Witch Wings

Im re-growing my

witch wings

because even hell and her angels

deserved a break

every once in awhile

to block out the hate

and the voices

in my thin skull

that told me I wasn’t worthy,

sweeping those

dust demons out

along with the ashes

of the fires that burned in Salem

with my broken bruised broom,

soon to be mended

by my own fucking magic

thank you very much

so I could take flight

anytime I was

found wanting

to get the fuck out of here,

as far away as I could

from under this sleazy mess.

But all I could hear on repeat

were my brother’s

last ghosts breaths

before he died,

skipping sick phonograph,

over and over

in my freak show head,

for the last two horror years

which drove me

off cliffs and

wild mad.

And when I looked

in the nightmare mirrors

of bathrooms

across America,

I didn’t recognize myself,

my eyes

consumed by house fires

and shitty poetry lines

scrawled on

napkins in diners

in Minnesota,

sloppy words on coasters in coffee shops

in Tennessee,

slurring notes in ice cream parlors

in Arizona

under the bluest skies

Id ever seen,

scribbling nasty nonsense

on paper towels

in the bars

of New Orleans,

hoping to turn

prophesies into realities.

And I sang

choruses of dirges,

and harmonized

with funerals in

the catwalks of churches

with candles below glowing fiercely

in every last one of the stained windows.

I was exhausted

with pulling off masks,

layer

after

aching

layer

to then eat those same damn toxins again,

I never seemed to fucking learn

and digest in disgust

the poison that  

sticks to the

sides of my

stormy stomach lining,

causing that kind of

hunched over thunder

in the belly

with a grimace and groan,

and I was left with just lungs and

phantom blood

which scream out

just to prove

their very existence,

but no one,

not even me,

can hear their cries
in the night.