consummation

If the eating is to be done,

best to make it slow,

savoring each morsel,

letting each bite revel

in subtle intercourse

with the regions of the tongue,

individually

then in collaboration,

a melding of sensation that synapses

in a tumultuous spread of reaction.

Sweet,

salty,

bitter,

pungent

passion

spilling from my mouth as

the pressure of

your light-hued perception

sparks the buried flame

as a match to a wick,

raising the blood to the dermal surface

in a flush to stir

even the weakest of vampiric impulse.

That upward glance

pierces through all pretense of veneer,

stripping away all implication of

blockade,

barrier,

catapulting electric arcs

in continuous battery.

But this is no mere look,

no.  With every remaining sensation

you proceed to conquer the

collapse of empty division,

devour your captive in entirety,

appease your burning thirst

in a leisurely slaking,

and relish in the paper-thin threshold,

that duality of painful pleasure,

that sensation of fluid existence

dripping from the humid night air,

staining the cotton sheets in complicity.

i became weaponized

I tied words around my biceps and abdomen 

so that i might pull them from the sheath and 

toss them like daggers. 

The curve of my pen 

sliced the skin, 

removing chunks of viscera, 

cardiac mishappenings; 

the ink flowed in a steady arsenic movement 

from constructed context 

to 

ambivalent inevitability. 

Syllable after syllable, 

thought after thought, 

I used my mental weaponry in 

constant battle against 

any hint of foe 

until I realized there was 

no winning this war. 

My opponents were armed with 

indestructible walls 

closing them in, 

protecting them, 

bending my knives 

until they bounced off and came back to sting me. 

As the poison begins to seep through my veins, 

I realize I have become my own downfall.

amongst words

Words as weapons are a crude sort of stake

that rip and tear at the strongest of skin;

poisonous tips devour the heart within

leaving hungry wounds that no salve can slake.

But when touch is given of which you take,

blood ceases to boil, softens thick to thin.

Brain contracts muscles, the body full in;

eyes deduce intent, genuine from fake.

Now add water to sand, maintain your hold

on a whispered promise not overheard,

a song being sung in the dead of night.

Stoke the fire in the kiln, heat up the mold.

Collect silent letters, press into word.

Charcoal on paper your weakness, your light.

buttons

Do you suffer from an excess of consciousness?

Why no,

I celebrate its vibrations,

its folds,

its refusal to dwell

in your monochromatic dogma

of   white   on   white   and   black   on   black.

I can almost hear my cacophony of color

echo with vivacity upon your sight.

This collage,

this me,

this being of beings,

all and one,

universal and solitary.

A rose is

a rose is

a rose,

even beholden by Napoleon

or Picasso,

though one might imagine it different,

imagine the telling of another soul

having breathed with ever-gouged eyes

how to draw their own likeness.

Would you like it if I told him

where the hand goes,

how the tongue clicks,

what the ear hears;

if I told him, would you like it?

Now?

Not Now?

Now?

Pull curtains closed, shut shutters, and   f e e l .

There.

There.

There.

and There.

Like so.

and so.

and so.

Reach through the pitch,

mold the air into everywhere.

and everything.

and nothing.

Not a thing

comes forward,

or backward,

or sideways,

just a way of                              looking,

thinking,

standing still,

still standing,

moving with movement,

wavering on wave after wave of light

devoured slowly,

   slower,

   slowest

as it sinks

into the dank dark dirty nether.

amiss

I know when I smile,

people are seeing you,

that reflection of embedded memory always with me;

your mischievous eyes,

your toothy grin,

your open and generous heart.  

I kept the best parts of you with me,

and I give them away every single day,

the energy ebbing back and forth like a

perpetual tide.  

Lately, I’ve tried talking to you.  

I don’t dwell on whether or not you can hear me;

I simply imagine it to be true. 

I still can’t look at your picture for very long, though. 

It stings,

slowly,

reaching into that ink-dark pool within me that is,

even now,

untouched by sunlight. 

The waters are choked with nitrified muck,

the stains of continuous

consuming,

living,

defecating in the same place,

every single day since

that wine-soaked night;

every single day since

the last words exchanged

in haste,

impatience,

perturbance at your expansion of self,

my turn of the other cheek,

the other way. 

I wonder,

do you see me trip,

fall,

get back up,

this heavy burden across my shoulders? 

Do you see me wishing I could see you

one more time? 

As I get closer and closer to your age

I think I should forgive them all

for taking you away from me,

us. 

I should forgive you

for wanting more

than you were able to receive. 

I should,

I could,

I may.

adrift

A dream somewhere 
now long forgotten
a nightmare
swallowing days 
in a consecutive hunger
a passion lost
to the scattered seas
a whisper of failure
like a feather in the wind
a hollowed shell
vacated in a hurry
a slow, muddy, meandering existence
drifting directionless towards the inevitable
end

What was the war about, again?

We fought day in and out
against what we thought was an oppressive force
trying to embed itself
into our daily routines, 
into our bedrooms and internal organs. We resisted
against the onslaught of neon messages
telling us how to dress,
how to eat,
how to think,
but in the end
the electric movement was too powerful
for our hand-made ideas.
Our organic thoughts shriveled
and browned
before implementation was ever conceived.

And so, we assimilated into the daily pattern
of breathing in and out,
walking side to side (never forward).

It became the way days were lived,
until our memory of a freer, more fluid time period
was abandoned,
forgotten.

Here we are now,
soldiers with bayonets loosened from our grasp,
their purpose unknown.

Here we are,
a collective of individual veneers,
fumbling through unrecalled wants.

What war?

A Terrible Promise to Lady L

Instead of healing my wounds,
they slathered some ointment on the injury,
slapped a band-aid on it, 
and let me leave.

I knew the scar that would grow
would be deeply etched and irrevocable.

I knew the disease that had seeped into the gash,
now swimming in my blood,
would slowly cause me to rot internally
before there was ever a visible clue to my condition.

But they weren’t interested
in actually addressing the disease
resulting in my slow death.
They were only bartering on borrowed time
to get me out their door,
hoping I’d forget their disinterest and
continue payment on their exorbitant tab.

The fundamentals of understanding

First, you must seek acceptance,
complete and (w)ho(l)ly your own,
through the exchange of oxygen and carbon,
as you expand to intake the universe
and expel it in a slow steady caress.

Second, you must taste the tang of empathy
titillating the tip of your tongue
the central vein,
as it washes in whispering waves
against the cavity of your throat.

Third, you must nourish the path your feet tread
rooting into the strength and unwavering sootiness
that keeps you uplifted and away from the abyss.
This darkness is the negation of light that
embodies a complete misunderstanding
of that word “human”, so often misapplied
and mistaken for upright ambulatory movement.

Then, you can send love into the fire of your soul
and keep the embers in a burning glow.
Just allow yourself to breathe,
open your eyes,
and see.

a modern construction

The walls in this house are like a blood-brain barrier,
letting the strange voices seep through,
sustaining me on vitriolic echoes while
preventing the infiltration of
biological refuse from disintegrating emotion, 
that conversion of exothermic to endothermic reaction,
that peripheral touch that might have caused me
not to wake from my slumber,
not stumble across the house
with my mussed hair and cloudy vision,
not witness the death of anything resembling wholesome familial connection.

The heat in the room sparks and sizzles
with syllabic exactitude between their bifurcated origins.
I am left cold
with fear and confusion.

Weeks later,
the biggest, strongest man I know
will spill his salty sadness upon my pillow,
leaving me, at the mature age of five,
to pick up the pieces and
reassemble the puzzle of our days.

A few remain missing, though;
I can still see through the veneer.

romance & cigarettes

you lie there, 
recklessly, 
amongst the folds of wrinkled cotton sheets, 
your breasts pressed against a strewn pillow,
your derriere, like a ripe peach,
almost touching my thigh,
the soft fuzzy hairs
seeking me out with a passive electricity,
like cilia.
The cheeks still blushed red from my handprints,
my loving caresses
that had caused you to dig your heels in,
rocking with increasing fervor
as you pitched and swayed
your way to fulfillment.
I had watched the glorious bloom rise
from your hips to your face and back,
as you panted with pleasure,
eyes closed,
intent on your own cresting wave
steadily crashing into mine,
the echo of which
begins to fire synapses
along the length of my nerves
as I raise my hands to my lips
and suck long,
hard,
and deep
on the cigarette resting between my lips,
a prelude to my intent,
my means of waking you from your slumber,
as I set the nicotine in the tray next to me,
a mere afterthought,
a minor stimulus
compared to that drug
between your legs.

You’ve changed

Your smile is reluctant
where it once was welcoming,
ready. 
Your eyes are cloudy
with a hint of grey;
gone is the warm clear gaze.

You have forgotten
what the promise of the moon feels like.
You are generally unkempt, uncaring.
Your skin is rough, callused,
brown from excessive melanin.
You think you might have fallen asleep
in the sand
on your afternoon stroll,
but the details are in disagreement with each other.
You are adamant that you gazed out
over the ocean stillness while
being sandblasted smooth by a fierce desert wind.
Never mind that you haven’t seen the sea in decades,
and it’s been raining soft and steady
for weeks on end.

There is a weak impression of the sun
somewhere overhead,
a dull burning echo of you,
a mere existence.