The Wicked Dreamer

I am edging incrementally away from disgrace,
I’ve hidden my face in theoretically public meaning,
like an asymmetrical, political leaning,
Nothing promised, nothing given, no space,
So I can’t be pinned down, seemingly seeming.

Then the world swallows itself like a symptom,
the hooked pill lodges in a crowded throat,
but the half panicked cough that shows death is near,
is inexplicably and inextricably great,
and the strangest feeling of fear,
is pretty and functional with a tinge of hate,

The better of the best of two dreams,
Doesn’t fit with the way my world is turning,
A dirty pleasure giving life to glands,
the chemical remembers,
oh, and yes, god yes, the burning,
leaves the best scar ever in my hands.

The soothing cold of a razors edge,
against skin hot enough to cut last summer.
Through all the shadows lost in shade,
truth is the leaning beckoned blade,
stabbing like a billion shiny memories that will not fade.

Awake, this is just a drunken tilting planet,
with eyes open, the sleeping row of cars,
the rest of what I see is just black over layered black,
Can this vision ever kiss me?
Can I ever kiss it back?
Only in the wicked dreams that damn it,
And they, these wicked hopeful dreams, are full of stars.