Handshake

If I believed in the devil
I'd tell you I've met him

He's a silver tongued liar

And the world's best salesman

I met the devil and he lives in my head

He tells me he's got answers

And he'll sell them to me for free

I met the devil and he shows me the truth

Distorted and bent like me

The solution's permanent and less than ideal

But he'll sell it to me for free

Sifting

Grant me the restful slumber of fresh snow upon the streets
Blurring all senses with cold gentility.

Grant me the peace that only meadows know
Of the inauguration of certainty and faith.

Buoy my spirit through the choppy waves of vulnerability.

Fasten the cloak of hopeful compassion around my shoulders

As I face the cold sleet of anguish and despair.

Warm the bones of my soul with
The flames of companionship and community,

And send me with zealous affection
And earnest fondness into each enterprise I endeavor.

Mangroves

My fear, baited like a fishook,
Places the fruit of anxiety with a pit of trepidations
Into the soil of my abdomen to nourish and grow
Fed by insecurities and self-directed cruelties
Whose roots will wend their way tortuously deep
Into my own egregore, twisting through foundational ontologies
And cracking the bedrock of my confidence.

Uncertainty

I grow forests of worries saturated by my tears
They bloom anxieties whose fruit
Is always overripe and so often bitter
I chop them down with my ax of reason
Sharpened on the stone rationale and wet with deliberation
Their trunks fall haphazardly tearing at
My faith on the way down, shattering my ease on impact
But no matter how many I burn
To sustain the warmth of self-compassion
There is still a forest of doubt before me.

Call Me Frank

You burnt the mercy out of me
With your poisonous energy
And for years you haunted me
Hunting me in the night like an enemy
But now I've died and risen, I'm a zombie.

Life with you was absolute mayhem
And I'd kill you before I'd do it again
You always acted like you had some plan
Until I had the bright idea to time your attention span
And I realized I had to become a self-made man

Checkmate

Who's ready to play?
Because God created this game
And I'm here to win
I've got the vision
I see the pieces lining up
I'm about to sink some ships

Counterfeit

You can sustain the body
But when the soul flickers
When the soul is homesick for its nest
Away from this sensory coil
Our only consistency here is change and decay
I don't know where to find restoration
When I can't find rest, least of all in sleep where
My past will always find me
The fog and shadows played tricks
And outwitted my better judgment
Somehow I'm left with the counterfeit

Consent

My first word was No
And ever since they have been
Trying to undo

Dybbuk

Seems like my grief and insecurities
Like to rest in the shadows
And creep out at night like hungry ghosts
I've been feeding them so long
Scraps of me like the sadness when
He chipped me into pieces to feed his own
Or sometimes big chunks of festering anger
For repeated abuses from someone
Who's've gone hungry too long
There are weeks here and there
When mine go hungry too
But then they feed on the ampleness in me
And I am diminished and they, replenished
And I am a hungry ghost too.

Home

She's just a difficult person to be involved with
You open up to her
And she tears the place apart
Hacking at any boundary that stands in her way
She doesn't know what she's looking for
But she'll know it when she finds it
And I'm afraid there'll be nothing left if she ever does

Empty

I woke up that morning
And rolled over onto you
And I remember feeling
Absolutely nothing for you
When three years before
I felt too much and
Could only beg to feel less

I Know The Way

I've been to hell and back
Enough times to know the way by heart
I know the demons, now old friends
For me, they create assarts
I know very well the way to hell
And better yet, I know it back
And the next time I bring you with me
I'll never bring you back

Risen

I planned your death a thousand times
How I would peel back your skin
And dig for an apology that is buried somewhere inside
Better lock me up, I think you knew
I am your danger as long as I live
Say you're too scared to act with love
But you didn't know fear until you saw me awake
In full understanding of your brutality
For years I never saw the light of day
And suddenly I was the sun
Risen to scorch your earth and feed a new life
You cut me at the base
And I bloomed with impunity despite this

Garden Wall

You had me twisted up like a vine hungry for light
I never realized you lead me in circles
Until I woke up one day and took account of my tendency to spiral
And I saw you had tied me to a trellis
You cut me and you cut my bloom
And still I bloomed in spite of this
But you never tended me beyond your convenience
So I scattered myself over the garden wall
To grow in some greener pastures
Or even between two slabs of concrete
Anywhere but in that wretched garden
And I escaped you again

Happy Pills

In the final hour, the medicine administered
Reduces my thoughts so sinister
Dampening my perceptions and depressive deceptions
Suffocating and smothering my creative conceptions
I find a familiar peace in the silence
Delivered by pill, a miracle of science,
And a dullness that has never failed
To leave me apathetic, a will to thrive foiled

Birthday Bruja

On the anniversary of their birth
In the throes of consciousness

Intimate

This was supposed to be my sanctuary
It was built on fault lines and rotten wood
But it was mine and I called it home
But lately it has conspired to
Evict the soul inside of it
To empty itself of its life force
And crumble into ash
My body promised my soul at conception
"In sickness and in health,
Til death do us part"
I don't understand why it insists on
Choosing the soil in a grave over me
It is the most intimate betrayal

In the Hole

Depression traps a bully inside your skull
And locks your heart outside the room
And begs your fingers to tear away
At the smallest pieces of yourself
In an effort to disappear into thin air unnoticed
It destabilizes all your values and plans
And dismantles your identities
Until there's nothing left of you
And I feel myself slip away

Beneath You

You put the anger in me
And now I am no longer meek
I can be a monster just like you

Over Easy

Now I'm cracked again
And the illness has seeped in once more
And honestly I'm angry at you
Because you were the one who dropped me first
And you dropped me again most recently
I don't know why I let you hold me anymore
Perhaps it's because most times you don't drop me
And it's easy to forget you've been dropped
When someone's strong and gentle hands are clasped around your shell
It's hard to see the butter smeared on your fingers
Or to smell the toast in the toaster
Or the hot oil on the skillet
When you're safe inside your shell