Category: Other

Stepping Out

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The cheeks blush with crimson rage

As I step out of this rusty cage

To face the music, the false prodigies,

But nobody’s there awaiting me.

The time stands still, it’s almost poetic –

They kept my life highly hectic

As a sorry attempt to confuse me,

To make me less of a human.

They restrained me through battles

So I return to inspect the shackles.

All I see are some black dahlias,

All the betrayals become obvious.

Bars and wires melt at my sight

Deflating this cage left out of light.

My knuckles shake in fatigue

Yet – I close the doors

With a sigh of relief.

-JW

Revenge

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The word tastes so bittersweet on my tongue,

Looks good on paper in an illuminated room.

I’ve perfected these plans ever since I was young

And you trapped yourself not a day too soon.

What do we have here? A cheap skin sack

Laced with a smidge of my own blood type.

A third rate man with a bow on the back,

Shimmery, yes, but never worth the hype.

So I look under the trembling, leaking lids,

Trying to make sense of the six years of pain.

Everything’s there, mental jitters and skids,

But I know how you love to show fake feign.

I pull your chair closer, I lift up your chin.

Your neck cracks in a despicable way.

The drops of sweat cover your grey skin

Therefore you’re aware I came to play.

But the moment I uncover my angry wrist

To scratch your sinful heart of teak,

The alarm punches my sleep with both fists

And I never get the revenge

I’ve been destined to seek.

-JW

Our Clocks

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A week before we met I was writing suicide notes on silver displays.

A week before we met I drifted neck deep into a greyish haze.

But you were unaware when you opened the filthiest of my stiches,

You were inadvertently smoothing out some colossal bugs and glitches.

What began as a joke, ended in you sewing together a hopeless bleeder.

I didn’t know how, I didn’t know why, and you didn’t know it either.

But I plucked the thought of us out of my head without second guessing,

Said I fixed it myself in order to keep my lying bones from confessing.

I fought it hard, yet soon enough – I drank from the gilded chalice.

Your eyes became the rotten green light to my Gatsby’s palace.

And, damn, I loved you. I loved you like I’ll never love another man.

The melody of your laughter composed symphonies in my tired head.

The closer we grew, the quieter the world around our lives became.

Neither one of us seemed to mind if you and I remained the same…

A week after you held me, they exchanged our sky lanterns for rocks.

A week after you held me, they tore us apart for palladium blocks

And they obliterated all our calendars,

All our clocks.

-JW

The Weightless Crucifix

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But don’t you ever die on that hill, don’t ever ideate,

Don’t tell them you sold me down the river for something greater

Than your own shame.

I hope you don’t get a day off when it comes to internal scrutiny.

Oh, but I’m not cursing you, quite the opposite,

I’m only asking for equity.

Hope the heavens hear me this time, despite how I’ve sinned,

Hope they forgive me for all the gods

I’ve boiled and tinned.

And don’t you ever feel sorry when the cash isn’t cutting it, no.

Remember – you thought one day it’ll be easy

For me to let you go.

So take the advice and drown yourself in your crooked politics.

I choose to remember, you choose to play the fool

Dragging the weightless crucifix.

Carry on, may the light of all your good deeds guide your blissful way.

We both know far too well it’s a dark road

No matter how much you can pay.

-JW

Your Own Gravedigger

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The visions don’t stop arriving at the gate,

They fill my sizzling pockets, bate after bate,

Until there’s nothing to offer in exchange.

Then they burn their carriages in flaming rage.

The suspense tightens around my chambers,

Pulse rushes to conclusions, rips the papers.

My spine vibrates from all the vivid feelings

Thrown at my face from this leaking ceiling.

But the cemetery’s watching quietly, wisely,

It’s eyeing my carcass, “Oh, you entice me.”

The black birds chirp thrice before it begins.

My smile gets widened by a sharpened brim.

I keep waking and falling, and waking again.

There are carriages, carnages and a single amen.

The thoughts keep digging me an early grave,

And when engraving the headstone,

I hear them spelling my name.

-JW

Stopping The Time Machine

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And one day I won’t be this bitter,

My tongue won’t need a babysitter.

And one day I’ll learn to take a “no” –

Perhaps tomorrow,

Not today though.

One year the revenge will even out,

My hands won’t shake, lips won’t pout.

Maybe even this week I’ll be fine –

But not right now

While I’m still vile.

I promise – one morning it’ll stop.

There won’t be any tears to mop.

And one morning I’ll just let it go –

The time will finally

Take it slow.

-JW

Momentum: Thoughts From The Most Anxious Of Times

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Pretty please, don’t ever lower you shiny shields.

All your yesterdays will burn your pride in the fields,

They’ll poke your intestines open and cheer,

Even colour their cheeks with bloody smears.

Don’t fall for whatever they’re selling today.

You always have a friend in your own dismay.

For you it’s not really that much of a momentum –

They’re using your story only as an addendum.

Dearest, listen, trust those who constantly crave

And abuse the permissions that their own god gave.

Turn a cold shoulder to those seeking warmth,

Call it “unintended distance” instead of direct harm.

-JW

Mirrors And Marigolds

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You should regret the day you passed me in the misty noon,

Smelling of innocence, humming calmingly yet out of tune.

The bright naivety evaporated so swiftly and too soon –

Your fist trembled the table, ending our latest honeymoon.

You shouldn’t forget the way you pressed me like a mold

Onto your perfectly orderly headlines, colored in bold.

Your vivid fury lit hellish rage in this body, usually cold,

And you smashed the mirror along with my marigolds.

You must forever carry the weight of my gut-wrenching cries,

The kind that’s only heard when someone sinless dies.

Your explosive temper turned my little funerals into white lies,

And with each piece of me disintegrating

You cut me to size.

-JW

Blood On His Collar

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You wear him around your neck like an ancient amulet,

Such a pretty Judas dressed in the costume of a Capulet.

Your left eye twitches when he mentions the name of another

So you shed one more snake skin and make him your lover.

You tighten the chains, you ensure he’s always close,

And you do the laundry only to smell all his clothes –

Just to obsess over a jacket with a hint of my perfume

So you can christen it with fire while your ego fumes.

You crack the emergency glass a bit more each time,

Smearing blood on his collar, thinking it’s a lipstick of mine.

I’m patient – but the moment your grip becomes a noose,

The sensation of your heartbeats fading will erase our truce.

-JW

Drying Out

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I squeeze my own purple knees until they’re completely dry,

Pull my hair out in clumps, shout but don’t apologize.

Some beg me to be honest, some overlook the sharpened edges

So they don’t have to talk me down from new ledges.

The tired ones point at me wearily but never in rightful anger.

We all have the fear of being greatly mishandled.

Perhaps if I just stop cutting my brain open for another display,

The voices will pack up and call it a day.

Perhaps if I just cut off my hair, I’ll find the strength to grow up

To stop begging hundreds of strangers, “Please show up.”

I tie and tangle these thoughts, I hide them under the sink.

Revisit only when there’s a fresh scar, salmon pink.

But I don’t let go of my own purple knees until I’m so dry

That a scream sounds like the perfect lullaby.

-JW