You set my rage on fire
I sat back
let it ravage me like a lover
I had never had
stepped out into the music
and wore it on my skin
the notes were magical hoops
I could sway within
praying to the rhythm
for something akin to forgiveness
or maybe just something like release
The music forgot you were the muse
my anger wished to paint red
and because the music and I became one
like lovers
my heart was racing
to the finish line
till the cigarettes smoked
between our lips
to tell us of our casual slips
A cancerous kiss

It could be as was said
I’m preoccupied with death
but first to be so
you must see life
so really it’s an obsession with life
and the death therewithin
and the life therewithin the death
a tangled knot
It’s a noticing what one is and what one is not
and seeing the intricacies in telling between the two
it’s more complicated than you’d think
death fuels life
life fuels death

Knowing this doesn’t ease the pain though
when the time comes
it’s only human to cry and mourn
and that’s what keeps me coming back to this
thinking about those we’ve lost
and aligning the emotions with the facts

But I keep having to relearn
that our emotions are almost always
many steps behind the facts.

By the time they’re on the same track
something else comes along
takes you right back
and you wonder if the pain will ever leave.

Watching as the world goes on
it’s indifference a punch to the gut
why can’t it stop
like your breath did
you wonder
til you remind yourself
it’s because death and life are brother and sister
and then you wonder some more
and remind yourself again
till your brain is sore

Sat on the ruins of my own throne
king of a castle that broke itself
the walls and shelves covered in the skin I’d shed
always in the process of being returned
since the age of 27 so I’ve heard
this life
it’s terminal