Puff Piece (I)

What insanity.
Guilt dries my gums until only the obvious remains.
We truss tepid treaties and know full well
what we’ll never revisit. Too tight and this
pen always betrays paper-deep, all I’m left with
is another tally-tied lie in full black and white.
All too readily I tendered any semblance of colour.
Left alone, my bare bones prepare for salvage.
Optimism at arm’s length and still nowhere in sight.
What insanity.

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.

d34lbr34k3r

And why does her gawd let
her play these games?
Frequently hollowing out
each hastily crafted word
just to prove she could.
Left with shells and no context,
we’ll rally those in need of
wide-eyed sunsets.
And make them blink just in time.
Initiative back breakings,
the deal breaker.

Twiddling Thumbs

Graphic.
Art taped to the inside of
my slightly slowing eyelids
cast shadows on clocks; illuminating
time left to kill.
Hesitantly, I believed everything
he told about the truths of hell.
Remember to feel.
I lied until even I believed me.
Truth and feeling intertwined in
mounting messes on my floor, and
thus far I still don’t see the connection…
I remembered to remember but
forgot to feel, and all I can hear
is Ben ringing in my ears
because everyone knows that
God Loves A Challenge.

Second Chances

Broken lungs
and on the way back down
heart thought to say so.
Stuck on repeat or so it seems
but I’d never admit a difference.
Captivation was key in transforming
a we, or us, or both if you must.
And I think I do.
Hold your tongue until everyone is seated,
arrangements completed, and
dreams seized until they’re needed.
Not entirely sure when that’ll be,
you turn to me and doubt the belief
that never is a state of mind.
In time, my little temper trap;
this world? Yours and mine.

Aiming to Please

My mouth is full.
Spitting speakeasys
followed by soul compression
inhibitions; I swear my eyes
are open, blinking baby butterfly
kisses but sending too high
and now she thinks I’m
only aiming to please.
In high demand my insights align,
sink back down, and meet the grind:
skeletons left on her path roadside.


Noteworthy new lows.

Put My Head Down and Go

Guilty pleasures, justified.
She finds comfort in my
shoulder shrug lullabies.
Wait for the drop.
Heads and beats fall
until they hang on knees,
three stories at least.
Her little pretty pleases
hesitate, almost to a flaw.
Finds common sense trifling
as she pries trepid jaw off
my devastated floor.
Words don’t dare trek
toward my morbid eligibility.