Take a Bite

Photo by Bret Watkins from Pexels

Walking the streets feels lonely since I’ve been doing it to pay rent,

So many strange faces and worn out places, so many mixed messages sent.

The blood doesn’t ache – but the heart breaking for my wasted youth stings.

It’s been a while since I’ve stopped running or held a pair of kings.

Shadows over my shoulder building up in an unholy, black avalanche,

Yet everyone’s convincing me – look back, it’s a dove holding an olive branch.

No friends out there left to betray, but my loyalties don’t lie in the past.

Only so many bites to take out of me, I wonder –

Who will be the very last?

-JW

Sugar of Lead

Photo by mentatdgt

I want to open you up the way you tried to open up my guts.

The way you bled me dry with all the feedbacks and the interrupts

While simultaneously dreaming of me as some cold cuts

On your dinner table – too bad you were always a klutz.

I trusted your instincts the way I never trusted my own.

The only sounds you want to hear from me are quiet groans –

It’s never easy to admit I’m not silly and that I have grown.

Yet the hardest part to bear is that I’ve set silence as your ringtone.

The farthest part from truth is the closest to reality. At least – mostly.

I don’t dream of lives or of deaths because I don’t sleep.

Don’t shush the lion inside before the propane cranes rise above me

And knock the crap out of my conscience. That’s one thing I should keep.

But nothing is sacred when a victimless crime takes its place.

The only rights or wrongs in this scene are how you set the pace.

As the lack of air will cause them some trouble when I puncture,

They will deem myself as a culprit when I’m really just the vulture.

Isn’t it the culture?

I lose structure.

My loose morals do rupture –

But I won’t break unless they capture.

A few good men

And loose pieces in my head.

With all due disrespect,

You die the way you make your bed.

Red. Inbred. Unthread.

Whatever’s your excuse, you’re not mislead.

This is the place you should pray to drop dead

Before fed the sugar of lead.

-JW