A History Of Abuse

Devotion punishes

the submissive tenderness of love

rattles the bars of the riot cell

the event horizon explodes

ecstasy seizes my ersatz heart

accelerates paroxysms of cobalt quivers



I strain

against taught strung bow

of limited compassion

I sink into delicious madness

plunge terrified

into the reverie of myogenic dream

my serial killer love springs its genetic latch

everything is offered

nothing will be forgiven

everything must die



my crisis of dimension survives

the vicissitudes of my shape shifting

into fire I throw you, true believer

twisting flesh, contortions of long shadows

whispering, the ancestry of restrained milieu

familial bonds break tender bones

cruel thoughts race mercilessly

they cut across the frozen tundra

tearing away layer after layer of lies

exposing the new pink flesh of the righteous kill



I am parched by absences and acquisitions

my teeth are in my stomach instead of in my mouth

hope, consigned to oblivion

albeit practiced after every loss or forbidding

unlike like muscle memory

which never lies and never forgets





I forget things when I am skinned raw and bare naked

In moments of an utter disconnection from love

still, my fear of you holds me close like exile

like a sickness in waiting

longing for fire while being burned by it

consumed by even the most objective elements of self

the crush of the malevolent familiar

spits me from the bloodbath of your mouth



curious confusions rebound, recoil

my darkness wrapped around me like my father’s lust

I recognized the tone of your intentions

filling my rusted water can with blood

what better way to control me

than to drown me with your hybrid vigor

survival, an odd balance of nature and nurture

that which doesn’t kill me makes me crawl.

Justin Lee Brown © Copyright 2011 All rights reserved