aviisevil

aviisevil Jun 4

the city’s out cold
the moon cries
like it knows something
I don’t

phone rings—
I let it die

what’s left to say
we haven’t already killed
with silence

I’ve felt
everything
too many times

the cogs keep spinning

do more
be more
become less
until you’re
someone else

we work
we run
we laugh like it’s medicine
we forgive what we shouldn’t
forget what we can’t

always waiting
for something
that never shows up

do more
be more

end up
less

less sleep
less soul
less of whoever
you used to be

you wake up
in someone else’s
skin

every breath
spent

dumped
into some black hole
like maybe it’s listening

washed down
with cheap whiskey
and cigarettes
that stick to your fingers

work
run
pretend

we laugh
when we’re dying

it’s better for
company

makes it easier
to sit with people

aviisevil Jun 1

sorrows of Nazareth

the kinds of
sorrows

nested in the
arms of Oizys

soaked in a cloak
of severance

circling the roads
to Nazareth

praying, preying,
pretending

watching the sun
kiss the moon —

the last act of
devotion

before the sun
sets

and we’re all
silent again

aviisevil May 27

Beginning

letting go
of the sun, the moon,
and the stars.

drifting through quieter skies,
faintly vivid,
testing the waters
that never held me.

am i a free bird,
or just dust
in the wind?

to let go
of yourself—

the kind of sorrow
that keeps me awake;

the child
who never slept
or smiled,

still knocking
on the door
i buried
long ago.

how do i tell
him

there is no place
where sleep remembers us—

only roads
we walk
until the sunset
swallows
what’s left.

aviisevil May 24

it lies in you

It can happen in the
middle of white-water
rafting—

waves swirling in
her depths,

reaching for the
mountains.

It can happen on
a Saturday,

between chatter and
laughter,

tea and coffee
and whiskey,

and a lot of
cigarettes.

It happened while
looking for shells at
the beach,

or the rocks in
the river.

Don't you
remember?

When it comes
without knocking,

shut the doors
and windows.

In the middle
of nowhere,

swallowing bones,
flesh, and teeth—

it can happen
to anyone

until it happens
to you.

aviisevil May 12

the fool

And the fool—
wide-eyed, swaddled in pink dusk
and thorn-sick roses,
suckling on the myth of hearsay.

Sketching sunsets across barren fields,
he swings the shackles—
wars, blood-grit, and the stale breath of ghosts—
mistaking the fires for a beatitude.

It is easy to be the culprit
in April’s fickle winds—
no hands reaching for winter’s ruins,
left frostbitten and mute,
like chapters pressed between the pages
of dust and dusk.

The fool speaks no tales of the world—
a bystander, heart ajar,
flinging wide the doors, the windows,
begging the seas to split.
He mouths prayers not his,
sings borrowed hymns—
and does it all,
anyway.

For that is the fool—
played, preyed upon
by the cruel and the cunning,
their feast of him
a ceremony of abandon and appetite.

Until dawn splits the sky—
and the world,
picked clean to bone-white skeleton,
turns, hungry, toward another joy.

aviisevil May 11

the city held me

the city held me in her arms
and told me not to look—

close your eyes,
she whispered,

don’t let your silence
spill into the streets.

let the birds sing,
let the lovers live
and dance.

there is no need here
for someone like you,

with your night
and broken bones,

your silence that grows
roots.

go quietly,
let the light pass you by—

we are a place of the living,
and you are made
of yesterday.

aviisevil May 7

dream error

I saw a dream
in the sky—

silver clouds
poured through
the cracks

tiny birds circled
the carcasses

of toiling bone
and flesh

and here, in
my sleep

the streets
bustled with
chatter—

the many lights
mixing with fumes
and laughter

and the city
like a heartbeat
kept pulsing on

without
me