Month: Jan 2020

Sympathy for the Seventh Sin

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Photo by Burak K

Hey, just wanted to see how you’re doing today.

The last time I called I hated you like a lion

Hates to kill its prey.

I’m not religious but every time someone mentions you, I sit there and pray

Hoping you have the means to move on without me there, every step of the way.

But I don’t know what it means to move on. I get finicky.

My pillow gasps and screams your name right back to me.

The strangers all around this place have branded me as “gutsy” –

If they don’t see my crippling heart, what else do they not see?

Your beaming smile was printed in my memory. Then cut out as a simple clipping.

I must’ve been a monster when I stabbed myself to start the snipping

In order to get every last piece of you away… Too bad I forgot the stitching.

All for nothing. The numbness didn’t last. The insides are still twitching.

Do you even understand what has been done?

How many times the water’s under the bridge

But you once again pull out the gun?

And with my own hand you push me out on the ridge…

Will you have what it takes to pull the trigger? Or will you stand there, evasive?

If offered my tied and bleeding tongue, would you know where to place it?

What a shame it is to fall for someone with a soul of tin,

To have this deadly sympathy for the seventh sin.

What an abject itch it is to live with you, without ever having you.

It was nice to talk but I must go. My empathy is due.

-JW

Red house by the Silk Road

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Photo from Pixabay

Some choose to follow the same predicament, the dusty pavement.

The particles are getting their brain rusty, but it’s a statement –

To be hollow, or not to follow? What’s the difference if time is borrowed?

I have such hunger to fearmonger. Don’t need to write down your area code,

If needed, I’ll remember the red house by the Silk Road. If needed, I’ll reload.

Some choose their steps like they’re graven, not to wake the death raven,

But feathers fill their lungs gravely. How bravely they cave in

At the slightest of touch… I clutch my madness and run away, blindly,

I’m alone together with my thoughts, oh, please don’t mind me.

Treat me unkindly. I need my feathers ruffled, nightly.

Some choose to stay put in four walls until something better calls –

The drying paint is shriveling the souls like bright leaves during falls.

It might be a stunning scenery but I prefer one wall broken. Helps the greenery.

What a pity I am, so well made and shiny, but unbound by machinery.

I bet they would cut out my heart – if it wasn’t a thievery.

Some choose to never leave me be.

-JW

Routine Riptide

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Photo from Pixabay

Isn’t it romantic – how we verve by a shattered screen for long hours

While the Insanity Watch serves us the career that isn’t really ours.

It sounds like a plan – while you lay low, the profits go high,

And the greyer you become, the bigger is the imaginary apple pie.

The story is not about ambition, it’s about what you expect in return –

‘Cause they will settle for nothing less than depression and a sudden heartburn.

“Don’t take yourself so seriously. Smile. But not that wide, be decent.”

Why don’t you want to see me grin? This facial pose is pretty recent

For me, at least. I also never rolled my eyes before I started in this position

Because it takes the 360 degree view to take in all the disposition. Plus, the factual fiction.

This can’t be real, right? Am I really asking or am I making a deal with the devil?

At the end of the day, it’s about the heads you sever

While dealing with the pressure level.

Yet – I’m not good at it. I often revel.

Rebel.

***

My bloody nose is treacherously tickling, blood is trickling.

The sunrises smell coppery. Evenings – soaked in bleach, whittling

And turning the last white blood cells into goo. Have I lost it completely?

Is it supposed to be resembling dying, or is this really death, masked discreetly?

I would prefer if you don’t answer. The silence is much better than your breath –

The moments when your rotten mouth is speaking,

I’ve always viewed with so much disrespect.

All I look forward to is the next taxi to take me away to a place around the corner.

A place nearby where the tentacles can’t reach. Where I have built a border.

The dim prediction that I’ll break in the process lingers, right above my shoulders.

But if I once built palaces for people that I hate… Then for myself

I will be shifting boulders.

-JW

Just another FOB song

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Photo by Mike from Pexels

Maybe I’m a one trick pony or a misfit

But baby, I don’t get it, how your face makes them lose it –

How you’re just all that and your love’s been “such a blessing”.

I’m sorry, is there something vital that I’m missing?

I guess you’re fine on most Monday mornings

And your kitten heels lipstick never keeps it boring.

You Lovelace your way into everyone’s story

Whilst empathy for you remains an unknown territory.

Tuesday evenings pass and you make me sickly mellow –

Your pale blue veins turn strictly amarelo.

It’s hard for me not to break your jaw on Wednesdays,

The second my slap lands, we will part our joint ways.

On Thursdays we hate one another, that’s the rule,

‘Till our hands touch fingers, like in middle school…

Fridays mix blatantly into the weekend blues

But you leave your shirt open, and you forget your shoes.

On most days I still don’t get what they see in you,

When the world is a Romeo to your biting Scorpio.

So fearless and honest, a straight shooter to heart –

This reality’s yours, and we’re here to play the part.

…

“The waves in your hair look marvelous moonlit.”

Indeed, I’m a one trick pony and a misfit.

The Endless Cycle of “Not Enough”

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Photo by Lucas Ettore Chiereguini

Being patient through most days while you abuse the peace tenderly

By dancing on my nerve ends as I sink into the lethargy.

I often wonder – can I go any deeper than this, can I go beyond?

Is living just a prolonged torture as we wait to go back where

We once belonged?

Most mornings sound static to my ears, it’s not music at all –

The noise is so maddening I run through the streets while the others stall.

I think about whether they even sense the chilling breath on their necks

As they navigate filthy boulevards filled with human made bottlenecks.

What a wreck.

When the afternoon sneaks upon me reminding of far better times,

The emptiness in my belly has grown so strong, ready to paralyze. To bury lies.

No matter how hard I’m trying to outlive the benumbing gallows inside,

It seems clear that the judgment will fall over me as they say my appeals

All have been denied.

Nothing taste quite as bitter as evenings. The silence swaddles my hair.

All I want is to be left alone…yet I also want an affair. Is this fair?

My thoughts run through foggy meadows, they stop at the no man’s land.

Some evenings they come back home. But some – they sell cannons

As contraband.

Nights are not made of time as I struggle to keep myself on the clock.

Please, don’t get me wrong – nights are still a goddamn chopping block.

I never needed a time of day to get even darker, as if I wasn’t dusky enough,

As if I needed the starlit sky to remind me how the cycle repeats, as if I needed

Another reason for giving up.

Can I just rebuff?

Please, let me out. It’s been enough.

-JW

Love Witch: Vol 2

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Photo by Charry Jin

A distant dawn is spilling light over horizons,

But I’m only waking up when I hear the sound of sirens.

There’s cheap vanilla perfume lingering between our bodies,

Pretending it is sane to look for love in hotel lobbies.

The curtains on our stage remain closed. We’re not ready to ask questions

As you feel deep regret and I’m still fighting my aggressions.

We’re done. After tonight we’re done. The moment sun rises

We’re as good as two strangers who have been through a crisis.

The morning sun hits my face, and I’m ready to flee this absurd scene.

Your eyes meet mine. You also know this has turned obscene.

***

I wonder – if you feel nothing for long enough do you

just hate everybody? Or are you just too tired?

Looking for love seems like too much effort

to put in someone who will never be desired.

But then I meet these people who I shouldn’t touch

as it’s wrong to steal something that’s not yours,

and I sink my teeth in them and I make them blush

so red… But is it my fault they put themselves on all fours?

It is he who adores, it is he who ignores

The warning signs, redder than his cheeks.

But who cares about my heartless Siren’s screak?

I’m the one who made him weak, for weeks,

just like a modern day love witch, so to speak.

Hope they burn me during dawn, as they should.

Hope I reborn as someone from Hollywood

that makes their livelihood by being no good.

-JW

A Goodbye Note on the Fridge

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Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

It’s 2.30am and there’s nothing left in this world for me to fix,

Nothing I can do to change what’s been done, no knock-off tricks

Left in my sleeve – I’m fresh out of cheats to unlock this next level.

I’ll pack up and run. You’ll stay here to watch the dust settle.

To our past I feel sorry, my trembling arms are still holding on so tight.

But, then again, from a hundred wrongs you can’t make a single right,

Especially during the night.

Don’t call me lucky, my reality’s a free fall without a parachute.

I live on black coffee and spoofed memories of the lovers I mute,

My home is where I lay my head – but you can’t make running your friend.

You were right when you said I’m so fake I could run for president.

But, I swear, when I closed the door I didn’t mean to burn the bridges –

No point for explanations though. Just hope you won’t become religious.

“The Runaways” was playing the evening we crossed paths, it’s funny

How the moments you treasured seem foolish now, and less than temporary.

You never seemed to notice the worlds I built around you in my mind

So I built some without out you, pretending we would be just fine.

My fantasies became so real I couldn’t grasp.

And suddenly you knew, but you never asked,

Pretending we could be just fine…

***

It’s 4am and in fact, nothing needs my fixing.

I’m broken, true, yet I’ll stick to my vicious cycle of affixing

To someone that holds me together,

Only for a little while,

Like we’re birds of a feather,

Until I find a new place to start a better life.

One day I’ll make it right.

-JW

Toast To The Last Deceit

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Image from Skitterphoto

Cheers to all the concrete walls, to back allies, to crossroads and canyons,

To all the secrets they keep and how they treat daylight like their

dying companions.

To the irreversible and unimaginable, to every beginning of bitter end,

I would promise that it gets easier, but my mind’s broken and body too

so I won’t pretend.

To every inch of floor you’ve cried on or spilled some champagne on in weekends

Because you’re so tired of the rut you’re stuck in, and I’m stuck in the middle –

with you, till the world ends.

Here’s to the people that won’t call back, and the ones who text too much,

I’ve never appreciated modern art but I will admit – 21st century communication

needs artistic touch.

And to the black abyss, darkest pits, death valleys with all the crows in sight.

To the moments where the only way out is through a window pane or screen –

No fight or flight.

To the smoothest chats and pleasant small talks about weather in shitty apartment

Where the peaks mask as fate, then you become obsessed – the end of night

Will taste disheartened.

Please pick up your highball, get the courage to drink to another lonely evening –

Or is it a lovely evening? I don’t want to get demeaning

But when the ego snaps, it’s never even.

So tell me again – what is it you’re deceiving?

Late Night Angst

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Photo by Romain Kamin

The lack of voices in my head sounds like a symphony,

The quiet times in my mind are showing me some sympathy –

They sing to me.

I would raise a glass but my thoughts are as tired

As a race horse the second new jockey is hired –

It’s true (if he’s a friar).

***

I don’t change for any wind: course northbound, sail’s intact…

Some days I think of myself as an act – or an artefact.

It’s rather wonderful how I change everything yet stay in place

But it’s only two cents to enter the race –

And it will always seem like I’m slowing the pace

So join. I’m the last thing in life I can truly handle

But it’s getting foggy so blow out the candle.

Dreams are a nomad’s lantern but I’m too tired to light it,

I’d rather use a sharp compass and a good map reader to fight it –

The imminent death that’s our carrot and stick,

To be honest, god must’ve really planned this trick.

Such naïve beginnings to end up wiser when it’s your time

Rather than taking you full of ego and youthful sublime.

***

I never truly understood why I even was born, I’m not kidding,

Because it’s so easy to climb and to fall, yet still feel like winning.

Your mind can make villas out of allies or department stores

So no one’s really the loser in reaching the highest of goals.

And that’s why I find life entertaining instead of depressive

As irony is a kind of entertainment if you don’t get obsessive –

Find it meaningful enough to plan out every move in the way.

Not to be the advisor to your wiseacre

But history’s also written by those who don’t live another day.

-JW

Every Beginning and Bitter End

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Photo by Justin Hamilton

She’s a great listener and a steady support,

Even my granddad calls her “old sport”,

Because she’s a delight and the heart of every crowd –

But I’ll admit, some days she gets a bit loud.

She’s never reckless or selfish, but when she is,

I observe her closely and perform a little analysis,

You know, to see if she’s just lightheaded or hurt

By the many worlds in her head, like a true introvert,

As it’s not usual for her to act out of fear or be ruthless,

And I don’t want her mind to grow painfully fruitless.

She cares a lot, sometimes too much, to be honest,

It’s her kryptonite, forgiving more than is promised,

More than is reasonable. But I secretly love it –

Her passion takes my lowest days to the summit.

It’s tough to make her unreasonable or vague,

Although I sometime do, and she’s embarrassed to break

In front of herself, mostly, not an observer in the street.

That’s just proof of how her mind is unique, yet obsolete.

She never sees the best version of herself in the mirror,

No matter the non-value added wits and the shimmer

She ever so lightly paints her smile with, every other day.

It fascinates me, and some people can’t look away.

I fell for her as soon as she laid her eyes on me,

It seemed like there’s no one else she’d rather see

In that distant night, many Fridays ago, all alone…

It has always made sense — it’s her duty to be,

And mine, ever so blindly,

To atone.

-JW