Tag: fiction

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

Red

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The Red is piercing my skin and pushing furious tentacles out of my neck.

With every heartbeat the scene turns brighter, I’m caught in a self-made wreck.

The green contact lenses I’m wearing can’t hide the pressure raising within,

I know my eyes glow in sultry carmine, I know I’ve lost my linchpin.

The nails click on surfaces, they dig into walls, they pull out my own hair.

The Red comes in waves and it leaves me crying for a chance to fight fair.

But they own my guts and let me sleep in them, too, just for another payday –

So I snap at myself for reasons unknown, convinced that I’m their prey.

The Red punishes me, it holds my nerve ends under deadly avalanches.

Fixing the damage feels like welding together burned and broken branches.

And soon enough every part of my torso is covered in a crown of flames

So I let the yet untamed Red out to play with its creators,

The instigators of my deep shame.

-JW

Losing You

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The trees take me in their arms and let my eyes wash away the sins.

The soft humming of the wind gives a shelter to this poor heart of tin.

And the forest comforts me but not like you, it doesn’t hold me tight,

It hears my curses and heals my aches but it’s not enough

To get me through the night.

The fog raises over the treetops, it covers all the mystical creatures,

The white mist lands on me in pity, sighs quietly like a preacher.

And I still feel a thousand times heavier with each step that I take.

My vain existence was a miniscule droplet but you –

You turned it into a lake.

The path right in front of me melts into shadows and silent alarms.

The pines surround me, they make me surrender the stolen arms.

And I resist to hand over my sharpest knives but they persist

By telling me how my own head’s a poison

And I’ll be missed.

The words are difficult to swallow so I burst into fiery laughter.

“The irony of it all, the one who ends it was also the starter.”

And I run for the edge but then stop just to fall on my knees.

A vision of your face pulls me back to ground

And for a second I feel peace.

-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

My Bastille

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I try hard to hold my past still

But it’s leaking putrid pastels.

Is there a point to hold on

To this forgotten echelon?

My legs keep being restless,

I can even taste the stress.

Is it my wishful thinking

Or can I sleep while blinking?

Or maybe we just pretend

That burning out is not a trend?

I try to tie the blasts in twill,

They try to forge my last will.

And I wonder – how come

I must always please the scum?

They never have to fix the stencil

If we agree to stand still.

But my feet keep running cold

While they trade our heat for gold.

So I spit out the foul pastil

And let my ego storm the Bastille.

-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

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

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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

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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