In twos and threes
They arrived at their leisure,
Joining us in this smokey ring
of moldy mattresses,
bottles o’ booze
&, after a tab or two, iridescent seizures—
another weekend at the mall, outside
hidden in the trees— these
Friday afternoon rendezvous
of trailer park pixies
& dropout goblin kings, adolescent eccentrics
all fledglings in the art of fashionably dying.
Our parents were slaves t’social status & toil,
and we, undressed of our best mess,
felt we were the poetic plot twist
of Life’s farce we wished to foil—
Neurotic since the rocking cradle,
We charming bums of martyrdom
Always burning, yearning to flee
The fatal clutches of boredom
w/ our teenage hearts b’beat, beatin’in a carefree Halloween-like rage.
We gladly bathed in the river of Lethe,
longing for the warm womb plunge
of a Dionysian rebirth— a crave
t'feel again the forsaken skin of this earth,
Roots and tendrils sprouting
From toes and fingers.
One for the ground, the other for the air,
Crazed angelic eyes and leaf-ridden hair,
Pleasantly suspended in the planetary
Pulse to linger. Our imprisoned innocence
Released, erased. The flowers of the mind
T’blossom, embraced.
Fresh revelations, sensations,
a renaissance of sounds.
Metanoias where wisdom’s gardens
No longer knew bounds.
Self-scalping the ancient, gray labyrinth
like angsty electric-afro surgeons
Maddened to the allure of what fantastic
new Frankensteins we could burgeonIn our image.
O those beautiful Bohemian hemorrhages.
The iron drip. The slip
from sanctuary’s hand to the Other Side.
A reckless parricide. Childhood’s suicide.
Each one of us, hands trembling
with the bloody knife of independence,
Severing our religious voices
too long tongue-tied & whipped
To pray for an inner peace we had never recognized.
We had to kill ourselves to feel alive.
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