The Signage of the Damned
This What I Hear When You Talk
Okay, Thanks. Bye!
Eventually, we’ll have to admit that our nightmares
no longer haunt us. All night, the faces of those
we’ve so long wished dead will melt into our bath
water, leaving our skin glistening with a hint
of vanilla and cinnamon and we won’t even blink
when we smear it on. We’ll call and call
into the echoing void of our lives with no answers
because God’s voicemail is long since full, and wake,
bored. It’s a curse we’ll settle into reasonably.
The only places left where wolves might drive up,
offer you a ride, and then devour you when you ask
to change the station are all clearly marked. Clowns
are bound by very strict laws that keep them
from eating people’s eyes. None of us will ever have
enough money to live and yet we will.
This Is What I Hear When You Talk
Someone tell the moon to stop that shit.
Someone call her on the phone and remind
her that her body is not her own; it belongs
to the hero’s gaze. Always pulling at
the oceans’ eyes with her beauty, turning
heads until they have whiplash. The moon
should be ashamed. How many men
have walked on her? While she lay there
and let it happen. Never an offer to pay
the universe’s legal fees. Not even a new
pen. The last pages of humanity are stuck
together. The future. The future.
The problem with sadness is once it knows your name, it will never (leave)
room for Jesus between you and (you)r ennui.
invite this convenient neighbor in. Soon, it’s w(a)aiting outside every time you
come (home)
opathic cure for expectations whose side effects may include New Wave music and bad
d(anci)ng
ent c(i)viliza(t)ion(s) would’ve murdered you or proclaimed you a mes(s)iah
o good to see young people keeping up with the old ways, like not being able
to afford mental health care.
CL Bledsoe's most recent books are Trashcans In Love and King of Loneliness. He lives in northern Virginia with his daughter and blogs, with Michael Gushue, at https://medium.com/@howtoeven
