tracing our steps on concrete

dear empathy,
I lost you like a cause

when birds erupted
from my vocal cords
singing about the hope
I once held for the future

warbled about
how I formed affectations
between my fingertips
and mistook them
for affection,

and the waves of effects
washed over me like deliverance

but now, you stare at me
bewildered and doe-eyed
because I am not here
to emancipate my misdeeds

and instead,
I paint my face
with the livid lucidity
God blessed me with
the first time
dawn broke on my eyelids

and I have no sincerity
left to offer you

fine

tonight
brevity became an art
danced on the tips of tongues
like the aftertaste of fine wine

and you
spoke in dialects of emancipation
as if we could glorify helplessness
with our words

because
you
are fine(s)
the way tickets are penalties
for better outcomes

alternate routes
forty ounces away from freedom

fine
like assertions
(affectations)
that pour out wordplay
the way
whiskey spilled on the floor

because we are
the objectified proletariat
glorified in academia;

self-referential fourth walls
to keep us
from breaking
that glass ceiling

I reserve particularly lucid nights for confronting the Real.

I must admit

at some point

that I
regularly plagiarize
the thoughts you shoot at me through eyes
that reflect comfort
like worn down security blankets
full of good intentions
as they walked towards perdition

and I
waltzed with your subconscious between my fingertips
like airy lungs
gasp for
amelioration

unwritten whalestoe letters

my poetry spells itself out like johnny truant
and the structural integrity has been overwhelmed by
heroes fighting their inevitable metamorphosis
into the monsters they battle;
creatures that gazed back into their own abysses for far too long

because I walk your hallways with footsteps that echo like
overturned porcelain dogs on the kitchen counter

the weight of your years pressed down on me as if
those reverberations meant something more than age differences;
signified a will to power like a death wish

grew glass ceilings of desperation
as the walls skyrocketed towards redemption

but the black paint is peeling from the walls,
and memories don't grow there anymore