Unbroken Ground

Listening to the pilfered blues
Of a white man’s band
Knocking on the wall,
Stumbling blind cotton-head
Past the unlatched doors
never so sure as in sleep.
There must be an escape hatch
That ends not in my own blood,
One would hope.
Sway, sway
And hold yourself as a dancer
In a waltz built for one.
A single day can crumble the castle,
And you’ll never forget,
So some demanding days require a preemptive strike:
Just go to bed as soon as your eyes are open,
Break the glass and
Take some fuckin’ Antabuse in case of emergency;
Worse case scenario is
Perpetual submergence.
Can we have some levity,
Please?

Phantom Hands

Harder to run, now,
down dark stairs.
Easier to stay where it's bright.
Still in the light, though,
one can stumble.
No needles now, no bottles.
My hands want to cut, pierce, burn.
I put a fork in them, a cigarette,
an army of vitamins, a pen.
The pen says things I can't.
Those things can also cut, pierce, burn.
Can't take them back
once they're there in black and white.
Free to be misread, or correctly interpreted;
who's to say which is worse.

What can they do now?
Useless hands.
Perhaps they'll fly away
and bring back an olive branch,
or a torch
to better light these dark stairs,
boost my immunity to the past.

Self, Same

Oh, the same:
Blood/tears/blood,
The obvious.
I'm afraid that comfort leads me
To ignore,
Whether a crowded amphitheater
Or a solo opera,
Playing to a stand of firs.
Though there's little difference, you still can't find it,
It's still there.
It doesn't matter anyway,
But that's okay with me.

When a man who was dying and wouldn't admit it
Lived on my couch,
I was so very not there,
And it's still the same,
Still the same not there,
Raspberry crushed velvet and dark lipstick
Like it's 1996,
Sex still the same obscure horror,
Furrowed brows the same,
Still bite before a bark,
Same bored and gorgeous swollen,
Sorrow still,
Sick of self, same.