Seasonal

No one dies

and no one fights

when the anger dispatches

from the soul's trenches

there is no savior for my pride

and all its contempt, unjustified

and in the notion

of sin there is the love

that once was mishandled

and bred within me.

So no one cries

for me at the funeral in my head

because that is sin -

the rejection of combat

the veils of post adolescent misery

lift like separated milk

of the human fondness

for the competition of tears.

And there is applause

once and only once

for praise is a drug

one can lose oneself in

and there again - sin

so I'll bathe in it for a while

and the question was

where's the exit

left or right - right?

And all directions call me

to be part, to belong

but no one tries to pull me in

only the demons within my skin.

The playground left empty

by their silly games

they returned and I let them in

the other day

but it was alright

because their might

had been savored already

by the ritualized pain

of waves inked onto me

so perhaps the illustration

of their electrocardiogram

sufficed to alter

their mischievous crimes

created on the day

I wished to say goodbye

and realized the absurd -

can't kill what is mine.

No one sighs

no one lifts their eyes

from me when I howl

from the confines of this shelter

I punctuate with time

and they watch, in awe

the tumult of existence

contained within

the axis of spectatorship:

mirror, fourth wall

empathy of the audience

through the succinct impersonation

of the fear projected.

But this is not all

just a prudent beginning

for me to depart

my epidermic fortress :

witness the princess

escaping the nest

donate hair and flesh

and ninety nine cents.