i couldn't breathe

beneath the humid air,

too much oxygen

for fragile, failing lungs;

my father's rage,

walls singed

from the flames,

photographs burned,

hollow smiles seared away

forever.

 

classrooms

alone, empty;

a house isolated,

dead writers' misery

greater beauties

than my own;

dead poets,

my only friends

and careful gods.

 

my hands shook

bad, cowering nerves,

and words my throat

was too weak to say;

my voice a broken mirror,

each journal pulsed

with all the life i wasn't brave enough

to live;

memories i had to keep,

treasures so sharp

and jagged,

sublime and beautiful.

 

Allen Ginsberg's voice

echoing

in my soul,

a life fateful;

agreeing approval

for queer poets

and the lives society likes to pretend

we don't live.

 

Bukowski,

blunt and crude;

honest beauty so sharp

and dangerous;

cut me

please.

 

Arthur Rimbaud's face framed

on my desk, echoes of chaos 

i understand

and mourn. 

 

my salvation

and blood,

lines from a pen,

like cuts on my arm,

bleeding

to feel better.