Daniel 8:16

A poem for my writing group, Just Fucking Publish It Fridays. #DAWNOFTHEMACHINEELVES

this one made tall and skinny like a draugr
with a deep dark coldness inside his bones like a fog rolling in from his homeland
so I could spinal tap a neoteric anesthetic from the marrow
drink it as an aerogel
and awaken in the comforting numbness of

his embrace

Gamer youth sharpened insults and
ideation of a psychopath
He hurt me and I let him,
hoping he’d grow out of it
saying that it didn’t, not really

I pretended

as I drank him, we entered
the nigredo
increasing friction burns of strangulation from
everything that we weren’t saying
silence weighing,
so fine-grained and
high dimensional
as was the aching

Too young for me?
Baby I’ve started picturing you when you’re seventy
Dizzying visions of heaven for which you were
my refuge and interpreter
until I threw up on the club floor

Is this the love you wanted?
Is this what it’s for?

You don’t want me, you want
Pretty words written about you on the Internet

tension tightening, this cycle
turned into a spiral
until I lost all sense of direction
Could not tell which way is up

Atlantean

inevitable, I will
collide with him again and
burst into a shower of
kaleidoscopic flower petals and
angel feathers.