Poetry, Ezra Gatlin

rose-colored glasses

sometimes, i think about dying

in a place where my sins backlight my regrets

i am the poltergeist 

seamripping crushed velvet in my sleep

i am the dancing santa 

on the dashboards of a suicide heist

drunk off cherry wine and cyanide rum

for a few short weeks in april, 

cherry blossoms fall like rain

homesick kanzan kiss the foreheads 

of unsuspecting travellers,

begging the wind to take them home

stupid sakura petals don’t know,

they’ll die dusting rooftops

i want to be good

where soul meets body

i want to be beautiful 

when pain flays passion

i want to drive past my guilt

while death becomes her

washing expensive stationery in watermelon juice

pressed magnolias and dessicated pulp

crumble beneath my fingers

i found god in a whore house

and on barren beach

just before the tsunami of

japanese cherry blossom

dances with the birds