Lattice of Litanies

a forsaken tether

vibrated into nonexistence

never supposed to strum

hum its lethal payload

belly of the maiden

bodies intersect the Roche limit

breach boundary quandary

a latch in longing to no receptors

betray the convention

and forge in hazy morsels

the receptacle would trail in wake

donor blabbers in giddy naivety

strengthen in the heat of the confusion

encased within social permafrost

before yawning anew

in striked cores and mundane shadows

the consummation of souls decays

wearied instruments of hands in revenge

compartmentalised dimension

taunts the works of men.

especially the forsaken tether

elongated in desperation

exhaling to glimpse her warmth.

Back in the day, Coke was in cents

But now that ain't make much sense

The companies deprive and drive up prices

Hiking up the money for books and spices

"Nay-say, my friend, price is $10.95"

But sir, we need to keep our families alive!

We find ourselves struggling to make amends

Leaving people in power to create dead ends

What will we do, if we can't pay our rent

With land-lords trailing behind us hell-bent

On profiting from the common people, the peasants and the slaves.

The ones who work tirelessly to keep our streets paved.

The rise and fall of the economy is inevitable

But wages are lazy, and their evolution is unstable

Like their creators, they turn a blind eye

But with bruised ones they may see that

A pay rise is just a ticking time bomb in disguise

That companies deftly detonate to people’s surprise

We can't change the future with one collective action.

At least, not if God forgives the root, Eden

We have to take our sloppy ideas into action

To prepare for the successors and our history's redaction

Don't we want to be remembered as the man who saved up

When times got hard, he zipped his wallet up

Saving for when spring finally came

He can get all he wants, and live life the same.

Further up the race track, like the life that we lead.

Is the path that brings others to succeed.

They profit from their hard work, but instead of the convention

The poor suddenly don't exist any more (with a little retention)

The eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped

So instead of living in a world already resized and cropped

We can free humanity from its lame nature, and opt

To resist our cravings, our addictions, our expenses

You gotta level up to get off the crowded benches

The ball's in your court, it's your turn to move

Life is a chessboard, you must prioritise what to do

Eyes up on the road, my friends, and look straight ahead

And if you can see my future, then I applaud your head.

I see a free world, where Coke costs a dime.

And humanity leaps from its cosmic cradle

I

at first, when you sat next to my friend

and we got introduced as acquaintances

I thought nothing about you.

another kinda-pretty girl

that I probably wouldn’t crush on

and as such irrelevant to anything else.

I should’ve known you were different.

I don’t know what changed.

you kind of just

tolerated

me.

and not dare to prod me away.

why?

why not distance from the egotistical moron?

who liked to goad bullies and then pour

about their “traumas” and trivialities

that no one would give recognition to.

the epitome of attention-seeking

a half-baked popular kid

who possessed such a troubled mind -

frothed with such worldly and otherworldly sins -

that the crevasses and creases of such

reminisced the scaffolds of the abyss.

but you did.

you just… listened.

nodded and waited.

sometimes even reply wittily.

mimicking my cthulhic broth

that wasn’t supposed to be infectious.

at least, not to an angel like you.

and by your

hesitant presence

your existence became the reason for mine.

you were the shrine of life.

my holy grail for flourishing inspiration.

mortality taste-testing heaven.

and now, I really did find you -

the round spectacles and otherwise neutral expression

your simple ponytail and fleeting eyes

and the rare grins that grasped glimpses

of emotion’s inferno -

truly

beautiful.

II

skip ahead to the true theatrics.

we have the confession

despite the truth already rotted into oblivion

and our peers rolling their eyes

to the hopeless euphoria I lapsed into

when you were in close proximity.

mere existence becoming

blissful infatuation.

and of course, we have the rejection:

“sorry, I only see you as a friend”

which was far out from the truth.

and not in the hopeful way.

I don’t even know how you called me that.

how I deserved such a hallowed privilege.

a repulsive, fanatical idiot like myself.

it was only me trying to sidle next to you

get up close to see your face, your smile

with perverted, sans photogenic glances

and forcible emotions clawing for reaction.

for your empathy. your kindness.

your acknowledgment.

I the sole driver of this forsaken tether

that you could’ve just fractured anytime.

why didn’t you slaughter me out?

weed me as another snaring vine?

why didn’t you lay pesticide on your words?

if only to ward away a devil’s apprentice?

or just simply to exist without wilting?

and why did you tell me

that you actually

reciprocated?

III

now under such a naive guise:

a bond testifying as teen romance

dictated by mythical depictions of outlandish fiction

and exacerbated by desperate imagination

begging for emotional triggers

and bluffing normalities.

yet all that changed was the name

of the game.

as we continued to postpone

our mediocre variations of love.

manifesting in apathetic texts

over reluctant wires

sipping what little expressive grace

- lost in transmission -

and leeching it off to the ether.

all that did was lead to a year of renewal

built on the foundation of anti-truth.

and only then did I finally realise

the futility of it all.

the confrontation.

the furtive attempts now blatantly fallible.

though you said so yourself -

and how much you later denied it

as those tendrils coalesced in retrospective guilt -

the words that lay the blame upon

myself.

righteously.

“you guilt-tripped me into liking you.

because I really didn’t want to break your heart.

I thought of you as more than a friend

but less than a crush.”

more or less the message.

you cannot fathom how such insurrection

within myself ensued.

against my envisioned utopia of naivety

castrating its rivets with love-struck rust

and grinding the ashes of budding whims

to be left in the awkward assonance of high school.

how utterly well-deserved.

IV

now I ponder

mutilate myself beyond repair

flailing out flares before

retracting sorrowful serpents.

I’m a narcissist.

a really bad one.

a romantic turned too sentimentalist

now hard-boiled under societal shells

all my bad habits lead to me:

pulverising my myopia to skyrocketry

by doomscrolling past midnight’s bedtime

uttering profanities to express mild disdain

at pitiful pixels, praying for gambler’s luck

a quota upon my sympathy for my delusional needs

and scrape up on deadlines when hours remain.

and then I vent and question

about the shambles I find myself in

whilst embedding knives into my flesh

drawing forth anti-ichor

evermore.

yet as for you:

I can, and I do see

the noose I threaded lovingly

round your neck of complacency.

I am horrified.

the culminating nadir of the injustices

I have condemned against you.

no. enough.

let me ricochet your head off such

an unholy instrument.

though you may be bruised and now

finally have a justifiable trauma

to hide behind.

(finally, you have an excuse to be TRULY broken.

you weren’t before, just so you know.

just lost.)

as for me, that noose shall be mine alone.

a fitting end to a relationship i tried to force

I’m sorry, my beautiful lotus

for corrupting you beyond repair

time to dye myself into pyrrhic hues

and scream into the sun’s glare

a comet whose wings have faded in jaded retribution.

I was supposed to be your xavier.

the light-bringer, now eclipsed

but I suppose i would be your demise

if I don’t hang up my sufferings.

and hang up myself.

maybe I would be the scarecrow

to the fields of life.

a gleaming foreboding of love dialled to obsession.

a fear warning.

so please

do find some other

pretty flower to love.

they envelope me again

a basking embrace of retribution

the torture so justified to my soul

they thrash me apiece

twirling strands of soft longing

that never manifested further than dreaming

we shall mourn in vain, in vein

thrumming with visceral echoes

of her presence. i needed more

but all the while i pined for her

i never ceased to cull my pride

and bury my shame where the sun never shone

not once did i entertain such rejection

or even a flirt laced without buffoonery

that betrayed meek but genuine intention

what hollers should i have made then?

such professions laced with fearful purity

the desperation that so characterised myself

instead I abandoned the endeavours

the conquest of her soul to be mine

despite the fledglings of love clawing within

i settled content with fleeting remarks

of the unheard, the unrequited odes

paradise incarnate i was undeserving of

because, my dear lotus:

i am obsessed

with you.

maybe too much so.

since that’s the case,

i need to let you go.

i’d rather you not be thinking about me

than you being unable to.

rolling plane, circumnavigating

round a phantom point of chaos

whirlwind of calamities and calm

sighing in the lapses of gale and wind

etched upon the surface of time

constrained grooves that undulate

panes of pains and frames of fame

the valleys birth the civilised world

the uplifting slopes clambering tirelessly

against constants of constant tyranny

seeking the solace to centrifugal freedom

rather than the rappel of centripetal soul death

towards the edges where breezes whisper

the hastiness halted for hearty hearths

that flicker during the eternal midnight

and scorch the sinners of Dante’s muses

on the precipice of reality, the fuzzy boundary

that flag earth so naive to harrow otherwise

such reside the pioneers that greet g’morrow

with blazes and grins that holster the madness

they attach themselves to mental abseil

before departing the planes of normality

assailed to hollow consummation of duty

clawing back with superhuman inhumanities

such is teetering on the edge

some balance better than others.

maybe…

heaven

derives its root

from the tiny apartment

down the block

illuminated with neon

in such raucous ruckus

limbs sway hollow

the bass exhales to no avail

only rippling the flirting facade

that drowns in misery and penetration

the vice of such spirits

flickering synapses of lapses

that veil yet hordes of reckoning

a broiling sea of evaporating thoughts

simmering into shimmers of sustenance

consummation with the stomach

gustatory ecstasies so vainly pain

necessity a calamity of futility

belching out pathetic fallacies

and congeal all things juicy

a breakfast spread whipped with chaos

moulding out clay truths unbaked

the resulting severs so soothing

yet burbling the carcinogens of guilt

that curl up and intertwining with lucife-

no.

that mustn’t be it.

ah, i see now.

a couple - boy and girl

intertwined with reciprocate humility

stomach satisfied, full of butterflies

assimilating into each others hearts

cradling everlasting fulfillment

that ought to be it.

when eternity stops to listen.

and love starts taking notes.

5 posts!

it starts with simplicity:

a glance, a grin, a wave

gestures of goodwill only

albeit with probable doting

a glimmer of genuine affection

and then worlds scatter

refracting rose-tinted lenses

resounding into restless rosters

of futures that reap irrational rewards

from such fractal glimpses:

a dashing date deemed the catalyst

for delicate ventures and down on one knee

damning devilish deeds for intertwining dance

until death draws a sickening tear in devotion

the fruits of freakish finalities evident

matrimony, comradely finished fundamentally

a floating rift fuelled by the fountain of naivety

a fast and forward freedom to the grave

with every insignificance i revelled:

in chords of cordiality cremated

culled by cream of the intellectual crop

castrated coldly by crammed coast

the canal of the coming apocalypse

every evening of evocative easiness

the caress of entering electric eels

that embrace and envelope in your eyes

of ending the earls of heavenly hell

but the mind is so stupid:

it need not bothers to interpret

interpolate information of importance

into inkly blots and iodine idiocies

instead of being in the interest present

perhaps it’s better to aim for the aces

asserting the abacus of assonance

in an already altercating alternative

those scars tattooed on by worldly obligations

dragging your screaming form against the raping table

drilling wounds maniacally for the “greater” good

but even with those crevices in your soul i love you anyway

what you’ve done to people who give you human semblance

i don’t think virtual murder of the soul should be justified

but they did try to uplift, personalise you as a moral handbag

despite your over-reactionary state i love you anyway

your words saturated with the prospect of rebellious anarchy

sprinkled with a touch of moral sarcasm and superiority

a toxic shield from which emanates out hints of your core

albeit with radioactive rivets, i STILL love you anyway

don’t you see my wilting flower, even at your rabies-like corpse?

frothing at the mouth with tears left unstuttered, unsaid

that i really do not wish to inject the morphine marking eventide

instead provide the antidotal verisimilitude that you deserve

i hope as you lie, lying in shivering mortal frame

your soul clawing for release, even if it’s to the fiery pits

just know that i hope to provide you eternal rest, whether in this world or the next

you may be scoffing and all

generations doting your shots

physics seems to spectate resignedly

whilst the crowds chant mindlessly

cooing over the beauty of swishing nets

and the scoreboard proclaiming accolades

you may receive the shining gleams

of innocent eyes across the oceans

an inferno passing embers to sparks

the accompanying honours of metals

ascribed constructed values upon wealth

fame, respect, love cocooning a shroud

you may innovate the game haphazardly

entire formations to cull and counter

teams revamped in name and number

even rules warp around to accommodate

whether a countermeasure or realisation

immortalising deeds in embedded pitch

and yet you always forget about me.

the keeper of dreams, your nightmares apparent.

your star-studded fame would not be possible

if not for every deflection, every blockade

eyes overdosed on superfluous adrenaline

legs twitching, doused in burning flame

if not for unrequited surrender, the total sacrifice

of my entire body to set fire to the box

every time beady forwards came closing in

i get passed the sugar last amongst the acclaim

last man in line, omitted from the formations

taking me for granted, a permanent fixture

the children sigh uncaringly at every block

yet the squeals of disdain when it slips past

the collective cries of sorrow unjustified

have you forgotten what soccer scores upon?

the coveted position should have an antithesis

yet disparate interests uplift the scorers, not the stoppers

the game cross-breeds whilst i remain static

hazy eyes still glaze over the two stand-outs

until the ball gets to them… or doesn’t.

for when full ninety whisks about in freedom

you may have created many dreams for them

whilst i cull the opponents’ to cultivate such.

so next time one of your kind backtalks me.

please fucking remember who’s keeping US

(content warning: vivid imagery of… not so nice things)

hi.

oh, this?

all this mess?

oh, don’t mind it.

sure, it isn’t every day.

that you find you know.

someone so downtrodden.

it’s just a room. four walls

and a ceiling etched with hollow words.

boring out the ceiling fan drooping

a mobile of nooses and knives

sure, it’s not the best baby shower

but at least you could easily find a way out

and look at the encouraging words on the wall!

just do it, hang in there, i’m here for you

to motivate you in scrawled scrawny font

i had to carve it out with my teeth you know

and you gotta admit it was depressing!

it’s not much better hanging on the walls.

just bodily fluids sprayed without care

it paints a picture! kinda. it’s abstract, trust

see? that snot reminisces of a face

the runny diarrhea the gradient-ish

and the urine pooling at the bottom?

damn that wallpaper can really soak that up

the yellow really accentuates the texture

i haven’t gotten to completing my masterpiece

especially towards the higher corners

i should actually paint the door sometime!

you know what, the floor is probably the best

a comfy carpet of chip bags and food

probably rotting out anyways with bacteria

but it’s fine, they just decompose the food

and then vomit on my vomit that lurks beneath

a sewage system of sorts for the entire thing

where? i don’t know. maybe the floorboards

just filtering out the solid stuff and absorbing

the fluids of soda and shakes and shit

it’s really efficient, and it kinda works

and if you look over there with your expression

which i suppose is probably painted with shit

what you call emotion and shock and repulsion

stammering out futile platitudes and advice

whilst your instincts scream in desperation

of self-preservation, of selfish selflessness

like come on, who wouldn’t be itching

to scraping out of this comfy pigsty of mine

and your little tiny sympathy is bemoaning

trying to aid me, airlift me out of this hole

well i suppose you could say i don’t have gravity

there’s nothing in the first place to keep me rooted

now, would you be so kind as to stay with me?

just, sit on that pile of bodies in the corner over there.

if you were to die

i would cry

lay on my bed

mourning things unsaid.

stain spasms spamming page

with curses so profane

heaven and hell cower

at a broken mortal’s power.

hollow heart beats in futility

what purpose now without ecstasy?

to keep one up from the nightmares

that now sought to slander cares.

if you were to die

i’d seek some sort of strife

as solace, superimposed over

another broken heart over a brother.

maybe i would willingly sacrifice a lamb

because it could hopefully hold back the dam

the floods, torrents that promised ending

it’s wrong, but honestly i will do anything…

to get you back, by my side forevermore

since you pierce me from bunker to my core

and instead of twisting said lethal spear

you whispered sweet nothings into moral ear.

if you were to die

i would cling to what’s mine

for everything i have is yours

beaming beams and hardwood floors.

the entirety of my personality

basically bared for all to see

you never dared to exploit such vulnerability

and that’s why i cling, a koala on its tree.

and though we haven’t even been intimate

that’s a given, we were just friends we said,

i’d still be willing for us to maybe try

a hug, maybe even a kiss, if you would abide.

if you were to die

i would drown in my sty

to never see your smile again

wrenches all hearts, multiplied by ten

burble in my filthy darkness with tear rivers

because every time you existed i got shivers

a promise of limitless comfort and joy

exuded by your personality; you’re too coy

i would be unhesitant, if you allow it

to listen to your presence, every single bit

and though you depreciate and tell me no

you’d still be perfection incarnate even so

if you were to die

i would certainly shy

from the world that took you away

from never to now today

the primal hordes will come

swigging antibiotic scoffs and rum

minuscule yet consume from the inside

yet welcome them as antidotal plight

even the cells that might rebelliously fester

would scarce be eager to prey on weaker

since if i sadly survive i would emerge

lest that virus stalemates on victor’s verge

alas if you were to die

i would welcome any flight

from this mortally immoral plane

which i met you, such a shame

surely in worlds adrift, beyond peripheral

we had unified there and beyond ethereal

or arguably worse, but still tantamount

we split ways, especially emotional adhesive

and though heart, or hearts may regret such

it still wouldn’t hurt, wouldn’t hurt as this much

as in this reality, this mortal pane of pain

that in block universes, i would relive the same

because i think i love you.

i dont know about you too.

if you don’t, i wouldn’t care

if otherwise, deleted despair

for now, just your presence, your presence is enough

whether silent book browsing or flirt “bluffs”

your company would always drain me ashore

but hours later i would come begging for more

and if this isn’t love, then a bit below

because i admit i honestly don’t know

i just hope someday that you will be aware