Soul like Glass

voices ring like gunshots through an empty apartment
stutter-stepping while they echo:
ricocheting shrapnel that imbeds within the soul.
grimy months of unclean chastity
broken feebly under days of heavy strain
and nights laced with sin and cocaine
white and black, then red as day breaks.
shriveled and worthless under back-breaking pain
of defeat, acrid and bitter like bile
that never recedes, never surrenders.
feet hit the floor with some verbose, mournful pang
and the wheels of time and fate
run simultaneously, yet refuse to coincide.
blame the world for indications of indifference
penned furiously on derelict scraps
of notebooks that fill too easily
and pages that don't listen and don't care.
rapid transformations for the sake of
maintaining something constant and human.
moonlight and streetlamps reflect dolefully
in shimmering bottles that mean nothing but
a night forgotten and a morning headache.
stop questioning reasons for stupidity,
stop balancing truths and white lies.
stop retching over dingy tile,
watching the ceiling spin in quiet repose.
fill the flanks of destiny with your heartache
and remind mankind that pain is unquenchable
and that it takes little to tempt a desperate man.
encapsulated reckonings that
flutter aimlessly as autumn wanes
and the summer light has been long lost,
trees and knuckles bare and white and waiting.