OPEN-BRAIN SURGERY

sing about me, i'm dying of thirst

he's drunk himself silly on the devil's most effective poison (called reality and lung-closing heartache) and in between the tears and confusion he's become some

semblance of a well-meaning hedonist —

it's no longer difficult for him to decide

whether to drive faster or eat slower or

die quicker because

it's all such a pleasurable affair now —

destiny simply dependent on whatever fate tastes

sweetest on his numb and null lips (romanticize death with me, baby, form for me a casket and graveyard out of shades of green and adjectives that make this beautiful)

it's enough to move an angel to tears—

watching little boy blue rip his bedroom and night shirts and love letters and psyche to shreds but

—heaven is for real, yes? he will settle

someday.

or maybe not because

the ribcage he buried his heart in has

splintered and sliced into a nothing

into a powder

into a fabrication

into a eulogy, into a pastor's consolidating good fight, only

it wasn't a fight — how could it

be a fight when he hadn't the will to

fight at all?

the mind is frightening. love is deathly. write something in memory of the people it has killed. 

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© Juanita A. (angelhour) 2016-2017; 2018-2020. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.