Sick Birds
Dedicated to Kiley Donovan

With lips locked
Like coins in the fountain
Sparkling from above
But not glowing in the dark
And I realize
That it is deserted
And this ghost town
Is not my home
But a refuge
From everything I've come to fear
Not that it helps
Because the fear is not external
But internal
Like the shades of ink
That build a special maternal embrace
Singing, "Who's got the guns? And who's got the diamonds?"
And if I have chosen diamonds in the past
It is only because the light reflects
Projects on walls
Makes a spectrum
And colors build
The blue
The green
The pink
The magnificent red
Death must feel like this
And birth too
Because where one stops
Another begins
So we can slowly die
Until we're born for the final time
With diamonds on our beds
And sick birds healing wings
Like cable cars on the west coast
She passed through me
And passes through me still
I cease to move while this happens
I cease to exist in the truest sense of the word
Like a mother to a child
When there are no options left
And it's not about what you did to me
Or what I did to you
Or even what we did together
It's what we do to the love
Turning our backs
Because diamonds aren't enough
And she traps me here
In limbo
In purgatory
Where perdition is around every corner
And mistakes are meant to purify
To prove relevance to every day life
As long as you're making mistakes
You are making progress
She keeps me trapped here
In this otherworldly space
A prisoner
Of sick cosmic jokes
The only thing you can do is wrap it tight
And it's never tight enough
The red
The black
The claw marks
Are just needle marks of a different kind
Are just analog
To fights with snakes
Over the protection of sick birds
And eggs are diamonds
Because of density ratios
And value
And she could say to me
"There's nothing better"
and I would hear
"Things couldn't be worse"