I

I still exist in your symmetry,
In your crystals, in your lines
There is a secret history;
A passing of marble and bronze
I leave my room and here I am,
Surrounded by the fake daylight
Memory still exists on the most
Aged asphalt and white plaster
Weighed by a sadness older than age itself
As time sags their wooden frames

Then there the fire begins
It burns with fury and rage;
My artificial paradise departs from me
As I gather what I can from ash
They remain unamended and raw
In their original, solid state
I begin to mark each line of sweat
The strands on my head now aflame;
Fiery hands remove all of me minus heart
Left with my frail bones that rattle, alone

As my spirit departs the scorched crust
I dust away at my improvised grave;
I carry myself to the edge of time
Vanished, no longer to be found.


II

The quietness after a harsh panic
Paints the ordinated New Age
There regrows the willows where
We are off to sleep;
I mix the soil with our love
It grows and grows and grows;
Their strands a brilliant green
It comes and joins me
My hair becomes the willow
Where I still hear you, asleep

There I flee to the ocean
Your memory amongst the particles of salt
The water’s ephemeral substance
Their fluidity draws me in
I am drawn in by the cool water
My skin slowly becomes blue;
My eyes replaced with worn, ancient shells
My hair a bundle of slippery kelp
I molt in the clear, wide expanse
As you consume me

And now in the darkness
You rejoin me again on the sea floor;
Again, grows the willow
The marker of our joint grave.

Paradise, 2018

There is fire above the neon
Their shine and burn so eloquent yet brash
I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
and I hear exodus—

I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
My coffin is lined with casino carpet
The embers of cigarette ash
Burn wild within me

I want to move to Sahara Avenue
and live amongst the cracked asphalt
So I can catch a glimpse of
The Genesis I am missing

So next I am under Main Street
where the sweltering desert meets
the diminished pavement;
the metal statues that hold blinking lights

I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
As I gaze into the deep, wide Mojave
Oh, Deuteronomy, it is I,
the one you so eagerly seek!

Paradise, 2018

we bleed unto a frozen tundra
alone, in the brazen cold
i feel your final warmth by me
which makes passing all the better—

Paradise, 2018

i am consumed by your skin
as you ask me
“isn’t this what you wanted?”
yes, my love, yet—

Paradise, 2018

The rich kids line up
to receive capitalist communion;

The poor kids line up
strangled by their holy binding—

Henderson, 2018

My skin stretches into
the catacombs of California

My eyes, they watch,
over the plains of Missouri

America, where are you—
My lips are locked
with my memory of Connecticut—

North Las Vegas, 2018

there are times
where i want to strangle you;
watch the life leave your eyes
my reflection their final showing

there are times
where i want to worship you;
witness you upon the stage
our love flourished yet aged

there are times
where i see your blood on me;
a negative seeping crimson elixir
that i wipe away from my eyes

there are times
that i remember its all in my head;
i feel your blade enter me
and its you not me wielding it—