being last (or, jb and jk)

tinsel sleeves, bruises on your
arms (or is that makeup?)
and vodka, redemption is a second away

from all the twisted heaps we
become, i'm the one on the bike now
riding straight towards some windshield
and i know just what it's like
to want to prove a single point

i could cut off all communication
like some twenty-first century shutdown
pull the covers over all of the headlights
pretend i'm driving at night
but i'm not, and i want out
just so long as it's me that does it

i guess i'm doing it right.

warm water friend

oh, life
it's a casting off
but i'll be damned if i am wrong
from where i stand you look so
long, kids, we all look so wrong
call it fame or fortune, we
just don't belong
in the same frame, i don't play games
i gave them up for you
it's funny but it's true

the darkness

it's true, the users gather here
once or twice a night and take
what's left of sacred, steal into my
mind. i

left my mind in cellophane so
maybe they could see, you see?
but they paid it no mind
and kept on snatching, pulling at
our cuffs

but it now occurs to me
the users are the used, empty
coke cans and condoms and
they can't help it if they're empty
shit, who can?

so i believe in the beating of a heart
because i've seen it
and even though i've also seen
empty eyes, empty smiles
there's alway blood left to spill

and that's good,
i think.

no air

stasis, like six-year-old me's jell-o
stuck to everything and
sweet but sick. just jump already
if you can muster it
your eyes can only sink so far
into your gelatin skull before they
disappear. and you'll forget, and take a breath.
and then you'll decompose.

yll

i don't feel guilty
i feel 80 proof vestigial universes
floating between my teeth
i am no alexander
save your laurel wreath
but crown me king of my emotions
for now, at least, and let me have my
philosophies and seagulls and
let them mix, because it's fun sometimes

you are a strange shape
a little pear before we sleep
you are poison, for a little sheep
like me

i am no orphan, even after what we said
nobody forced me into
curiosity, nobody's dead so
please don't ask, i have no meaning
so take this blame that has no place
and give all my hope away dear god
i hope i feel like this in two day's
time

crows again

transform me
you wouldn't be the first
sunset eyes, your grace
is in your mouth, a little
sticking out
but i can handle myself
these days

black letters, falling
through your feathers
you all tell me your stories
and i know
they're just as good as mine
and mine all feel like lies

it's a little weird
to walk inside a mind

oh, friendly fire, you
sit so comfortably between
the worlds we all see
and i can't begin to claim
you for my own
but i want to
sometimes i think i ought to
but i'll never know what's best

it feels so comfortable
here inside your chest

transform me
you wouldn't be the first
it wouldn't be the worst
and i know i'll come to love it
as i always do

i wonder if i even exist

i've been living in this
state of disillusion, it's a
good state for losing the solution
it's a way out, friends, that's
all it means
like a red scare, i'm eating
my own body, through the
metro i see you and your hobbies
it's not that i'm lonely
i just don't know where to find you
don't cry, don't even lift a finger
i'm a buried child
i'll give you time to figure
that one out
until then, keep on reading poems