Burn Victim Pornography

His

Judgement

Cast

Net

Caught

Trap

ped

or

Forth

Ahead

Before

First

Predictive

or

Spell

Divination

Predictive

Witchcraft

Sin

Out,

Garden

Out,

Out

or

Plaster

Kept

Shape

Memory

Kept

Inert

or

Die

Immutable

Inert

Gamble

or

rate

redundant

Rend

er

r

When, at last, the earth yawns,

the dirt beckons,

and my body responds

without soul,

there will be hewn a name

into bedrock, proclaiming

"Sir Selick, though gone,

pays the toll."

From my casket of flesh

fled the spirit,

Greying matter, unmeshed,

fled the mind,

leaving naught but a wonder

of art rent asunder

by artists against bottom lines.

Though the Town may be Dark,

let me see it

in the child eyes'

starkest contrast,

Beyond its derision

there once laid a vision

that Henry remark'd wouldn't last.

The final thing

I'll feed the soil,

with no bones

in time's greed

left to spend,

will be dead futures' haunts,

possibility's taunts,

what this film,

unimpeded,

Lo, Chilléd fingers, cradle soft my prayer!

to Come, o Spring! aback the prophet beast

soon, wheather, badger, bear, or woodchuck be,

and I - or we?, thy temple to observe

Thou Queen of Queens, thy supplicants here knelt -

a dove in hand, a lamb upon the pyre,

a heart awaiting thine atoning thaw,

But, hold - such firmamental fallen grace

should lie upon the pale and tempting neck,

the shoulder waiting bare beneath its coat,

the pressing linen-tinder lighter palms,

the earthly blessing kneeling by my side -

What heat thou've bound for bloodless steepled me

is misdirected, lest thou call upon

a conduit delivering thy breath

The dark is a blindfold

without comfortable pressure

The tension at my joints

a balance of animal struggle

and commanding inertia

i still hear You moving

somewhere close

enough to smell intention

A metal tide rises

against my soft tongue

kept in place by a jaw in revolt

the drowning flood saturates my throat

The rest of my faculties fail

before the soft engulf of

my eyes,

my only chance to find

else

a_way

out

i am going to die here

a small and helpless end

tender as caged lamb

i pray my death will be worth Your cruelty

and my meat worth Your appetite,

hungry for

Drowsy lid

donned half-hearted hook-sliver above

to better hang

dark's heavy curtain

against firmament

I watch her up there

almost still

as we turn

I stare so long

I swear

I can see her

falling asleep

Tomorrow

she will hide away

and leave us with

holes in heaven

and tonight

she will defer

self

in

side

women

Loving them

too

wrong

Making my

self

sick

Taking

care

with blood

letting

leeches

suck the

imbalance

d humour

left

full of holes

bile

and no

​ better

off

In my

self

obsession

I miss

ed the trail

of dead

bodies

I had

amassed

dis

member

re ing as I

went through

collecting

body

parts

I didn't realize

I would need

to make a new

self

I mourn what

who

I can't

make

right

by

history

an epitaph

to a

cruelty

still

scratching

at the splintered lid

of its coffin

until its

nails

blood

less

and bile

black

reach

the loose

dirt

I replace

every

morning

and the corpses

I have

butchered

lie

in shallow

graves

You part

wet lips

over my

ear

and swallow my

whole

name

like

fresh

cherry

popped

from the stem

between your

teeth

in knots

and I forget

how much

I hate

to hear

people

It's not enough

to keep a fold

ing knife

in my

purse

I need

to keep it

open

in case

the split sec

ond it takes to

arm myself

costs every

thing

I reach in

to my purse

with bare ha

nds

to find my

wallet or

phone,

pull out blood

y fingers

too damn

aged to work

around what I

need

When the time

comes, will I

be able to h

old

the knife

The powers that be

often change their

idea

of me

What's allowed,

they remind,

is never guaranteed

Edit their proof

of me

at will,

meddle

in demographic minutiae

whether I know

or care

or object

Everything old

made new

is old again

My name is

whatever's on file

today

and that's fine

for them

because my tits

are in front of me

every day,

friends and lovers

know the name

I answer to

honestly,

and I can read the mind

drawn

with quivering hands

missing detail

in blind spots

a cluster

of segments

to figure

where

about

I fall

on paper

not made

to last

a gesture

at a place

containing

the unrenderable

In my purest expression

I am unfinished

without an end

not enough

It kills

me

to watch you

decaying

alone

It would kill

you

to do it at all

whether I'm

there

or not

What must be done

must be done

in private

so it doesn't

get ahead of itself

It will

come for me

on its own

and you

won't be there

to watch

me

You can taste

the stale cyanide

leaking from

my false tooth

that I don't want

anymore

Your tongue

digs at it

like you're

trying

to save

me

I can feel

the gap

where your tooth

was

I don't want to

swallow

until

I need to

but you are forcing my

it used to be

that you wrote

in open secrets

and I could see

how you spelled

out

your curses

where my name

present

cropped to sigils

wasn't enough

to anagram

all your anguish

but you don't

keep

that record

anymore

and when

curses

creep in

to decrypt

they are spoken

I don't know

how to spell them

but they sound

more

like me

and less

like you

than

Keep it to yourself

There's still so much to work on

When you die

they'll all see how perfect it is

Keep it to yourself

There's so much that could go wrong

When you die

they'll pile on the credit you live for

Too much to do

Too much to get to it all

Might as well not try

So no one can say they could've done better

Keep it to yourself

There's too much out there now

When you die

all your work might come back into style

Keep it to yourself

There's too much to excuse you

When you die

all your work will be ghosts without haunts

Keep it to yourself

Your life's a dirty secret

That you're dying to tell

Too much to do

Too much to get to it all

Might as well not try

and the world moves beyond it

in choppy stuttering

People move too quickly

here to there

and say too much

without lips to read

All you smell

is warnings

and all you taste

is what you smell

and all you feel

is harsh and inescapable

Discreet signals

blend to a roar

of looping feedback

Everything

you need to know

all at once

and impossible to parse

You can't catch everything

only catch up

and hope nothing important

slipped between frames

When they ask

if you caught all that

you nod

because they won't take you along

The beast feeds

like it can't stop

even as its claws

cut its mouth

in greedy haste

but it can

And its mouth bleeds

from raw wounds

it can't allow to heal

Its teeth wear and decay

beneath the endless

onslaught

of more

We are only allowed to hope

it chokes itself still

It's quicker to rip seams than to make them

Fabric stays folded

creased in its habits

Shoulders bunch together

refuse to smooth and spread

And the neck rounds too far forward

I walk half-strung

My eyes

the buttons with which I fix myself to the world

still hang loose towards the ground before me

but I pull at rebel threads

to keep some kind of shape