Instagram: @yungvudu
Icarus
Icarus, why is it that you flew too high?
Was the gas mask on a bit too tight?
Was the jack too much on top of the pills?
Mama said if you were alone, it meant there was something that needed to get done,
because if you’re busy, you never notice that you’re alone
and there’s a theory in childcare where
if your child starts crying, you should just ignore it until she stops
What is this promoting, pride? Internalization? Giving up?
We become no more than just a thin skin with hot air swirling around inside
mixed with self-hatred and cigarette smoke
Pop goes the skin with a thin crack,
thats how you know the needle’s in and the ink spreads
pop goes the weasel
pop goes the lid
pop goes his gum in a wet mouth coated with words unsaid
pop went daddy's gun when you didn’t come home
I could tell they are starting to get frustrated
fingers running through stringy bleached hair
color sucked out of it like the doctor’s pills sucked out life from light eyes
but it doesn’t quite matter what time it is
once the sun goes down keep your hands out of your pockets
tilt your shoulders back and your chin up
because daddy said, you don’t want to look like a victim
Down goes the sun and you know it’s time to get home
The guitar slides back in your hands
cold wood where warm hands should feel
and metal tracing your fingertips
where you wish his lips could be
Was the gas mask on a bit too tight?
Was the jack too much on top of the pills?
Mama said if you were alone, it meant there was something that needed to get done,
because if you’re busy, you never notice that you’re alone
and there’s a theory in childcare where
if your child starts crying, you should just ignore it until she stops
What is this promoting, pride? Internalization? Giving up?
We become no more than just a thin skin with hot air swirling around inside
mixed with self-hatred and cigarette smoke
Pop goes the skin with a thin crack,
thats how you know the needle’s in and the ink spreads
pop goes the weasel
pop goes the lid
pop goes his gum in a wet mouth coated with words unsaid
pop went daddy's gun when you didn’t come home
I could tell they are starting to get frustrated
fingers running through stringy bleached hair
color sucked out of it like the doctor’s pills sucked out life from light eyes
but it doesn’t quite matter what time it is
once the sun goes down keep your hands out of your pockets
tilt your shoulders back and your chin up
because daddy said, you don’t want to look like a victim
Down goes the sun and you know it’s time to get home
The guitar slides back in your hands
cold wood where warm hands should feel
and metal tracing your fingertips
where you wish his lips could be
Remembrance
The streets were paved with the same smoky gravel hiding more secrets than a priest
while the buildings rose tall to blot out rays of light, like the way branches blot out pieces of a child’s blue sky
Mazes of shadows flickering on and off against her skin
passing underneath the sighing leaves the sidewalk held the past present and future
Every cranny, every crevice, every blemish, every wrinkle
she knew and she felt
but this time, it was different
Never return to the past believing it remains
the past doesn’t exist in any but our own minds
It will almost be like a game, find all 16 differences game
and the places of comparison will feel like home but not
to figure out whether you are dreaming, ask how you arrived where you are
So you think.
And you think
And you think some more
But it will be akin to prying open the jaws of a snare
the second you get close enough to open the clenching jaws
your fingers will slip and with the snap of the snare comes the snap of your mind
I’ve been to your garden and I’ve been to your grave
the past is your master and you are the slave
while the buildings rose tall to blot out rays of light, like the way branches blot out pieces of a child’s blue sky
Mazes of shadows flickering on and off against her skin
passing underneath the sighing leaves the sidewalk held the past present and future
Every cranny, every crevice, every blemish, every wrinkle
she knew and she felt
but this time, it was different
Never return to the past believing it remains
the past doesn’t exist in any but our own minds
It will almost be like a game, find all 16 differences game
and the places of comparison will feel like home but not
to figure out whether you are dreaming, ask how you arrived where you are
So you think.
And you think
And you think some more
But it will be akin to prying open the jaws of a snare
the second you get close enough to open the clenching jaws
your fingers will slip and with the snap of the snare comes the snap of your mind
I’ve been to your garden and I’ve been to your grave
the past is your master and you are the slave
Why Do I Love you?
why do I love you?
the answer isn't to the question why
the answer will only surface when you can teach an old mind new
ways to distort a young body
starting with the inability of the mind to let go
I don't just want to taste the revolution tracing your lips
I want to smell the rotting of your soul
and feel your hatred as it courses through your veins
like acid flows through a test tube
it's no surprise you're dissatisfied
when all I have to offer are cigarettes and good company
but the need for your approval
is like arsenic to an artist
a tool to tease but never to take
because i will forever be cursed to bend back my own fingers
to choke down my own throat
with my own dissatisfaction
because love is creation only through destruction
and as a wildfire scorches soft earth
clearing it of all impurities
love scorches through a human body and burns through its mind
I want to swallow your sorrows
ending the meal not when I am full, no
the meal will be over the second you can look in the mirror
and realize that it is possible for someone to love that man
as much as you despise him
and to spite him
that's what I will do
through tear stained cheeks, tongues burnt by cigarettes and
throats stung by vitriolic words
I will love him and I will love you
because my mind is clear now
and that may be the only thing I know how to do