Category: –

Doom like a vulture’s cry—a sputtering

flame choking on honest

water; a sea wave that stills mid-air,

crest and trough multiverses apart.

I think I saw it first, brimming in the

pools of your concealed pout.

You can’t fool me: there is stubborn moss

growing within the cracks of your voice,

your eyes bruised and melted,

making me feel like a wayward child

seeing his mother cry for the first time.

This is my last plea to you:

pat down the last few slabs of earth

into my screaming mouth and let

the grass grow from my bones. After all,

what else am I, but something

gnawed and spat out on mosaic floors—

A toothpick on a chocolate sample

Once craved.

Twice forgotten.

Never loved.

———

with scaly fingers, i tuck these

thickened, dry lumps of quasi-forgotten

nightmares with a sticky duvet to sleep.

i sweep the dust off another, and smoothen

it out on my weathered mountains of knuckles.

the cabinet i thought i’d never open

slams shut, scaring away the spirits

of need and thirst and greed,

until girl in the mirror pins me down with

that familiar gaze.

i tilt my head but she does not tilt back.

instead, she tells me she hopes they will not

notice my wispy, dry hair—constantly

bundled in a scratchy mop—

or the way my lips crack at the edges,

when i smile to kill the silence that stalks like a predator.

but she can only hope: so as i, can only pray.

entropy is a laughable thing.