No One Knows by Adam Perry

(Cover artwork by Jeff Perry)

NEW SUN

And we ran to the beach just before dawn.

We stared the mad children right in their eyes

And one of the hybrids reached his hand to me,

Revealing the heart of a pig.

And when I looked at the sky again,

It was looking back at me,

For once, its face red with anger,

And the moon melted into the Sea.

We revealed chaos to our maker—

Lit the fire beneath His curiosity and stammered,

“We’re still here.”

And I felt a pain in my stomach,

Like the time the færies playfully filled my shirt.

But when I looked down I saw

The tip of your knife had pushed through from behind,

But not all the way.

You twisted it a few times to make sure.

And when I turned round to see you smile,

I saw that the brilliant light of the new sun

Shined not in your eyes, but through them,

And through your mouth as well. We laughed and laughed,

And I died.

Oh, but I still saw you, I still knew what you did.

And when your face was full of blood and tears,

I pushed open your thighs and made you remember me.

The beach was no longer cold at night after I left—

Now the white-hot sand burned and blistered your feet,

And the sun sparkled in your eyes

Where pupils had once been.

And when you tried to come back,

When you tried to knock on my window

after all those years,

A voice called from the clouds,

And you knew where to go—where to wait.

And when you stepped aboard that ship of fools

And drank their wine,

The water drained from the Sea,

And the moon showed itself once again from beneath.

Yes, the sirens of Babylon wailed,

But when the door opened, you declined.

SUCK TO BREATHE

There's been a murder. It's a shame—

things were really starting to shape up.

“She came right up to the doorway,

laughed, and used two hands to pull the knife down my back.”

It made her lustful and wet with inspiration.

I'm compelled to shiver and finally come through,

my sick skin burning then

melting in favor of this spotted shell;

out in the world like a bad dream, pages crumble.

Countless places poorly armed whisper a

concrete chance at New Jerusalem—I've tried to hide it.

Memories granting naked spaces one at a time,

feeling warm in the frozen desert evening.

Unaccustomed to lovers making promises,

conversation-washing pardons stumbling down

streets of gold,

and hearts warmed by fornication.

My skull cracked and I couldn't breathe,

hands purple with envy.

The imagination ran away and onto a page;

I was a little shocked when she hiked up her skirt

and let me in for the ride of my life.

Silence robbed me of circumstance but never passion.

It doesn't make sense to me—

like it's pushed through my body from somewhere else,

somewhere unknown, but

somehow formulating into a subject.

Heaving silver stars into a network of cold souls

wounded and lost—

a ghostly sanity will juxtapose a sweet undertow.

I need to suck on this to survive.

I can feel her in my fingers, shaking/trembling

and experiencing hot flashes of an alcoholic demise—

her cunt feeds me freedom.

Has it changed?

"I wish I was there to give you a huge hug right now.

This isn't working."

Damage to the skin and jubilant white light break

through a coffin

buried beneath a cringing pool of toil and blood.

She's admittedly red with happiness and excitement.

I'm exploring this contempt and relaying a

still-beating heart

that was handed to me by Jehovah

in an effort to put a muzzle on his choir.

He's pissed that I'm a failure.

I was on cloud nine.

There's been a security breach—I'm hungover and hung up.

She's a free spirit at my expense.

There are painful screams coming from inside the auditorium

and blood has been spilled over the floor.

Her best guess was

“Dr. Filth did it in the little boy's room with the microphone.”

“It was only the best night of my life.”

“Of my life.”

Go to hell.