POETRY

various poems i've written, mostly over the last 3 years, on various subjects ranging from my life to my ocs. i'm still very much an amateur poet, but, i like writing these anyway. hope you'll enjoy.

an inherited burden,
inherited pain.
a hereditary disease
passed down from father, to mother,
to hell, and back again.
swallowing the goose's golden egg
and vomiting it back up
into the mouths of your children
and their children
and their children's children
and so on
until the earth itself begins to rot.

(re)iteration

I can't remember the last time
will there ever be a last time?
tell me: in heaven or in hell
do they judge you for the pain inflicted
to you, or by you?
what if that pain were the same
with different hands? different eyes?
another place? another time?

a kaleidoscope of painful memories
colors vibrant, like
fresh blood on your white clothes.

trauma in an hourglass
time and progeny
going on forever into the dark.

a generation of rats
too damaged to raise their young
past weaning.

something in our blood
whispering familiar stories
in a language we don't want to understand.

we are all haunted houses
inhabited by those who came before
and those who could not leave.

laughingstock

dreams where
im telling all my secrets
to people i fear are more like strangers
than friends

buying cigarettes
and never smoking them
trying to find
a way out or through

i dont know why
but something draws me
towards the abyss
outside looking in
it's full of loathing
for me

i used to think
theyd kill me in the street.
dad always told me
watching me hurt is funny to him,
and them

but i think now theyd just
leave me to die
swirling above like vultures
or hyenas, cackling,
looking for jokes to eat.

getting high behind the dumpster
at my smoke-free apartment complex
sat perched just past the property line
on the empty lot next door.
they've begun to build there now.
the sun is rising when I stand
November air raking its hands across my skin
for a moment, I am alone in this world
myself and the birds, their calls
echoing out into the great pale sky
a vast expanse, an embracing emptiness
reaches its long hands across this fetid earth
to place them around my neck.
I am swallowed by it, and for a moment,
returned to bliss.

Smoking in the back of the car
A world I didn't think I'd see before
Coming to fruition.

It's uncomfortable in my space
But I can't say it's any different
Do the benefits outweigh the risks?
Do the strengths outweigh my weaknesses?

I've dreamt about living and dying
I dream about it every night, the world I never asked for
but here it is, agony and I.
The earth and I.

Something sweeter than music
A vast emptiness with no one around
Inside or out, that's where I could be safe
Lonely and safe, in pain but alone
It's as if it doesn't even matter at all.

The wind picks up the fall leaves in its breeze
And I'm among them, held softly
Fearful, on the wind, I'm pulled aside
No heavier than a dead leaf
No less breakable.

I ask my wounded brain to tell me
Stories about how I was always meant for pain,
Only for pain.
Little lies, flies from maggots growing
In my head, like my grandma's cat
When his head started to decay
He was still alive,
It's the happiest I'd ever seen him.
Anxious in life, deaf in death, but
Free of fear, could you imagine,
Being free of fear for even a moment?

he has a mouth like a wound
desperate, you lick it
as a dog tending to its injuries
futile lapping at his sugared blood
trying to heal what your tongue cannot

within his mouth
is a light
that shines brightest when he smiles.

it makes your body feel warm
like laying in the space on the carpet
where the sun peers into the windows
in the afternoon.

it was something you'd searched for all your life
but you found it in him.
a way out of the dark
or a reason to leave.

you held him like a torch
and found yourself illuminated,
ignited, burning as you're known to do,
but different now.

the light followed you
a moth to your flame
he melted and eventually boiled
until he too was burned.

you swallowed him, or dreamt you did
the memory is a photograph
burning in a campfire;
the only one you ever saw.

if we have caves for hearts
(and if I am terrified
claustrophobic fear of
caverns, small passages
where you
have to
crawl
on your
hands
and
knees,
slide
on
your
belly
like
earth-
worms
do,
to find
your way
through)
I will hold my breath and
steady my shaking hands.
fearless, I will find my way down
down, as far and as small as it takes
I'll find my way back to you.

if your heart is a cave
deep underwater
where I am likely to drown
(to suffer narcosis and
see god, or you,
standing there at the
bottom of the sea
bleached hair floating in the water
around your head like
a halo glowing, truly
befitting you perfectly)
in the dark I will wander
as long as it takes
until I am somewhere
you can trust me again.

once again you find yourself
looking for another way out, or through.
be it a window open to a dawn-lit sky
or the earth rising up to swallow you.

your fingers claw the skin
of the great beast on which you parasite.
desperate to leech enough blood
that you can finally escape
and not be eaten alive
by the very thing you cling to.

leaving the cave for the first time again
to either have your vestigial eyes burnt by the mid-day sun
or to grow lungs and become
something new.
will you suffocate on land?
or will you drown in the water you were born in?
will you burn out like pipe ash or jet fuel?
like a candle or a forest fire?
like arson or a funeral pyre?

Heaven is an island
Ties drawing blood back
To the mainland
A network of cursed and burning veins.
I hope to tear each of them away until
The sea out-whispers even my own beaten, breaking heart.
I only hope when I go to sleep
I won't even dream anymore.

If I could be a believer
Would I see roses in the garbage?
Or would I bleed in an empty room,
Not unlike I do already?

I reach towards you in the dark
you, ephemeral, ethereal and fleeting
untouchable by my dirty hands
wretched flesh and bone, unbecoming.
you have such kindness in your heart
but I don't deserve it
and I know you know that too.
I don't understand you and perhaps
I never have.
another language, briefly converging in its evolution
with my own.
but only once, and now no longer.
though I cling to the meanings, words I used to know.
hurt exchanged like love letters
or so I think, feel, fear.

I hope someday you can be happy.
I know I will not be there but
I hope someday you can feel whole.
I wish only for soft things, the kindness you've shown me
I wish I could repay you for everything.
but I know what I am. and so do you.
and I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.

Clawing at your throat every time
The bliss connects, hits you
Fist to the back of the head, body undestroyable
Unrecognizable pulp, worthless in-the-gutter boy
Killer in your sleep, somnambulation dreams
Victim is yourself, victim is the stem
Imaginary orchid, diseased and burning
Learning what it means to be
Skinless, bloated body in the river you
Toss yourself overboard with all your might
Imagining corpses staring up at you
From just below the waves, you don't
Recognize them. But you wish to.

Books about learning to feel human
Brought to my funeral pyre
Before they light the flame
The earth coming up to swallow me
Like a bunny in the mouth of
a dog. Body limp but struggling
Inside, locked-in syndrome.
And my own claws, dull and evil
Pink lines across milky white
Swollen pieces of my body.
Affection as a form of consumption.
Affection as a form of cannibalization.
To be known is to be bitten
To be loved is to be swallowed
These are the only ways
You understand the exchange.

Bodyless carnage.
Crimes committed by way of
Laparoscopic surgery.
A tape worm finding its way
Into the human heart.
Building out of it a stomach, and
Learning to survive off of love.
Consuming any light it finds.

Body malnutritioned,
Dying, starvation of touch.
Desperate for a drop of
Nectar, helpless insect in
The web of another.
Only in hell will you ever
Forget about the fear.
It's worth the pain
And the danger.