"reduction print"

a shot a two a.m. in the dark warped alleyways
80 proof but not bulletproof not fireproof
the flames lick at the rapid streams of my sanity
you turn your burning gaze upon me
and i feel the flutter of butterflies
not in my stomach but in my heart in the crystal jar that you hold
and your sadistic eyes bore into my dull orbs
as you tear off each delicate wing
leaving behind limp bodies and an unnerving calm
found only in the dead of December
you shattered the gingerly beating prism
dispersing shards of frozen mercury that have lost all luster
fragments of an infinite gray (that belongs nowhere
in a world of black and white and the seven
ribbons that streak the sky of my imagination
there were only the extremes and none of the
middle grounds reminiscent of the torrential rains of old)
you made my winter fall to pieces
what little warmth remaining in its ashes
breaking the frosty panes of ice
cracking the blue tinted windows to my being
the crimson spreads and now the glass is truly stained
a vile maroon filtering the rays of a nonexistent sunrise
you marooned my soul on isles of the past
as you sailed me away on the turbulent Styx
headed toward the blazing horizon
i recall thinking that the arsonist should not play with arsenic
but you did exactly that when you
tampered with my weak rhythm section
i wanted nothing beyond the platonic
but you braided my double helix to pattern
the carbon copy of your ideal
you have what you want and i keep the negatives for myself
my tubercular veins throb with the pain of inverted nostalgia
of resurfacing memories that should have long been discarded
but when the ache is no more than a lingering insignificance
and i once again stand in the dark room
in the laboratory soaked in garnet light
defined by the purity of binary metaphysics
i drown your prints and myself in the acids of a bankrupt mind