burnt bridges

the bridge we built is on fire.

energy from intense heat rises above iron support beams that warp like skin over flame,
bubbling black and red from oxidation
as the rearrangement of molecules begins to take place.
wood panels that had once rested beneath the feet of former lovers,
now groan in agony,
scorched black by the eternal hunger of fire.

glass fixtures burst forth from there lamp holdings,
dumping kerosene upon the already gluttonous flames,
howling ever louder as each lamp wilts into the inferno.
smoldering embers begin to heed gravity’s call,
tumbling toward earth within the blaze that has all but engulfed the once beloved bridge.

i sit amidst the pyre,
like a self proclaimed martyr who waits patiently in the gallows,
whistling his way to the noose.
my body rests cross legged upon a throne of sin and accelerant,
as incandescence devours the wood,
steel & stone around me.
smoke renders my sight useless,
filling my sinus with the stench of soot and ash,
as the hearth’s roar all but drowns out lost cries and last words.

the bridge we built was on fire.
& my soul said let it burn.

the life and death of music

pen flickers over notes,
jotted in doctor’s scribble indented on pressed paper mâché,
grown from rhyme schemes & stanzas structured by emotional cement and shattered pieces of bone and heart,
as if a coroner’s van were called to the scene,
complete with morticians commissioned to scrape sad brain and seared flesh from concrete,
in a vain attempt to save a soul that is too far gone.

music has grown to become my only confidant,
akin to an outgoing friend,
juxtaposed against the societal outcast who hates crowds and conversations that stem from booze.
my mind recites verses as though they were whispered through grapevines and over bated breathe,
while chaotically written characters aim to postpone what seems to be an inevitable free fall,
as if this substance induced,
cathartic repetition was my own personal purgatory.

there was once a time,
my being burned with the desire to erase this face from our plane’s existence,
to rip my vinegar voice from it’s home beneath my jugular,
and lobotomize my frontal lobe to scan every single spiteful thought from the right and left,
so as to not fly over the cuckoo’s nest built around my soul.

paper became the pillow over my mourning mouth,
and the one beneath my head.
words slither from the tongue and circle sternum & neck like a noose soaked in gasoline,
only loosening it’s grip as my pen allows.
notes cross veins,
puncturing skin to lessen the pressure beneath,
lowering the melodic drum beat originating from my aorta,
to a murmur.

an outcast rarely forgets where the isolation began,
a leper’s scars serve as a visceral reminder of what most will never experience,
and every single parent knows,
deep down inside,
us kids would’ve been better off without a dead dad,
even if your God didn’t think along those same lines.

music is my voice.
it is the razor within the apple.
it is the glass slipper I’ve been searching for.
it gave me life,
and it shall be the death of me.

there is no cure

silence settles over my heart like dust upon old artifacts,
worn weary by the passage of time without use or purpose,
arousing low whispers from friends whose faces are painted Picassos of pity and admiration,
as if their sudden outward display of emotion in this waning instant
could placate pain and rid me of disdain.

fuck you.

you who held your head high,
as if King Midas’ touch had been bestowed on your right hand,
while the left turned whatever it touched into rock and hard places,
you who spawn broken &
bitter boulders that have tendencies to crush hope,
and pin outstretched limbs
reaching for anything to lessen the pain.

there is no cure for what I suffer from.

there are no magic words that could ease the vice grip upon my soul,
no liquid elixir that would elicit the abolition of old levees and sand barriers,
that surround my psyche like slave shackles on wooden ships,
no stroke of hindsight,
masquerading as good will or remorse,
could spark the fire that had burned within me;
once driving steel and soul like coal powers the locomotive.

i am alone in this, my friend.

cast away toward modern purgatory like gutter children in Sinclair’s jungle.
you see,
there are no hands to grasp,
no gospel to preach,
no love to hold,
not from some omnipotent deity or earthly prophet,
nor from your own morality driven conscious,
bent like light to fit some manic dystopia.
there are only roses that smell like shit,
and expectations that never meet reality’s handshake.

untitled #f00000

friend

I am blind 

a drunkard 

wanton & brilliant 

a child of melancholy will & ferocious discontent 

perhaps a broken peasant 

never translucent but at peace 

willing to embrace this delicious poison & melt into idle death

too soon to trust this perilous mercy 

and question every sacred measure 

man, women; in eternity

a wicked prisoner with naught a worry or fortune

for yesterday is a lie

art seemingly free of change and decay

desire born of a lover's joy 

a life never full of torment 

you see, we wear our vehemence

your slander 

on my bone like a fever drunk with rot

listen to the mortal farewell those in poetry upon the breeze

for merry are the foul

cut from envy once young in love