of it. oh and what solace waits for me yonder hills that recognize my stretch - even the shadows rejoice in their fill of my passing elegies yet, no love
shall die! night arrives drowsily over these planes that seek me, and i cascade as gentle as a pond girdling your ample fish that i viscerally own, thriving inside me, whirling in graceful fire.

the morning takes me with you,
its duty speaks where i was once
sterile without path - you take mine flight and hover past everything, spreading garlands that would name all of them, ours!

in the sweeping sepia tones of my monotonous,
rushed life, my chest aches to be sprung free.

the urge of flight has never been more viscerally real,
more capable of pinning me to the spot
until my very bones burst from this body bag
suffocating my chest. never have i felt
so wickedly sick, so obviously the cliche
broken fragile thing bleeding out all over the page.

never have i felt so devoid of words.

it's like before, i was full -  brimming with half-thought
ideas and plots and characters, thrumming with
elementary concepts and words but at least i was flooded,
at least my soul was alive.

with the pain came a different flood, a tidal wave in the dead of
night, a cool soaking of the wicked flames that etch in
the monster's shadows. with a muse came my best
works, my raging thoughts, my torment and despair
and bloodthirsty butterflies battering my guts. with
the depression came the rawness that they lapped up,
crowed about, choked back tears. with another muse, i found
desire and passion and lust in the sinful tonguelipsteeth,
the bony handshipsframe. with all these things i found
the words and found a freedom, however temporary.

with change, i found an empty cavern.

the bottom of the grand canyon, less spectacular up close than from the top. less than. empty. hollowed out.

there is before the fall, there is during. they don't talk about the after.
or rather, they do, but there's aftermath - there's cracks and broken
bones and heaving chests and blood gushing, rushing
to the surface to see the light of day.

i bled out before i hit the ground. what happens when you get
the perfect ten, when you land with ease? what happens
when the potential is there, but the words dry up?

i feel potential in the moments wasted,
the beauty in all the strangeness,
the agony of existence. i see the people and
i want to be their storytellers, their cartographers,
their artist. i want them all as my muses.
i collect them and name them and tuck them away
in pockets too full of secrets, putting them aside for tomorrow,
another day, when i get back to the room but find
myself drowning out my words in other worlds.

i know the potential like the sailor knows the seas.
i see the beauty like the diamond in the rough.
i feel the agony in every second like the swish of
the guillotine.

swish. swish. swish.
out of time, out of mind
existence was a phase; here is the end
of our glory days.

In my dreams I vividly imagine
Dipping you in a vat of hydrofluoric acid Popping your air bubbles
Rising up in masses
Smiling as you choke and scream
And your body turns to molasses
Whispering sweet things
While witnessing your pitiful reactions

Wait, no
Scratch that I've got a better plan of action That does justice considering
All of your previous unsuccessful tactics
It may involve anthrax, although
You may not be worth the extra taxes
When all I'm looking for
Is to properly rupture your synapses

That's right, too much trouble
So instead I'll use arsenic to compensate
With a dosage that's double
Lie you down and strip you bare
And tie you to the back platform
By your long black hair

Green eyes wide open
With a speculum for your mouth
So that anything you're rejecting
Isn't allowed to come out
And don't worry about restraints
I made a point to crucify you
To your cross made of 2x8 planks

Meanwhile you've been nullified
Lying there listless
I'll look you straight in the eyes
So you know there's no forgiveness

Open up wide
Because here comes the Apache train
I have to admit while you're asphyxiating
I begin fixing to gladly salivate

Is it no surprise
I want to watch the light leave your eyes While you sit and you writhe
Struggle, and finally die!?

Don't look so mortified
I just divulged your ****** scene
So now that I'm satisfied
We can proceed to clean
The mess you've made is putrid
and obscene I can't believe
Just how excessively you could bleed

But that's why I draped the floor
With sheets
And for the the spots beyond their reach We've got Oxy-clean
Hydrogen peroxide and Clorox bleach

Besides before I take you for a ride
We have to dismember your appendages
So no one can be the wiser to identify
Any percentages of finger, digit or thumb
So half of you will have to remain
In the barrel drum
It's all fun and games
Until this slaps me in the face
When someone finds an "innocent victim" Then reports their interpretation
of the case

See, I don't just want you dead,
I want you erased without a trace
So that the stories and allegories ahead
Will not leave my good name defaced

Switch from my peripheral
To my rear view mirror
While we demonstrate less viscerally
That under water you'll also disappear
I'll make you cement shoes
For your descent through the waters
Of Gods and sea monsters
Convicted
By Neptune's sons and daughters

Then once the sacrifice is made
I can forget you
Without a doubt I am resentful
But I'd like to leave behind
Part of my life that's so dreadful
Resuming my usual resistance
With little to do on my mental
Now that I have subdued your existence

I'm eating lentils

She is radiant. Like sunshine
Lemon-yellow, summer sky, too-wide smile beaming into my ribs
Newfound confidence burning it's way out of her bones
Boiling over into her laugh.
I love the way her fingers tip-tap on the tabletop,
Skittering away from me, my heart in her hands and
Here I am not caring if she drops it because
Her fingerprints will stay.
I gave her my dress because she didn't have one.
I watched her put it on and
Felt the pang of envy that it never hugged my hips like that
She looked in the mirror and gasped with the realization that she is
Beautiful - her reaction so viscerally alive and moving that
I stared unabashed, in awe at her and blushed when she caught my eye
I told her it was just because I was glad she liked the dress.
And she believed me.

Black widows
Long legged silhouettes
Silk seductive strides
Well versed stickiness
Webs of gestures n subtleties
Mesmerizing memoirs, lasting anecdotal wit
"The musing mind-***"
Viscerally burned into total recall
Wry smiles begins the succumbing
A sweet lucid sleep-walking slumber
Head in the clouds, nose wide-open
Floating on tippi toes
"The Beautiful Terrible, Surrenders Ballerina"
Delicate withering "Wurthing Heights"
Such strings, such strings, suuch stringssss...
How deep does she weave
How far down the the souls rabbit hole
the school, the artist, the bag of tricks, the odyssey
Scarred contemptuous kiss of decay
"Queen of the Dmaned"
**"Dare to Love a Black Widow Spider"

so exciting, so fascinating, so
wholly fulfilling, so viscerally
gratifying to

think, to think deeply, to ponder
the delicate prism of our reality
and its' infinite possibilities

that one is left

giddy

I had fallen between a waking state
And a life I believe I entirely imagined.
I imagined you, because at the time
It was everything I thought I had needed.
If only I could have one more thing
                                   If only I could run and
                                   touch you
                                   taste you
                                   scream everything
I thought you were.
My thoughts were a continuous sea of moonlight,
A familiar, nostalgic ambiance
I wrote about you beneath
so long ago.
When I believed moths were faeries,
When the fireflies died
And the eclipse kept me awake in the dissonance
of night
When my heart felt giddy,
I thought-- then, now,
I had finally held a shallow coal
That burned deeply, vehemently
I wanted to swallow it and feel it
scorch my insides.
Finally, I had become delirious
For all of the right reasons.
At that point I was simply looking
For an excuse to slip quietly
past reach.
I would rise and wander in the early hours
Of morning, and would blame it
On you
When it was merely my own soul
Screeching, bleeding
Clawing at the sad, impermanent baggage of flesh
Popping my seams undone over every pore,
Unstitching my sanity
Wanting so viscerally to be let out, escape--
Freedom….
Is what I wanted.
I don’t think I ever truly wanted you.
A lust overcoming
Was my body's way of rejecting humanity's
Trivial circumnavigation of romance.
Laying on the celestial floorboards
Watching my whirlpool of scars
                                       And all of the screaming…
I kept hearing it.
The incarceration of my dreams,
The inferno of desire I wanted to burn forever in,
Sat so prettily upon my heart
I never dared move it.