Scott Thomas Outlar- Two Poems

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One more sip and I'll be sober
One more god and I'll be saved
One more laugh and I'll break a smile
One more weep and I'll be vanity
One more jealous and I'll rage against
One more gluttony and my organs will collapse
One more scream and I'll find Nirvana 
One more blackout and I'll think you meant it
One more daydream and I'll chase clouds
One more nightcap and we'll go cold turkey
One more fire and I'll call the Phoenix 
One more false alarm and I'll turn to dust

Crusted and Cracking

  

There was anarchic love in the fire

as it swallowed whole and consumed my world.

I danced into the leaping flames,

praying to find a moment of peace

as the destruction of everything

I’d ever fucked up or failed at

went up in an incendiary ball of smoke.

The gloriously beautiful carnage

had called out my name as a siren

since the moment I was violently expelled from the womb

into this world of labyrinthine madness.

Soul shocked and mind weary,

I kissed the inferno

with red lips and blistered intentions.

It wasn’t the Devil who lured me in.

It wasn’t God that drove me away.

It wasn’t regret which I sought escape from.

It wasn’t a miracle which I went in search of.

No rhyme, no reason.

No order, no chaos.

No yin, no yang.

Absolution and Apocalypse.

Entropy and Nothingness.

So I took my leap of faith,

stepped into the blazing tower,

and waited for whatever came next.

But when the rain arrived to douse the fire

I awakened the same as ever,

only now a little darker and more burnt

than when I first began.