Hears to the Mute

last time i wrote a poem
the sink spit me up,
while my belt loops sat alone,
waiting for the notches around my throat
to let go.

the footnotes at the bottom of my heart
beat more readily,
than the body of my work.

i used to think it was poetry
-before the lines turned themselves into a noose
and haiku’s that read like bullet points
started to back fire, 
through the backsides of a few ambiguous
water lines, 
that were just shallow enough
for me to try and drown myself in.

i used to think it was a pen
-before it made a better weapon.

a few metaphors and three broken women later-
this isn’t poetry,
it’s a battle cry 
that started as tears and went to war with itself,
and never realized the field 
was never actually a place to step-
but who knew hearts could eat tread just as easily.

everyone wants their signature poem
-it’s supposed to mean i love you;
but this poets love stinks like lust
behind red-rose revolvers that get used like crutch. 

one too many rest their heads 
on my barrel of monkeys from your back
fired into the last place you’d expect
to be dead.

i used to call this art,
because i didn’t see pain it made.
my own splinter ridden veins where the page
like a mask without the eye holes
to see who they bump in to. 
this depression wasn’t meant for display,
but the day my scars stumbled into your arm
you wore them like the neglect
to which you had always set the stage.

search my poems for your answers
-because i don’t have them.

i used to think i was cutting my own wrists
with the margin of this half finished poem,
until i watched you bleed
-and assumed you knew what to do
if you had the will to reed.

still writing
-i’ll take your life away,
while reaching for your breath.
these poems aren’t made for praise;
they only frame regret.

i’m the martyr of my every word,
followed by myself as the rope tightens
before a crowed town of my own emotions-
each one standing as its own person.

it was all for me,
until i started to see the strangers 
scattered across the executioners veil.
it was all for me,
until a few decided to watch-
and they didn’t enjoy my death
as much as i did
-because the parts of themselves they had put in me,
swallowed the axe much slower
than i really took the blade.

that broken heart doesn’t entertain you
the same as it does the reader,
but i still write it into the story
because this isn’t poetry, it’s the overly dramatic truth.
so keep reading until your stanza ends,
and the next begins with another name-
and you can’t enjoy the read again,
if the last poem hasn’t already pushed you away.

so, ask me to write you a poem,
and i’ll slit my wrists and dedicate it to you
-because i don’t write poetry,
i kill off pieces of myself, for myself,
regardless of the voyeurs 
with hands over their eyes
watching through the gaps between their guilty fingers.

don’t ask me to write you a poem,
because i’m running out of pieces to kill;
don’t ask me to write you a poem,
because i never will;

this isn’t poetry.

the golden goose skips the page
-conjunction ripe with verbose poets
at the tip of every would be ink dipped
feather light 
brick,
that lifts his neck
with the sexual dialect of third person
narrative-

disillusion:
the gift of flight for featherless
rejects,
that don’t even carry the pens
they’ve been said to scribble
the drunken rants of starving artists
across the sunsets with;

you were really a paper tiger all along
-siberian adjective draped in the nouns
that slid down the soggy cheeks
of opaque pages written in past lives 
through tears by better name:
alcohol;

and as those stripes wash away
from the tiger’s back,
his noun held hostage by slang
triggers 
fired like broken bones
at sticks and stones shaped like denial,
his beloved labels race against 
running finish lines
as they melt away before every finally stride
-and that final mark of identity
fades into new age jabber, 
and he can’t tell if its positive or not to be left 
a plain old, ordinary,
pussy.

run, run on kitty catastrophe
-the denumonte is just around the margin,
before the indentation 
that makes these writer’s blocks less than perfect,
despite thier beautiful structures
that are metaphormed with the source
of your stumbling paws.

keep running paper tiger..
keep chasing the foot note
as the fingers of bitter creators
pinch awake
every dream you could ever have
to make their own-
thier, there, here, i
am so sorry paper tiger-

this story has grown boring;

better yet than happy, 
is the death of a hero for an ending-

keep fighting for your write to live
and i’ll write every twisted turn
that you think you’ve earned
below that wasted piece of paper you call home.

art is the red root of death
that fed the leaves that turned into your roof
before the fibers of your very being
bound into a noose,
that dangled your life story
off the limbs of a rotting poet tree
before your eyes stared into my bark,
waiting for a heart in the crooked eye of conclusion… 

sorry paper tiger-
i’m great with words,
but better with lines.

the end.