i can't deal with this shit.
i can't deal with this shit.
i can't deal with this shit.

“It takes so little to move me. Little things make me smile, little things make me sad, but isn’t it better to be like that than to be flat-lining all the time? The world fascinates me and saddens me because I care so much but I would so much rather care too much than care too little.”

a secret.

they pull the curtains
and slip into bed,
their sheets more comforting than the other,
that thin tissue insulating
a man, a woman,
from cold stars
and a moon that renders
even the streetlights
as useless as the rest of us.

curbs shield their conscience
from the underworld beneath,

the jail grates
leading to the slime and grime

of what the after, the waste, the act

left behind.

but the depraved live above,

not below,

a common misconception it is.

too often prescribed,

popped in the mouth and swallowed

while only the savants,

with their limited skills and no place in your streets,

slip it under tongue

and stomach truth

instead of the cure-all lie

fed to the others.

the invisible wasteland

behind glittering panes

that deceive our eyes

as we refuse to see:

its a fact, common truth,

a rumor, maybe?

the world is hell

for you and me.

forced brainfreeze!

my fingers are gone,
chewed and nibbled by the bite of the cold,
and i can see them:
like pictures of people long past their expiration dates,
my eyes are pretending they exist,
but the eyes are all wrong.
appearances are always all wrong.

the wind's threatening a second course,
its breath so close to bare skin.
and i know i can't win,
but i'll sit here for hours
to wait for the show.

sitting on a platter,
i've been frozen alive.
complete with bolstering preservatives
of false truth and true lies
to keep me looking more
appetizing than my deceiving shell.

the cold
the burn
the feeling
proves to a reluctant mind
that the neurons still fire,
the thoughts still form,
and i still have a chance
to end this wild dance
and stop skirting danger to and fro,
laughing all along.

release

i let the buttons pop (those ones who'd been aching to flee from their strings),
i let the knots come untaut (those ones that threatened to strangle us whole),
and i let the cloth tear free
in a flury of shreds and pulip and unexpectedly,
out of a corner of my consciousness i never let speak,
i breathed.

a portrait.

you may not be aware, but it is winter here.
the cave of a home blocked in, the hinges rust shut, the chrome of our zippers clenched closed;
you cannot enter no matter how hard your heart beats its bony knuckle on the wood.

closed for the season
like the ferris wheels and hot dog stands residing on piers,
we are reminders of times so good,
so gone,
there is no breathing
no pulsing
no circulating here,
only stagnancy.

a picture frozen in time that you desperately hold close
as if you could diffuse that rose in our cheeks, that glint in our eyes into the present.
but the color has faded as simple as plain is to see,
marked in correction fluid by the gaunt hollowness of cheeks and doughy eyes stabbed at the mere thought of truth.

it is the wrong season, the wrong time.
how many times must i mutter? how many times must i curse?
how many cold stares must i project through the hole in the door?
to make you see that
you may not come in,
you are unwelcome.

go home, go home, go home.
turn the keys in their sockets
and enjoy the comfort of double yellow lines
while i lock up for the night
and let a different hue sing me to sleep.
rush, drain, rush, drain, gush, clot, stop.
leave us to our work
as we make this heart pulse fierce.

and silence.
sweet, sweet, silence
falls upon a frozen place
as we strip our loose skin
and finally jump ship
dozing off to the warmth of the waves and the currents
of a relentless undertow.

story of my summer! <3