occasionally, i wander aimlessly
into the forests of your irises,
a cartographer
mapping every detail.
here, time flows differently.
somehow milliseconds stretch
to eternities, but it's still
never enough.

rapt, i dwell beneath the trees
and picnic as the leaves dance
and shift in the breeze.
i read Nietzsche, listening  
to the pleas of mahogany branches
stretching out overhead,
desperate to catch hold
of each other's hands
just a moment longer.
coffee streams sing
next to me. i am lost
in your eyes and don't want
to be found.

then you speak,
"what're you looking at?"
the epiphany springs:
i've known more houses
than i can count, but
you feel like home.

depression is waking
with one foot
already in the grave.
a tombstone
with my name etched
into its stony face
is perched
atop my chest.
unable to breathe,
i lay paralyzed
and think,
well, if this is death,
then we'd best
get on with it.

•••

depression is drowning
while the sun peers down,
ambivalent. my fingernails
are splintered fragments.
i've worn weary digits
down to calcium bone
scratching at the icy
underbelly of the surface.
in vain i draw scant bits of oxygen
through the slivered cracks
spider-webbed above me.
the molecules cut like rusty shivs
through my battered lungs,
sustaining my suffering
for just a while longer.

•••

depression is gathering dust
on the top shelf of an oddities shop,
surrounded by the macabre.
while taxidermy goats stare out
with lidless eyes like opals,
i am the thirteenth tarot card,
misplaced and unlucky.
someone forgot to take me home.
tattooed in my parchment flesh
is a skeleton key hanging
like a noose from the neck of Death,
who reads an arcane text and grins
ominously beneath the hood
of a shadowed cowl, beckoning.

there are no rarer bedfellows
than joy and intellect.
mortal enemies—
fingers locked
around each other's necks.
to possess a shred
of empathy in times
like these is to embrace
perpetual melancholy.
i refuse
to deceive
my psyche.
i will not shirk
the weight of reality.
unhappiness is a virtue.

these incidents prove maddening.
i keep catching myself trying
to figure out whether or not
coincidences explain the way
that hints of you are interwoven
in the secret corners of my brain,
binding fresh philosophies with the strings
of new theories, stitched together
like the seams of my favorite garments.

from day one, i knew you and i were cut
from the same cloth. i saw your ears perk up
with curiosity when we first spoke about anarchy.
you doodled idly on the corners of my psyche,
renditions of ripe flowers, burgeoning
at the tips of my fingers.
though, i must say, in a certain way,
it has been a joy taking the time
to expose the treasures locked inside your mind,
like peeling back a fruit
and sampling the sweet juices i find,
an ambrosia fit for a king.

in the myths of the Greeks and Romans,
a Muse was a source of inspiration—
typically feminine—that controlled
the whims of destiny,
made the words of men
dance right off their tongues,
to be interwoven with the myriad threads
of elegant tapestries chronicling stories
of humanity's fate.

is it such a stretch to suggest
that i might not possess full faculties
of my tongue?
that, at the very least,
my mental agility
might be deadened
at times beneath
the empathy that screams
between you and me,
as if we were rogue planets
spinning infinitely
around the same sun.

with our constantly interconnected
strings that sing so eloquently
like strummed scales
on a ukulele,
can i entice
you to hum along
in harmony?

it doesn't seem
all that far-fetched to me
to think the atoms in our bodies
were forged in the core
of the same supernova.
if you don't agree, Listener,
then lean in close. get cozy.
i'd be happy to remind you
how we sync together
perfectly.

i love the way
my name sounds
every time i slip
like a song
off the tip
of your tongue.
there's the slightest
dip in your inflection,
like a whisper
you couldn't quite
bite back.
a reminder, quiet
as exhaled breath,
that i've been here
all along.

who holds the leash
of the pigs in the streets?  
follow the paper trail:
dead presidents
never fail to be the culprit.

it's not who
but what.
the police always
serve and protect
capital and property.
why else would they block
off a jewel store
during a peaceful rally?

they may not be
our enemy,
but they
certainly
aren't our friends.

they are the strong-arm
of the State,
fodder on a frontline
devised by fascist elite.
the boys in blue
with low IQs
are oligarchs' favorite tools
for bludgeoning
dissent and pummeling
free expression.
useful idiots—
truncheons designed
with punishing dissidents
in mind.

we may well be
the 99%, but they have badges,
guns, and a license to ****
emblazoned on the blue shield
slapped on their chests,
stoking overzealous
racists to respond violently,
a cacophony of bloodshed
seems to be the only language
they know how to speak.

smash the fraternity
that acquiesces to criminality.
white men in pressed suits—
who's speculative spending
lead to economic catastrophe—
get off scott-free
while black men are imprisoned
for possessing an ounce of ****.
not even the blind would fail to see
the "just us" system excludes
the majority of humanity.

all lives matter?
only ignorance could present
such a fictitious narrative,
a self-congratulatory hyperbole
disregarding contemporary reality.
private prisons designed for profit,
institutionalized bigotry instigating
a new form of slavery.
when mass incarceration
lacerates our communities
and exacerbates the conditions
of the working class,
the only dignified response
is to stand up, fight back.

we no longer
have a need
for this blatant idiocracy.
if we truly want to call this country
"the land of the free,"
then we must say,
loudly and clearly:
abolish the police.

left to right,
all looks the same to me.
as far as the eye can see,
a cadre of thieves
waiting for their chance.
when our vigilance slips
they'll kick the chair beneath our feet
and leave us hanging
from the bows of a willow tree.

if ever there was a time
to smash windows, burn limos,
and punch Nazis, the moment is here.
you fancy yourself progressive
yet here you sit on your hands, regressing,
playing the hand you've been dealt.
did you forget the deck is stacked?
the House always wins.

it's time to flip the table over.

toss their rule-book in the gutter.
a clenched fist is not just an image
you stick on a protest sign
to appear edgy. the movement
for gender equality is not an opportunity
for you to get laid. fighting the State
is not a weekend getaway.
carve the reality into your thick skull:
people are dying.

don't you see? they want us divided.
we're easier prey that way.
if they demonize the anarchists
and socialists then they can make
the liberals feel safe. "don't be violent,"
they say. "comply. obey. and we'll mete out
just enough concessions to keep
your guilty conscience assuaged."

if we fail to hold their feet to the fire
they'll throw us in the ovens.
the fascists will drag us out
behind the chemical sheds,
pull a burlap sack over our heads,
and won't stop the firing squad
'till we're long dead.

will you sit idle and watch
them drag us away? or will you
get aggressive, stand up to the State
and say, "not today."
don't be a passive participant
in your own arrest. the human mind
is omnipotent, an emancipatory instrument.
we have to begin
imagining a world without gods and masters,
envisioning what it means to be truly free.
resist the corpulence of false democracy
and make the prefigurative dream
our new reality.