erupts into a cacophony,
this madness slowly drowning
my footprints.
as i step forward
there you are.

i could not go back
even if i wanted to.
but i have not thought of that
until now.

there is no back,
only forward.
so onward i step
into the madness.

my only hope is that i continue
to have you to look forward to.

crashing into shores,
breaking as a tide
against the sand.

i once asked you to carry me away
into that fantastical sparkle,
but you broke me in that foam
and washed me into the sand.

i love you for what i am not.
i would die for your eternity.

into the wind
that chaps and ages
my face.

we’ll meet again
some day

to discuss our differences.
tell me,

how is oblivion this time of year?

of our attempt to understand.
it’s okay.

let us fill the gaps
with superstitions and basal concepts
of morality to create a sense of purpose.

gaps filled with empty rituals,
ethical elitists piously pontificating
self-righteous parables and life lessons,
and pages of verse posing as a safety net
that will cradle your fall
and smother your sobbing body.

we’ve created hell
and with our fear of ignorance
we have remained
willfully ignorant.

as the net rocks you to sleep
i will mourn the moment it ends this sweet dream
and i awake into nothingness.

and it offers what it has
to the nothingness
which it is nearly overwhelmed by

taking root, making a resignation
in realizing that it is not wanted anywhere,
so it evolves nowhere
branching out and filling the cracks
of nothingness, accenting them
with its own profanity.

and we curse this development
that we have enabled
through our own neglect
as it attempts to poison
the conventional beauty of men

who do not realize
that we will all be overcome
by this evolved nothingness
and it will swallow us whole
creating a beautifully ugly hybrid.

a ghost town overcome by weeds
and rust,
a mass grave covered with the rubble
of once-great cities,
a baby’s crib filled with the smell
of sour, yellowed blankets
howling of the past that gets tortured
by the impending future

which brings an end
to the life that is loved,
growing before us in stages,
crawling

to the future that begins
with the seed in the crack
(dejected, forgotten)

and resurrects itself triumphantly
as a relic that will not be subdued,
reduced to a tainted copper
by the self-interest of a humanity
that discards its worth.

wondering if all that is left of the past
is that stinging sensation in the tips of my fingers.

but it is never permanent
and it is never the same.
that which holds beauty
will only last the day.

to understand why such things are
would only cause further madness.
some will never see it for what it is,
the few who live in ignorant bliss.

that your last embrace
will not be of compassion,
but truth.

the things that are abstract
keep us further
from what is real
and now only represent
what will never be.

so let us fall
into mediocrity,

because the only truth,
at this point,
lies in success.

even when that road leads
to failure,
we only care if a champion
is standing at the end of it.

the irony of all that i own
stripping my flesh to the bone
when it clearly meant enough

to have
in the first place.

of technology. meanwhile,
the voice becomes disembodied
within the networks that carry it,
and the individual can only build relationships
with the machines

that are used to communicate
in the place of others.

all of the disembodied voices have become passive.
thank you, mind and body,
for your service.

now i will recede into the networks
of the world and slowly lose my soul.

is already staring at me.
not how i wanted to be seen,
but i’ll make it work.
i unclench my fists
from the dark velvet

that feels so smooth against
my skin which, by now,
is raw from the incessant scratching.

now that i am faced,
face to face, with fate
i know what i must do.

everyone expects me to excuse -
my surprising presence
upon the stage is understandable,
but still surprising.
yet this set has gone to waste,
its tragic beauty lost;
kept hanging in suspense

with the crowd grasping
at the armrests of their seats

and no one to explain
all of this confusion and violence
except for myself.

alone.
in front of the crowd.
unexpectedly.

i’m supposed to die now,
but then there would be a point:
death.

no, that cannot do.
let us all fall further into confusion.

for without it
this violence makes no sense.
and let the violence remain
perpetual.

for when it stops
so too does the confusion.
let me hang here

until every last brow is furrowed
and every single head leaves shaking.

the cracking earth
from the cracking whip.

does the blood curdle,
or does it spread across the vista
like a fading sunset
that hides behind sparkling stars?
they (the stars)
walk on that red carpet,
and no one knows the hand

that manned the loom
or stacked the bricks
or poured the concrete
once the sun has disappeared
and the light goes out
on the architects of society
the workers of the world.

to the east,
your fingers are long
and bony; i do not know
what that means
and i am frightened.

to the west,
i smell the rustic charm,
but i can see the vermin
crawling through your empty sockets
which disgusts me.

to the north,
a chill of familiarity
allows me to find comfort
and solace replacing
those who i have lost.

to the south,
your cloak enshrouds
(my vision)
allowing me only to see
red – hatred for those i scorn
and whom you have purged
from this earth in my honor.

the many faces you have
make you a stranger to me -
a stranger whose identity
seems to identify with me.

my own personalized avenger
who rights only the wrongs
that are wrong through the lens,
the spider-cracked lens, from which i see.
an arbiter of justice
or a servant of fate
to which occasion shall abide
by majority’s dictate.

we made you
and we shall unmake you, too.

now put on your rosy red dress
and remind us of how we used to laugh.

but when sisyphus pushes that rock
no one bothers to help or tell him
that it is now he who is going in the wrong direction

or how it really doesn’t matter.
and, still, it remains unknown
that progress is progressing backwards,
regressing toward our hopes.

i have a pocket full of rocks
and holes in both socks
that tell me every thread
of every fabric will one day unravel,

and all that i own
will turn to dust.
atlas, why have you forsaken me?

alas, i am all alone

and every pebble i cast
is only cracking the windows
of the house that i desire
as i stand here soaking to the bone.

realizations externalized.
to see the world
upside down in reverse
and wonder if anything
is really any different

from this perspective.
the variance of similitude
is as far off
as the mind is from here,

and the measurements
are all relative.
imperial modals
unfit for universal interpretations;
they make me queasy
and i can’t see the point

in living anymore.
take me back
or i want to go home.

where the rain was sliding off
in beads that accentuated the humidity
of a hot, dead night.

you looked into my eyes
as i was staring down
at the cracking blacktop
with the weeds growing out of it.

your hand slid across the metal
grasping onto mine,
and with foolish certainty,
you allowed yourself to fall
into that pit you could feel
at the bottom of your stomach.

you begged me to run away with you,
standing lonely
in the parking lot of an abandoned store.

i leaned in,
looking at you from the top
of your pit

realizing i had this rope
to throw to you.

but you are too afraid
of being alone
and that is all you don’t want

which makes you want me,
but i am not to be desired
and you cannot be loved.

so i will mourn for you
as you watch my movements
from the bottom of your pit.

i wish we could fall into it
together

but we would only be more alone.
i’m taking this rope
and hanging myself.

break the calm
and incite the restless
to wander through
this thick, murky life
that hangs like a fog
taunting our vision.

we play tetherball with the severed torsos
that hang from the totems
which serve as a reminder
that we are only superstitious mortals
whose short lives
and insignificance
will be remembered: a barbecue pit footprint

dug in the ground
that has buried
our ancestors
or reaches out
to those on the gallows
chiming away
in the wind,
awaiting those of us left.

we wouldn’t want woeful wraps willfully
winding weaves;
weeping willows wanting ways which
won’t wander

us into thoughts we’d rather have.
for weaves are too beautiful
and without our ways,
we would be
not unlike
a willow tree.

we humans are beautiful not for being,
but for seeing what stands alone
in beauty
is not a human, but a
tree.

so let us be beautiful
in our human way
and destroy each other
or destroy each day
that we have to
watch in wonder,
lest we waste away.

you carry the carcasses
on your breath
of a vibrant
and cyclical death
so that it may lay
scattered

about the brush
in the fields
and carry a portrait;

a portrait that moves us
as it moves with us.
you show us the foliage
scattered

in tatters,
because

we need not always be so linear.