manicblues

[manicblues]

We are withered

Blooms of heartache

Palms of beggars

Supinating in the glow of a grudging fire

Lamentations

Stained in sunken smiles

We are stolen:// Souls of longing:// Ghosts of xylem:// Leaning inwards like the jambs of this open heart:// Overwhelming:// Like this listless love...

This is far too good to be sending anonymously.

[manicblues]

yes, a million foolish things

spoke before thinking

made shards of steel chain

broke before linking

i didn’t know

that i’d i fall before leaping

where did you go

when i dreamed before sleeping

yes, a billion heavy things

thought without speaking:

“if it would help, might i love without touching”

“just to hold on, could i heal without running”

and care without caring,

and fear without scaring–

can i die without screaming

just to grieve without leaving?

[manicblues]

keeper of my tarnished tongue

bless these ragged breaths

your dazzling dance draws my eyes

back out of black holes

could they be polished to pierce darkness

constellate our scattered sky?

[manicblues]

yawning back

frantic dance of 

shuttered eyes 

bowing inward to

foreclosed hermitages

millstone of inadequacy

whistling wind sighs reassurances

wavering whispers wrapped in winter

flame should warm

useless thoughts

[manicblues]

[manicblues]

Night, barrow of nothing human did my mother age thus below this moon? did my loneliness create caverns as wide as want, dazzling as sparrow-wings careening with darkness? the thud against the stone echoes still, sound of death, sound of eternity

[manicblues]

shrinking fugitive

stared my shoulder to cinders

tracing eulogies

[manicblues]

as you leap from stone footholds

abandoning a damp plateau

for wanton vernal currents

do you think of broken bones?

while you plummet from above

in flight from that grinning black hole

to desperate reunion

do you think of open wounds?

as ridges crumple behind

and you greet those clutching eddies

sworn to choke sharp déjà vus —

do you think of forfeit flames?

can you fathom gravity?

when you cast yourself from caution,

eyes alight on unmarred clay,

do you think of shattered skies?

as rushes whisper records

of matryoshka horizons

while you lie rimed in velvet

do you think of cloven knots?

within impending nightmares

damned to nurture blooming sorrow

cocooned steadfast in zenith

do you think of fallowed groves?

and in that winking mirage

where homeward motes lilt and glimmer

amid starsoaked succulents—

do you think of cobbled streets?

the palms ferry melodies

for repossessed eternities:

wreathed in sleeping greenery

do you think of mended wings?

[manicblues]

however fleeting,

this tranquility, this peace,

it mellows my mind.

whatever ails me,

for whomever my heart breaks,

love yet overflows

[manicblues]

i wanna write something but i can’t figure out how to make anything I’ve been dealing with sound good

[manicblues]

um so i can’t fucking sleep because I’m sick as fuck and it’s unbelievably hot and dry here and my throat is closed and i can barely talk. anyway I’m bored as fuck and waiting to go work all day so here’s a poem i just wrote enjoy

rotten walls tenuously protect the last of your ashes soon to blow away in the wind or burn up into nothing surrounded by sand in a vast, opaque dome blinded months gone by without hydration or sustenance impossibly clinging to life in the agonizing heat my fingertips a mirage shimmering strung out and shriveled up like leather baked under a prehistoric sun a pile forever smoldering dangerous to touch filling my lungs with acrid smoke suffocating this weather is so fucking shitty lmao

[manicblues]

enough

I

Could keep

This up

All day

But there

Are words

I shouldn’t

Say

Books

Would argue

I’m

Not well

As

Of now

I

Can’t quite

tell

I

Could keep

This up

All night

At least

Until   

I’m out

of light

Peace

Of mind

Is out

Of sight

My eyes

Tell lies

They don’t

Work right

You won’t

Play nice

A mind

On ice

A man

That fights

With death

Dies twice

[manicblues]

mix

I hate that I have to hide behind metaphors

I’m jealous

Jesus Christ I’m so jealous

I can flip ten times a day

How is that fair?

It’s never the just right

Moonbeams. Followed by ice.

Followed by rainbows. Followed by night.

Followed by screaming. Followed by silence.

Dilation and contraction in real time

I personify the sun

Except the eclipse is always imminent

Tearing at my skin

For pleasure or relief

They took my motor away

Apparently 80 in a 40

Is twice as much as is legal

I’m just trying to escape

My thoughts are sharp glass shards

Painful coming out

Painful staying in

I wish I could be honest

But then, I’d have to know what’s real

[manicblues]

I’ve dreamt about the train before It rattles the tracks and then the tracks slick with blood It is not my blood It might as well be because we cannot be separated The tracks are almost on fire The encroaching walls still bear your name And I scream as they swirl into vortices Four singularities Conflicting gravities

I’ve dreamt about death before The train is sometimes involved Always these pills are I’m scared of dying and I’m scared of waking up

I can’t tell if I’m lucid Or if I’m dreaming about you I certainly have before Does it matter if I’m lucid? A dream’s a dream I’ve moved on But you’ve moved on with me Does that make sense?

Maybe not. To be honest, nothing does Last night I endured shock after shock Stunned and writhing My own mind is the torturer I think it will be the executioner too

The moonlight is burned into my eyes When I look up all I see is the impending collision There is a vengeful apparition laughing When it comes the world will stop spinning But I can’t slow down

Time ruins everything It doesn’t pass for me Nothing left to destroy I tend to the fields Most nights they eat me alive

My hand could pass through you You know that, right? It could pass through you both by now The thing is, I don’t know which of us is the phantom

The swarm is dazzling It bends space I can’t contain it entirely That’s why I write to you Even knowing we are on different planes

I have to brace again for the flood Lamenting that which never was Maybe the train will return, maybe not I’m currently stuck to the tracks Bets favor the moon

Take extra care not to fall from the clouds No matter how far I may walk I will never fly

[manicblues]

today is not the day

shivering epileptic skin peeled back biting jealousy an inferno ants the sweat crawling from my pores insufficient a fool eyes blacker than sin soul drenched in rain home long lost chest sealed shut shadow given form mind shackled to the seafloor counting jade tears in parts per trillion

[manicblues]

Fascinating

severances murky limbs terrified fashioning patchwork wings sparkling bow rotting in disuse tales of confluence left undigested a delta abandoned dioecy the willow leaves turning with a flash monsoon in autumn penumbra creeping hesitantly over rubicon an apologetic eclipse wistful and restless a storm whipping these chimes into fury; frenetic and fervent still I anticipate the yet undetected bound by precedent repressed with honed restraint though the puppeteer is caged he quietly gathers his threads irreversible Energizing Weaponizing Mesmerizing Tantalizing Vacillating Consternating Enervating; Dissipating

[manicblues]

my spirit animal is a goldfish I forget why