Ouroboros

It's at an end.
Welt sticky sap sapping syrup remorse remade regurgitate my facial features

It's fire or fury or little things with beating hearts and shiny eyes

Scab raw rash red ridiculous bleeding blazing bronzing her cheeks and her chastity wasted

It's water or worry or thumbnails and pixels set like stones in the tombs of the Pharaoh

Cut horrific haggard heroic hedonism terrorizing terraforming transcendental virginal mouths

It's too soon or too late or a hand held too long against her breasts and a finger forced too far down a throat

Amputee dancer struggling with broken dreams or a loveless man with a needle and nowhere to be in the morning

We're all little dots that won't connect or tired old dogs that can't see anymore

Laugh initiate invisible intolerable incandescent secrets slipping slobbering over pale skin

It's glass or smoke or blue eyes half-closed against the light of a dying sun held aloft in the sick sky

Screams loudly loosely laboring lunacy unspeakable unrepentant unknowing of what's coming next
It's hair or milk or blushing little cute faces with no names and no fathers to keep them safe when they start to swell and swoon

Cry corruption coherent confusion coagulation grand gorgeous grotesque little empire heaving and hurling curses

It's age or regret or a little lost girl who weeps and sniffles and just wants to go home

It's at an end or it never began but we all stand and watch the wall come down

Your hand is in mine and the heat beats and washes me clean in its splendor

It has its beginning. 

Wink, Beat, Plead

I'd lick your wounds clean, if only they were skin deep. But, then again, age of consent is still some years off, so just sit there and cry yourself to sleep, the law is very clear about this sort of thing. She gave me half of something she was meant to keep, a bloody dripping precious thing, I can't turn her away, not now that she's exposed her truest self. I clutch the thing in my hands, like a father holding his newborn daughter, I must be tender and strong and warm and rich, there's only one her in this wide world, and I'll do my best to keep her safe.

I am standing on the summit of an icy and lonely peak, and below me I can see an ocean of blue and green eyes all peering up at me with eagerness and admiration, but they can only see the shadow of what I am. Possibilities permeate and writhe in this thing I call a mind, little shocks of gold and curls of black and every so often some hushed words or quite promises. I drank myself to death, and much like the phoenix (though with less dignity) I rose from my pile of bile and stink to live a new life in a new body with new purpose. Our fingertips touched once, and I remember the look in her eye: Surprise.

Punishment: with long teeth and sharp claws is lapping up the blood of my afterbirth, yet as I look I behold nothing, and nothing stares back at me with a smile and a hiss. Grinning I take inventory of my heart, three-quarters empty, and a fourth is bleakness and smoke, or fog, or spittle, there isn't enough light to tell for sure.

I had an idea for a novel, but all the characters had one eye and no teeth. The words stared back with such baleful glances that I was forced to burn the pages in the campfire, now no one will know why I did it. I buried her body under the stones where we used to sit and watch the leaves change color and fall, gliding downward, to be held on the surface of the creek, like some queen's palanquin paraded through the streets of long dead city. In the moonlight I was made a god, a fleshless, bloodless, loveless creation of unrequited love, the son of myself and no other.

I'd show you the world, if only you weren't blind. But then again, you could still hear the music their suffering makes. I always wanted to ask: How does wearing a mask feel? Now, I know you don't wear it often, but whenever you do, it scares me. It looks like your face, but with no life in it, and it reminds of chilly day when I spilled hot chocolate on myself. Your hair too is reminiscent of a pair of glasses I used to love, eerie. Then she gave me half of something, hard and clean and cleverly carved, and I cherish it with my dying breath, a truer, purer friend I've never known. There's a few of them left in this world, little girls with pure hearts and clever hands, young women with sharp minds and kind eyes, youthful boys with passion and a desire to learn, and I'm just an ugly little worm, but I am a lucky bastard to call them friends.

I am sitting on the stump of an old tree by a river, and in my hand is a half eaten apple, in the mud at my feet an ancient sword is piercing mother Gaia's flesh, and next to me on the pale sand is the bleached skull of the woman in the blue dress I saw in a dream. But dreams seems to turn sideways and mutate into nightmares in the blink of an eye. So I pray in a fervor, I force myself, I struggle to wake up. With a snap my eyes open, wide and bloodshot and full of wonder at the new day that awaits me.  

Bible

There's a clear crystal spirit living inside me, and she lets me forget who I am; just for a night. And she helps me become the man the Devil created me to be. They say: “Like father, like son”, but where do the fatherless sons fit in? Divisions and dichotomies, turned inside-out, upside-down, painted black and white, set in stone. No one will look up at the stars, they're too bright for their little eyes.

A man once said we are one, so they killed him. A woman once said there's one true god, so we cower before her. A boy once told me he wanted to grow up like me, so I told him to forget me. A little girl said she was my friend, and I was inspired to be better. She changed her hair color, and he grew taller, changing, evolving, growing, learning, but never ceasing from being themselves. And this is why it is so baffling to me the idea of His/Hers, I never knew which one I hated more. I have no friends that are men, and none that are women. My friends are my soul, and my heartbeat, and they're simply human.

I come to a fork in the road, where Truth is enforced by a sword, and Love comes with a cost. They're wearing weapons close to the skin, never letting themselves out of the their skulls. You can see their glib god peering out of their shattered ribcages and pristine tax-returns. They handed me a bible and told me to follow along, but their goosestepping was too much for me. Everything they said was laden with poison or confusion, or nothing at all. I went home and thought long and hard about all the pretty girls I knew, and nothing came of it. I went back with flowers in my hair, and all I got was a stern talking to about the virtues of masculine bleakness. No more color or floral patterns for me, I learned my lesson well, so I never went back there again, never again to that place they ironically called Holy, or that kitchen with the little closet I used to spend so much time in, I'm never back to Hell, but Hell keeps clawing it's way back to me.

If thoughts of her were wine, if they were whiskey, I'd be drunk. If thoughts of her were pain, if they were ecstasy, I'd be numb. On all fours and braying like a mule, I ask her hand in marriage, or her boot in contempt. She spits in my eye and leaves me to die, and I am nothing but ever grateful to her for freeing me from my fleshy and heteronormal prison. Everything they need is in bold-face, or italics, and it's always underlined and tattooed in the flesh of some twenty-something young thing who regrets her choices and wants a new start. They proclaim love and freedom, and sell bumper-stickers in ten packs. I am trying to make a point, but her face keeps swimming into my vision and clouding my direction, one moment it's moral fire and fury in a flurry of prose and style, the next I am in corner weeping like a child.

My life can measured with fingers, by the pack and fluid ounces. My loneliness is ash, and my angst is alcohol poisoning. I won't wait until the body is cold to hold your hand. Sawdust and echoes, not of sound, no, not of voice, but echoes of feelings, fear, fires, and loss. His face was iron or marble or ivory, but not smooth, no, not jagged either, but heavy and dark. Full of passion but not realization, I stood there drinking it in, trying to understand his meanings and his power, but I was unable to accept his words. So we let it drift with the snow, away in the sky, hopefully he will remember me in Heaven.

OSRO

Oil impede wither

Oil impending regret

Standing ignore jitter

Standing ignition object

Recoil invisible reject

Recoil inverted inject

Outrage illusion intercept

Outrage intuition contracept

Origin elusive ecstatic erudite

Origin entropic little composite

Secretion empathetic ever always

Secretion emulate irrelevant feature

Revolution erratic ever frail structure

Revolution energetic emancipation

Oblivious emigrate from empire

Oblivious emphasize further features

She Cried

Synthetic analysis puncturing solace

Premature reaction to a decision unmade betraying loathing contempt and disgust

Icy gasps Morse code indistinct S.O.S.

Permanent adolescence making for hushed glances and fingers gripped around my heart

I fade away into fiberglass and leather secreted guilt holding steady

I'll never come home again

Above Her Fingertips

It feels like murder, even though she urges and directs the knife. It feels like betrayal, even though she mixes and begs for the poison. She said she wants the dragon to live inside of her pride. She told me: “I want to suck the marrow from your bones, tomorrow from your eyes, the blood from your lips, and the youth from your hair”, but she doesn't know I slew that dragon already. Manifold my delusions, yet each one is clinging to the hem of her skirt, and while she's firm beneath it all, I can see her withering, and the pain and joy sing discordantly until both our ears bleed. She's smooth to my eyes, like a lily, but rough to my touch, like sandpaper or peeling paint.

She's standing, or dancing, either way she's blurry and out of focus. I reach out to her and feel her under my fingers, she doesn't flinch or pull away, she presses closer, bending my fingers back to the knuckles. She smiles, or grunts, either way it's silent and still. I embrace her in my arms, she doesn't struggle or recoil, she presses further, putting her fingers to my lips. The door slams and I am woken up too soon, the dream is dead, but I still feel alive. It's sudden, but not unexpected.

As a slave she has no face, but as a friend she doesn't have a name; so I make a mask for her, and pretend her name is simple and pleasant, and her face is pretty and young. With needle and thread I give her back her honor, with chalk and duct tape I make her famous. Progress is slow, but I am not gonna give up yet, not with her soul hanging in the balance, small as it is, I still think it is bigger than mine. I split myself and in two, and each half grows on its own. I breathe in my thoughts, holding them in my arteries, letting them poison my blood.

Her hemline, a no man's land, is prudent, yet striking. And her eyelashes are a cat-o-nine-tails, just for me, yet as we wallow she slips away like smoke or a snake shedding her skin, moist and transparent. I can't hold her too tight, or she'll suffocate, she can't kiss me too much or I'll start to like it. I drift in and out of Want and Need, the mirror watches me, tears in her eyes. Resilient pupils and stronger irises watching unimpressed as I stagger and wander within my own wet-dreams. She sits in the corner, hands folded, dutiful skin showing, her jaw set and her lips quivering. A necktie made of bowstring, and a brassiere crafted out of barbed-wire, the height of fashion in wartime. Don't kid yourself, friend, the war isn't over. We've all got ditches full of Hers, and the bodies will keep piling up.

Halfway between Over and Before I am caught stabbing something soft and yielding betwixt my thumbs, and you will all swoon at my vocabulary, for so sheepish a wolf you've never seen. An image of the father, yet not divine. An image of grace, not fallen, yet incomplete.

It's a golden day, but not even the sunlight can wash the blood away, it sticks heavy to my shoes and her eyelids, obscuring any chance of beauty. She's coy and submissive, but she still manages to get under my skin and burn through what defenses I have left. Such a pathetic little corpse I am, rotting yet still kicking. She's pale, or I am sick. She's pretty, or I am drunk. She's naked, or I am lonely. But we both know I am gonna regret this in the morning. Slimy skin mingles with smooth flesh, emeralds with tears beading in the corners, her face flush blushing bright, I hold her down until she tells me I am the only one for her. And I sob until my mouth is dry, and she dissolves under the weight of the rain, and I'm left alone again.  

Sacrifice

I gave myself up to a pagan goddess

With flashing teeth and smiling eyes

Our hands gripped together tight

Her breath was pure as a pale sunrise

The blood of lesser men and liars

Still flows in my meager veins

But I won't spit out her coy fire

Trickling inflamed lines hold me

She gave herself up to a lonely boy

With a heavy heart and unsure hands

Our souls meshed together in that night

My breath was pure like white sand

The blood of unkind men and mockers

Still flows in her gentle blue veins

But she wouldn't leave without color

Ecstatic dances freed her soul