The Anti-Dream

It's not there,
the Anti-Dream.
You'll never find it.

Stop looking,
trying to see
behind your own eyes.

It lives in
the underside
of the horizon.

Fine. Chase it.
Seek blind numbness.
But that's all you'll do.

You dream of
the Anti-Dream,
of swimming in it.

Don't bother.
Don't bother it.
It sees you coming

and stretches
around your world,
away from the sky,

above thoughts,
below being,
and outside of time.

Because it knows you,
you cannot know
the Anti-Dream.

absent horizon

Erupt

grotesquely and

exquisitely.

The void is yours.

Blast torrential shards that

gore eternity.

Detonate

the eye of the storm.

Meticulously curate

this ideal specimen

of intricate terror,

ultimate and everlasting.

The void is yours.

Make it special.

Build your demon.

Give it a home.

Mutilate shadows

and butcher the dark.

Rip fury apart

and hang it

from hooks of wrath.

Inward Beam

Maimed heart,
your light shines the other way.
To others
you look dark.

Sore soul,
your torn fire aches
and waits alone
for what it has lost.

The child cries
as demons eat the world.
Tears water the earth
but only hollowness

grows
and grows
into this expanse
where the bruises dwell

and pray to rot.
Ripped and tender
edges sting,
afraid to heal,

refusing closure
in frantic hope.
Listening.
Listening hard.

The distance
feeds a fungus
where the child
needs to speak.

Cloaked in leprosy,
the perpetual roar swells,
incinerating the real
and glazing the right

(the only thing that matters)
that catches your
inward beam.
And I see it.

Tuning In

Every time
Turn me toward the
Campfire
Toward its crackle
And smoke and
Murmurs

Instead of the
Exhibition
Where the light
Makes me the spectacle
For us to learn
Nothing from.

Every time
Turn us toward the
Stars
Toward their distance
And history and
Brilliance

Instead of the
Plains
Where the glare
Bombards us, demanding
That we praise
Its glamour.

Every time
Remind me of the
Glow
Where I can see you
And you can hear me

Every single time.

Here

"... Anything could happen."

Feeling open

     Clean

     Renewed

With a deceiving

And unappealing

Appearance.

"Yer gotta start somewhere." -- Bartender

"... passport? Passport?" -- a thin twenty-thing "from New Zealand"

They're young.

Nobody ever knows that they're young.

But they all know that they were.

I know that I was.

Don't you?

A turn takes place

From knowing what we will be

To knowing what we were

But we're always so sure about it.

We see ourselves in others

But in the mirror

It's a different story

Until

Sometimes

We have one of those days

When we're done listening to our

     Past self telling our present self

     What our future self will be

And we just watch

As though we've never told ourselves

     Anything ever before

And we just listen

As though the Universe is right.

Compassion Inverted

Wings released and grubs abandoned, you finally set off again on that bright air and flat stone that had some time ago lost its secret sweetness but was nonetheless still that familiar, leaden challenge that now plummeted to... a thorn? No, to itself, pointing to its spindle, alleging, “This is you,” watching your softness puncture, recognising vinegar blood, and so seeing its own.

Disgust

I came home and saw myself in the mirror.
I understand if you don’t want to see me again.
I’m a failure of humanity,
Or perhaps a success.