Manipulus

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The gasoline is leaking out of your bad shoulder.

It’s been hurting since you put a hole in the wall

Because she didn’t let you hold her.

Now her face is just an apparition, fading so fast,

And your head is a long lost ghost ship

Fleeing all the safe shores half-mast.

The thoughts intrude and bite down with their incisors

As you recall promising her a sure grave.

Yet – her spite knew you’re none the wiser.

Now her body is cold but you barely touched her.

You merely gave her a foolish idea…

Maybe she was pushed by a bluster?

The flies are eagerly circling your puny defences

But you have all the good explanations –

Only you can’t say it to their faces.

The road ahead spirals like your fetid self-pity

And you know you’re forever haunted,

Even if you leave her bones in this city.

-JW

Capitulare

Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels

She’s at the piano, playing her fingertips numb and soul sore.

Tinsel in her hair, glitter on the wrists, her childish mind at war.

The party around her roars like gunfire, she almost disappears,

Blends into the background hiding behind her faceless peers.

She’s on her tenth cigarette even though she quit a long time ago.

Whisky in her system, fuel in her one-track mind ready to blow.

No sadness, no regret, just a ton of anger in a short linen dress –

But don’t lose a finger comforting her, she’ll never confess.

She’s rearranging the thoughts but coming to the same conclusion.

The shivers slide down her spine, hurting like a contusion.

“What’s promised, must be fulfilled,” she silently whimpers

And tries to ignore her own violently shaking fingers.

She’s on the balcony unamused, not even slightly entertained.

The man by the bar represents all her guilt doused in heated shame.

The bottles stacked on expensive tables shatter at her sight.

Her lungs collapse under the relief of crashing into the dolomite.

(The people sigh as he winces:

“She wasn’t in her right mind.”)

-JW

Ultimatus

Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels

Every portrait on the wall has wandering eyes,

Every time I look at the phone you have me paranoid

But I don’t take my own advice.

There’s no privacy in love and no respect in control.

I might act like you’re fooling me greatly

But your lies are barely staying afloat.

So I confess to you all my deadliest urges

And you say you hope I would just get it over with,

Not taming the darkness that emerges.

You keep pushing me further, calling me distasteful.

“If you ever leave, I’ll know I was right,

You were never faithful.”

Words can build character, they can burn down cities,

And after months of hearing you on the loop

My anger turns into pity.

Every photo on the wall has my lifeless eyes,

Every time I look at you, the poison sinks in more

Until all self-preservation is paralyzed.

-JW

Purposeful Violence

Photo by Tyler Lastovich from Pexels

My friends heard you know how frisky I get when I stand by a man like you.

There you are, punching holes in my paper walls after learning that we’re through.

No call backs though, no carton airplanes flying off this cliff I’ve put you on.

Six long months of miseries and resolving your twisted mind – do you even know

How much it hurts? I bet you don’t.

Never have I admitted to liking this game you’re lobbying but I read the rules –

A punch to the gut is a sign of love, a stab in the back is love times two.

Some days I wonder how I got that far, tearing myself up for a taste of passion –

The closest feeling to being cut in pieces with a hot knife and distributed

To everyone I hate in rations.

“Never trust a perfect person,” they say, but then ask you to stop being picky.

Apparently romance is only great if the ice is thin and each step is tricky.

Let’s be truthful – it’s all about how it seems, not how it feels, haven’t you noticed?

The worse your mental state gets with each fight, the more they cheer your passion

And give violence a purpose.

-JW

Your Vows: An Abuser’s Battle Cry

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With my right hand I’ll hold yours so tight it’ll numb,

And my left hook will christen you a cheater and scum.

I’ll gaslight your way and pave it with malice

So your tears will submissively fill my chalice.

Through your laughter I’ll twist two truths in a lie

Until joy feels repellent, like a parasite.

I’ll feast on your principles, bite and unnerve.

But your worst fear – I think I’ll have served as dessert.

Forever I’ll love you and hold you so closely

As chokehold is not forbidden. Well… Mostly.

I’ll carry your struggles and kiss them array,

I won’t notice the moments you push me away,

And I’ll climb and I’ll triumph, and take what is mine –

Why wouldn’t it be? You said pain feels fine.

What a time.

***

I will steal every last bit of mind that you own

and your credit cards, and your telephone.

Every thought and decision I promise to carry,

only to stop when you’re dull and plain, and simply ordinary.

You don’t need to go home when I am your temple,

your start and your end, don’t be sentimental.

Your resentful cries won’t ever be heard.

Blurred. You’ll become so blurred.

***

With these vows I take your life

To be my lawfully wedded butcher knife,

To care for you when I need it for survival.

But when I don’t, you’ll carry me like an

assault riffle.

Shades of Blue

Photo by Burak K

Lately I haven’t been mentioning you that often

Or how one darn smile could make all the tension soften.

I haven’t been sharing our jokes — and that’s good, I suppose.

Your laughter’s translucent. I feel like I loved a ghost.

These days I barely remember the uneasy feeling,

The heaviness, crumbling pain, white wine on the ceiling.

Dragged my knees through the streets, painted them shades of blue,

But now the pink glass has shattered — and my worst instincts, too.

Often I see you reaching for solace through my front doors

But I’m no longer a kid and that makes you insecure

About what it is you did to make me despise your guts.

I would tell but I’ve got no interest to save you from ruts.

Way back you filled my thoughts to the point of aspersion.

I didn’t recognize myself, that was a different version,

A rip-off of me and everything that I stand for.

But, sure, you can privately call it ‘flirt to strengthen the rapport’.

Lately I haven’t been talking about you daily

Or how you abused me and then made the lines seem hazy.

I don’t have time for your acts — and that’s great, I’m proud.

My laughter’s all rapturous. Backbone remains unbowed.

Be Still

The last time I wrote you I loved you so blind,

you, of all people, not the rest of your kind…

Had my mind in your palm and your teeth in my chest,

god, I was sure that you’re worse than the rest.

A substance I’ve tasted for the very first time.

And for what? So for the rest of my life I can no longer pretend

that I’m fine?

you’re toxic and drinking your poison is painful

But day in and day out you say — I should be grateful

Don’t need the next cigarette, daydream or drink

But it’s numbing my pain so I don’t have to think

About future, or money or castles of gold,

F*ck, I swear — this is how you’re last lover was sold

A fantasy of certainty and safety.

Where is she?

Where am I?

Or to quote Placebo –

where is my mind?

The feeling of losing someone so dear is way better

than being lost and only tasting the bitter

Intoxicating poison you raise in my throat…

Let me choke, oh, please, just let me choke.

And let me out of the choke-hold so frozen and evil,

your hands are no longer the good place, their grip so tight

it’s barely legal.

Lethal.

You’re stare reminds of a dusty poison ivy leaf,

The green eyes to kill for — they will kill me in my sleep.

Halsey serenaded some crystal green irises in her latest song,

And don’t understand me wrong,

I would still write a ballad about yours,

Filled with late night angst

and swear words…

It would still be yours, imperfect and fragile, and crazy,

Just like the author, irrelevant, hazy,

Teachable, but a slow learner and a quick burner,

The artsy and weird kind, you know, not a head-turner.

She will, however, stay close to your righteous and distant self,

Not because she’s courageous or looking for help.

There’s no help to be found while you bury her fading will,

and yet, she still see’s the emerald eyes and goes –

Be still, my beating hard, be still.

JW