i want to be a poet

you are the song on repeat in my head.
i've been saying that i want to be a poet, i want to be a poet.
it's not like you haven't known that for every breath i take means another phrase passed through your lips.
it doesn't get much better than a handful of tacks, taxing in nature, sleek in design.

you are the thief that stole the thoughts in my head.
i want to be a poet, i want to be a poet.
you mirrored my actions by taking my supposed profession.
good thing i'm decent at adaptation.

i want to be a poet for the pasty faced kids who trail fingers across their many lovers' lips and tell them that nights are nights in all their rights -
nothing is as perfect as the slap of skin and the lyrical breathing of being in heat with the windows open during the winter.

i want to be a poet for hisorher brittle bones, that creak and shiver when it snows.
desperate to be covered in innocence but not so innocent as to be covered in desperation.

i want to be a poet for all the hearts riddled with holes, busted at the seams and displaying their cotton stuffing like a badge of honor.
"look at me, i'm damaged goods. that should make you love me more."

i want to be a poet for you.

the applicant

you do the best you can with the lifelines that you have, and you maintain that all the failure was due to the fact that your hands were tied behind your back by your associates.
it's called can i get a liar on the line for 200?
it's called an acute sense of sniffing out cowardice.
it's called an excuse is not the highest form of flattery.
never have i ever felt so -
all too scripted and polished when it comes to interchangeable endings.
if they find out your plan you have to have an alternate solution.
weak.
petty.
dishonest.
heartless.
brainless.
spineless.
breathless.
faithless.
ruthless.
we play the game better than the one who invented it.
fall for everything you see.
a visage.
a facade.
ntohing more than an empty shell.
but you knew this all along, didn't you.
you were the applicant that never finished processing your paperwork.
the one who became my ghost.
i split my dead ends and my soul in order to keep you alive.
wake me up from this living coma and this deathly life.
you are not the walking contradiction when the contradictions walk all over you.

don't

the only thing i've ever wanted to know was when your heart became so cold that it wouldn't even melt if i stubbed my cigarette out on it. ashes to ashes. dust to dust.

it's more like setting the scene up and then folding it back away like a circus act.

now you see him, now you don't. trick of the eye.

he's a mouthful of cigars, a heart full of tacks. a head full of static and a handful of sand.

intangible. reading all these zeros and ones have me spiraling into oblivion.

don't you want to feel my heart pressed up against yours, chest kicking and lungs screaming for air?

don't you want to feel alive again?

don't.

a sonnet

The stories her heart reluctantly told
Were nothing more than a clever guise
Meant for him to expose his hand and fold.
Darling, she's tricked you with her glass spun eyes.

Mouth full of cigars, head full of fool's gold,
Falling in love with deceitful disguises -
Well, a gentleman has never been so sold.
He thinks he's well aware that sighs hide lies.

The clasp of her locket something he holds
dearly, nearly the reason for his highs,
Understanding his treason is too cold -
Betrayal is the swiftest way to die.

He laid under the decay she would sow,
Buried by all the facts he didn't know.

another failed attempt to shape this heart with my hands

somewhere between hands behind your back and legs (un)crossed lies a deep romanticism that's been playing in my head for longer than you'll know. i've gutted the insides of my last mixtape out because digital music is far more impressionable and new wave. i am farther from the truth and closer to the sin. i've got these ropes climbing around my chest and tying me to my eventual place of death. don't you miss the first loves and last kisses? the only thing you offer is the poison fruit of eternity. i shake your hand even though i know that at any moment, serpents may slip out stealthily and steal away any trace of innocence and naivety i still have.

stay gold do what you're told

Peeling back layer after layer is a tedious job
and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s more
like heart deep and tangles of veins working
against me in entropic glee, attempting to
ensnare and prevent me from figuring you out.

Your mouth is a cash machine and everything
you spit out is pure gold. Where’s my share in
this discovery, this train wreck of a goldmine?
You spit and laugh in my face, attempting to say,
“Oh no sweetie, you didn’t illicit any business
transaction. No signed contract, no share in this
clever gig that you created.” In more simple terms

it translates to you can’t be a legitimate whore if
you aren’t being paid. I’ve paid my dues and I’ve
signed all the lines right beside the scribbled mark
and believed in the gold more than the gold could
believe in itself. The creator must make way for
the creation and fall into obscurity.

The cigarette burns are just a battle wound, and the
bite marks are accrued like weekly paychecks.
Honest hard work never suited hardened hearts.
You are the gun and I am the mouth it’s residing in.
Your only option is to release the safety and squeeze
down as hard as you can without a second thought.

A few seconds, then the pause before hell is unleashed.
Curled finger tightening unbearably slowly, eyes widening
in desperation and noises in the back of the throat like a
caged, muzzled, raging animal. I'm wondering what
happened to decency and style - did it dissolve the
minute you transformed into this manifestation of evil?

Fool's gold. This is chronic, alarmist; I want to make
sure that this goldmine doesn't run out. All the plagues
in your head could never compare to the value in your
bones, the one of pure, solid gold that sold even the
most skeptical of buyers. All the warnings you received
were nothing compared to the lump sum meant to shut
you up and guilt you into silence. You always knew too
much and that, my friend, that -

is dangerous.

testing.