Autumnal Reminiscing

I stare off into the distance, 

mind floating away from me 

like a gown unravelling - leaving 

threads to billow off on the breeze of 

an autumn day, 

& I think of you, 

I always do at this time of year

I believe, 

& there is nothing I could say that would make me

justify or understand my cognitive 

cycling back to you and our past 

days together, 

Especially since we swore to stay in Wonderland 

with one another, 

Never leave the other alone, 

But then when a yellow brick road 

miraculously paved itself 

before you - you clicked your heels three 

times and were gone, 

& I was still there with my Cheshire smile 

painted on my face, 

& though I tried to invite you back to 

a "better" and "nicer" version of tea - you 

didn't ever seem as satisfied as you did before, 

The teacakes were stale and 

the Earl Grey scalded the roof 

of your mouth, 

But we still tried to suffer through, 

did we not? 

Alas, the day finally came 

when the pages of your life 

and mine - were no longer 

written together as part of the same 

story, 

& so I ripped myself from the binding 

of your world to search for a new book 

in which to attach myself, 

& finally, all this time later, 

I think I have finally found it, 

& truly, I wondered if I would stay 

in Wonderland forever, alone, but no,

For it was not a yellow brick road

that rolled out before me but, rather, 

a red carpet, 

& somehow I became Cinderella 

and somehow I found a Prince, & yes, 

parts of me still wonder if I will be able to hold onto this 

or if I will slip back into Wonderland when the 

clock strikes midnight, 

But truly, darling, who cares anymore? 

Or at least, who cares right now? 

Not I. 

No - I am in Merry Old England, 

sitting in a house that overlooks the Sea, 

crusted with glorious, swirled red cliffs, and 

a shoreline dotted with tiny cafes that serve 

fish n' chips & tap water with no ice unless 

asked, specifically, 

& in front of that sits a patchwork 

quilt of fields, flecked white with 

tiny bits of sheep in the distance & 

apple trees & a kitchen hosting

toast & jam & bowls of fruit & jars of honey, 

Yes - you are happy in the Emerald City with 

the Wizard & I am happy as Virginia with Leonard, 

so really, we all lived happily ever after - & the teacakes 

are moist and the tea is fabulous... 

PTSD Nightmares

Madness knows me well 

& calls to me by name at night, 

When black velvet encroaches upon 

the lily white of me & rakes 

spindle-thorn fingers through 

my tangled hair - 

   matted with sweat from thrashing in my sleep, 

The salted drops of fear trace

lines through the remainder of my 

clown paint & soak the cotton 

pink of my night clothes

that cling to my skeleton, 

I am covered in the filth of memories - 

the ones that caused me to be 

this devastatingly sick inside, 

They have rammed their fists into my 

rib-bones with every flashback that is

played, facinorously, in my dreams - 

warping them with malevolent heat & 

melting my nerves to nothing more than 

a shrill scream resonating in the dark,

I would escape this fear 

if I could, 

But there is nothing that can 

save me from the repugnant 

stench of my own inner torment

as it burrows beneath my veins 

and drips from my skin-holes 

at night, 

For that is the worst and truest fear - 

the kind from which you cannot escape... 

Coffee, Cigarettes, & Whores

* This is a re-post of an older poem that I did back in 2009.

Red-tinted smiles,

Shot eerily over leather-bound love,

Can you breathe?

You feel the lollipop lust eminating,

So sweetly fraudulent from her candy lips,

Mezmerizing you into stupidity like the thought of your morning coffee,

So cloudy with it's addicting liquid reverie,

And tempting you now with her malicious adoration,

Strung so brightly above you like the array of holiday lights at Christmas,

You have become a junkie,

Lost in the motel-room of her embrace,

Empty-eyed like the other Washington Street whores,

You just need one more fix, right?

One more sugared-up, neon injection,

One more toxic acid rush flowing warmly through your brittle veins?

"Does she make you feel alive still?"

I ask you over coffee at midnight,

The little white clouds still astounding you,

But you ignore my plea for healthy sanity to bleed into your broken down mind,

You're lurking in love's graveyard, buried inside the coffin of her love,

Beneath the weight of her will,

She has broken you completely I fear,

Tumbling down, spiraling as quickly as a ciggarette burns,

You're all too happy to be blissfully lost,

As we chatter endlessly into the morning,

The feathery lightness of her fingertips seduces your mind,

So locked within the prison of your own heart,

I try in vain to rip the indigo sash from your throat,

Constricting your heartbeat to nothing,

I am too late...

She has captured you again from me,

One final time to my violent dismay,

Happiness

Happiness,
is an oddity,
a foreign & acquired taste
to the tongue that has never
sampled it before,

For one who grows
accustomed to devouring
the bitterest bits of life
its sweetness can be
entirely overwhelming,
& yet, almost addicting,

It hits the senses sharp
and thick, like the aroma
of Christmas dinner, heavy
to the mind and overwhelming
at first,

& God it can be painful,
Like pouring rubbing alcohol
onto infected wounds, clearing
the disease from your flesh
and curing the sickness in your soul,

How can this be that you have come upon such
a miraculous remedy to your maladies?

Slowly, so painfully slowly,
you adjust and re-adjust to the
possibility and reality of happiness
being 'forced' upon you,
& then you grow to enjoy it,

But God it takes a long time...

People look at you strangely,
as if they have something on you,
these 'happy' people, who spent summers
seaside with family, on vacations, being
supported with love & kindness,

& all the while you know that it
is them, in fact, that is the oddball,
For who really lives like that?
Not one of your friends could recall a
family vacation that didn't end in tears
and abusive words being thrown about
carelessly like an old duvet,

But oh, the sweet savouring of
this whole 'happiness' business
is too delicious of a morsel to pass
up,

So you don't pass it up at all,
no,
you simply stay silent, all the while
secretly giggling and giddy with glee
down inside like a child who is
seeing bubbles for the first time,

For, in fact, you are seeing bubbles
for the first time, in a way...
and how delicious they are when
they pop on your nose and tongue!

Fairytale Nightmare

Death hands me a palm
full of diamonds & 
I eat them, almost religiously, 
...Is it sacrilegious somehow? 
My only peace stemming 
from these Magic Beans 
that - once planted in my 
fertile guts - produce a most 
lascivious and beautiful 
beanstalk, 
One that pierces through my 
core and as it grows to numerically 
impressive heights (I am flying into 
inky, black cosmos!) pops my skull 
from it's resting place upon my neck 
& takes it along for the ride,
Up & lost in space, up into 
heaven's dome along with 
million's of glittering, skeletonized, 
crystal stars that have become 
Christ-like in their whiteness 
to my drug-induced, stupefied 
eyes,
Tracers flying past me, along with 
the rest of my life, I am forever 
trying to grip time between  
the sandpaper tips of my 
Klonopin-powdered fingers... 
Somehow, though, I cannot, 
For the fine, silken dust causes it to 
slip right through my hands, 
Shattering on the floor the 
moment the clock strikes midnight 
& the spell is broken, 
& I am Cinderella covered in 
her lazy, figuratively spoken 
ashes & flying along in my 
goddamned pumpkin carriage, 
& with my eyes glowing a 
magic-lamp jaundiced gold with a wet, 
red, pill-swollen rim - I fall 
from space & my tattered rug of a 
magic carpet & into the depths 
of the Sea of Depression, 
My diamonds have turned back 
into black, crunchy coal in my 
bloody, juicy intestines, 
& I am drowning with mermaids 
that have turned into sharks with 
their starved, ivory smooth, white 
teeth, 
They desire & crave my salty, crimson, 
medicine-laced blood in all of its awful 
metallic tasting gore, 
& as I am drowning, Death pulls me 
from the deep, sea-foam green saltwater 
and places me in front of Belle's castle, 
Holds out his hand,
In them, the offerings 
of yet more diamonds, & of course, I take 
them... 
...Lest I be devoured by a different type of Beast... 
& it is such glorious fun playing Jekyll & Hyde... 

Medication

I roam the acid-fried streets of this 
drugged out city, passing citizens 
with mouths' stuffed full of 
Physician's Candy, 
So sedating or energizing 
that one can never truly function 
again, 
& I, of course, would be lying 
if I said my own cabinet (or bloodstream) 
were empty, 

& we've all got reasons, millions 
of reasons, as to why our chemicals, 
chemistry, sanity, is so far-fucking-off 
that we consume fist-sized gulps of 
pills in a frenzied, angry crunching
between our teeth - so hard, sometimes, 
that I am amazed that our teeth and 
mandibles don't shatter in our pill-whitened 
faces, 

One woman - she inhales her amphetamines 
and three pots of black coffee - no sugar or 
cream - for breakfast, slips her lithe body 
into the hottest shower she can manage
for she never eats enough to produce her own 
body heat anymore & heads off to a 12 hour 
long work shift before retiring to the gym, 
where she will run for 3 hours before going home 
to an empty house...

The man in his suit - he takes more Prozac 
than is even healthy, or legally prescribed, 
but his Dr. said that it was alright - because 
he has tried everything else except for ECT 
to jolt him from his soul-crushing depression, 
that wheedles at him daily to jump from his office 
window - or take the rest of the goddamned Prozac, 
so that he can just relax...

& My friend, the housewife, lives for 
her morning, afternoon, & evening doses of 
Valium, 
She swears they keep her sane with her 
five perfectly groomed children and her 
workaholic husband who works late 
at the office with his fabulously blonde 
secretary, 
Of course, I would never tell her 
that most afternoons whilst walking 
by the river I see them drive by, laughing 
as lovers do, in his cherry red convertible 
that matches her cherry red lipstick... 

& myself, personally, I sit most 
days with a bloodstream addled with booze 
and Klonopin, or if I am feeling feisty, 
maybe an amphetamine, 
& I write maniacally in my notebook 
of the people I see, things I know, truths I 
would never tell - to anyone else, 
& rant my Bipolar rants - appreciating 
the fact that I am also drugged so far 
into the sky that I may never have to 
come back down, 

& we all stay up here - like 
angels that have forgotten 
how to fly - so we stay suspended 
in mid-air, the Dr. is God - & we 
pray to him at every appointment that he will 
not cast us out of heaven & return us to the 
bitter, horrendousness of demonic 
humanity...for that would be sheer hell... 

She-Beast

I stand at odds with you,
Circling you the way a wolf
circles its prey,
Hungry for just a taste of your fleshy
personality,
Your mind is captivating,
At least to me,
The fangs that protruded on the day
he broke my existence in half,
Now drip with sticky saliva,
Ready to lick, to taste, to devour,
Yes, I want to devour you,
I want to swallow you in one whole bite,
Chew you and savour you,
I want to ingest you into myself,

You amaze me,
Staring at my beastly form,
Never flinching, never batting a lash,
Never grimacing, never horrified,
I don't scare you?
I don't make you wary of my ways?
Why....
I eat men like you for breakfast,
Snack on lesser men before bed,
Inhale them like delicacies of which I never tire,
And you...
You don't even fear me,

So I circle you the way a wolf
circles its prey,
Sniffing the air for a hint of fear,
If you fear, I will know,
I will pounce,
Sink my salivating fangs and tongue
into and onto your tender throat,
& I will eat you alive,
Because I adore you,
& if you fear - you no longer love me back,
But I circle you and wait,
Because who could ever fully love a beast like me?