Thieves' Lament

Thieves' Lament

There’s noses on yer trail, so careful where ye tread. The road grows ever-rocky with that price upon yer head.

The bone collector’s wagon is nigh upon yer heels. Don’t let yer burdens drag ye down beneath misfortune’s wheels! We thieves are all like rainbows, no good until it rains, and lawmen need no halos to put a soul in chains. So keep yer boots on dreamin’, and a pistol near yer bed, ‘cause the Devil, he’s comin’ and he wants us sinners dead.

© JM Tiffany

Coffee

mid-September early morning rain drinking coffee remembering and forgetting hoping while despairing waiting for light waiting to end wishing wishing don’t answer this prayer don’t read the letter don’t open the box don’t let them see you don’t let them know the smile is a cut the laughter is a wound the world is a lie and childhood is a place where pain lives forever

©️ JM Tiffany

Fishes

As if I could dredge the stars for a fragment of your light. As if I could draw a line from you to eternity. As if you could hear me when I cry.

The world is pale and sick without you. Anemic days weep through white curtains into the blister of silence forming around your absence.

Your shape is fading along with your voice. The colors are running and the silences bleed with memories of you.

I try to catch each one as they slip, like little silver fishes, into the deep.

I follow them and slide into waters so dark that I will never be seen again.

And I will follow them down forever to where the water meets the stars just to seek the color of your eyes.

©️ JM Tiffany

Mirror

I longed for release, and cried out until…

The Wound Mother came.

Howling, she squatted over The Black Wolf’s jaws.

I screamed into The Void as it licked my skin.

I wanted to be small, to be delicately held, to know the feel of loving hands.

But I was swallowed by shadows and caged by fangs.

I wanted to be a ghost then, to make something soft from something hollow.

I wanted to shine, but I was broken. I became a mirror, and all who saw themselves in me bled at my edges.

©️ JM Tiffany

I Am A Ghost Amid Invisible Ruins

Most will never see me. They will never know the quick knife of pain, taught and arced, gasping for breath.

They will never know the blistering sparks of the burning nerve.

They have not crawled through the numb fires of broken columns, or the warped shadows of dead futures.

They will never know the well studied ceiling, the constellations of textured paint and cracked plaster.

They cannot grasp the listless longing of endless unwanted rest. They will never know how I used to run and leap, will never know the power, strength, and grace of my body or how it was ruined in pursuit of glory.

They will never know how I wished for death, or how I ran towards it.

They cannot understand that I would jump once more into the fire.

©️ JM Tiffany

The Leopard Queen

I met the Leopard Queen in a sea of faces.

Their dull inebriated eyes reflected the synthetic glory of rock-n-roll lights. They strobed like cop cars in the post-midnight miasma of another new year.

She was majestic. Amazonian. A thing carved by mythic hands from rare materials and draped in the tanned flesh of wildcats.

This place is a jungle, I thought, but not hers, and not mine.

She gave me her number. Lipstick on a piece of cigarette wrapper. Probably just another bookmark. A sweet memory like a faded dream.

Last night, I met the Leopard Queen, and for a brief moment the sea of faces emptied out over the world's edges, into a vast and silent nothing. And she was, and I was, and we were: twin beasts in a garden outside of Time.

We smiled at one another, two sickles reaping an instant of joy.

Then, the lights flashed, the music droned, the swarm buzzed, and I was swallowed up in the sea of faces and drowned in a glass of beer.

© JM Tiffany