I plot out my life like the stanzas
of an over-structured poem, missing
the joy of meaning something beautiful-

and death like water bugs constantly
skimming the surface of my murky
waters -the end- those words

comfort me more then the fact
that the devil is crawling past
my ears and into my twisted heart.
At mass, I dreamed of incest,

at night I tore out chunks of hair
until I became as bald as monks
chanting Latin in a psychedelic
parody of religious fervor
at the sight of ambiguous
smoke filling the sky.

I wanted to end where I started
in blood and water and silence and fear
of something new, but you lifted me out
of the bath tub and breathed life back
into my lungs until I cried like an asthmatic infant.