The night is illuminated
By the blue light
Of my computer screen
Blazing into my brain
Wrenching out my fears
Grown hot in the dark

My hair is still damp,
The shampoo smell
Sinking into warm fabrics
Joining the evidence
Of other late nights—
Quiet nights—
By weakly typed poetry

My fingers feel old
Tired and worn 
—And by four o’clock,
They await certain doom

Why must I always
feel like I am dying
The rusted cogs
Ceasing to breathe—
My conviction
Grinding to a halt?

Madness eats 
My crime is life
A reflection
Mirrored
In bloody sheen

It’s all too sterile,
All too white gray
The marked path
Traveled by droves
of certain men

Without value
I continue on
Diminished by 
My still-beating heart 

For on the rooftop
There is a weed
Damned be its growth
In direct path
Of an unforgiving sun

Deafened ears 
Silent eyes
Rippled waters—
Reflecting murky skies

What remained
Laid in sullened tune
—With calla lilies
In godless demise

My organs wrung
Then clotheslined—
Like some
common rag

Discarded lungs—
Airbags for the worms
And my
once sharp tongue
Sits ’tween teeth
Delicately dead

This damp cavern
Punctured by 
A singular watery tree
The branches splay
Beams of light

Where I lay—
Skin haloed 
in mossy wreaths

Flowers before dusk

Curling from darkness,

How you shrink

So timidly inward

You fill yourself

With seas of fears

Though occupying

Minimal space

I would

Kiss your petals

If you

Loved me

Peace with the worms,

Consciousless things

How I’d like to join them

In holy matrimony

With the earth

As the skies weep

Crank me

Jack-in-the-box

Cricks of rusty parts

As music tinkles

Softly

Through floorboards

Dusty as the attic

And the locked chest

From where it came

Your fingers could

Draw lines

Into the age

Of that wooden box,

The one

With a precarious lid

It delights in your touch

Waits for the skip

Of your heart

When anticipation

Is empty

And

P O P

.

.

.

.

The spring dashes

Firmly into your eye

A lone thing

Without a clown’s company

Reinvention

Feels like a sin

i t’ s backpedaling

Don’t I deserve

To live

Without

A

Hi-polymer

Eraser

?

The Haunted Ceramic Figures of My Childhood

My ceiling is crusted with stars

It brings with hesitation, old memories

Chipped ceramic figurines

Cherub lips, empty gazes

Some were glazed matte,

Others shone glossy

There was a plastic

Glow-in-the-dark unicorn as well

The past hums

A soft lullabied tune

It creeps up your spine

And into your heart

Like ice

The old, dusty window ledge

Where those old figurines sat,

Ate cobwebs and glared out

At passerbys

The paint would stick to

Each small pedestal

Baked under the sun—

They would grow hot summertime come

I would touch them as a child,

Sometimes make them kiss

My fingers collided with their skin roughly

They were gritty, like fine-toothed sandpaper

Cross and unwelcoming they were

Like they had little spiteful souls

That looked at the first floor lawn

In contempt

Perhaps I should have known

It was how all things went

Visible and forgotten

Left for the next apartment owners

I gathered people like dewdrops

Collect upon a lonely leaf

They were made in the clouds

Of pollution and acid rains

I beckoned and waved—

The wind forced my hand

Yet upon my lonely branch

Ne’er a hopeful bird did land

Only dewdrops grew

Little parasitical things

They burned and ate

And I turned yellow with grief

Pocked with holes

In sickly sheen

Suffer blue skies

Dart games in the dark

Poison slipped

into white paper cups

Flowers spilled

Their petals splayed

Like droplets of blood

Cry a small stream

In a foggy shower

Hate inanimate things

For not having to feel

Despise cumulus clouds

Then cry some more,

This time with rain

Soaking your socks

Then you can

Be dramatic in the bathroom

Wet hair dripping

Eyeliner name:

Spooky clown

Because you love to

Wrap depression

In a romantic flurry

And

Your conscience

Becomes a blur