look here
the sweat of the earth
and the blood on our hands
and the love sickness
in all of us
is the twisted result of
a shanking from the devil himself

he stands behind us
waits in shadows
behind doors
we don’t even see..
we’re utterly blind
and our limbs fly wildly
through space, trying
to find balance

the devil knows us
he has seen us undress
in the quiet of our bedrooms
in the dark of night
and sleep under our covers
nude like a babe
gleaming in our raw tenderness,
vulnerable, secrets scrawled
on our skin

he knows us better than
we do, or God does
he knows just what to say,
to bait us with,
to make us fall down
into the well of rust
forever oxidizing
until we are dust in his hands

he rides on our back
whispers thoughts in our
frontal lobes

“hey look at me, look at me”

he says and we do
and as soon as we take our
eyes off of the road
we crash into a heap
of twisted, metal, guts
nothing left of us
not even a tooth to identify
our bodies

this is our illness,
our anemia, our demise
God cannot be on one shoulder
and the devil on another,
each is so heavy that
we can only carry one

but

the devil is lighter