Beautiful things that you'll never have,
clashing lights dance to an orchestrated symphony
and I sip quietly in the corner.

Protons sent at light speed blind you,
tidal waves curl and bind you
while I peel the sticker off of my lighter.

You've set your heart before me now,
crucified and defiled,
begging for the slightest glance.

I set forth my gaze becoming a statue
to never give you what you need.
Because I like to watch you bleed,
and I'm certain of the doubt
that lies within me.

Lately, it seems
people having dreams
wake abruptly
to the sirens wailing
or the crows cawing
and the harsh realization
dawns on their faces
that these noises
that these dreams
that this reality
comes from within
themselves.

Dump my memories
for maybe just
a few of yours

On the edge of the bed she sat
ripping page after page out of a
yellowing paperback dictionary.

The muted orange glow of the
arc-sodium street lamps outside
of the bedroom window cast her
face in shades of fire, and the sounds
of tearing paper mocked her
in sharp snores of the sleep that
would not greet her weary mind.

Certain words and definitions
would catch her eye in brief
inspiration, but the feeling
was always gone before
the page even hit the floor.

Strips of clothing and shredded
documents littered the carpet and
covered the bed in spiteful layers
of contempt as the scissors she used
to massacre his favorite shirts and
jeans lay open in her lap, still hungry
for more of the revenge she had been
enacting all night long.

Her fingers began to cramp up
and she realized that she was
bleeding from countless paper
cuts covering her knuckles, leaving
macabre fingerprints on the pile
of torn pages from his pocket
dictionary now lying between
her bare feet and painted toes.

Now removed from her trance
by the acute pain and blood
she managed a fleeting glance
at the page still in her palm,
numbered 236-237 and right
on the cusp of the L section
and the M section, she spied
the word that drove her to
this in the first place.

Beneath a darkening crimson droplet read
"love n  1: great and warm affection,"
she sighed, crumpling up the thin
paper and popped it in her mouth as she
began to chew and began to cry.

She chewed and she cried and she chewed
until it was nothing more than a *** of pulp,
tasting faintly of copper and resting sourly on
her tongue, when she swallowed it whole and laid
her throbbing head down on the shredded
pillow, finally able to get some sleep with her
tummy full of love.

Sigh and
never breathe
in again.

for the whole
of human race
cannot compare
to how I feel
about myself.

So far away, the daylight fades.
Behind the bridges in my way,
made of old oak and the smiles
of people two thousand miles away.

So far away, no one can stay.
Here with us in our present day,
all the lost dreams we cast away
with each word we couldn't say.

So far away, so far away.
The daylight fades
like our lives and days,
no one can stay.

Three severed devils,
with their golden-cloven hooves,
stampede upon me.

To every woman I've ever loved:
the pleasure has been mine,
to see you at your most beautiful;
like when I made you cry.

Because loving me wasn't enough
to convince me otherwise,
that your commitment wasn't a bluff;
so I had to scar you inside.

trivialities incarnate

The bar wrapped around in the shape of a question mark,
as if it knew we didn't know why we were here.

Deco lamps hung above since long before we existed,
cigarette smoke left the stained glass tinted
an unfortunate yellow.

Right-angle mirrors play tricks on my eyes as I see myself,
rightfully hidden behind hard liquor on the shelf.

I can't help but try to remember the light of my smile,
so I try one out on my face for awhile becoming
an uncertain fellow.

The reflection in that tricky mirror seemed to be
showing that we had become only me.