#9: Of Tainted Skin and Sin.

A pale map
Of crisscrossed
Scars
Of juxtaposed
Realities
Of stark
Ugliness.

This doesn't fit me
Quite so well;
So tear it off of me,
And burn my shame.

From scar
To scar
To marks
To ruins:
Of what
May have been
Beauty-
So many universes ago.

Flay off this
Unwholesome undesirable
Loathsome layer
Of lies I live.

Hatemesomuch
Detest and despise
Look with distaste at
My decrepit desolation.

And when you
Leave me tonight
With three soiled banknotes
Under the broken lampshade
            Don't SLAM the door-
       Darling, even noises
     Make me ache sometimes.

#8: It Is A Beautifully Drugged Night.

'Tis a beautiful night
Too restless for silences
Too heavy with truthtelling:
So maybe it's time
You told me things.

Then

Tell me, sweet love
Of the first time you kissed
And how crimson stains
S
   p
       r
          e
              a
                  d
On all your unsullied soul.

Tell me of nights
That stilly stole sleep
Away from the eaves
Of misty murky memories
Of runny black ink.

Tell me what your fears are
And I will feast on them
Ravenous beast that I am:
Nibble and bite and tear
At the edge of your dreams.

To make you feel
Twice-bought, thrice-owned
In my need to devastate, and to
Possess and consume and devour
Satiate my appetite
           for you, and You are
    Afflatus to the dead dried
           husk of bad poetry
    Elate me, delight me
           with your ecstasy of notknowing.
             
So come over,
The night's young
And I am quite unfinished
At the art of self-destruction;
And I love you so,
And tonight, babe,
You are going down with me.

#7: Blocks and Bonds.

She walks on
She walks alone
Treading the razor's edge
Cutting too close.

Like a piece of paper
Clutched too tight
And then set adrift
Hollow emptiness.

She sways along
The tides of the
Cold winds that blow
From nowhere to nowhere.

Withering, withering
Feeling the fingers of the breeze
Pick and pinch and pull
Bits of her soul away.

With eyes glazed
That shy away
From every unkind
Gaze of pity.

She swayed
Then swung
Then swum
Then flew

Along the tides
Of winds that once
Wore away a soul
And gifted her wings.