Consequence

Shape shifting shards of sanity
steal what's left of her reality.
Blues and grays
and passed on days
feel like eternity
weighted with scum and debris.
Your shadow in a haze:
she still loves your gaze.

Rare truths spoken
as righteous tokens
to the girl who longed
(perpetually wronged).
From a dream, awoken:
her fantasy life broken.
She thought she belonged;
it's sorrow prolonged.

But she pulls on her socks
though Consequence knocks
her off her feet:
there's a face she hopes to meet.
He's secured with locks
and hidden in a box
so he'll stay fresh and sweet,
away from misery and deceit.

His visage pleases her:
comfort in a blur.
He's hers alone to view,
but his whispers are untrue.
Promises that never were
inside her cause a stir
and she knows something's askew,
but she'll say she never knew.

He rips through her rib cage
with inconspicuous rage
and drops her heart
like it's just another part:
a war she did not expect to wage
and in which she's unqualified to engage.
She used to be so smart
before he picked her brain apart.

In Oblivion she'll now reside
with a book and a pen by her side.
Consequence claims another soul,
another shining smile he stole.
It's time to hide
to keep her pride
inside her cozy hole
where - at least - she's in control.


*********************************************************

Light twists,
heart skips a beat:
through all this destruction
who knows what you'll be?

*********************************************************


Parts of this have been in my head for a few days. These poems are getting tougher for me to describe: sometimes because I'm not sure what they're about and sometimes because I just don't want to talk about it. I guess it's about recognizing a pattern of unfortunate situations and the consequences of such situations over time. Eventually, it all becomes predictable and almost surreal.





"Goodbye to sleep. I think this staying up is exactly what I need. Take apart your head; take apart the counting and the flock it has bred..." Brand New Degausser

"To vanish into oblivion is easy to do and I try to be, but you know me; I come back when you want me to. Do you miss me, miss misery, like you say you do?" Elliott Smith Miss Misery

"In the depths of my gloom, I crawl out for you. From the peaks of my joy, I crawl back into: tearing me down every time you smile, every shining time you arrive." Sunny Day Real Estate Every Shining Time You Arrive

Wonder Why

I'm not okay, but I will be.
It's a fine line you can't see.
Absurdity
is fond of me.
Hanged with a belt around my throat,
I'm reading your note
and embarrassed letters I wrote
into words of love so remote.
Now drowning under tidal waves
of questions and regrets I stave
off sorrow, but within I cave.
I am not brave,
only broken and stubborn.
It's not of your concern.
It's a lesson I learn and unlearn
and either way I'm left to burn.
On a desk is a picture of us
which I leave you as a posthumous
gift of my naivety and hubris.
Characteristics you won't miss
anyway,
but you may remember someday
when things aren't going your way
and language is no longer your forte.
Will it matter to you
when I lay with a gray hue?
Will you be shaken by the view?
Will you claim you never knew?
It's a long goodbye:
that which has no reply,
for people who don't try.
I will wonder why.


******************************************

This was not what I was supposed to be doing today. Ummm...it's about what you think it's about. Except I'm not actually dead. It's about being an impossible person and facing an impossible situation. It's about how it's never what it appears to be and probably never will be. At least for certain people. At least for me. It's sort of like "lol, me," but also "wtf, me?!"

Also, I sort of miss JamisonParker. Bring it back.






"It's not what we're owed, but it's what we've earned and it's closer than we realize and it's time, now, to burn. So burn, so burn, so burn..." Kevin Devine Time To Burn (foreverandalways)

"Cut this picture into you and me, burn it backwards kill this history..." Elliott Smith Sweet Adeline

"I live in notes and photographs and everything I'm holding back like all the words that weren't enough; you remind me of a song I used to love..." JamisonParker Your Song

Love In Dances

She's reading her book
and that look that you threw
and the dagger in her tongue
is of no concern to you.

It's times like these
when silence means everything,
so she's passive and patient
despite the taste and the sting.

But inside her grows
a cancerous mass
of unuttered thoughts
mixed with poisonous gas

that tortures and tears
and remembers the glares
of eyes soft and faces fair;
all the thoughts she couldn't bear.

Photos of imagined memories
haunt her in her sleep.
She wants to scream,
but can't make a peep.

She's a ghost in a fairy tale;
there is no happy ending
for her:
just past and present blending.

It's like you never said a word:
speech through glances
and funny looks,
love in dances.

She cries.
Her tired eyes
shift to hide
their lies.


************************************

I don't know why I'm posting this one.

But - hey! look! - there are stanzas in this one! I haven't done that in a while!







"It's times like these when silence means everything and no one is to know about this..." Taking Back Sunday Ghost Man On Third

"I'm the family's unowned boy, golden curls of envied hair, pretty girls with faces fair see the shine in the black sheep boy..." Tim Hardin Black Sheep Boy

Songs And Cigarettes

A new face,
a soul reborn:
from a carcass
I am torn.
Such bloody symmetry
is what remains of me
in muddled minutes
when no word fits.
Repetitive at best,
I make the wrong bets.
I hear your threats
over songs and cigarettes.
Played like your marionettes
or hidden under silhouettes
my breath is shallow
as I'm hung from these gallows.
Branches and bones break
and one last breath I take.
Passers-by will dream and wonder
how long 'til I am torn asunder.
Come dance with me
under this killing tree
where I will be
eternally.


***************************************************

^ What I did while I should have been working on my short story.

I'm really not that depressed. Honestly. But when Gordon Schochet recognizes that a strength of mine is writing "dark," I feel like maybe that's something on which I should focus.

Is it bad that it comes relatively naturally?





"Sew it on. Face the fool. The mirrors lie - those aren't my eyes - destroy them, raise my hand. Reflected in savage shards: a new face, a soul reborn..." Sunny Day Real Estate Seven

"I dreamed another dream and I was free and no sorrow can find me under that killing tree as I wait for my true love..." AA Bondy Killing Tree

Bloodshot Beauty

Broken artist's soul,
now you understand it all.
Red splatters against the wall:
you've seen the rise; you've seen the fall.
The bloody brain matter brawl -
away from which you were lucky to crawl -
left welts and scratches
from wrestling matches
in which you were over matched
and underestimated.
You hated
and seethed
and choked on air
unhealthy to breathe.
Pure water eyes
use pale lids for disguise,
your bloodshot beauty:
now too horrific to see.
Your lungs filled up with paint
and your muscles seized without restraint.
A God above you - a saint -
appears as you begin to faint.

As the blue bird sky sinks
into solemn silence,
I think,
I will dream of such violence.


**********************************************

I've written a few poems recently, but none were any good. Not that this one is, per se, but I need to get back on the wagon at some point, right?




"You turned white like a saint. I'm tired of dancing on a pot of gold-flaked paint. Oh we're so very precious, you and I, and everything that you do makes me want to die. Oh, I just told the biggest lie..." Elliott Smith The Biggest Lie

"And I dream of Michelangelo when I'm lying in my bed. I see God upon the ceiling; I see angels overhead. And he seems so close as he reaches out his hand, but we are never quite as close as we are led to understand..." Counting Crows When I Dream Of Michelangelo

"It's my brother's blood in my dirty lungs, in my crooked mouth, on my swollen tongue, on my father's gun, on each stranger's face, across the blue bird sky, on every hand I shake..." Kevin Devine Brother's Blood