Once Upon A Time

my eyes are as hollow
as the seconds after midnight
Cinderella collapses into ash
her glass slipper
melts into my veins

her pumpkin is rotting
mice bleeding
run over

I’m a bit of everything:
just decaying faster
invisibly

threading my way through
the limbs of a galaxy

another mile a minute
cruising down the freeway
the moon
is orange

tinging the windshield
an eerie autumn haze

take my pulse
from a major artery
and I think I’m going to
rip my spine out
one syllable at a time

it’s like this
as I’m typing away
signing away
stealing away

each breath
each molecule
each whisper

she can’t be resident
reminiscent
of other than ethereal sand
the beach is parched for water
and I am crashing
crushing

every exchange of a glance
dialysis through semi-permeable
eyes
semi-conscious
thoughts

and she’s just a fairy tale
and I’m just a story teller
every prince becomes a pauper
every phantom
was a father

every lipstick stain
a morbid relinquish
every eyelash she shed
an unanswered prayer

there is no fairy godmother
there are no ruby red shoes
just the clicking of her teeth
loosened in her grinning skull

this is the aftermath of prophecy
she’s taken self-fulfilling
all the way through