holding an empty stomach in my hands
so it can't fall any farther than my heart,
that landed on the cellar floor,
i can't help but to cry at the scenes
that roll by-
with my hands too full to cover
the staring eyes
from just what they've been waiting to see.
i sit in rubbernecks
-holding slow motion memories of the accident
in dusty palms,
awe struck at how close
the road to where we were heading was,
before my shrapnel slit the rubber
as we slid to cover
under the lips that twisted
with the moments rupture;
and the bumpers mangled around the framework
of the bridges,
that stripped themselves across the rivers
that dripped from your eyelids
beside the slivers that i wore
like a metal of honor to cover
the bleeding of my sores-
and as that twisted heap
of you and me
rippled in the salt seas,
the fires tripped the spark
that started the entire
scene.
runaways with broken matchbooks-
black with ash and snapped
in half would have done
if i had just learned to breathe,
when we became such
hardened arsonists;
and below the bridges i set fire,
i'll keep catching wire
waiting for the hook to take me in
-even if it's only for a minute
above the surface of cinder-
that i wish would just burn before the rain
begins to mat down the ashes
just enough to hold a shape of way to walk
in the stalks of disillusion,
too high pitched to stalk this broken strip
of music-
tunes too deafening
for my ear drums to beat along with;
and as the mallets began to forget
right from left from wrong to fucked,
an offbeat heart started to forget the steps
-as the ringing in my ears
split the house of glass i had built
around the tears;
the shards spilled like the water
that had started to kill-
without a gasp to last
the sills falter.
every bit of glass left its kiss
below the surface of my calloused lips,
before they slit your balance
and we both began to slip-
that single handed mantis
praying for a gentile standing,
didn't have half the chance he put up
on the very landing
-that didn't happen.
shattered benieth the histories-
all the scribbled dumb fucking metaphors
can only pretend they don't remember
where they came from,
but every abstract nothing finds home
the second i open the wrong door
and you're still there
-only not.
and i can feel in metaphor
before what's real begins to seethe
through the bullshit,
and the sailor knots that choke the fuck out of my stomach
shake hands with my broken fucking heart!
-and i want to feel hurt through
burning bridges
and images of falling glass shards,
but too quick do i just fucking hurt
-before i think in art.
there's no art to the break-up,
and the metaphors that play band-aid
to the bullet wounds
can't wrap themselves around
the fact that they were made.
i'm only and artist
-because i can't really be honest,
and you broke my heart,
but only because i was being an artist-
and the paints still monochromatic
because red is all i have left-
since i through away the blues
because they almost painted through my heart-
and i couldn't bare to let the truth
sit there and shoot into the stars,
cuz at the heart-
i'm just a fucking artist.