the anxiety
melted away
replaced by
a nascent sun
igniting in
the center of
my wicker soul
a walking inferno
with the
devil’s smile

time buckled
slowing
speeding
fluctuating
into a thousand
pinpoints of
electrified
thorns dancing
across an
untethered
cerebellum

transforming
scarred flesh
into a shimmering
cloak of
starlight
bedazzled by
hungering
black holes
in a scattering
of pulsating moles

i fell into
the smile stretching
my cheeks worried
the madness shined
in a nauseating
midsummer’s glow
crackling in
the cool spring night
as afterimages
danced in an
echoed display of
time’s insignificance

a comfortable
settling as pieces
i never knew
were missing snapped
themselves into
the vacancies of
a life spent hiding
shivering as the
shadows snaked across
my shattered scatter
leaving puckered scars
of the lips left
unkissed under skies
pregnant with hope

ny footprints
etched in the
hotel carpeting
embers danced on
the reconditioned air
a walking inferno
lips pulled tight
into a rictus
devil’s grin as
this human catastrophe
blew throughout the
crowded ballroom
in a haze of
incalculable madness