I Think That Bitch Gave Me Herpes

Blood pools on my lips
tasting of lead and stone
I notice only peripherally
almost like remembering the smell of the ocean:
illusive, faint, ghost-like
but still it haunts me
inescapable.
Despite my inability
to focus on the taste
the blood covers everything
seeping over the sands with red
staining all within recall.

Flashlight Glasses

When I was sixteen
I directed the beam of light from a spotlight
pointing
to where audience attention was needed.
A variety of filters
affixed prior to the origin of the beam
allowed me to change its color --
red, blue, green.

Now I am not sixteen
the only spotlight I direct are my eyes
pointing
to what demands attention.
Only one color of filter,
bonded to the glass panes nailed to my head
force a singular vision:
death, death, death.

Falling

Towel falls to floor
next to the cat box
after I enter the bathroom.
It should be picked up
folded
draped, even
to hang once again
from the door from which it fell.
I decide against this plan
mostly
because I'm having a hard time
seeing why I should bother.

Red Shoes

Keep twistin' sidelong: peripheral,
Frail shadows into people
that I don't think I know.
Keep seeing the girl's face
short gate framed in red shoes -
but those got thrown away with the flowers.
She's got grey ones now
that have blue stripes.
Peripheral, frail shadows fail
to manifest as a girl with blue shoes
but I keep catching
red shoes
out of the corner of my eye.

Another Godamn Corpse

Yeah well that bitch is dead now
grey and gone a year now past her man
let's make some secrets first, though -
I think she found another.

Guess he wouldn't care now
'cause hey man, best friends are good for it
even ones that died in waiting rooms
because emergencies aren't always apparent.

Now I guess I get to see dad cry again
mom too, but she always does
for them I'll go and breathe the gas
saddest motherfucker in the room.

Shieldwall

An iron wall

built into my shoulder

to bind the sinew to the bone,

the viscera to the meat.

One of metal, of plate, of screw

to deflect javelins of words

spears of intent:

the weapons women wield.

Deep below the surface of flesh

lying between riven bone,

socketed steel

the wound festers, grows fevered

sending electrical tendrils of warning:

the barrier fails.

A lodestone of iron

forged from the iron wall

charged powerfully, woefully

by the currents of nerves, neurons

swarming through my body:

I am aligned to her

as moon to earth.

She has but to unseal slow-strung lips

permit scant few words to flow

for the shield to fall

and I to fail.

Cell Phones

I walk far from the vocal spigot

bolt-lever fastened and secure

move forward, away in haste

in the belief that time traversed

correlated

with her voice erupting

breaking haphazard safety seals.

Falling like a fountain in my absence

her words come to strike the ground

dissolving rapidly, churning dirt to mud

splashing filth into my footprints

the sound of her jarring,

drowning my thoughts from afar.

Sprinting maddened and fevered,

I dive long and deep

in desperate bid to swallow the delgue,

to take it all within me

but the taste is wrong;

flat, sweet where was expected bitter, bubbly.

It dawns on me then

that though the name is the same

the wrong Sara has spoken.