Valerie on the mic

Life's mysteries

Have cleared the smoke

That obscured them

Now they lay bare before me

And I have seen the truth

I am not the man observing

This body in the mirror

I am not the thoughts

Penned herein

I am not the heart

Rended to pieces by emotions

I am not anything

I am the nothing

Borne of something

I am the bruise colored void

Of the womb that gestates lies

If I would not absolve me

Of my own sins

Then father need only forgive

A date with a fifth of Jack

Drink until I see the center of the sun

Let the whiskey turn my vision black

Bordering on suicide by dram

I curse at God from my kitchen floor

Covered in someone else's vomit

Tell me that fairytale again

About the man who rights his wrongs

And finds the meaning of life outside drugs

Can't cut the strings

That have been holding me back

Because they're the only thing holding me up

I can't run so I have to plan

Carving myself into paper dolls

If I could set you free

I would break the chains

With my own teeth

If I could bring you back

I would take the rubies

Out of my blood

To pay your return fare

Across the Styx.

Until I spoke your name

I never knew hunger

Was an ache baptised in desire

Until I touched your skin

Love was a concept

Then I wept in wisdom

Of things such as passion

I wish you could have known me

When smiles came to my face with ease

Instead of contrived grimaces

Of what I recall they feel like

And I've been drowning my synapses

In LSD and marijuana and benzos and booze

So my memory is a bit off

And I am sure I look ill

When I proffer such a grin

At the exact wrong moment

"She's dying is ..."

And bam, I hit them with

The facial contortionists razzle dazzle

And it registers, to both of us

What I have done

Both horrified

But hey, I wish you could have known me

When smiles beamed from my face

Like the rays from the sun that come

To kiss your brow

I met her in some corner

Filled with shadow and shimmer

Verdant eyes, hair spun from night sky

Broken winged and sharpened fang

She spoke out, elegant grace

Each syllable a beguiling charm

Every consonant

Each vowel with perfect elocution

What did she say?

"My lover, beneath my skin

What is this spell

You've put me under?"

I had yet to speak

Yet she could feel

The words wanting

To escape my throat

Under the willow?

The river that rages?

Coldest snow capped peak?

The empty hollow in my bed?

The more she said

The less I knew,

The less I was certain

That I had not offered my heart

You have a heart

Full of feelings

A soul flickering SOS,

And hope just beyond reach

Let me lift you up

To the places

You want to see.

Let my love carry you.

Up and up

And up and up

And up some more

Until I saw a pale blue dot

Close your eyes

Rest and relax

For we have ascended

The pinnacle

Steady yourself

Brace for the cold

Do not believe your eyes

I would never let you plunge

As my eyelids clenched tight

My stomach filled with lead

And I felt the ground rushing

To embrace my gentle frame

In the middle of a field

My crumpled body keeps

The predators well fed

And her love seeps from my cuts

My lover, my love, my loss

How can I force love to hold on

When I cannot hold my burdens

And my skin wants to scream truth

I, a mess of bone

Tangle of nerves

A sanguine highway

Power plant on unstable stilts

Oh lover,

Was love a mistake?

Oh lover,

I carry an old spark

The current bearer

Of ancient relay

The convergence

Of countless strangers

Who agreed to love

And through the eons

I took shape

I think too much

Drowning in the

Electrical storm

Raging in my head

Flashes of faces

Whispers of past phrases

The drag of a familiar blade

What causes a man

To become a chasm

He cannot chart and cross?

Will I die in the tempests

Of emotions as they bring

Me close to capsize

With every breath drawn,

Borrowed against an

I am not myself.

I don't recognize

The person looking

Back at me,

When I lose myself

In my own gaze;

In the mirror steamed

From cleaning

This body that is not mine.

I cannot remember

The names of my ghosts

Anymore, but they linger still.

The night; the cursed night.

Their chains rattle, their throats -

Screams of all manner

Of beast slowly dying -

And their wretched touch.

Their fingers shapely,

Long slender, and saintly;

Everywhere upon my flesh

Bruised marks - your last words

Beaten into the marrow of my bone.

My blood it flows searching

For the thrill of you, they salivate

No matter

How deeply it hurts.

God, how is it I can remember pain

As if it were present to be witnessed

For the first time?

But joy, happiness, and most

Profoundly contentment are

Dreams conveyed second-hand

From states of consciousness

Altered; the boundaries broken

No apologies offered.

For they keep the demons

Baying and gnashing

At the door to the bathroom

I've locked myself in.

This maze I've lost myself within

I can't tell night from day

The sky, both brilliant and a void

Of the ink I write this passage on.

I'm unaware of my predicament

Unaware of my existence outside

These walls I've built.

Grace and tenderness a luxury

Afforded when I give myself

Permission to slip

Into sleep and all it's inherent

Beauty and rot

Where love is born and felt

But fades with each

Wakeful rise and fall

Of my heavy chest.

Oh sleep. Most keen torturer

Of desire and fear.

For I sometimes find myself

There; upon the heaving shore

Frothing and bursting.

You speak to me in images

That you reveal I have hidden

From my self.

And the corruption of love

Poisons all else

Until I'm left with ash and embers.

These are but a few of the

Ghosts that haunt my waking life.

Where does the beast end

And the man begins?

The man is without claws;

But his words can eviscerate

Without a drop of blood.

For his tongue and wit,

Are the scalpel nature

Has bestowed him instead

Of keratin terrors

Or fangs for ripping flesh.

All beasts are men,

Not all men are beasts.

Rise above impulse

And the facade of "I"

For you are one of many

And all indebted to the other

For the crimes you commit

Against human nature;

Without blinking nor

Breaking your hawkish steely gaze.

Conduct your acts with grace

For yourself

Are all others

And all others are you

And all beasts are you

I come fully furnished With traumas and insecurities You were born vomiting silverware The princess that sees the world As the pea beneath her bed I am the abstract thought piercing the periphery Of your selfish thoughts The most you will comprehend Is the world being a place Of beauty and brutality As you sit from the sidelines And watch life feast On the flesh of her own babies And I’ll be down in the Hypogeum Waiting for my number to be called Four fallen crowns Two kingdoms emerge Six years of peace Until it begins again

Why am I the conduit Why must I receive The divine design But remain illiterate To what has been Instilled in me Marked, heavily upon The inside of my ribs In calligraphy of God’s own hand “Vile wretch, loathsome thing, Be but a vessel for all That I no longer care for May you be the origin of poison And the final drain in which It sickly encircles until Nothing remains”