POW!

3³

I know how to solve a Rubik's cube. I'm not fast. That takes another level of memorization I am not willing to undergo. The reward of shaving off seconds doesn't do it for me.

I prefer to accumulate. Numb burrs. Days. Dollars. Grams. Bodies. Souls.

Wayward. Lunacy. I grovel in my own courtyard, coughing at the moon. The sea opens up her secrets and mourns with me. The salt is weeping, stinging.

The cuts from the vines, the thicket in which I lay sleeping. Waking to suck smoke from a pipe and push on some more against the passive violence of the barbs and at last breaking through to the park, abandoned in moonlight. Satisfied by the conclusion to my solo drama, my being the sole witness I collapse and rest again.

I resist the urge again for what. The tumult intensifies. Key words trigger automata's laser focus. Suicide. Evade. Your loss.

Narcissus less morose than poor Echo. If only he'd close his eyes and listen. The gloom thickens, the sheen of oil on the pulsating snake, viper strike again.

Resent, seethe, I love you. Hatred, pouring molten lead, this is my love. Disaster, destiny, tell me you love me.

Bleach. The ancient injury. What changes in our decay, is this ascension. Murmuring. How many more days remain, until we finish our task.

I want nothing. Plucked of my feathers, just fluttering down, bleeding light all around. What did it mean, the relief of incomprehension.

Wild eyes cling for focus, the splatter of electric current across the flame, the exhaustion of enmity, still, all remains, contained in myself, my enemy, my shell, my heavy investments.

Christ watched me masturbating on Christmas. The red light filled the room. An overdose on Tylenol, the ensuing hallucinations and yellow bile. Limping around on a leg ran over by a car, ran over by a clandestine lover. I cursed him. He'd be dead in a couple years.

My seizures. No way to know. I prayed, just as I prayed for the night terrors. And yes I was delivered. But even now, do I dare to pray again. Or do I cling to life in the darkness, too proud to lift my head.