I Prefer Not To.
beyond
my front door
lies a great
big world
more vast
than is humanly
comprehensible
a veritable cornucopia
of prospect propitious
and liberty endless
brimming
with untold
opportunity
and infinite possibility
for me
to swiftly
and precisely
meet
my ultimate
demise
last time i told myself that it would be the last
but here i am again looking in the past
my memory so freely flees into the breeze
the instant that the moment passes before me
i can’t explain my inability to see
from the perspective granting objectivity
much like a cognitive bias against the self
in which my own best interests have been shot to hell
what makes it worse is everyone else seems to know
so quick to remind me wherever i may go
when all is said and done they say “i told you so”
as though their words are something to have been bestowed
well i suppose they may have something of a point
i’m still compelled to thusly disconnect their joints
the only thing that’s worse than chronic fucking up
is hearing it regaled by someone acting smug
you’d think that this alone would solve things without fail
but i am human; ever prone to get derailed
and for this very reason i am bound to kill
when comes a cocky bastard telling me to chill
which would explain the growing pile in my back yard
composed of corpses of those lacking such regard
take my advice when someone states they’ve had enough
that’s not the time to try and call them on their bluff
nor is it prudent to act disingenuous
nor to allude to any breaching of one’s trust
i’m not just preaching some type of friendly heads up
if you keep reaching, your demise will prove abrupt
of course, you’re free to take this any way you want
just don’t act so surprised when i do as i am wont
in case you missed it that’s the wonton reverie
of your destruction since you chose to fuck with me
with lackadaisical regard
i watch as they dwindle
one by one
and sometimes two
or more
i never formed
a reason to rhyme
until time descended
upon me
like a pornographic impulse
brew me another cup
of disillusionment
while you’re at it
that last one
nearly fit the bill
sometimes
i wonder if i actually will
or would
or could
of course,
there is no question
as to whether or not
i should
though i am
but a coward
in uncomfortable skin
i’ve worn out
since the day
the world informed me
as i swallow
more
to boredom’s pallor
like a Fuller Brush Man
in a town inhabited
by ghosts
where nothing hearkens
but the silence
that consumes me
as a void that lay
between two mirrors
spared of my own completion
my spirit longs
to be the stars
that fill your sky
my heart would shine
reflections
of its truth
to lift you
up into a realm
where solace
sings redemption
that once
you laid upon me
by the mercy
of your kiss
but even vigilance
has lost its vested path
these broken roads
no longer
reach epiphany
as apathy
alone
absconds
with wistful dew
i thought
would one day
compose a river
through the valley
whence our love
had rent the earth
that i might sail
those tempestuous waters
in search
of where the willows
wept your name
but all my efforts
toiling at the pulley
have only returned
buckets
of morass
wrested hands
from years
of untold callous
now leave me
to attend
this ghostly shore
where sorrow comes
to lay for death
in prostrate
with arms
of clay stretched thin
succumbed to dust
once sought
to sway the forces
of the cosmos
with hope
to never stray
from its embrace
as mountains
birthed of mirthless
apprehension
would vanish
into the silence
of forever
dispatched
to the hungry umbrage
spindly wraiths
spill ruination
arms athwart
absorb nullity
boots and RIFs
soon disavowed
whistling timbres
so precise
held brimstone fists stripped
knuckled white
waried faith
lest bullets showered
dulled the Duster pastorales
plucked like florets
bare and breathless
strafing nightly
saw them felled
prowess at imperil’s onset
sweat poured down
a poor man’s brow
loud as telegraphed
impressions
dispossessed
like wingless flies
birds took to the sky
in errant
bursts of aril
none were spared
crimson horrors
void of rinsing
from the hands
of shellshocked minds
blind are days
since hell became us
land of freedom
man as god
sadist thieves
left grief besotted
rotting leaves
pinned to dead air
a poem is but
a restive cluster
grasping
onto pages
with our frantic
fears conspicuously
calling out
for rescue
meticulously poring through
decrepit thoughts
of hoarded visions
kiss to tryst
to triste
in a blissful
dissolution
before sediment
comes nigh
where sighs undress
our destitute descries
calculated coalescence
pandering our pride’s
priviest imprints
curling chips of paint
exposing throes
of yesterdays
sacred cruxes
born before
our burgeoning bereavement
from whence all
embarking destined
for a distant hearken
poised to be
impartially presented
in pretentiously penned
appropriations
parsed
to pierce our peers
appetition
to sate this
untold inquisition
ere i walked the shadows
of a shameless life eschewed
i sometimes talked for hours
on the telephone
’tis true
attending to the inbox
which would hold my correspondence
until one day i stopped
having become too despondent
seven years have come and gone
and still i have not looked
nor listened to my messages
not even on facebook
this plague pervades
most every aspect
of my adult years
i since have lost the respect
of my family and peers
for they can’t see the reasons
nor the logic of my plight
its tragedy is lost
amid the inference of their slight
presuming that it must be
that they’ve somehow drawn my ire
some say i’m maladjusted
others think i have retired
i cannot help but panic
upon hearing rings and tones
instilling in me frantic feelings
reeling in my home
truth be told i have disabled
every last alarm
and push notification
for they only cause me harm
and should you try to reach out
with an intention to touch
you’ll not invade this redoubt
that has long since been my crutch
and if you are to know me
then you first must understand
even if you are the homie
you can talk to your own hand
i thought
that you could see me
through the lens
which rend your heart
the foment
of foreboding heed
that sought
to play your part
with every waning
flaxen tide
thus waxing
unquashed tears
comprised
of unseen sorrows
as they fall
into arrears
this blood yields not
to yarrow
‘neath the fields
of monarch sky
the piercing
of your arrow’s wound
seals fast
our love’s demise
once
i walked
a lone procession
in the blossoming
wake of a cherry
bloom daydream
lost
in thought
as threnodies
cried peals
of Zeus’wrath
helpless
in a gaze
transfixed
counting down
each drowning
footstep
tread upon
tremulant flesh
yet shone anew
as our minds
fell behind
racing hearts
failing
to bridge
the frigid waters
on that day
when i long held
truth
as the subtle sky
absconded
with your song
whatever
i have known
in thought
through observation
has trickled
through the
hollow holes
that hearken
solstice winds
in shapes
and sounds
from profound
to mundane
demanding
their address
effortlessly
spent
like pleasantries
appeasing
pastime purpose
presently
with serpent’s tongue
through absent blessings
fed to flames
then cleft in twain
on the overhung edge
of our sanity
dissimulated
Max, or Not 
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