(this is a piece began a year ago, but has undergone a ton of changes the past two days. several lines have been added to the ending. not sure how i feel about it.)

…

face it:
it’s the only reason
you even brought us here…
to masturbate to your authority;
forcing us into the non-linear / labeling
us as still life:
“see, all they ever do
is grouse and grunt!”

for ‘the good ones’
you gave your grammar,
the self-stammer of the subordinant…
an “american inanimacy”
but you never loved us
as a literate.

“the dark and
the dangerous,”
you called us.

“beasts, if left unbound;
unchecked… after we’ve made
ruin of their bodies & minds
they will wreck us!!!
just wait / just watch!!!”

not a prediction. it was always the plan.

it’s what you’ve always wanted of us,
face it.

this throes-of-death dynamicism.

this controlled coin toss
with our individual holocausts
clashing; you want this.

this cinematic soliloquy
with you knighted in shine & glitter,
sword gleaming with all of heaven
beneath you as you hover above
this academic doo-rag with the thick lips…

“the dreadnaught vs the fetish faith”

yes, you regal gladiator,
mythical and moribund,
one of us must surely live or die
(if we can’t do either together).

so it’s my forearm
against your nape, your head
submerged in fluid metaphors
until you gurgle & drown and crack
at the crimp, where even in death
your critics are lenient and wreath
your whithered woes as higher art.
this isn’t murder;
i turned you into poetry.

from a specious god
into a precious metal.

even now, from your dying
breath, comes a flock of sparrows.
a rainbow. …movie rights.

my mother’s femur as flotsam
in your wake of shadows…
and yet here i am,
broken and bent above you;
this wail for the ages,
my gourds before your grails,
my survivalist’s romanticism
for crossroads and midnight deals
with demons and devils
and every other fallen angel…

you see, this is what – i – want.

to be a stigmata in full,
to be a stie in the eye
of a villainous sun…
with the hero’s welcome, in waiting,
wherever i call home.

like your’s, mine’s is also
a time-honoured tale.

one of ruin & vengeance
and vindication… a life
on its own terms.
lungs bursting with salvation,
the supernal coursing through
the bloodstream… this body, mine.
these actions, mine…
this life,… a love,….

it’s too late to feign remorse.

mary shelley tried to warn you.