By Ryan King
Rolling
Lifting into the air and back down
Scrolls of adopted verse scatter the wind
Like stained and tattered American flags
Feint your opponent’s eyes while
Your left hand buries a dagger in their side
Small wound vomits blood down their leg
To pool on the floor
Where light reflects proximity to your end
Their beginning
You hate winter
You hate inevitable things
You hate yourself
This is inevitable
Shake like hands waiting
Shake the faith of those around with
Fire spewing from your mouth
Your shaking nerves can’t hold a thought still
Long enough to evolve past impulse
Falling
Stars hang themselves for your treason
Death lives in the sky forever
Death swims in the river
Waiting
Death is patient
Let’s wait together
Strangers flipping through magazines
Nervously coughing
Glancing peripheral doubt as they wonder about us
Suspicious
Can’t get their diseases fast enough
Let’s breed cancer into our children
Shoot their veins with dementia and
Watch them crumble in the bitter snow
Watch our babies never learn to grow
Burning
Fields of black smoke take to the sky
You drive past
Oblivious to the landscape’s cry for help
You want the horizon to forget your name
Cornfield patches pieced together by
Gravel roads and small swaths of
Wooded lanes beneath the silhouettes of forgotten silos
You wanted to leap from that silo
So your friends could see your shattered skull
Leaking brain and blood
In the yard
Let the horses eat it up and kick your head
Outta the way
Let your soul forgive itself
Let your wisdom breathe
Ryan King is an artist just trying to make it through this life. He is a songwriter/musician, poet and a painter. He has recorded a few albums worth of songs independently. He has had poetry published by 48th Street press, Rad Publishing Co., and most recently, a chapbook published by Between Shadows Press. @vayouking (IG)
