Worn

Venomous words leak
Overflowing a numbed conscience.
Flower petals fall
Leaving only camouflaged thorns.

She sit and stirs,
A thick mud of tears.
She awakens
As the smoke billows
Out of his vacant mouth.
Stains on her apron.

His calloused fingertips
Leave behind larger scars
In need of more than
A stitch or kiss.

Those calloused fingertips
Push button squares
Through threaded gaps
Over the heart
That pounds through
A Pill-covered green vest
In a civil masquerade.

High society dons
Fake smiles in darkened alley ways.
The pain could fill buckets
In nails and shrapnel;
All waiting for a fuze.


As the evening's ballroom dancer,
She puts on her gowns and coverup.

For Rachael

Risen out

of most frigid hell

stand I,

tattered naked

black

in the eyes,

absent of much soul

in them.

Death white

and

claw toothed

I killed my way

free

of the falling green

acidic storm.

Exhausted,

crushed empty

as I forced

open

a wall of fearful distortion,

my body

melting, now

through any

sense

of logical light,

burning dark

tepid breath,

I -

I am through.

numb

in presence of proof

that a beating heart

was just a fairy tale

to me,

smiling little girl,

hoping, stupid thing.

at least there is magic

in a mundane end.