maze

the wine dries,

dried blood smells like wine,

a snake twists round an old trellis outside

green as greed and glistenin’

like dancer's skin,

he lies with a knife

under his pillow, a knife lied 

in his bed 

a snake twists round

a broken bannister outside 

and I can feel its slither within my head

curling around the past

every thought every thread 

swallowing me whole 

needle through a hedge 

we didn't build the maze

we were just born in it 

wandering its endless corridors

with tired eyes 

frostburnt coals 

I’ll schedule you in

lost you, lost you again

my fairweather friend

I’m making plans for next week 

we’ll have brunch by the pigeons 

feed them half of our English Breakfasts 

and we can sit on a stump in the woods 

and argue about nothing;

no, I’m tired of talking

change of schedule:

I bury my phone by the oak in the backyard 

deep in the grassless mud and I walk 

to the nearest gas station, maybe

I climb into the unlocked trunk

of someones car and I get out 

when I feel it stop moving at a red light 

and I run out into the forest to the hymn 

of condensed traffic

I think about this 

all the time 

something about.. everything 

makes me tired of talking 

makes me want to live with little sparrows

on their little, happy, hopping feet

and their tiny, searching, curious eyes 

something about poorly designed urban planning

and traffic and cookie-cutter-catalogue american architecture 

and dead raccoon, dead fox, dead deer, dead cat, dead dog

dead man cut in twain staring at the sky, side of highway

the pink flower of vulture’s heads pecking 

downward, downward 

I’m simple really 

I’ll make dandelion tea 

I’ll crush berries with my feet 

I’ll make a pie of pine bark and poison

sell it as Homeopathic

next week 

false vacuum

 your dreams of omnipotence overcome you

the loneliness of others is easy to see

it secretes from their laissez-faire laughter

radiates forth from unshuttered eyes 

i watch them move about their lives with a pity 

a projection of my own reality 

how small these people are

small their sufferings, small their joys 

a cuckoo clock existence, it rings 12 

and they come out on conveyor belts 

bend over, kiss the hand, twirl around

and back through the doors 

effervescent inadequacy, 

courage in the tiniest of life forms 

glass bottles turned to pebbles at sea 

perhaps this is how it'll end 

in an instant, in a blink

as fast as light can blind you, I always thought

the best protection we're ever given is our own eyelids

so that we may lose ourselves to darkness when necessary

perhaps this is how it'll end

a box cutter tearing a line into a tightly rolled ribbon 

we'll come unfurled, untangled, forgiven 

my dreams of omnipotence are only 

dreams of a power great enough that i would be 

safe enough to forget myself entirely, I want

perfection so that I never 

have to worry, I can dance through life

unfettered, telling all in drawn out whispers

'what if this is how it ends?

in an instant, in a blink 

imagine that 

close your eyes and picture 

yourself on a brink

toes in the air, heels on the cliff 

you've been given the gift of blindness your entire life 

imagine if you could truly see with your useless eyes?

the yellow moon is an eye, the sky a stomach 

and who are we but tender morsels lain 

to dissolve in a bottomless pit of bile?'

the moonbeams touch me with their long nailed hands 

I close my eyes in respect 

nothing great 

desires to be seen 

all the angels

live inside hidden things

blades of snakegrass

turn back slender hands that may shatter between the smooth pads of your fingers 

turn them back to the beginning 

I slip out of skin as spirits slip from sleeping bodies

I slip out of sleep as lithe legs slide from stockings after mass

 

have you kissed the knuckle yet

have you knelt at the foot of your bed

aching for the past 

I found a ouroboros twisted into a double helix 

hung from a branch and buried 

behind cascades of Spanish moss 

I unhooked its jaw 

pulled the tail from between its fangs  

and when it finally had room to speak it whispered 

careful where you're standing, girl

once this was a seafloor

all your mountains underwater

you'll find their fossils in the caves 

keep your footing, keep your mind 

you never know when either 

will falter without you noticing 

once I was a serpent, grand enough

to swallow you whole

now I am less than the length of your arm 

see how decompression makes pitiable monsters 

of us all

I returned the snake to its rightful place 

hidden in long blades of grass

knowing it will only revert back to its previous state

after enough time has passed 

careful now, this was all ocean once

keep your footing 

lest you sink

and all the wheat will catch fire

a few hours before the sun rose
she got in her busted-up car and drove
out to where the fields were wide
empty and barren
out to where the road thinned and roughened up

she pulled the car alongside the surrounding tree line, turned it off
stumbled out drunkenly and walked
as far as she could into those fields
step by slow, careful step

when her feet gave in she collapsed to the ground without a noise
and stared up at the dark sky

after a few short moments of this
all around her the fields began to grow
wheat threaded between her fingers and toes
they grew tall rapidly
and when they stilled she shakily
reached into the pocket of her coat
and pulled out a handgun

she pressed it gently to her temple
left it there
as she breathed in the new harvest
as she revelled in the not-yet sunrise

then she pulled the trigger
with an exhale
all the wheat around her burned to nothing

when the sun was finally hanging high overhead
the car, the wheat and the woman were gone
as if they had never existed in the first place

and who's to say
if they ever did

I wonder how many miracles 

have never been reported

living easy

call me Atonement
the contract-killer

the sarcophagus has room for one more,
you'd always lean in to whisper

11 at night, 

my cat starts foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal
goes limp in my arms

10 at night and you're whispering again,
drunk this time
we're both vindictive alcoholics
but all I do is beg, this time
pride is the first thing I lose in love

9 at night and I walk the needle-edge of life
the burning trapeze, my feet aflame
my eyes are dark and the sky?

Who cares for the fucking sky anymore?

"I have come to learn ants from my time in isolation,
they're constantly moving
occasionally stopping by one another
sharing pheromones
grains of sugar
and crumbs to bring back to the nest,
if you watch them for long enough
you can see that
they're no different from us

no different."

the magnifying glass massacre
the tragedy of flip-flops,
of rain

2 pm on a Saturday

I think of what you said over the phone
while I watch a PowerPoint presentation
of your life
while I watch it pass over a picture of you and I
smiling next to each other in a chain restaurant booth

I'm trying to hide my face in my shirt

and all your crooked teeth are showing

yeah

you were right

snake eyes

the devil and I rolled dice in a dive-bar
thirty thousand feet above the ground

I wondered while the clouds swam past
if the creators got it wrong

that when the mastermind above the sky
was rolling his million sided dies
he kept ending up with snake eyes

I keep ending up with fives

we took shots of milk and vodka
and he steepled his hands together like the characters playing him in cartoons often do

gave me useless life advice like my father used to

we watched a few aircrafts fly by in silence, playing our little games of chance in the deafening quiet

after the final roll it was clear that I had lost
which I should have expected, really, considering

he didn't look as happy as I thought he would with winning
just deeply, inexplicably tired

he let me stay on the cloud with him for a while longer
and I nursed my white russian as I looked downwards
at the earth

which, very slowly
started to catch light
and burn