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.