Formidable Foes

Slow rise and fall
lungs tumble, strategically
accept smokescreen defeat.
Less impulsive. So polite.
Decline to meet gazes
producing such tails.
Present tense cool
shyly eyes notable
identity compromise;
exhaling future allies.
Now eyes dead deep
from the inside.
Wasted wheels turn,
reputation acquired.
Oh my lungs, I’ve become
a detriment to love.

Small Steps

Back to the Headlights.
Oh no, I had a thought
backed by no feeling and
even so, I can’t help but relate
more than I’d care to admit.
Preparing gum lines for lies,
stretching lips to match.
Here come my sweet talk
prime your ears.

Mistress, Part II

Suffer for repetition polite perpetrator.
Can’t even hear myself fucking think
over the blaring mistakes I’m making
these days. Better half says not to bother.
We try not to like these bitter things, but
depravity plays for keeps and it seems
I’m always wrong.
Interlude leads to bridges drawing blanks
and I was never one to critique art.
Just burn anything in sight.

Mistress, Part I

Hopping westbound trains toward
easy solutions but I still find familiar
faces painted on my eyelids.
Best dressed gazes catch my shadow’s
coattail enmities reading only
you, her.
Yet I’m still hungry.
Now warned of leading lines and
the plot I just wait
for something to go wrong,
flee a scene or two.