Contrition

I painted the walls with your name
and then burned the fucking house down.

The oceans aren't going to boil themselves,
and what are we going to do with all this salt?

Cake me, baby. I wanna repent for the pain.
I can't hurt you like he did, or does, or will --

it's so hard to keep track of your movements.
Why did I spend months splashing Seagrams

like holy water when you like the pain?
You could've just told me that. I can find

the right shade of grey if that's what you need.
Irony is not lost on me, and the definition

is not lost on you. Your new life is built
on top of the concept like a haunted house

on a burial site. Bury me or marry me,
I'm not what you need right now anyway.

You need a familiar ache, fangs that know
how to tear into a heart, eyes that can't stop

wandering, a mouth made for half-truths
and other peoples' lips. No,

I am not what you need right now.
You needed someone to call you

when you were lying next to me.
I could call you when you're lying

next to him. And you could give me a second
chance because I don't deserve one,

and that's how this all works, isn't it?

[Pray high, sinners]

Pray high, sinners. Take the pills and parcel them

out amongst the lot of you. Find forgiveness

in the lighter head, the warmer numb.

Ask our lord for a hand and he’ll shake us

clean. I died for you one time, but never again.

Lift lines like lifting spirits – we live in heaven now.

At least we think this is where we are. Darker

than originally imagined, louder than the place

we came from. Our fathers said this will pass

and we don’t believe them worth a bit of salt.

We’re worth a bit of salt. A bit of sound, quiet

or otherwise – good men know where they are.

We are not good men. We are the big-eyed bugs

who can’t see the future. Who are built to ruin

moviesets and pretty girls crying in their homes.

Eighteen eyes, eighteen drinks in, we can’t see

eighteen inches before us. Damned by our loves.

Silly rabbits – they thought we’d scatter when the lights came on.

Untitled, May 5

Hell used to be further away than the front door

and I can only recall the better lines.

A heart of black gold –

there was a beating to it

once, but the mass

it don’t breathe no more. I want to dig a hole in the world

only to find someone

has done it

before. Baby, defeat me.

There was a desire once, and pure thoughts.

Noble action. A truth that would

burn itself at the stake. Truth like a kiss

like a rock.

Kiss like a rock. Now we kiss like rocks kiss.

She found a strange sweetness in my mouth once,

a taste greater than the smoke.

            More saccharine than the tinny blood

            the sink finds each morning now.

I filled the lungs and the hole. I burned the truth, burned the sugar off.

I learned a lesson once,

            quickly learned to kill:

Killed a heart and it turned black.

Killed a girl and she kissed me back.

Kissed me ‘til the cows came home.

Kissed me ‘til her stop came up.