How does one choose
When and where
To let a stranger draw blood
To leave their mark
How does one choose
Which creator
Is experienced, qualified
To balance care with skillful harm
How does one choose
Based on previous work
Proudly displayed
When this could be the carving
That never makes it to their wall
How does one choose
To take a risk
Say yes to pain, a scar
Expression
Rebellion
Or simply sake of art?
-a.r.
Artwork: Tattoo by Mike Welch
This week has toyed with me
So I decided to play back
I ripped the curtain open
Not content with just a crack
Magic mumbling in the air
Greedy grumbling from beyond
I could not handle only hints of rain
At least not for very long
Drapery drowning at my feet
Shards of window shattered wide
I stepped into the world’s downpour
No drop of will to stay inside
I looked up and let it pelt me
Saturate my dusty clothes
Another animal inside a storm
I became wild and one of those
Let’s run and hunt, forage and fuck
To spite the cracking of the sky
Just another evolution
Shedding “should be” skin am I
-a.r.
Artwork: Becoming Animal by Antony Micallef
Live and loud and lusty chords
Screamed all my demons loose
Today they’ve traveled too far gone
Leaving me drained, of little use
I’m not supposed to love them
But we’ve danced together long
Those devils fill out empty skin
Feeding my organs, fueling song
The only way to woo them back
Is to stay boring still and wait
In silence they show up again
Come nightmares nuzzle, face to face
-a.r.
Demon oil painting, artist unknown
Craving and desire
Buddhists deny while it keeps
All of us alive
-a.r.
Painting: Inner Flight 2 by Stevan Daluz
As my birthday nears
I notice newly formed skin
Layers of fuck you
And it feels just fine
-a.r.
Painting: Fuck you by Marion Peck
Is it age, maturity, meditation, or simply filling out my own skin that makes me more and more comfortable telling those who expressly don’t like me, but choose to still hang around and judge me, to fuck off? Well…
Happy Birthday to me, and…
When is turning away
Simply saving myself
The static makes it tougher to tell
I’ll tune out what they say
Leave their life on their shelf
Learn my own way around my own hell
-a.r.
Painting: Jeff’s Clock Radio by Raymond Logan
Perfect permanent balance
Does not exist
Do not wish
It is simply the midpoint
Of our own pointy pendulum
While we find our swing
To the next extreme
A talent perfected
Only in death
– a.r.
Painting: Well Deserved Respite After a Particularly Brutal Goring by Bill Carman
Part of his Unbalanced series.
This morning I woke
Cradled under layers of
Antiseptic snow
I wish that I had stayed
Pure and packed in ice today
Melting hurts too much
Best to light me up
Cleansing fast by fire instead
The ashes for my bed
-a.r.
I’m bored of moral
Outrage over adult flesh
Given with consent
I’m horrified by
Moral ambivalence when
Consent’s not given
You are blind to both
By choice to avoid your own
Selfish discomfort
Beauty and consent
Power and autono(my)
Voice and choice denied
No more is it yours
To choose which kind of “she” we
Are allowed to be
-a.r.
Painting: Hypocrisy by mirabillisfuture on deviantart.com
My world revolves around nothing
It wobbles and spins like a top
And it’s hard to know truly
‘Cause direction’s unruly
So I snap-turn it before it can stop
-a.r.
photo: Spinning Top by noorieyuri on deviantart
sometimesihatemycat 