Reconstitution

Harken back to the driver-seat manifestos;

to dreams incapable of deferring,

to windows fug with frantic lust—

the celluloid dream of fecund futures.

Harken back to the caustic fuck behind closed doors:

music blaring in background

insecurity bleeding in foreground.

Recall the champion boasts thereafter,

followed by hangovers of degradation and shame.

Harken back to yeast permeating the air,

the musk of foolish youths claiming mastery

of the cosmos, hearts, and the bountiful nethers for sale.

Harken back, you fool, to the best version of the worst you:

the King Panacea—bubbling in excess, thriving in distress!

Harken back, because what remains but the simulacra of gilded glory:

the romping conquests, moral inquests, and blood-forged friendships.

What could possibly compare to lives lived without care:

reckless in fucking, ruinous in loving, apoplectic in regards to nothing.

Harken back, if only, to feel a sliver of anything.

Rouse

I awake but to suffer

the ephemeral elysia of dreams defaulting;

I rouse but to endure

the callous hive in frenzy.

Walk through the doors:

A sterile undertow

of dogmas and protocols innumerable.

A life sequestered on foreign shores;

stultifying hymns of diligence and temperance

fuel the dirge proletarian.

But what of the specters?

The phantasmal lodestones

bearing the weight of day’s past.

What of their nebulous potency?

The immeasurable quality

assigned to these pillars of foundation.

At times it is but jargon personified:

Events and Loves and Moral Crimes

transcribed into eloquent lies.

I awake but to succumb

to truths ungainly, conquests long past won;

I rouse to elegize

the gifts squandered, the passions gone.