matthewk

My heart is heavy with

extinguished remnants of

the cigarettes I’ve stomped out with my own

self defeated proclamations.

I’m standing in your kitchen

hovering inches over

the coffee that’s been burnt

sixteen times over

because I can’t even

tell how long I’ve been here.

Give me seventy-two more hours

and I’ll give myself to the ocean.

Hail the devourer.

Praise, deliverer.

Words have lost their taste.

More and more

cement being poured

into my skull.

Open wound machine operator,

skin graft procedure,

sometimes it’s just a matter of a

change of scenery.

I avoid glass to deny the reflection.

You.

Don’t exist.

Yet, I feel your voice

against my barren shoulder blade.

I will never purge

the catacombs of my brain.

Telescopic eyes

blinded by moth wings.

Insect queen

with her crown of driftwood.

Floating aimless through this smoke.

Captivated by these caustic hands.

I pulled her in with false light

and consumed her heart.

We hold our love like cigarettes

constantly trying to pull more

into our bodies until the cancer of it

graciously provides us with a last breath.

I’ve buried eight of her eyes so she’s blind from my own.

I’m living underneath millions

of brightly coloured fish.

But I’m still tangled in the leaves.

Couldn’t go to sleep til

I got this out of my system.

I was born, already weathered,

into a dystopia,

as if Vonnegut was my biological father.

Now, I could write

and write, and write

til my fingers bled,

or the keys on my laptop

were removed of the paint

indicating which letters I was stabbing.

Or I could just sit here

in silence.

Festering underneath the epidermis.

You see, I painted a thousand pieces,

for a thousand pretty girls,

and I gave them all my heart.

But it don’t mean shit to me

if I don’t get to see that four eyed cat

before drifting off.

Last words

before sleep,

like a eulogy for the ghost.

I sleep, not to rest my eyes,

but to see your face again.

And again.

And again.

I have not held recollection

of dreams,

for I coexist in the cycle.

Lucid.

Broken furniture legs,

strewn about.

Abandoned house,

still home to these

ghosts among the shattered

glass.

I see your face in the shards

and remind myself

it’s not a

matter of time

that will fix these bones.

I once admitted to

being lost in the words that

clutter, like roaches,

in the folds of my mind.

Surviving even the most caustic event.

Nothing could have

prepared them,

or me,

for the blinding light

emitted.

You’re the cartographer.

And I’m finally finding shore.

You protect your heart

with a conglomerate of vines.

Intertwining

with the valves

that inject life throughout your body.

I am a simple man, though,

and only wish to be your gardener.

Pull the weeds,

breathe life into orange roses.

Flourish.