It’s Valentine’s Day.
Daddy makes coffee in two cups heart-shaped cups.
Mommy is in bed, sleeping in.
Daddy waits for Mom to wake up- she doesn’t
but she’s still breathing.
Daddy sighs and goes to work.
Mommy shakes my sister and me awake
and pulls us into boots and coats and gloves.
We tiptoe over shards of glass on the way out.

Mommy drives too fast.
She makes me watch when the light is green for go
at long intersections because she keeps getting something in her eye.
We get to the airport.
Mommy dashes inside like a guilty person in a movie
but I know she’s innocent because she’s my mom.
I sit and watch planes disappear into bundles of clouds that look like white cotton-candy
and planes land pulling their wheels into their chest with a fast whoosh.

Mommy comes back empty-handed.
One long sigh passes her lips
before she starts the car.
My sister asks where are we going.
Mommy only gets a short sound out but I know she means home.
“Good,” my sister says. “I’m tired.”
“Me too,” Mommy replies.

I will always be
And even the stars I am made from
Have become black holes
Fuming with all the light they have devoured
I will always be
And my devolution to a lower species
A primal instinctual beast
That pities passion and hates what's beautiful
I will always be
A hurricane that never meets the land
A bitter force of nature
Who dies alone in some northern sea
I will always be
A bubbling stewing volcano
A ticking time bomb
Just waiting for the right time that never comes
I will always be
Beat down

Because I want to be strong I am weak
Those fickle petty rules by which we live
            Have made me sick
I'm not immune to having dreams and desires
When every better part of me
            Has been seduced
By the velveteen swans that flash as images in my mind
And on the plasma screens for which I bleed

And really I have grown
Grown sick and tired and exhausted
From breathing the air I need to live
The toxic vile air
Causing cancer
From drinking from the well
Which has been poisoned

I like my poison undiluted

I like my poison clearly marked
By sinister skulls and crossbones
          With the worst of intentions
I would actually enjoy the knowledge
That this poison in my blood
           Is going to reach my once enamored heart
Which used to beat with the hope for tommorow
And now is a rhythmic device in a song full of sorrow

And really I have died
Dangerous oderous chemical sand timers
I've died a thousand insecure lives
In a false world
With fake meaning
And my arteries and veins will attest
This disease is a foe that never rests

I like my poison undiluted

You were always rotting
I never noticed
They remind me of you
Skin wrapped around ankle bones
Wearing through their soles
It’s different here
Guess some just rot faster
I peeled back the covers and found only the lacuna
The blue orange fuzz
Delineating the shadow from the concrete
You grew apart and dissipated
Smoke settling into cloth
The back of my sleeve
How come?
How come?
Everyone is always leaving
Warping through their bodies
Did you ever finish your story?
Soft knuckles rapping on your door
Knobbly knees
I know it’s selfish
Perpetuating the fabric of your existence
Like a categorical imperative
A crumpled head filled with spirits
Is carried to the tip
It happens every Monday morning
Hollow men run the streets
But they leave the rot
They always leave the rot

does it hurt when you die?
i hope not.
i hope you don’t feel it
when your cells fade out
like a star that stopped burning
that you still see.
i hope i never cling on like that.
i hope the end is fast
and drifting
like waves maybe, or
tumbling clouds in the wind.

does it hurt when you die?
does your body still feel
from beyond the grave?
please don’t cremate me.
please don’t subject my bones
to the flames.
please don’t bury me.
i hope i will never feel my skin decay.
i hope i will never feel again.
nothing is worse than the numb
apart from the feeling.

does it hurt when you die?
even growing old
do you feel pain as wrinkled skin
and once-beautiful eyes
change?
i can see your body lying there.
you look so peaceful.
are you sleeping?
or does everything hurt too much?
i hope i never know.
rest in peace.

You may not be surprised to hear
After being brought up by a violent mother
And years of reckless living
That I have had therapy several times
And bought several t-shirts
Art therapy
Group therapy
****** therapy
And it must be said that they helped
Along with proper medication
Things improved and I became calmer
In fact, a certain amount of peace descended
And many people were kind and helpful
But no-one tells you what to do
During long hellish nights
When your spine and brain are screaming
Reminding you of just who you are
And why.

                         By Phil Roberts

The rides full of adrenaline
The crowd full of laughter
The air full of a variety of smells

A carnival
A place of fun and enrichment

The carny grounds
Someone ends up hurt
Dies on sight

A carnival
Now a place that is closed

An empty place
Full of empty rides
Silent laughter

A carnival
Only a place of dares and bad choices

More death arises
More lost souls wandering
The carny grounds beginning to fill again

A carnival
No longer a place of fun and enjoyment

Screams fill the air in the night
Rides never stop running
A haunting of what was once a beautiful place

A haunted carnival
A place where the spirits roam

What good is a poem?
It will not bring back the dead.
It will not feed the hungry
Or shape the steel.
It cannot heal the scarred
Or cradle the heart broken.
In fact I cannot say, at this moment
If a poem can do any good.

What good is a poem?
It can heal the heart filled with despair.
It can inspire higher ideals.
It can rouse laughter from a weary soul.
It can inform.

What good is a poem to you?

Dear shattered moon
Let your pieces drag the sun
Shooting stars forming rainbows
Untill the dawn has begun

Jigsaws in formations
Millions of dreams to explore
Basking in the rays of you
Reflecting the waves on shore

Towers leaning, obtaining
The warm décor
Flowers on the open air
The smiles painted under a dusty floor

Little whispers of art
Black holes in empty rooms
Constellations in the moon
Loves evaporating fumes

To be not one with ones self
Half and half inside your coffee cup
A difference between
Six feet under and a million miles up

Never disturbing
The content of the beast
The savaging lust
The constant of the feast

Patient of a rendering love
Picture frames holding foreign lands
I could only roam in silent days
When darkness and light came hand in hand

Drown not just the stars
But the strings attached
Puppets of a sinner
The bridge collapsed

Mighty hands are the only hands
That could build the moon again

hope is a hoax
a sick joke that always ends
like a punch in the throat
cage up my guts and
crush the butterflies
departing my vacant stomach

i've grown sick of all the lust
that always crawls over us
invisible cockroaches scurrying
across emaciated flesh
give me the needle the drug
part my skin succumb to sin
addicts trying to kick our habit
desperate for the next fix

whispers and insinuations
an endless simulacrum
an earnest emulation built
on selfish impulses that
never fail to corrode and
corrupt until there's nothing left
of us but shattered shells in
self-made hells begging
for another bump

and while no god presides over
this unending infatuation
i've asked the skies to answer why
i am always second rate
gathering dust while
you **** a hollow husk
of a human being

am i the crux
of true love or
am i just a crutch