hope worth having

you saw me laughing at myself in the mirror
but what you didn't see was beating harder
than the wings of the last guardian
angel, bristly blond locks waving
back from flight, harder than the final
fucked up father to spray the blood
from the nose of his woman, child
whoever raised a hand to lower his
I destroyed my poetry, however fickle or firm
in hopes it was enough like me but more
regenerative, like a phoenix
though lacking a reason to rise
my life was supposed to take
flight, but I had nothing to protect
no garden to tend
so I slept naked in the spit of intellectuals
while my heart spread mud from their shoes
all over its aching body
my eyes rolled out of my head and worms crawled in
burrowing into an overwhelmed brain
that wants and wants and needs
but breathes less than a flower walks or a flame
quenches the throat of a mute
my words loved to play or be played
my words emptied the contents of their emptiness
into no mind low enough to explore the soul
of someone worth saving
a rippling lake of glass swallowed my arm
my body spread and waving on both ends of the sand
falling through endless pillars of forgotten ideas
I made the mistake of wanting to create light
in the loveless void of art
constantly billowing with no wind to guide
only ash to fall from its treasured chest
ash and miles of sand before
the smile of smiles is torn from the world
what did you say, you said
I said
would you please love me as much as I love you
I'm sorry
I still can't hear you

incomp.

I'm not content to shout in an echo chamber
And let my words wash over me
Droning fingers squeezing the blood out of my body
When the goal was to get through to you
But that's the only hope

We're ravenous, vulturous,
We live on a deflating ball spreading humours
Like jam on bread from knives, sipping
Wine from ejected bullet cartridges
Who am I, who are you, who are we who
Feast on the fallen and pay for our souls with interest
Carving trenches into mother's back
[...]

I tried to make sense of my self
I think that's the first mistake we make before we realize
Not everyone has diamonds pouring from their wrists
If the ocean ever runs out
Just siphon the blood from my heart

Weightless, I collapse into the space of memory
Unwanted images flash behind my eyes
Wildly flickering screens barely able to contain
Spasms pressed up against their glass
I see her floating through slate-black washes
Inside slimy mires of mind
I hear her whimpering, nearly
Drowned out by toneless buzzing
Lost in cold, reverberating dark
I've forgotten her face
Once burned in so deep
Now formless, an amoebic frame stretched
Colorless and emasculated across
The backs of my eyelids

In a vast room furnished with shapes
Emerging from its caliginous tract
Husks lie prostrate in a corner, vaguely
Shadowing a religious intensity
Hearts battered and wrinkled
Stamped into flat black envelopes
Marked only with wordless scrawls
Spill out of dry-rotted chests
Where compassionate and murderous
Throbs slept in the same bed

Blood oozes back into the sun
While the sky rubs its eyes
Bodies reanimate, and, strung through
Them, tightened vessels relax
Meaning compressed into words slowly
Scatters about red-hued mindscapes
Occupied by memories pressed against glass
Untwisting and calming, cooling and filling with love
That drips upward, back down into deflated
Shells again made firm and unruptured
Sadness rewinds through ridges and valleys
Tears sweetly kiss their way back into ducts
Sobs gasp back into the back of my throat