my poems
are trenches

i have to keep digging
deeper and deeper
into the darkness
into the shapeshifting labyrinth
of my sick and twisted mind

i have to keep digging
to avoid the machine guns
and bullets and shrapnel
constantly falling
like horizontal rain

depression is my
buried treasure
it's the self-renewing landmine
attached to the tip of my shovel
dismembering me
each time my shovel collides
with the earth

death is the missing shape in the jigsaw
death is the key
to the barbed wire shackles
tightly wrapped around my veins

wait,
there it is

my chest --
ripped apart in an instant
by a smiling young lady
with blinding bright lighthouse beams of light
in place of her eyes

two beams of light where her eyes should have been.

her smile has seven rows of teeth.