i remember the silent sound of a quiet hurt--the miserly hermit who hordes his company as if it is all he has left. so i thought. i inherited a sadness my grandfather who blew it to oblivion with liquor and nicotine before it caught up to him in his 60's with a near fatal stroke then death by drowning from pneumonia--almost ironic really, but r.i.p. pa. slowing the disaggregation, i was improving my personal hell through good company though always close to the life inside, despondent and gray keeping my happiness in check because the falls are twice as long and difficult to trudge through then. then i was always thinking in my higher brain, and i was sad because all i could see was the suffering we all must accept even when we do not want it. i have never been close to anyone. thats ok i am alright nothings wrong. the southern queen that coaxed me from my mindset of constant ominous divination turned out to have sold her heart to some other man. though her lips could keep the tide back it leaked from her eyes in some quiet hurt when i asked how long i would have to wait until i could unlock her shoes she said, "i dont know". i said, "ok, i will wait". i wonder if she ever knew an honest love. because it was who was inside that i came from the cave to see. though maybe i was lying to myself. then i realized the hardest part of coming into the world is realizing your outer shell is never the same person you believe you are inside. so the fall is twice as long. i am at the crux now. i dont know whether to collapse into the gray ocean and find my cave to write the same melody of a selfish war between my lights and darks. i swore i'd be a stronger man. so i wrote the words "i'll be beautiful for you" a far cry in meaning from "ill be beautiful to you" then there is no choice, its simply an abrasive command of attraction that never occurs. i will be the gentleman battling the growing empty space cause everything reminds me of her and she wants to keep the distance that way. im waiting on the docks. some enchanted night, i'll be with you. ill just play life on repeat until we can share the same fate. im the fool with the ugly face, and a chest full of shame standing tall with lungs full of air and a louder air of pride i dont deserve.

really its a joke
: from feeble spirited miscreants who lack any soulful luster but can compensate for a ornate veneer once one dabbles in debauchery they are forever stained by its addicting high
so out they look
and out the find
sad sorry people inside
its because the mirror shows them a face they find terribly frightening
something they they themselves cannot behold as art divinely orchestrated
it must be manipulated
and twisted
and pierced
and bleached
and stained
and shaved
to be acceptable
so that it is acceptable to the world

then only is it acceptable to them

that is why i cannot stand the bastards of tenuous hearts and even weaker minds

self absorbed cosmopolitans
shameful
like macabre grotesques
the dead are dancing with the dead
beautiful.
and wicked.
pure sin fluid and caustic.
drink it like the sky
lemon eyes.
once more into the breach dear friends
once more into the breach
stuff our walls with the english dead
then laugh
but the sliver hollows out my soul and speaks truth but ambivalent and consoling

ubiquitous specter offering one of the seven on a silver question, fingers posed and frightening in a sanguine mixture. it was a licentious grotesque with the face of seraphim and the intent of a witch cloaked in justice. i walk closer and i say "what am i to do?". i say it out loud austere and collected, tacitly transposing an anchor on the cross, as if to elicit concurrence from the shaky sound waves reverberating off the still damp space. the dark space grows. "damn the light", i say. "it is always casting shadows." an obvious remark.