1. Butterfly Knife
Her sex is like violence
And when she’s finished she stands outside the car
Juggles a butterfly knife between her fingers
Tells you tales of the men she’s stabbed at various truck stops
Throughout the country
She’s so perfect
What a god damn shame
How her name
Escapes me
2. Siege of Self
I tell myself I’m getting better
But at night
I still dream of the terror
Like a snuff film I can only feel
But never see
I tell myself I’m getting stronger
But it still hits me
Like a gray bullet to the chest
Catatonic in the basement again
I tell myself to breathe
As I tap dance between the mortars
And live my life
Forever under siege
3. Juniata
Burst blood vessel hangs lazy in his eye
Like a cows pregnant stomach
Shoes without laces
In a room without windows
He lobbies the doctor on that gray Pittsburgh morning
“I hurt myself with the best intentions
And I don’t need your sympathy”
Suffering is my only comfort
Feed it to me
4. Hoax
Never felt more alone then when I lay next to you
Severed wine bottle
Dirty basement floor
Dance across the plains of my forearms
Like a lioness’s tooth
When they find me floating in the closet
Where I keep my journals
Your indifference
Will be the pallbearer
5. Mangled Sheep
He’s a coward
Just like me
But I’m man enough to admit it
He pushes with his words
I throw him down the stairs
Six years clean with a knife in my hand
I never slept so soundly
As I did with the hammer under my pillow
And a half empty pill case on the night stand
How he bullied over me
Like some ffat arrogant husk
With the upper hand
Clenched like a battering ram
“You fight better
When you’re drunk”
He screams at his bleeding brother
He’ll never get that money
So long as he lives
But when he decides
to come through the window
He will get the hammer
He’s a coward just like me
But I’m man enough to admit it
Dream big
Sleep deep
A little bit of violence
Never hurt anyone
6. The Hopeless Romantic
Their breathless little lies
And cheap perfume
Never seemed to stay with me
But how I fondly recall the way his blood splattered the seat belts
And how he dumped me face down on the curb in front off the hospital
My arm dangling from my chest like a derailed locomotive
He walks around with a kiss on his arm
Shaped like my teeth
Or the face she made when I slapped the beer out off her boyfriend’s hand
And how he whispered “enough” after I bludgeoned his face
You’ve had enough
When I said so
A little bit of violence
Never hurt anyone
7. Body Horror
Can’t remember a time it wasn’t always like this
I’ve taken myself hostage
Spend most of my time getting high off starvation
As I take these pills that turn my stomach into Hades
I’d be disappointed
If I wasn’t so embarrassed
“I hope you’re happy”
I scream in the mirror
Ball my fist
And am it down my throat
8. United in Torment
I would hide in the closet
Shivering under grandpa’s coats
While you prowled the hall
Like a murderer
Like a facsimile
Now you are far away
I am still right here
Both lie awake at night
Dying to be better men
Two bitter broken hearts
Raging in loneliness
United in torment
Reincarnation Blues
You killed me
In my childhood bedroom
Where the cancer failed
Crushed my neo-cortex
In the same place where grandmother died
Then you watched my body
Decompose
Like a pornographic film
And then I fade into nothing
While you stand over me
You killed me
Vivid visions off a victim
A slave to a hateful universe
It’s always midnight down here
Mastery
Whenever I fuck
I’m 16 again
And if she contorts her face just so
I can feel that familiar bruise
Around the casket off my eye bone
If only you could see me
A well-muscled cowboy gorilla
Stalking these city streets
With a heart full of broken monsters
If only you could see me
If only you could see me now
Maybe you’d hold back for once
Bring the War Home
Blood seeps from his bandaged knuckles
Smearing itself on the rubber canvas
Like drunken kisses
From a one night stand
He punishes the mat for hours
Cross after cross
Sweep after sweep
Elbows purpled by the relentless pushback
The bag sways like a hung bandit
Stiffened corpse dancing in the wind
His joints bristle
As he prepares for another round
It’s to no avail
Relief has failed
A hate-seeking missile
Without a target
That bitch of a war
How we all died in it
We all died in it
End of the Rainbow
I cut myself
Pretend I’m someone else
Crimson tiger stripes
Up and down my arm
A war-torn rainbow
Disassociating
In the mirror
It finally smiles back
The lonely katana
Steel blade of shame
Slice my heart to ribbons
Bleeding in morse code
Like broken knives
Dancing down my spine
These pills don’t help
Just like everything else
So I wash them down with whiskey
Pray I don’t survive
Put on my church clothes
Lying in the bathtub
The ceiling slowly warps
So hateful to be alive
So fucking hateful to be alive
Bury me in Czestawova
Or else find me in the parking lot
Suffering is my only comfort
Without it I am nothing