Rabbits run in front of cars
And paint the roads with their insides
Each struggle dissolved into the din
Of a trillion unknown suicides
Sparrows fly into the panes
And convulse in loops with broken wings
You clutch them to your racing chest
But then abandon them behind the fence
You know you can’t
Oh you can’t save them
We’re punished for the crimes we can’t comprehend
Dead dog in the river bed
Betrayed by gods that walked with him
For now the vultures pick his ribcage clean
But the dirt makes brethren of all beasts
Girls ride inside the cars
With painted masks that hide their scars
The canvas layered with hazy trysts
But once their clothes are off the wounds are fresh
No you can’t
No you can’t save them
We’re punished for mistakes
We were designed to make
No you can’t
No you can’t save them
We’re punished for the flesh
That we were forced to wear
Once she’d found God through a needle’s eye
Melody filled up her veins
With all the love the world denied
Till her heavy heart burst at the seams
So they carved her name into a stone
That the rain will eventually erase
But she left me in the woods alone
Before I had the chance to take her place
But you know you could not
You could not save her
She was punished for the paltry joy
She dared to scrape
No you could not
No you could not save her
Did you really think it was your choice to make?

One summer afternoon when I was a child
I played in the garden of my parents’ backyard
It was a vibrant fractal flame, a wondrous wild
A wasp shot its venom into my little arms
The pain—so sudden, so undeserved
Taught me the discipline of the world
Though the swelling receded, the lesson remained
Fear is the currency of every living thing
No loving hand guides the cosmic play
Then I saw the abyss in a fever dream
It bore the shape of a man with a tortured gait
A visage malformed, as melted candle wax
I believed he was the devil, come to claim me at last
But then he spoke to me in a terrible voice
Like a swarm of locust in a lion’s throat:
“Son, I am God, and I hear your prayers
And that’s how I know what you fear the most
You’ve had your fun
And you’ve had your freedom
Now the time has come
For your punishment”