Words Betray Me

I can say "I love you,"
And it is not a lie,
But it is
not
nearly
enough.

"I wish I could live in your heart."
That comes closer.
Growing roots into your
capillaries,
Sending verdant shoots
up
into your
ventricles,
Letting my leafy boughs
Breath oxygen
Into your blood--
what a gift
it would be to
always
provide for you.
But it is
still
not
enough.

"I feel every ounce of your pain in my own soul."
This approaches the sum of things.
My nervous system
Can no longer distinguish
Between your electrical current
and mine.
Every ache and anguish
Flows into me,
Sending lightning into my fingertips--
"Go to the Beloved!
Touch, soothe, be
Healed!"
But it is
never
enough.

And so these words betray me.
I can say "I love you,"
And it is not a lie,
But it is
not
nearly
enough.

Anthem of Self-Destruction

Inspired by the How Green? song "I'm Bored Therefore I Am"

I live in a cloister of debauchery, surrounded by the aimless amusement of lost and broken people. Echoing from the pounding basement floors stained with booze and the dorm sheets soaked with sexual frustration, I hear a sweet, slow anthem of self-destruction. Youthful vigour be damned--here, death matriculates as hyperactivity. In rare sober moments, my generation faces that most haunting inconvenience--"I'm bored, therefore I am." Terrified of the inescapable clauses after "I am...," too often punctuated with dysfunction, disillusionment, and debt, my peers flounder in filth and put up no resistance as a gnawing numbness ensues. There is no more "I love you"--only "I'm taking you down with me." The dully tragic and the tragically dull become indistinguishable, blurred together by drugged eyes, dilated and unseeing. Beneath the clamour and frenzy of hedonism, the gorgeous refrain continues, tantalizing, beckoning towards defeat. "Slip away and drown in me," it whispers, "what does it matter, anyway?"