scarlet letters
obsessive, unfettered
i think you need permission
to [drop, fuck & get] her
command is my measure
& the moment you met her
then left her for better
i knew you would never
feel more alive & certainly neverdeader
& i will happily let you obsess
over how nothing makes sense
like i pitch for a catcher
you’re still angry to have never met
yes.
[synth] —etic hits higher
like the plastic defines her
& you can’t feel a thing now —
in line, where you left her
too blind, the expenditure
& prosperity wasn’t worth
the time to hunt & bury her
so you [act like a] pawn to play
in a highstakes game
where gold was the height of parity
& cash wasn’t charity, maybe
a bloodbath for sacrifice
[your only way] to pleasure me
my respect,
[the confession, in a humbled
moment of truth
as it came]
without mercy
the smarter you were
& the harder you worked
the closer you were
[like an animal in a video game
of hunter & prey]
& it was too late
[to silence the scream]
like the neverdeader
bottom feeder
too low to pin down filth
version of me
you should have been
all too proud to meet
[i listened quietly]
as they took everything from me
i had never heard her voice before
but i knew [unlocking the bathroom door
meant betrayal of peace
by the blood on the floor]
i like to watch
as you tap like a rock
needing somewhere to go
& then thought it was hot
to fuck like a man
& duck like a whore
without pay
nothing more, & it shows
because weakness has thought
hit your lines now like shots
since you kind of forgot
[to keep the taps up
when i simply would not
but] the taps by his grave
[weren’t enough for me to settle the score
and certainly never enough get
your two-faced bullshit excuse of a soul
managed
let alone caught
i wrote it all in a letter to god
explaining why i was moving on
& like a heart of flesh without a sleeve
i knew i couldn’t breathe
unless i picked [the purple one]
like i was born to bleed it
from a body no one knew
never saw, nor conceived with
like [an empty
cereal bowl
kept in the tower
of an empty household]
so when you do choose to speak it
& no one believes it
you can picture my face
& the grimace i needed
dead or alive — this or any other lifetime
i want you to know how to feel it
& that i am [the] fucking [reason]
I‘VE HEARD HOW YOU LIE
REDACTED
in the flesh with
an army of my men.
following five & the complex we hit
had to shove & hide them in the closet
the moment they walked in
& every man following them
i regretted letting
anyone know
where we were headed
it isn’t a body you cut from life
— an opposition to conversation
you aren’t outside
of time —
or suddenly frozen
no memory of movement
could indicate the death of consciousness
every vein is split
open, & for some unknown reason
only my body moving
turning &
stopping &
pausing [hiding]
them.
before the rest of stillness caved in
to start over, for
the next cycle of offspring, takeover
& do it again.
feeding on slaughter
of the deadlands
where time won’t make room
for negotiation
& the air is too thick
to understand
that the power she has
that they will never win back
is to simply
be
human.
& then
like a piercing black vapor
my soul
can part
from the flesh.
& the eyes
look like a room with a light
if, for no other reason,
than to let the world know
that the space is taken
for a mind to spend
an eternity
hunting
death.
Death
one thing i’ve learned
is that it always hurts
& the only thing that can make it worse
is watching death
when the prey is too big
not to suffer.
4”9’
blonde as dime
nothing but time
& hands on a line
white as blue eyes
& an unbelievable mind
this isn’t a game
of predator & prey
this is absence of animal.
one ambition
flood it with poison
blood of the lamb archaic
& its where the men go when they’re captive
never seen again.
I don’t know how she did it
but she found a way in
& i can’t breathe the same anymore
because its been
its been a fortnight plus a legend
& her eyes still haven’t shifted
its a stand in
for something so different
you couldn’t even go about it
the spike in my blood
the line hot and flush
everything i need to say
about your [sadistic body
& how it was] never [done
weighing in & over me
unless] bloody [murder flew from my] lungs
is a line that can’t be unsung.
from the bowels of the amazon
i’ve never seen her leave or come
but i can feel every moment
of her life, as she fights the impulse
to move on.
L’AURORE
Its the kind of pain
you never know what to do with.
Doesn’t fit anywhere
Jagged shape
Untenable
Size.
Plainly
too big for any one, two three, five
People to carry.
Worse though would be
To ignore it.
It feeds on ignorance.
The only absolute
Extension
Of its existence
Is that it cannot be allowed to get any bigger.
And so what do you do?
Delicately
Passed along with
Words.
And
Gently packaged in
Cautiously
Never-quite-cryptic-enough
Faces.
You try telling other people
Something you don’t understand
With faces
and
Philosophically Robust
Dialogue.
A Tenor of voice who’s only power
is restraint.
And still.
No one knows
What to do with it.
And so
The burden of
Ending War.
Is forever left
With the child.
It just doesn’t fit
Anywhere else.
Euphemism
I lack all the euphemisms
The bright white walls and
The sparkling thoughts
Fantasies of love
Gentility and grace presented with
Sheer fabrics and a glowing face
Peaceful eyes balanced by
Effervescent pain
I always know what to say
But i have never understood how to live that way
Its a silver i cant risk tarnishing
An extravagant mind guided by
Brief moments of luxury
I stay awake at night and still wonder
What im protecting
What Imagery i paint instead that
Doesn’t feel worth loving.
I do wonder what would happen if i let more
Than scarce, sacred flashes of light in.
Maybe another person?
The crisis of identity
Would likely be lost in fairytales and imagery.
Like bill peet books i read as a kid.
And then
What would happen?
know you like what you see
taste good? it ain’t free
work hard, mark your beats
hold the sun, take the heat
now the he, part of me
take my coat, hold my drink
Baby, call me Steve Jobs, because
iWalk. Keep up.
bills in my pocket, cheap thrills on my mind
take pills try to stop it
“peace kills, fall in line”
so I walk, out the closet
cold kills rule my time,
thats right
Baby, call me Steve Jobs, because
iWalk. Keep up.
You look back, I keep track
of the knives in my back
take those bills, make a stack
Ruby Red, heart attack
while you sit, in the back
walk the front, hit the mat
Baby, call me Steve Jobs, because
iWalk. Keep up.
Coca Cola Dissolves Blood In a Matter of Minutes.
Coke dissolves blood in a matter of minutes.
Burns and destroys DNA evidence.”
That’s what he used to say.
“They’ve pulled out most of the cocaine
Otherwise the recipe hasn’t changed.”
i’m not afraid of spiders.
fear and gentility leave me weak in the knees.
its walking in on someone unexpectedly that gets me.
i would hold my hand to a black widow
After all, I would want them to save me.
Daddy would catch flies with bare hands
shake them in his fists until they fluttered haphazardly
slam them to the ground and call the puppy over
to terrorize them, before eating them alive
and slowing burning them to death with stomach acid.
Coke dissolves blood in a matter of minutes.
Burns and destroys DNA evidence.”
That’s what he used to say.
“They’ve pulled out most of the cocaine
Otherwise the recipe hasn’t changed.”
he taught me how to catch matches on fire
with a magnifying glass
that was too easy
so i started aiming for ants instead
i would traumatize the colonies outside
because they were always pooling in when it rained.
and my mother didn’t appreciate
the sea of black newly inhabiting the sink.
for some reason
it was very hard to find the magnifying glas
in his desk after that
rats would get caught in a trap
but their neck wouldn’t snap
unfortunate
but sometimes thats how the bottle flips.
he would finish the job by drowning them in the pool.
then bleach it for a couple weeks.
he’s didn’t advertise it, but i asked “daddy, why can’t i swim?”
and the evening dinner as always heavy is a way i couldn’t
quite explain to friends.
he started using poison when they came after our corn
and cereal
my mother was terrified my sister would eat it by mistake.
that didn’t last long, but the fear never left her face.
Fear has an interesting power that way.
Coke dissolves blood in a matter of minutes.
Burns and destroys DNA evidence.”
That’s what he used to say.
“They’ve pulled out most of the cocaine
Otherwise the recipe hasn’t changed.”
a rattler came too close to my puppy once.
he caught it with his hands and broke it by the neck
smacking its head up against a rock.
my mind was full of these wild dreams when fear was raging
i asked him what happened and he said he didn’t know who it was.
but he knew exactly what they did.
“shot it in the head.”
so i catch crickets and roaches and black widows with my bare hands.
i save them because they’re little monsters like me.
i do it for me, i do it for them — but mostly, i do it for him.
i save the souls he taught me to ice because he didn’t have the choice.
that isn’t how you raise a baby girl.
you make her strong.
teach her to put herself first.
above anyone and anything else.
he’d disown me if i told you, but every time we lost a life
A small part of him died.
so i save bugs.
even leave the flies alone…usually.
and pray part of that soul is saving his.
Coke dissolves blood in a matter of minutes.
Burns and destroys DNA evidence.”
That’s what he used to say.
“They’ve pulled out most of the cocaine
Otherwise the recipe hasn’t changed.”
Hope is a box I cant unopen
It isn't strength, I'm not a magician
Trust me,
Trust me if there was a way
I'd fight until bone marrow tainted my blood
I'd do anything, whatever it took
To bring you peace and let go of
Someday.
BUCKLE UP
buckle up, lean in and dig deep
you want the kind of freedom
they really make you work for,
count your pennies babe it ain’t cheap
you want the kind of freedom
they really make you pay for.
i’ve been leaning on a fencepost
hadn’t realized I wrote
the sign above long, long ago
Baby Bermuda Dreamer
theres a special corner in my soul
where all the odd things go
i’m too nice to call them what they really are, so
i settle with thinking what we both know
is a long plane
with the short plan
to visit the archipelago
i would say, it’s dark
but somehow
that’s still
too human
it’s vacant like a distilled lab
with no feeling of hot or cold
no pretense of life or death
no sight of sound or stillness
the biblical battle of good versus evil
isn’t even a cute memory to be fond of
inaccessible is equally
adorable.
the void of space has nothing on it.
no concept of time coming or going
fear itself loiters off the clock —
sleeps down the hall,
in room 701.
i don’t recommend going there
that is no fate worse than death
nor irreconcilable loss
that
is me.
and i keep the odd things
forever.
