going quiet

why did you swear to me

and let my numb feel odd

i understand the sympathy

of disparaging your own love

.

why did you swear to me

and let my numb feel good

if i don’t pass your humanity

i’ll let you be the first to intrude.

Need You (To Need Me)

The way you pursue has always been so see-through

Drugged in the veins but your system’s more ice than blue

If I dipped my red flags in it, would it come up white?

If I asked you to stay, would my rotten lips cave in tonight?

.

Everything seems opposite when you pull the rug from underneath

I never cared for normal, but this groundhog day is making me sick

Everything’s back and forth when you swallowed up the ocean waves

But the taste of drowning wasn’t enough to bring me back to my grave

.

So give me one little careless gasp, and a strawberry swisher lie to match

I’ll splash it around my mouth and smile while I promise, no strings attached

Shrug another chip off your soulless shoulder and shatter it to smithereens

If peace is all there is, wouldn’t it be better to just-be than to end a has-been?

.

Because if I tried to pursue, I’d only end up more than see-through

Drugged with fake dopamine but love the rush, my failing system can’t get a clue

If you dipped your fingers in my chest, just before you falsely confess

Would my temples come up bloody red, or would the words cave in my unmade bed?

They Say “Don’t Open Old Wounds…”

I don’t want to reopen my old wounds

But it’s simply the only thing I have left to do

There’s nothing more to be said about me

Except for a condolence or a passing apology

.

Picking at the scars, hoping for an infection

Hoping the festering bacteria would spread through

Hoping for sensation, or something maybe close

Hoping that these old wounds would feel brand new

.

I’m already too numb to ask for more medication

Already too debilitated to beg for a final miracle cure

I’m already too sick, far too late to try on and on

Already at the brink of extinction to still feel unsure

.

I’m opening old wounds, bleeding them out to dry

Doing everything they all told me not to do, only left out to die

There’s nothing more to be done, no band-aid left to rip

These old wounds seem useless when there’s nothing left in me to fix.

ring-necked

took me a while

to figure out

that the feathers

on your back

weren’t from wings

of your own;

but rather, from all

the doves you

strangled in your sleep.

unclasped

and darling,

there’s something about

the way you let me in

there’s deadbolts in my chest

chains weighing down my brain stem

and safety pins embedded all over my skin

.

but darling,

when you undo me completely

i rarely find myself bleeding

does that say something about

the way i left myself open just a peep, still

secretly hoping that you would quietly sneak in?

asunder

Psychoactive

Inject me with doses of venial notoriety

Iconoclastic illusions and swindled sovereignty

Affect me with notions of what you seem to be

Allow yourself effervescence without transparency

.

Infect me with doses of vulgar expendability

Imperceptible imposters lacking sheer propensity

Afflict me with distortions and what you are to me

Alleviate our own indolences without slurred stability.

ready, steady…

ready steady

hit the clutch

i’ve got your greed

you’ve got my guts

.

ready steady

please me dim

please you sober

displeased again

.

ready steady

back and forth

know thyself

more than thy worth

.

ready steady

hit and touch

bruised and blue-lipped

unlove too much.

getting (un)even

i feel nothing.

there is nonexistent

skin all over my

chalk-drawing bones

and i want to erase

everything and start

over again, but not

before blowing

the irksome dust

all over your

smug face

.

and if that’s too

mean, then i’ll gargle

ten shots of muriatic acid

while singing your

songs, and i’ll

make sure to spit it

back up in your mouth

and rinse thoroughly

so that the holes

you poked in my stomach

don’t begin to sepsis

.

because fuck you

for ruining me like this

go ahead and kick

another snake-charmer

off your legs—or give

in and just go to bed with it

you know you want to

and if the million

venomous bites on your

thighs don’t kill you,

i hope your conscience will.

ipecac milkshake

& i wish there was a soft metaphor / to lower you into this grief.

–Donte Collins; anger

have you found your next darling spithole yet?

not meaning to come off rude but

i just don’t have photo albums in my home anymore

of all those weathered stacks

of glossy tourist postcards and airbrushed polaroids and half-arsed private promises which led to

quick pity fucks and more simpleminded conversations (weather? news? one plus one?)

when you ran out of coffee grounds

and breakfast was cold

and the fingernail scars being shamefully picked on were still quite scarlet

like vampire tongues

fresh off a feast, a binge, a hellfest

of a hot-lipped hunger pang

how many towns did you ravage and terrorise and theatrically swoop over with your velvet raiments

how many people fainted

at the mere sight of your anaemic cadaver-sheet skin and anabolic empty marble glare

how many thrust pitchforks punctured your abdomen and how many furious torches

burned the inside of your pelvis and how many corroded teeth did you lose chewing on

leftover bones the next night

sitting all alone in your grandiose dining hall that smells of decaying rats and halitosis

spitting out the occasional tough marrow or stray spider leg (you never really got used to that odd brackish flavour),

how much of it was

worth it to you?

you were acting on impulse

instinct

some other impressive, egregious “i” word you have yet to figure out;

i can’t blame you.

blame is too weak a word for anyone with half your brain to ever understand

i can’t blame myself

except sometimes in the middle of the night when my juddering teeth refuse to unclench (pissoffpissoffpissOFF)

i understand

you’re the same as everyone else (nothing wrong with that i’m wrong i’m wrong so wRoNg) but

sometimes understanding doesn’t mean forgiving

[just nod] yes i understand

okay fine, you crave makeup kisses

caked-up made-up fake love fake blood

painting broken boundaries all over brocade bedsheets screaming

slipping almost begging

WARNING don’t cross this line and carefully step over the crude chalk drawings

where many unfortunate deaths have occured

splintered spines and shredded vascular systems and cannibal sick sighs

you barely even toed it and you lost an entire fucking arm

past that finish line

where they unhinged their jaws like singing serpents and gorged mercilessly

until their overbloated stomachs

ballooned up and burst into confetti just in time

for the next baby shower birthday party funeral eulogy

and you might be the next

victim

will you fall for that

a g a i n ?

never bloody mind that—

because we’re all about acceptance here.

we’re all about holy terrors cavorting with holey beggars

we’re all about your tremulous callused hands on the inside of someone’s delicate insides

coil up their wrenched guts again musicman

spill your unraveling lullaby all the softly shrieking butterflies have desperately searched for a way out

and you crushed them all

just to feel iridescent powder sparkling in your stained palms at 3 a.m.

reflecting the gentle throb of the glow-in-the-dark stars and the grating television static and the godless blue in your undilated pupils

when she’s lying next to you fitfully asleep

dreaming of an infinite field where the weeping azaleas never bloom (she still wonders what it meant)

ribcage left ajar just a peep

cascading umber hair and stick-insect limbs splayed all over your worn pillows

sometimes unconsciously feeling your freezing nape

and you feel nothing

at all

i hope you’re happy (satisfied?)

or i hope at least, that she rinses off your fraying toothbrush after she uses it to secretly purge in your newly-cleaned toilet

if that’s not too much to ask for

and you also left some day-old lemonade and reheated battery acid by the fridge door

just in case

but you missed out on buying coffee grounds again

even though there’s an unhealthy smattering of pinned yellow-note reminders

right next to her faded number

and you’ll be moving out next week

oh well. oh well. unwell.

my obscene picture collection is still incomplete even though it’s set to display on a national gallery next week [this is your cue to clap]

but you never called back so

i hope you’re happy (shit—sorry—satisfied)

she’s not

and please, don’t forget to gargle.