Stripped

In the corner, he's rocking back and forth.

"I hate you. I hate you!"

There's still a crash, a scream from the other side of the house. From the other room.

"And I'm tired of this!"

There's a door slamming. There are bills being paid. And there are silences being answered and accounted for. Millions of non-sensical thoughts and emotions spewing forth and giving life to a scene. To a moment in history inexplicable. To a dance of flame. Only there is no beauty in this fire. It's the little boy's first introduction. And it burns like a bitch.

"I hate you! I don't ever want to see you again!"

Across his floor: torn stuffed animals, a lifeless goldfish, a broken glass, and his bleeding hand. His bleeding heart. He keeps talking. Keeps mumbling. Keeps hiding.

The front door opens and slams. He can hear the ignition fire in the yard. He can hear the keypad on the telephone dialing. He can hear the television making important life decisions for everyone in the living room. In the living room. Where we played out our lives. Where he avoids. In his own living room. His room. In the corner.

It's over.

His father is gone. He'll be back tomorrow. Like always. His mother crying.

He's still in the corner of his room....Rocking melodically now....Still whispering....Still staring in the mirror. Glaring intently at his own reflection....Whispering....

"I hate you...."

96 Words Lacking

I've become stronger. And I do not like it. Some part of me I have allowed to die, and it's been replaced by some collective whole bargaining for control of that bit of my soul. Although this seems irrational since it is the very nature of survival. Adapt and thrive. Still, I wish I could cut my wrists and bleed this poison from my heart, straight out of me, and right back into the environment that forces change. Although I exemplify exactly what it is to be human, I feel like more of an animal, or worse, a machine. I want to pull this under with me. So, I can ensure its death.

How do you live, rolling in these razor blades?

"If you knew some of the things he's done, it would completely change your opinion of him."

"Hold your tongue. You can say that about everyone. We all have our secrets. And if you're capable of knowing everyone's secrets, and you can still morally accept everyone's actions or thoughts....then I don't want to know you."

In My Hands Now

And I cannot seem to move you
For I'm forced to cradle your now broken skull
Between these two callow hands
While you deliberately, gently caress
And run your hands along my severed spinal column
Taking notice of every little bump along the way
And we consider these moments Golden
When it's safe to say we are entirely broken
. . . . Together

You Have Become My Dreams

Our phosphorescent tongues flick in silent procession
As heralds of the coming Hell
And they're screaming in the night, empty bottles, broken glasses
"God, where have you gone?"
And coursing through our veins, the drug gives us meaning
Animates our limbs and arteries; our hearts beat as one
In the pitch black of this artificial winter
We're feeling through the dust that fills our lungs
For something tangible, something we can touch, feel, and stain
The mushrooming pyre rising in the distance
Our eyes hope to clear for just an instant
A second more
Let me see the way your face could break
Let me trace the lines of worry and defeat
Know the weary skin that once was beautiful
Before we forgot to be
Giving up

Oh, God, where is my pillar?
Where is my fire by night?

Your perfect eyes shine catlike, level with the horizon
And with feline ubiquity, you survive (and so will I)
I will be with you always
Forever and a day
My face will haunt your grave

Everyone's Wearing Your Eyes

No one should read this. It's for everyone and no one all at the same time. It adds nothing. It may take away much. But then again. They're just words. And how much could those ever really say? I give myself too much credit. I presume too much. Everyone will leave this just the same as before. And maybe that's part of the problem.

"The faith you found, I've never felt. The terror held in wedding bells. The comfort in there's no one else. The truth be told, I'm never gonna know."

We have to make the same mistakes again
We have to stop making the mistakes
Falling short of the glory and all that not sinning not since
We want to do it again
It's nothing better, but it's what we have to work with

"Tell me just how dangerous is second best?"

It's the way you like it
The only way you'd have it
Face it
You smile and nod
You lick your lips in satisfaction
You tuck your head into your palms at night and feel a sick sense of bleak satisfaction

"Came as a gift from a good friend that disapproves but understands that you represent and actively encourage all of my worst habits--they all are proof that we're both capable of the most terrible things; don't test me."

We bitch and argue
We beat each other down
We've reinvented what a touch means

"Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole just like a faucet that leaks, and there is comfort in the sound. But while you debate half empty or half full, it slowly rises--your love is gonna drown."

The timer started
And I care that I don't want to care about not caring
The god damn timer started
And it's bargaining chips
And stupid, futile prayers
And you don't even know what you're praying for
You're just bitter it could ever happen at all.
And the eternal debate ensues
Between who would give a fuck and who should really bother
It's different, it's the same
It's all always just the same

We make little promises
To ourselves and others
We're sending up prayers to heaven
Whether we want to admit it or not
We're kneeling at the pews
Praying for the sins of our sons and daughters
Before they've even begun
We reach inside our souls and pull the sins out
Set them on the altar and call it an offering
Good little children fall in line on the way out the door
Terrified and desperate

How do we get back into the Garden?
How do we take a step back when we're already leaning off the plank?
How do we keep these little ones from dying?

They smile, they laugh, and they wail (Good God, do they wail)
And all I can think about is how they're going to die
How one day, the earth is going to open up its greedy jaws
And suck them down in one conclusive gulp
And we'll cry, we'll go about our ways

"It's like you can't give up, but you can't go on. And all you can do is just sing along, but it's someone else's melody that's eclipsing the sun in front of me. And I'm wandering through an endless sea of enemies 'til I find myself sitting down. Soon I was a ghost in my own dreams, and I like the way it feels. No matter how far I've wandered, I won't know what is real."

And This Is How You Will Know Me

"Well, Jesus Christ, I'm alone again
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
'Cause this problem's gonna last
More than the weekend"

It's only in isolation that we can truly find ourselves
And it's only in the company of others that we can express ourselves

For forty nights and forty lives, I must have been eating from the still-beating hearts of the dead. They were gone and never knew it, so I took out all their arteries and wrapped them around my arms. And in between the cross-work stitching of their souls, I found a spark of life, and I kept it warm, tucked underneath my chest as I curled in on top of it in the cold and prayed to the corpses surrounding me for an answer, for a reason for this Purgatory.

And it was there I learned to let go. The whispering winds dragged along the unwilling rasps, the anguished voices of the celibate, of the pure, the cynics, the zealots, the beaten, the saints and sinners and gods and devils and demons, and dear God, my demons, my demons, they screamed louder than all the nations of the earth on the day of Armageddon. They stood--gargantuan, impassive. They loomed taller than Jesus Christ.

And I must have cried; I must have been lost then. I loved so much, and I lost so much, and knew that I had become so little. And unknowingly, nervously, I picked at the scabs left of the arteries around my arms, and I felt the wind puncture through and chill my skin. And I could not believe what I had done while staring down my demons.

All around me lay the arteries, the broken bodies and dreams of the dead. And I knew they were the voices on the wind--one and the same, all of them. And I was nothing. I was laid bare for all to see, and there was no one left to see anything. And so I stood up, and walking through the wind, I battled it down into a breeze. And successive steps led me from the desert of dead voices.

And in the distance, I saw the setting sun, the changing skyline. It turned from red to orange to purple, black and same. It was a slippery slope. And I was walking toward it--clothed in white. No one. And out there, I knew.

I knew I could be anyone I wanted to be.

The Stones Cry Out

It's a long ride home, and some of us won't make it. Unfamiliar turns, unforeseen pitfalls, and we evolve. They say we're better than this. We stop to leave behind the weak and wounded. I watch in dismay while doing nothing. Time and this river roar on; the future's already forgotten.

They carry their own crutches; hand-over-hand, they tow useless legs behind them. A snake path winding through the sand. They beg us for salvation. But we'll make them our martyrs. We'll paint words onto their tongues and pour passion on their lips; we'll infuse it in their veins. And when they gasp in agony, we'll insert our own theology.

"Father, forgive them."

Have mercy on their souls. And let the children preach. Let them wander from town to village. Let them stumble in the streets. And when the bombs go off, let them remember what we've taught. Let the fallen lie, and thank Providence for another day.

"Let the dead bury the dead."

For we have two swords. And we know how to render another corpse. We know how to rejoice. And forget the ones we're here to save when we can just find a different cause.

"Let the dead marry the grave."

And leave it at that.

I Guess You Don't Have Faith

Apparently, we're flies these days. Pulling wings and that sort of thing. It's only a matter of time, crash and code.

For someone who believes in the power of chance and random events, it's a little hard to lose a faith that flagged years ago. We only pray when there's something out there worth asking for. So why is it so important to proselytize the atheists?

I'd say prayer would be appreciated, but positive thoughts will do.

And stop black-and-whiting reds and blues.

Justifications

Her face sunken in. We're all wondering if she's dying. Sick from something. Her family sick on something. The sixty year old little sister. Always the incompetent. Always the inferior. Less successful. Tragic stories of mediocrity filling pages of a deteriorating memoir. We all ask why she's losing so much weight and if she's been to the doctor. Decomposition setting in on all fronts. Big Sis's only response....

"No, she's starving to death. They haven't got any food down there."

"Then, why don't you help her out? She's your sister."

"I'm not feeding her two kids and her grandchild, too!"

She's not even half the world away. She's thirty miles down the highway yet completely out of reach. Visits her sister at least once a week. They share a cup of coffee; it's all her stomach can hold, shrunken as it is.

"Have you lost weight?"

She smiles, seemingly pleased with her "accomplishment." "I have, but I didn't think that anybody noticed."

She's a world away from salvation. She comes to its edge every week with physical evidence confessionals. Sits right there on that couch; on the edge, in case she must make a hasty retreat when her welcome has worn itself thin and out. An entire world away now. She'll never recover.

Help is on its way away.

Choices We Make That Only Come Back to Kill Us

And the goddamn timer stopped.

The ground is getting closer. It's coming on so fast. We try to fight it. And that's it. We do nothing. And that's it, too.

Is this a test or warning? Will I wake in the morning to the same-same world? Will I fade away?

And the wheel turns; we're earning merit as a feeble old lady's solitary tear winds discreetly down her cheek. No one smiles or drowns or notices.

Life's lesson number one:
Dukkha

Just look away and don't ask about her Lover. Look away and don't ask who she ever loved in life. Don't ask how it felt to lose them. What is grace, and how the Hell do we get it?

"There are places
Some of us can't face yet
And even though we see it
We just swear God's sleeping
So we say,

'Ash to ash, dust to dust,
We're all gonna die so we have to trust in something.'
But it's probably nothing
There's gotta be something"

It just keeps going until you give up. You'll keep going through it.

Will I miss him? Will I remember? I think I'll relate, and that's the scary part. That's the part that brings it straight into the marrow and picks away like nails on a chalk board. A memory that can pry your eyes wide open. The flowers won't be there. The temple, mosque and church will be miles away, and there will be one giant doorway there into the earth. And I'll see my own vacant eyes staring back at me. I'll see how simple he wanted it, and I'll relate. I'll think of all the things I could--and don't want to--become. And then all the things I could be anyway.

Saturday night I'll be drunk out of my mind. We'll celebrate that next day that marks the accomplishment of not dying over last 365. Then Sunday, I'll go see one who didn't make it. And after Monday, no one will ever see him again. How sick do I feel?

"You say, 'All you ever talk about is dying, and it's getting so old.'"

This Round's on You, Destiny

Tonight, I'm busy feeling invincible
So, just keep quiet and don't disturb
Purify myself in the bottom of this crucible
And drive this through necessary motions
Feeling like one-eighty at seventy-five
And take it with unflinching gusto
A night like no other before
But many will fall in succession

When the knife comes out, I'm still sputtering blood
But still kicking, breathing
So, press a little harder next time, bitch
Or don't bother wasting my time

The Face that Launched a Thousand Ships

Staring in the stars. To heaven. Looking for the secrets there. We used to pray for these sort of things. We got our answers, or we interpreted them as such. I punched the wall, broke my fist, watched cars drive off. He dropped my ring back at my feet. Which were at the same level as my face. I don’t think my ankle ever recovered from all the shivering and shoving, but there’s a dent in that door now. Sunken in, windows barred, there is no exit.

I can’t stand the sound of it
When I speak, I unleash the sea
Watch the words set you to the pyre
And raze you down to nothing
Hold my tongue tonight
In my own mouth this time
Could a weakness ever feel so strong?

Asking me for everything, anything? Pull away. My hand on your arm as if to hold you at bay, but you know I’ll do no such thing. Like I said, just a matter of time. Before I’m eluding all the banqueters, leading you away. I am Paris enflamed. Oh, damn you passion. I’ll have my rant for you yet.

Answer me this: "Do you think he’d be better doing what I do best?"
Don’t answer. Don’t even ask the question. Because I don’t want to know.

Everything is Down

He's out back again. The white smoke rings ascending into some higher plane. I'm enthralled. The slow arc of the red cigarette tip against the black backdrop somehow heightening my awareness. In some way, it's the most erotic scene I've ever witnessed. I think she agrees.

We all have our stories to tell. Taking turns, passing out and around in some amorphous semi-circular reasoning pattern until our words are no longer logical. Until our words are no longer audible. We all just smile and nod. Sound familiar?

I'm rich. I'm less than sober. And I'm counting the leaves of grass. There's another cancer sex stick lighting up. He's striking it now like a well-oiled ignition, watching its unexpected combustion. Its expected combustion. And dragging it all the way home. He tells me I'm kind of an asshole. He should have caught me earlier. I would have laughed and told him I didn't care. Instead, I apologize again and we commence a conversation. I later heard that he was losing his stomach in the downstairs bathroom.

I'm rich. And ending. But I had to make a promise. I won't do it, if you'll let me keep my freedom. And all I can think about. That one obsessive thought that I just cannot escape, that I simply cannot let die, is now right here for clarity.

"They don't give a fuck about you like I do."

Everything is Up

No speaking, no elaboration
These momentary awkward pauses
At the ends of conversations
Leave me feeling
.
.
Just a little bit more empty
Than a mere few moments ago
I hope you're paying attention
When I do let you know
I really hope you're taking me seriously
I watch you turn to go
I watch one tear chase another to the floor

"Wait. They don't love you like I love you."

The Mentally Challenged

"No love is worth the hate that you feel."

On bicycles. Riding. Through country paths, over broken dirt roads. Like broken limbs and lungs. Out of breath again. He almost convinced her. She almost convinced me. If only we'd had a bit more stamina.

She runs away. Cutting through the forest. Tearing down the trees. If they catch us here we'll never see the day again. We'll never be able to face them again. In the woods. Down by the stream. By the water flows. She said she'll take us there. She said she'd take us.

There's the kid on the hill. He lies and steals. Don't trust him. Can't bring ourselves to believe in him. He broke my nose. I broke his fingers. Bloodied pride on a hill in the woods all alone. I left him. I heard them coming. I just left him. I never saw him or heard of him again.

He stole my friends. He stole my life. I stole his sanity. And now I steal away....laughing. It's all his fault, anyway. Caught now in the rabbit trap screaming. Screaming bloody murder, holy terror. Please, God, save me. Bail me from this prison I've constructed. I laugh.

You run me over.

Like a rag doll.

"Yet I'm nothing more than a line in your book."

Walk Away

It's over once again. The empty convenants echo around his hollow room. This only reinforces her resolve.


It's unfortunate how she became the helpless satellite. Revolving now around him spilling out unrequited affections to a broken receiver. In times like these one has to wonder if there was ever a single moment when the other party joined in the communication. Perhaps they did listen once, but there was never a response. It was blind faith, it was senseless devotion that kept her soul entranced, kept her moving on. Now she's so far off course, and he still isn't providing any insight.


Filthy walls and windows decorate the world in which they live. Everything around is too painful to gaze upon, and it's impossible to squint hard enough to catch a glimpse of anything going on outside. She thinks she can hear the neighborhood kids again. They're playing basketball in the streets, and they feel so alive. And they are so innocent. She wishes she could be innocent again.


We are all anything but.


His chest pumps up and down lazily, his eyes closed, his mind turned a million miles away from her. She says a prayer to the man upstairs. It's not some overbearing plea for salvation. It's not an unshakeable faith in something she hopes will someday plant her gardens and wake her from her terrible nightmares. It's more like begging for some pity.


Now she's standing up. The sheets are falling round in perfect cirlces. She's never witnessed anything more beautiful. They're doves and angels all at once fluttering softly to the ground for rest after some weary endeavor; rushing gallantly to the abyss trampling over everything along the way simply to light her path to freedom. They are her answer. Lying about her feet in quiet submission and absolute servitude to her will. She's up....and walking out the door.


She's up. And she is never coming back again.

Happiness and the Fish

I had oh so many thoughts crammed in here. I did. What does it take for a thought to be heard?

Heaven is a defunct reliquary for impassioned prayers.

I swear, everything is right. Dreams are dreams, and I am me.

"I live at the end of a five-and-a-half minute hallway."

The obnoxious bright glow of a cell phone pierces the dark. I fumble for it. Another prayer. Nothing. More silent mirth somewhere, I'm sure.

As faithful children, we prayed much harder then. "God, when the chicken eggs hatch, please, let dinosaurs crawl out." We are foolish now as we were then. And even more disappointed.

Even with my hands full of holes, I still couldn't feel less close to you.

I bled the demon out. I thought I let the demon out. We tried the drink, we tried the leeches. The binges, the cases and cases of nicotine, the silence, the fury, the miles and miles and the god damn miles under our heels. What were we chasing, anyway?

I spoke my mind a million times. Just never thought to mention it aloud. Tell me again the difference between a tactic and a strategy. It doesn't really matter. I lacked them both. I think I've finally figured out the latter, but fumbling through the dark hardly seems a likely means of achieving the goal.

It's probably still the best I've got.

Like a Repeating Rifle, I Take All the Taste Out

Can I say, "I miss you," again and mean it? This is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. I can't wait until this city goes down in flames. Sometimes, it feels like, for me, it already has.

Note to self: Quit bitching and keep quiet. Use words constructively. Never sell out or conjugate verbs properly. Continue using cheesy lines from songs that you just can't seem to resist quoting. Sing in head all day.

"I'm here for you to use, broken and bruised. Do you understand?

It's only you, Beautiful."

Refractions

So.
Color me something beautiful.
An Impression, soleil levant. Compose some Mozart. If attitude is but the by-product, then let's agree that we're all beautiful.

"I want to hear you scream you like me better on my knees.
So, let us pray."

My Suicide Antics Grow Tiresome Onstage

I'll be your number one. And you'll be quoting me. In every memory you'd like to relive then forget, I'll be camping out in the background. Against the wall, pulling you against the grain. Shave this down to naked flesh like it means something to be just two bodies again.

"Forget everything you think you know about me.
This isn't highschool."

Fidelity

So glad we've come this far
And even nearly made it
I love the way you always crumble
Give in, and open up every time
When held under this ancient pressure
Makes me feel a little irresistible
Makes me feel somewhat invincible

"You know I don't love you, right?"
-"You know that doesn't matter."

Cedar Chest Dreams for All Liars and Fakes

Take your cynicism and shove it in a cedar chest
We'll call it a coffin and you can crawl right in
You were so dead wrong
You were a lie on tip of a mute tongue
Nobody's listening
Nobody cares
And no one believes you
No one believes any of this
I've got something to make you cry
And I'll give you more reasons to pretend to kill yourself
(I wish you would)
(I wish you would)
I just wish you would go ahead and fuck up and send your veins' memories coursing out along the cracks of a tiled bathroom floor

Of Morality Falls

Hand it over. There's a demon child angel in my head. Her wings so glorious. Feathers ruffled as she hits the ground in desperation. Nowhere left to look but up for the sun to burn out her eyes. And take her feathers now. One wing of beauty, another of flesh and sinew. Her face is broken. Duality.

There's a man on his knees with his back to me. A fire licks the clouds of devastation above his city. Cinder blocks smoking and in pieces. People crowding around the periphery of the picture asking, "Why, God?" He just cries and rips his clothing. Shreds himself down to nothing. Job in Despair.

A man-child in the corner. The cigratte smoke in the sneaking shape of a serpent dragon. His hair disheveled. Dreams all in pieces on the hard wood floor. He just tells himself the same. That he's somebody's failure. Is he yet his own? Contemplation.

Two children running through a pasture. Slip and fall. One's knife goes in the other. A man stands in the distance with a hypodermic needle. The children struggle against gravity. Walking with the weakened one braced against the body of his brother. The knife still in his side pulling a balancing act. They'll make it to the doctor, but will the doctor make it to the effort? Cogs in the Machine.

A man standing in a cleared field. Woods around. There's a myth that in these woods you can find salvation. Or at least the greatest scare of your life. 'JD' simply hadn't quite done it. Neither had highschool upstanding role models. He looks up to nothing, to the night sky. Will he find God floating there tonight? Seeking Any Purpose.