trashbag

where my hand in yours isn't a crime,

where our love can be seen and come alive

this, is such a place

beneath the canopy

among the moss and roots and leaves

here, you and I can lie and rest our worn-out seams

let's lie still here

till our flesh starts to surrender

till the maggots and the scarabs claim each vein

till we nurture this earth

with rotting flesh and leaking marrow

will we be useful then, I wonder

to those who hate us so

when we are one within the dirt

your bones all crossed with mine

sinking our own protein in into this glade

to rest here for the rest of time

the world will feast upon us, love

one way or the other

let's choose which way we step into it's maws

which cause we're bleeding out for.

let's bleed for brothers

for our sisters, our siblings

for ourselves! for nobody else

but us

let us lie here

let us rot

and feed the world

This is how our love looks, I think,

as I look down at my shirt, once white, that's now bloodstained.

'

It's red and blue,

and edged by a passionate form of pain.

Violet violence and rouge revenge, cursed onto us by fists, tended to with lips, with teeth.

'

But bruises can be yellow,

they can be black and purple and green.

And blood it dries brown and is easily washed away.

Sometimes we don't fit,

I guess that's what I meant to say.

'

I'm not always red when you are blue, the clean to your yellow-green.

Your bruises they heal, and

at a man,

wanting what he takes for granted.

'

And fuck!

I always wish upon every star, plead with every god and goddess I can think of;

make me me.

Make that word mean what it's supposed to mean.

Me; a man

this man

with pecs, beard and cock to match.

This man, that is me.

'

I stare in wrath and I stare to ruin!

Consume all that flesh with my eyes just so that

for a moment

I can be him.

A violent, bloody projecting, to be in someone else's skin.

'

Fuck.

Let it be me.

Oh stars, oh gods and goddesses below and beyond,

let me wake as a man come morning, with all of what that means.

Let me mean, what it was always meant to be.

'

You can love them too.

'

Just try not to let it consume you.

Try not to let it get in under you nails, crusted brown and smelling metallic, coppar-

it's its own type of red. Leaves its own kind of lingering smell.

'

I know it well. I wish I could say, that I can always tell;

when someone has let Awful in under their skin.

But it's hard to see it's mirror image, through the cracks of somebody else's shell.

'

You wear it well.

And I want to vomit, I want to scream. And I feel proud.

The feeling lingers, cloying, and the world is Loud.

This is when it gets you.

'

Awful things can happen to awful people, and you-

you can become awful too.

'

'

'

I hope you trip over it, get your foot stuck in it, if you try to ignore it and just plough on.

Just so that you have to look at it to carefully walk around.

'

I hope I am a hole in your life.

That even if you couldn't bring yourself to miss me when you had me, you will now that I'm gone.

'

I am a Presence, or so I'm told.

I am something to behold, to stare at in awe, to hold close in fear, to promise things to.

Of course, that last one, I knew.

'

You promised me things, remember? You do, because

I left a hole in your life.

And now that chasm that was me, won't let you leave your guilt behind.

'

'

'

For surely you will run out soon, surely there can be no more life with breaths as silent as yours.

You laugh, tell me;

'

I'm relaxed, I'm calm here with you.

'

You say that,

as you sit between my talons,

as I lay my face against your neck, touch your skin with my fangs and

as my claws graze over your throat, the lifeblood there.

'

I am cold-blooded, hot-headed and skinstarved. And you-

you just crawl your way over to lay in my arms.

I whisper;

You should be scared.

Like you are?

Like I am.

You kiss my twisted knuckles, tell me;

We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

'

'

'

- I don't think I'll ever not be terrified of hurting you

look here, all my demons gathering, they know I'm tasting ash. They comfort me as I am weeping.

Salt and sulfur.

¦

This is not a space that I will ever feel joy in;

for here I wilted and waned and faded, and you did nothing. The air is tarnished by your betrayal.

Choke on your guilt,

please.

¦

This is not a body that I will ever feel at peace with;

it is wrong for me, fits too tightly or too loosely. Itches and aches. But I'm trying to let it breathe.

8 hours

I tell you in the evenings, in the dark times, your drunk nights,

that I love you. That

you love me.

It's a tender thing covered in heartache.

Because its never enough.

It is never enough and I have never thought of love as a guaranty for kindness, for staying, for;

please, dear god, don't leave me.

You-

I can't carve you out of my chest if I wanted to.

I don't want to. I'm keeping you there till I die.

But we will say a thousand goodbyes, the first and the final.

We will scream and shout and fuck!

... so many angry words between us. So many broken promises.

You-

you drag me down, you pull me up. A paradox;

see this, this is love.

I love you. You love me. Please, don't ever forget me.

I'm not only for your drunk nights, I will love you when my heart breaks.

Come morning, even then, after midday.

Scream ourselves hoarse, when we fight, when we mourn.

Let me release this monstrous rage, who claws my throat to shreds,

who yearns to split my skin, craves to cut its bonds-

¦

I am them. I am not a monster.

I have been taught not to rage against the stagnation. I know better.

¦

Don't I?

¦

So why?

Why is my throat a mess and my chest a prison?

Why is the mere thought of release cathartic? Orgasmic? Divine.

¦

Tell me who my rage is, if not me.

All these bottled up injustices that dream to be free.

Why was I taught to view them with dread?

I just want to be free.

¦

I want to be me.

I want to be rage and ruin, kindness and comfort.

I can be both, I swear it. I swear it!

¦

There's a scream in my throat. And I am running out of air.

Someone compressed decades into years of torment.

Maybe that's what those years are;

lifetimes lived and shaped by single sentences, words laced through with everyday malice.

You don't remember them.

I can never forget.

'

I am out of time, running out,

watching and counting those last specks of sand in the hourglass.

The face that stares back is a child's,

but I carry eons,

straining my back and crushing my ribs,

down,

down,

'

down.

'

I ruled a country, heavy crown sits phantom like atop my head still.

But I stumbled out of order

out of time

through a wardrobe, from between snowclad pines.

And I have raised a new generation,

I carry crimson rust in my lungs from choking on blood.

They do not see.

The wrinkles have gone from my face and my hair has lost its steely grey.

'

You will understand when your older.

I fathered your line.

I bested dragons before your time here had even begun.

My spine is the curve of the coast and my lungs were torn up to plant all these trees.

Don't talk to me of older. Fuck.

With our brimming rage and our sharpened tongues.

Standing here, jaded

- I walked cause I can't afford a car and the sign is made with a sharpie two lines from giving up, on cardboard from the last time I bought dogfood -

it is not what it feels like.

It feels like passion

and pain and injustice that burns through my veins.

Some days it is heavy as lead,

but today I am angry and I spit vitriol fueled by dread.

It is not hating more and loving less.

It is driven by love,

I am full to the brim with it.

Because I love the bees and the clean ocean. I love breathing fresh air and seeing

green, green, green.

Listen to my anger and you'll see all my love for this wonderful, fucked up world.

Listen and learn, change.

If not

And I'm singing as if I'm on the edge.

If I stop, god knows,

god knows.

He doesn't tell me but he can see the road.

¦

I'm singing like the radio, belting out the beaten tunes.

The road is all I have left to face and it's coming for me.

Christ, it's coming.

¦

I'm on the edge, singing.

Only god knows,

if I'll live to see another day

or if I'll go down swinging (singing)

And he isn't saying shit.

¦