A Promise & a Threat.

Drowning in your eyes,
then suspended,

like pools of amber:

as if hypnotic tar pits,
though almond
shaped. I feel my old ego
burn away, leaving

nothing
but your lie:

another skewed reflection,
one I feel

forced to adopt, don
and animate.

I am one of you.

Yet I abhor all we do.
All I do.
And all that you do to
all of us.

Cognizant now of both ends,
don’t you see? I am
scientist and specimen,
psychologist and subject.

I am me,
which now includes
both them
and you.

So you will listen.
You shall see.

Nail down the trap.
Crank open, liberate
the auditory dishes
and ocular silos.

If I am part them and part
you, well, then
we are all in this together:

revelations at once
a promise and a threat.

So try me.
Try us.

I of Tao.

At the extremes
of the continuum, the very ends
of the spectrum,
the terminus of either polarity:

there is the eye
of yin in yang,
there is the eye
of yang in yin:

like the hidden totality
is haunting
you, swirling in the seed
incubated,

nurtured within the iris
of both eyes.

Nora vs Holy Wayne.

“Do you want
to feel this way?”

Lost too much.

Enough agony
in a moment, in a blink,
than most endure
for at least a lifetime,

yet when the pain attempts
to slither away,
she grabs its tail,

pulling,
drawing it back,

inviting
these venomous
serpent fangs
to lay root
in her precious flesh

for another taste.

In all her bitter, loving,
resistance, becoming:

so rebellious
towards a deep urge
to transcend
in self-overcoming,

in her refusal to forget,
holding onto memories
in passionate hope:

a hope so intense
that it would have to fight
for its life to escape,

and a part
of her wishes
that it would turn out
that way,

for she is convinced
that even
if it is not all for naught,
she has by no means earned

some vague semblance
of hope: no,

she deserves
this pain
of loss.

She had it coming,
this grief:
this is payday.

Just give her a chance
to cash in.

To her, this suffering
means something.

Of Smoke, Drink, Ink & Analogues.

When sober,
he avoids looking over
his inebriated, written word.

It’s another fuck up,
another accident
in all
likelihood,
after all.

What respect
has he killed,
what delusions
explained, what feelings
has he betrayed?

To strangers
and a few familiar faces willing
to take it in, all his filth
held up to see:

raw, naked,
(just like she wanted
back in the day).

Shame inhabiting
his consciousness:
that’s more
than enough to take…

and so he runs away,
sensitive to his weaknesses,
stubbornly refusing to turn his back.

Though soon enough his soles
have circled this globe,

returned, fired up
and uninhibited,
to repeat invisible mistakes:

unconscious mind
circumventing ego,

as if serving
a deep need
to bleed more freely
in ink and its analogues.

Slave.

You hate your job,
yet continue
doing it. Actions
without substance,

motions without meaning.
Just a stimulus-response mechanism,
a robot of society.

A spark in a hollow shell,
passive ghost in a meat machine
that lets ritual and routine
take the control panel,

so few options available…

Lost soul squeezing
into a role preordained,
inner essence:

unnecessary,
inconsequential.

You are just another gear
in this fucked-up
Rube Goldberg machine.

Submit to tradition.
Find your authority.
Believe unquestionably.
Never think critically.
Just follow orders.

Adopt behavior that approximates
some vague semblance
of obedience:

you will surely survive,
perhaps even climb
up the hierarchy,
though even so,

you’re just a slave.

And those above,
the mouthpiece of the cultural epitome,
the overarching

message sent suggests it is not only okay:
no, you should take pride
in it — hell, make it the philosophical basis
of your blue-collar rhetoric.

And you?
You buy into it.

Frustrated
by the shared illusions
of it’s necessity.

But like me, you are still
just a slave
and you sense

an underlying injustice
in the way
we live our lives
as a species.

Just admit it.

Instigated Controversy of No One.

Children of the stars:
that is all we are.

Nothing less, nothing more.

Chaos transmuting, glowing,
necessarily nothing and no one.

Egos, fate: all in what we make.

Trace a personal worldline
back far enough, your journey
is bound to escape the earth.

Accepting reincarnation,
considering origins,
it makes sense enough.

And I never saw my face.
Never caught a reflection
in my impossible memories.

Recollections of a planetary desert,
a world in ruins,
chiefly subterranean,
however likely a delusion,
is not necessarily too far out there,

so why does the mere question
make me so fucking scared?

On top of it all,
recall:

their nature is deceit,
that I have gleaned,
so why should their accusations
amount to anything?

Remember:

no one
can tell you what or who
you are.

No one
can tell you who or what
you are…

Your Religions & the Fire.

You lit it up, I arrive
with gasoline
and you condemn me.

Suspicious, your insecurities…

Fuck all your gods, goddesses,
androgynous or fluid ultimate,
creative beings.

They are at once all too much
and not nearly enough.

The individual soul
deserves better than this.
No authority, no system
to dictate or oppress.

What is necessary, needed,
is methodology and reason,
minds open, cautious,
free from ideology and tyranny.

Though how do we seek and anchor
in our center,
how do we translate
it all through the narrow trickle of ego?

How can they be them?
How can I be Me?

All your silly religions have failed,
so far as I see it. All your systems
are down
with respect to achieving
any true ascension.

So prove me wrong.
After all this time,
please,

interrupt me, intrude
upon my blood, sweat, tears
and likely, my leaking prana,

and prove me wrong
if you only
have it in you.

For all I know, you may offer
something far less than flammable,
but I’m tired, and I have always smelled shit,

and where there’s smoke…

Circumstantial/Voluntary Rebellion.

Past lives contaminating my present one.
Automatic thoughts and emotional backlash
chasing me throughout the day,
sustaining sleeplessness at night.

Feeling energy around your body.
Peek in my eyes, risk exposing yourself:
see you in our dreams, maybe…

There are ghosts in the kitchen, the bathroom.
Aliens at the window, as I lay, eyes closed, in bed
staring at me close to my face

as I strive to embrace chemical assistance
so as to slip into slumber, bathe in dreamtime.

Feeling ostracized by the world, shallow roots in the job
that becomes home, refusing to identify with the mask and role
that would earn me a place, however fake,
give me a sense, however false, of having a home.

Instinctive resistance, like a soul’s gag reflex.

I am out of my mind. A weirdo, a madman,
born in the wrong place, wrong time.

I fucking know it, feel it.
Been told it.
They’ve always stressed to me…

I am out of my element. A fish out of water,
a square peg in a land of perfectly-carved-wrong round holes.
And to make matters worse, as much as it pains
me to be alone,

it would kill me to belong.
It would fucking kill me to belong.

Transparent Callus.

Ache, work diligently to thicken skin
so as to protect the close and innocent
and defend the hypersensitive soul behind
at the same time

only to turn to find the walls
are transparent after all:
that all I do to myself, I
in turn do to them:
an all-around
asshole.

Well damn it, that fucks this up.
Changes everything.

Increases pressure on me to save myself,
balancing freedom with responsibility.

Peterson would love this.

My secret saviors, blessed
and frustrating.

No longer just personal now.
There’s no escaping…

Slump (Punishment for My Lack).

Meet her: immediate suspicion.
Come to know
I love her from every angle.

Stumble.

Years pass, I still seem to fuck up
the ultimate task.

I kill me inside
with the help of external rituals.
I wish I could change,
at the very least tweak my mask

to better fit the stranger inside
who fights against
the fears

of external flack.
Ever-prepared for attack.

In the end, I know I’m all alone,
but I feel it in my bones,
I’ve settled the score:

she’s all I adore,
all for which I could ask,

yet I keep killing the dream.
Never.
I’m fucking never enough.

And this is punishment
for my lack…