april chaps;

// seven-eleven

the harsh, fluorescent lightbulb distorts my image, and for a second i think my face has lost all definition— that i’ve blurred into the dirty floorboards, lost all shape and color—an insect on the wall of this beat-down, run-down, broken-down 

seven-eleven. 

i grab a twinkie off the shelf, and go to the register. the cashier doesn’t smile when ringing up my order, and 

i shove a five dollar bill into his hands—

fucking inflation.

outside, i smell the faint scent of gasoline, and tar. and suddenly, i’m seven years old, playing on the railroad tracks, the toxic fumes a loving memory of a childhood far, far away. the night air bites at my nose, my eyes, my ears, and i know it will sting if i don’t hurry and get inside. the neon lights glow in the darkness, the faint, buzzing sound of the only convenience store,

a lost sort of paradise.  

and like moths to cheap fluorescent lamps, we flicker to the flame. i rip open the plastic and shove the twinkie into my mouth. the cream is lewd and vulgar. choking, i cough, but keep shoving the rancid, filthy sugar down my throat.

the tar smell is long gone. all i smell is chemically engineered sugar, wantonly filling my nostrils until my eyes water. the seven-eleven illuminates the path forward, the buzz of the shoddy, red and green neon sign the only sound i hear for miles.

except maybe a car engine, farther off. i swallow, the sugar biting my tongue like acid.

and, smiling, 

start the trek home.

// snakes and lilies 

spiked lilies drape over the armchair, a love letter neatly forgotten

you brush a shaking finger to my ribs, charred and ruined, and

desperate to feel something—anything—

i bite a kiss into your mouth

and pretend the small, sharp sound of surprise

is enough to get me there.

you tangle your hands into my nerve-endings,

searching for that pure, undistorted bliss

unmarred, [unruined]

i let you think you find it

let the high take you to the edge and back,

and now, smiling, one hand draped over your face,

so boyish.

i stare and imagine a snake; devouring your head 

 whole.

// in my mouth; light

slivers of hope ;
taste bitter {in my mouth}

stargazing, my belly full of 
{light}; hope alchemizing
into particles

the sun eats the moon, the blood distilling into constellations 

and full ; my belly splitting open,
the light escapes and turns into a flash
 of
shooting stars

//

i want to write beautiful verses about the sun and the stars, 
but dread eats away at anything meaningful.

it feeds on my sadness, 
[ my ] loneliness 

and, in a hopeless stupor, 
i only write these few, short lines.

//

i keep a blade sharp,

at the tip of my tongue,

i dilute myself, become more palatable 

easier to swallow. 

the blade rips through my mouth 

coating my teeth vermillion; 
                        accusing me
of living a lie.

//
a storm in a teacup;
a tempest in a glass.

maybe it’s my nature to be wild and brimming with life. 

maybe, 
storms shouldn't be contained.

// sunflowers

blue lungs; 
blue in the face
the stems green and splitting,
tighter
         tighter;
hung by the very sunflowers
i once prayed for.

inside the ugliness,
inside the grayed out static
buzzing between the neurons; 
writing from within the inside
of my abuse.

the sunflowers are weeping; 
their petals long-lost lullabies ; tightening 
                           tightening

and i am numb
dazed, out & disillusioned
too far gone [from this world]
yet so far 
from the next.

// the revenant

i rather chew glass

than ever reach my hand towards you again.

my body knows better;  yet, still, my heart seeks 

its latest thrill.

when visions of deluded memories

swarm the space between sleep and waking

i stare at my bathroom tile,

and wonder, how many more fucking years

before your spirit finally separates

from mine. 

am i the ghost haunting us?

or is this the final debt to be paid between us. 

sometimes,

i can’t help but wish your chains were still tethered

(to me)

on the other side.