God, I'm Hungry

I have a secret drawer
I keep my lovers there
I hide them under my father's obituary
and one of the few medals
I ever won
You never gave me a letter
and I had to steal a photo
so I have little to keep
and fewer places to remember them
stuck between the pages of some volume
I hid my hunger
the petals of a different love
and I forgot about them
someday in the mountians of books
that fill my bookcases
I will stumble across it again
and remember something
feel something
trace those pressed edges
and peel up the corners
my underneath
never really forgets
I move on
but I am not the kind
to ever really let go
it's always under there
somewhere
maybe stuck to the underside of the desk
weighed down by old trinkets
but I never really
let my love for you go
I am as dusty
as a dust jacket
crinkled like ancient paper
I pressed myself in those pages long ago
between those covers
petrified like old cookies
warm as chocolate tea
that's where I keep my secret hunger
folded and bent
under a thousand feet
of broken heart pieces
with the curse
of a good memory
and the prying apart
of tenderest lips

SpectreLand

I keep the horror in my bedside table drawer
turn it on high when I need a blood transfusion
and a bad dream
the hinges scream
wake up the neighbors
they cover their ears
knowing it's happening again
who is that raven haired ghost?
they know I'm haunting the rooms
moving the walls
tossing the furniture
ripping up the floor boards
and in the morning
it will all be back in place
just like no one was ever there
the quiet
will be frightening
stillness
becomes a horror of its own
I own it
parade it around
like a rotting gown
all laced Victorian will
mourning enamel etched into the crowns
little skulls
with grinning faces
a flowing of eyes
drifting in on gossamer mist
the staircase breathes
shifts and creaks
the walls rupture
the yellow paper covering it
runs about the room
in skittering little patterns
around the edge
that woman chases it
never leaves it
I watch her struggle
float to the ceiling
drip blood onto the heads
of craning necks
and tourists
there's a severed limb
in the hallway
it makes a nice decoration
you can plant flowers
in the empty sockets
we got trapped here
when we tried to leave
violence pinned us down
like butterflies
on felt backgrounds
we are the edge
the living fear
and move as vapor
through these timeless scenes
unrelenting in our recollections
always fearful of what we knew
we have no end
we are the reflection
we have no way
even the greatest exorcist
can not clear us out
we are the denizens
of this house
and I know above all else
there is nothing better
on the other side