Thomas Aidan Hiscock – Mussel Cove, Falmouth, Maine – 2025

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ghost town

caught in the chokehold of our lies,

I twisted molten words,

every truth hard as iron. 

candlestick fingers — dripping wax —

squeezed deceit 

from your silver tongue. 

no warrant needed, I stared down 

the sky where your absence was 

painted with memories

of holding, of folding,

of hands now burnt and smoldering…

palms facing the earth, 

I prayed to my mother for a womb 

where I could incubate my sorrows, 

reflection for my failures —

those one-night stands with honesty…

—————————————————————————

mint                 (after James Galvin)

chewing on a      lightbulb only 

    hurts in the dark      because 

 even the      honeydew breath 

      of dawn can’t       ease 

   the shrapnel from my       gums. 

the truth is not bitter       for taste is an 

   illusion that       sends us crawling 

down       storm drains and       building 

      temples to a       god who would 

   tear them down if he even       existed;

[is this who I am or who I want to be;

my liver is sick from soaking in the person I once was; 

can you hear the roar of my footprints protesting our indecision; 

I will not wake up the man I am but the friend she needs; 

is there any room left for me, my flaws]

your dictionary heart       has a glossary 

   that punishes       but tearing out 

the pages hurts       so 

   I tread water       until 

I’ve crossed       an ocean… 

   Yearning to land       on different shores. 

—————————————————————————

God Talk

the wind once grew jealous of Odin’s eight-legged 

steed, and so tore the poor beast apart, 

never again letting an animal vanish into thin air

Athena, for all her smarts, is full of envy. Pan is jealous

Hera is so fucking jealous

Loki can’t outwit his own greed. the grass is always 

greener on the other side and my journey ended in the middle

of course God wishes he could die, it’s

written on every molecule in the universe

but who the fuck wants to crawl through barbed-wire 

fences and know nothing but the burden of hope? Jesus walks on 

water but I know he’d rather drown.

looking back over my shoulder, I knew it was too late,

his eyes flooded with saltwater 

and the weight 

                       of our sins

—————————————————————————

“Marijuana is his light and his salvation, 

Harvest sustains the altitude within (Sleep, The Sciences).” 

I am

drifting… drifting through space. 

helmet of smoke, I am an astronaut

filling my lungs with starlight and the feeling of fire. 

burn… inhale… elevate… 

ascending, I meet the gaze of the final frontier that stretches before me; 

faced with the limitless, reaching for infinity. 

                                      //

horizons collapse, 

                  scattering shrapnel whispers 

                                                   and the kind of darkness 

                         that swallows truth whole

         the light has eyes… 

                           and God knows I hate 

                                                  what it has seen… 

—————————————————————————

soliloquy

Choking on the skeletons of our past 

we watched in silence as…

The air was stolen from our lungs.

Chewing on the sands of time, our sea glass teeth crumbled like hope.

Even starlight could not mend my broken heart, 

for a tragedy—like gravity 

Still kept us far apart.

Standing tall beside me,

mourn the empty sky—

Bowed beneath its burden—

my weeping willow spine

Hung from rotten branches 

lying to the rain, 

On golden threads I killed myself

hiding

from the pain. 

—————————————————————————

Almost

almost starved         almost sick

almost healing         almost forgotten

almost lost  …         almost lost  …

almost sinking         almost burning

almost growing         almost settled

almost lost  …         almost lost  … 

almost sour,

we’re happy to be lemon

—————————————————————————

Aubade to Meditation 

This wondering is deadly, 

but not wanting the peace to fade

I hang in ‘The Suspend’–the name of a

song by a hardcore band whose name 

I can’t forget…

In the crocus haze of a Spring morning,

you ripped bud

from blooming branch, 

calling it population control… 

I called it genocide. 

You said that parts of me were dead… 

and I told you they were dying.

Scars traced the fertile crescent 

of my neck; I dug deeper,

hell-bent on seeing the white lights 

shining above me and 

a doctor’s mocking grin. 

I’d listen to the spiders 

who’d whisper–‘never let a dead river run…’

High tide to low,

        I tasted salt until 

                I tasted mud, 

                    until I tasted bones, 

                until I tasted blood

—————————————————————————

Wilt

there must be

days without doubt

      where my flowers are safe from

                   ridicule; pulling teeth and running

         in circles never helped my mother, so

why should pain rescue me? 

Aphrodite golden walked across the

            ground with flames at her heels,

I kissed your smoked-salmon 

tongue 

just to gag 

               on the taste of serpent.

venom doesn’t kill right away, but the

                  anticipation 

                           stings.

I know it was wrong to tear 

the wings from a butterfly, but I 

could 

         not 

              stand 

         to see it free. 

now the crime scene is spotless, and–

and I can breath, certain that wings clipped

in a cage are more beautiful because 

love lost is a tale of two, and God 

        knows I am oh so alone… 

—————————————————————————

A Place Beyond all Hope

my descent 

          began when I slept through September, 

                                      this little blue body all cracks and confusion.

                                       the first time I did acid 

                 I saw the trees shift and felt the 

                          earth crawl beneath my skin. I was so happy, so confident.

                          when I tried DMT, 

          there was nothing but the thrill and 

                                              the hidden sadness I was still whole.

                        my first time on mushrooms,

                                I barely felt anything; the third time I sat with God

                                                a universal truth, at peace with all.

                               it was my friends who surprised me with salvia, 

                                         and they all laughed 

         while I counted the stars inside my head.

like Orpheus, my mistake 

            was looking back, and pushed to my limits 

                                   I fell down, down into a place far beyond                        a place beyond all hope 

—————————————————————————

A Place Beyond all Hope (cont…)

color spilled outside the lines

                   flung far out of orbit, dancing on the

                                     Kuiper Belt, staring back on my world.

                                  fleeing from Eden towards the thorny 

                       crown of Hell, the beauty I scorned became a

            comfort I craved.

                       plunging through clouds, through self, through sky,

                     I sank beneath the waves, slipping between the cracks

                 of Mussel Cove, until I lay at long last

                                 on the seafloor,

                                     buried by the salt

                                                   and my silence
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