I'm tired of this window sill.

I'm tired of this window sill,
I'm tired of the blinds.
I'm tired of the sitting still,
the hum of idle minds.

I'm tired of the curtains, and
their vapid violet hue -
there is no more profoundly bland
or lifeless shade of blue.

I'm tired of the windowpanes,
their rotting wooden frame;
the cracks, the dust, the streaks and stains,
forevermore the same.

I'm tired of this window sill,
I sit here every day.
I'm tired of this window, still -
I cannot look away.

Perjury

I lied to you that day, but I have never told a lie.
 In perjury, I walked away,
 but led no mortal ears astray
 with oral alibi.

For fibs do wear so thin, when they entangle thus with speech -
 a lie, therefore, is not a sin,
so long as it remains within,
 unseen and out of reach.

Quicksilver Concrete

She is transparent.
Vague outlines embrace the clouds where her head should be and rock, oceanlike, to a lullaby of clanking chains and splitting continents.

He is color.
Fiery scarlet pride and the warmth of a smoldering hearth in the dead of winter.
Cool turquoise calculation, deep royal sentiment, radiation from white-hot galaxies overflowing with every shade and temper of ardor.

He is everything and she is nucleic or central or critically isolated,
and he fills her every crevice and pore like quicksilver concrete in the cracks where the light was spilling out and sputtering into nothing.

Now it spills into him,
and all is well.

Hold your breath.

A blackness shrouds the path ahead,
are we to advance? Are we to continue,
blind? We dare not turn back.
And do we have a choice?

The earth beneath our feet is brittle,
it groans and cracks, even as we stand,
stagnate. It will not hold.
There is no alternative.

We may totter cautiously forward,
or crawl if we must. But we will go,
regardless. Into the black.
Into a petrifying unknown.


No turning back now.

Hold your breath.

This is it.

Forget-Me-Nots

Mechanical joints and cast-iron bones
tick forward like the hands of my pocket watch,
little forget-me-nots in a vase on the counter,
their petals beginning to wither and fall.

"Forget me,"  cries one, "forget me." Its voice
so familiar, yet I can't seem to place it.
"Forget me not," another sighs, sounding
quite as if it has forgotten me already.

They both fall, though. They dance -
briefly - around each other, a simple waltz.
They let go, they drift apart, they die alone.
I regret their loss, but what can I do?

Petals fall.
Flowers die.
Forget-me-nots are forgotten.
And the machine ticks on.

I do.

I do believe in fairies.
I do, I do.

And all you have to do, my dear
is say that you do, too.

the spirit in my bedroom

the spirit in my bedroom
likes to watch me as I sleep
she watches my chest fall and rise
and catches all my dreamy sighs
in mason jars to keep

by now she has a roomfull
if not two or three or four
she'll reach for one and hold it close
and dwell on what she thinks she knows
of dreams she had before

the spirit in my bedroom
likes to shut her lifeless eyes
and make-believe she's fast asleep
'til silently she starts to weep
and heave those pseudo sighs

she's tried
              and tried
                             and tried
and tried

as if a soul could perish twice
and death could ask so steep a price
I dreamt, I dreamt, I dreamt
she died.

Insomniac

And maybe she sees everything
That insomniac, that nocturnal miss -

Catches it in her crater eyes
and spills it back out in the night

Endlessly, she tends to this
to fill her ever-darker skies
with speckled bits of captured light.

I Wrote a Poem

I wrote a poem
           yesterday -
it wrote itself
           the day before.

heaven in her eyes

i can see her collarbones
they stick out when she laughs
and her shoulder blades -
little white stubs
where her wings used to be

she cut them off so long ago
the scars are barely visible
they didn't always look that way
just little white dashes in the curves of her ribs
they used to be much more difficult
to look at

all desperation and awkward angles
she won't tell me what she used
how blasphemous, that something so crude
something fired by human hands
could undo such
intangible purity

tell me she isn't an angel
or, if she isn't,
then tell me why i still see heaven
in her eyes

I turn the page and the page turns me.

I turn the page and the page turns me.
Shhh, says it. Shhh and then silence.
The page is quiet,
the pen speaks
-- muffled words.
I feel as if I'm going deaf,
like I stood too near a firing gun.
Thankfully, I can read lips
and the pen's lips can read me.
Shhh, says the page,
and all is quiet.
I turn the page and the page turns me.

Open-Heart Poetry

like open-heart surgery with no anesthetic
replacing my real one with something synthetic
it doesn't unnerve me, it's almost poetic

i might be sane, i might be sane
                     it might be civil and humane

there's one little catch, though it's only cosmetic
the man with the scalpel, he isn't a medic
it doesn't unnerve me, it's almost poetic

i can't complain, i can't complain
                     - at least, not about the pain

like open-heart surgery
something synthetic
it's almost poetic
it's almost poetic

I sailed across the River Styx.

I sailed across the River Styx
and found it very plain.
Thrice more I braved its shallow wave
its gentle tide which weakly gave
and thrice more back again.

My living soul it did not drain,
nor did it cause me any pain.
It did not drag me to my grave,
as legend so depicts:

That River Styx, which quite conflicts,
is really something grand;
whose waters swell with deathly smell
to claim those specters bound for hell
with unforgiving hand.

But all I found was silt and sand,
a bare and blackened chunk of land,
more sticks, I think, than Styx.

O, Death

O, Death -
O spindled fingers, empty eyes
lie down beside me, O demise
                  O, icy breath -

O heavy shroud, O fleeting I
erode my ego, O good bye
O, Death
              O, Death,
                              O,

death.

Emaciation

There comes a point when words - even written, even so carefully selected - fail to speak, and language bites its tongue to stare dumbly at reality.
The syllables that were once tasted so delicately, chewed so thoroughly, are left steaming on the table to cool and, ultimately, to rot.
Nothing can be done to stop their decomposition. It is unavoidable, a tragedy really.
So many died for the sake of this meal and here we sit around the table, swaddled in our pretenses, with nothing save for blinking eyes and the steady din of breathing to attest to our mortalities.

This is the moment when you begin to speak to me.
This is the instant that I begin to feel you rattling around inside my ribcage.

My bones turn to ice and the heat of my flesh sets them to dripping, and before long I am liquid.
I am the wetness of your eyes, the rush of blood in your ears, the cold sweat on your neck.
I am in you and of you. My still-beating heart is the score of your existence.
It is so much steadier than you remember it being, and your movements fall in time.

Sit back down. Look at what has been set before you.
Pick up a word, a sentence, a poem, and place it under your tongue.
Let it dissolve.

It is tasteless, but it is efficacious.
Two, three, five seconds have passed and you are horizontal.
Your eyes are still open. Your body convulses, your fingers twitch.
The muscles recall how to hold onto life, but the spirit does not.

Once again, the words have brought you back to me.
And if we have swallowed them all, well -
at least we will starve together.

O, Cyanide

O, lay me in the ground too soon
with copper pennies on my eyes.

Pour ashes in a silver spoon,
and feed me all my alibis -

half cyanide, half clever lies,
all peppered with unsaid goodbyes

for those who were, it seemed,
immune.

You used to say forever.

You used to say forever -
forever's coming fast.

You used to make me promises -
I used to think they'd last.

And when you said you loved me,
I thought you always would.

I guess 'always' is one more thing
that I misunderstood.

You used to make me promises -
it seems that's in the past.

You used to say forever, but
forever's coming fast.

take my hand

take my hand and follow me
to the depths of fast and free
feel the pulsing of the sea
with every breath it takes

tide goes out and tide comes in
pulling at our sodden skin
pooling where our lungs had been
until the silence breaks

when we breathe again we'll choke
on that word we never spoke
and the waves our voices broke
will crush us in their wakes

Gilded Bones

I'm melting and the earth swirls around me, a shoddy tapestry woven into my night's sky. The hum of a million everythings displaces that lowly voice of nature's choir, familiar but melodic all the same. No longer euphonic in its fixed ways, I suppose. No longer an essential part of the machine.

And the machine ticks on, each cog pulsating against the hard wired mass, playing the roles they swore they'd never touch and breaking old promises for the sake of fresh ones.

These new promises are thinner and wear easier but they suit just fine, at the very least appearing to be valuable. Their gilded bones and paper wings do not make for a very intelligent design but the people demand them so out they go.

Into the machine we toss them, fodder for the bestial work force we have chosen. They know no better and so they feast, poisoning their own sickly bodies with the spit of the righteous.

We are not the enemy, gentlemen. We are the cure for a rotting world.

Revenge

They dug the coffin up today
"Her spirit lingers still," they say
So they must burn the bones away
to lay her soul to rest

I watched them excavate her grave
That earthy tomb, that deathly cave
And paced, but no word loosely gave
though fear burned in my breast

At last their instruments struck wood
They hauled it up fast as they could
And pried the lid off, as they should
It was as I'd have guessed

The others' present breath had caught
Her corpse had just begun to rot
Her fingers, bloodied, as I'd thought
And scratched to bone, at best

They rushed to pour the kerosene
To rid us of this ghostly fiend
But all too late, there rose a scream
Its terror full expressed

There, before me, draped in white
A specter in the hazy night
Her hand outstretched, I could not fight
Nor so much as protest

And as the life fled from my eyes
I caught a glimpse of my allies
Who simply looked on, paralyzed
At our inhuman guest

They got their wish, she's gone at last
Avenged the wrong done in her past
Each desperate scratch, from first to last
Had made her more obsessed

They burned the coffin and the lid
Did everything they ought have did
And of her ghost, the town is rid
But mine, they've yet to best.

collapsorative effort

mouth gapes wide for one more taste
and lungs drink in a gulp of air
simply swallow all there is
and holler for another round

"we're starving here!" bark lungs to mouth
their bellies sinking in themselves
collapsing from the inside out
all aching in their emptiness

and mouth says, "please, if you'll just wait
one moment, my friends, maybe two,
i'm doing everything i can,
you know i am - you know i am."

but throat is sore and cannot get
mouth's message down to greedy lungs
who grow more restless all the while
and lay the blame on poor old heart

dear heart cannot defend itself
and starts to panic, as it should
it tugs on nerves who scream aloud
in hopes of waking brain to help

but nerves have frightened sleeping brain
who freezes up just like old heart
and forces lungs to stop but not
to get back to their only job

so lungs collapse and heart is dying
nerves are sobbing, throat is sore
brain has fallen back to sleeping
and with it all hope of repair

mouth says, "guys, i think i've got it,"
as it breathes a deep, deep breath
the taste of which it fails to relish;
it chokes and gasps and dies alone.

I Fear Not

I fear not that fire should swallow me whole
I fear not that flames should consume me
I fear not that fire should ravage my soul
Reduce me to ashes and doom me

I fear not that oceans should swell in my veins
I fear not that water should drown me
I fear not that oceans should wrap me in chains
In merciless torrents surround me

The ire of the flames or the pull of the tide
Alone would undoubtedly end me
Lest each, in its quest, with the other collide
And in its confusion defend me

Soft and White

It was in that word that I saw it -
glimpsed it, at least -
caught its life in these eyes
and tucked it away.

It sits now inside of a jar -
on a shelf, at the very top  -
I rarely take it down from there
as it is out of reach.

I watch it often, and closely -
it glows, soft and white -
unassuming though it may be
it fills the whole room.

i must be a masochist

little liquid fire fingers
spill in tendrils off your tongue
visible to only me and
daring me to run, run, run

but my legs are concrete columns
and no scream escapes my lips
as a mass of molten venom
swirls around your fingertips

every move you make releases
something else that's killing me
that won't stop you, you don't see it
so I'll suffer silently

finally my will is breaking
death weighs heavy on my chest
satisfied, you'll leave me to it -
jaded, I will acquiesce

Divinus (2012)

On that unending stretch of earth
she lies as if she lies with death
Though vital signs maintain their worth
in flushing cheeks and steady breath -
and in that soft and constant breath,
she is beguiled not by death,
(and so defiled not by death)
nor chastened by rebirth.

It catches in the static cling
of every ethereal goodbye
And with the virgin hum of Spring
is offered to the sleeping sky -
for all her years beneath this sky,
she's yet to know but one reply
(which none bore witness to but I)
and hasn't said a thing.

(s)word (2012)

I hate the word.
I hate the sword.
 
And ate the sword -
to take the word.

I reek of breath.
I reek of death.

And seek of death -
to reap of breath.



I am the sword.
I breathe its breath.

I am the word -
and that word's death.

Hunger's Thrall (2012)

I saw your sails from far away
Across the heaving sea
All tinted with the break of day
As they came back to me

I watched the waters crest and fall
As if they waited, too
With bated breath, in hunger's thrall
'til they should bring me you

we are all dead (2012)

i stand
silent
bathed in the hum of fluorescent light
afraid to breathe
for fear that this might
against all odds
be real

trembling hands grasp heaving shoulders
and i am my only comfort
all other voices reduce to ringing
in my ears
like gunfire
or a cannon blast
an explosion too close
to spare my faculties

blood chug-chugs in the expanse of my head
loud as a freight train
crashing through these white walls
racing my heartbeat and the gasp of my lungs
to decide who lives
and who dies

they have not once stopped to consider
that no matter who wins
we are all dead.

your heart is a prism (2012)

your heart is a prism
with innumerable facets
with flaws and with merits
that catch every glimmer

your heart is a prism
the moon of your everything
absorbing all parts of you
with no judgment passed

your heart is a prism
overflowing with paints
to spill out of your every pore
if you'll just let in some light

amnesiatic (2012)

dis-c-c-c
dis-connect

all those silky
see-through tethers
so damn hard to
tie together

frozen synapse
cracking wall
crumble, crumble
fall, fall, fall

if you had died

if you had died
if you were dead
you would live only
in my head

i'd see you in
the rainy days
the empty seats
in warm cafés

you'd still exist
in sunset skies
and ancient books
and heavy sighs

i'd read you in
the secret signs
the hidden words
between the lines

and next to mine
your heart would rest
so cold and still
inside my chest

your eyes i'd keep
beside my bed
to watch the dreams
inside my head

and to your soul
i'd tie my own
to comfort me
when i'm alone

you'd live forever
by my side
if you were dead
if you had died

Sixths (2012)

bite her tongue
feel through the tightropes
be my ghost
with forty glowing stars

keep yourself at the wheel, alright?

do these again with pencil
memorize the passageways in my attention
listen and perhaps find a world
that's there without ink

i mention him as each to the best
am of a whim and back out into you
curse you all with any more of that life
of my last friend in town 
 
i'm still wearing black for you

Ink (2012)

My hands are bleeding, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
It drips in constant rhythm from my wrists down to my fingertips and onto these pages.
There it forms no image, conveys no purpose nor aesthetic value of any kind.
Simply drips -
and dies.

such is time (2012)

she stares at the clock and tick-ticking hands
each independent but so intertwined
moving of their own accord and moving altogether

seconds flit by in immeasurable, moment-type,
blink-of-an-eye tick-ticks
and by the time she realizes one has gone
he's been replaced by another, and another, and another
she wants to scream at them to stop, to stand still so she can count them
but they pass her by nonetheless

minutes are slightly less ephemeral, pausing to linger a while
as if to engage her in casual conversation
surface things, how-do-you-do things, fine-how-are-you things
but still nothing real and as soon as she begins to think of a minute as her own
he is gone and takes their conversation with him

hours, though, hours are much more aware of her fancies
sometimes when they pass through they seem never to want to leave
and though she is tired of them, they are much more tired of themselves
and she cannot but indulge them, allow them to stay a bit longer
yet sometimes they seem to be pulled away from her
as if seconds and minutes have grown jealous and so seduced hours
and run away with them to where she may not follow
it is then that she misses them
replays their exchanges in her head
glances at the chair they sat in and sighs
and stares at the clock some more

tick

tick

tick

until the next one comes along
and eventually, another
seconds, minutes, hours all vying for her attention
and days have never been so jealous.

screwdriver (2012)

there's a cast-iron screw between my ribs
rusted with the bloody tide
wrenched between the subtle things and a few essential feelings
scratching away at white walls of suppressed memories
carving letters and symbols in languages i don't read
splitting the bone like a bad spinal tap

and i stood there mesmerized as i watched you
twist it

Ruled (2012)

She does not stand before him but sinks into herself,
cowering on the cold tiles of that blessed separation.
She cries because she has been conditioned to.
She keeps quiet because she has been told to.

The walls are screaming at her to get out,
to run until her feet bleed and run further still.
Her feet are untouched, it's the rest of her that bleeds.
She goes nowhere.

She fell.
Or tripped.
Or ran into something.
Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy;
add that one to the list.

Bruises are innocent enough.
 

fatal fallacy (2012)

synapse synapse synapse
there should be a thought here
there should be words
there should be
something

tears and smiles and half-formed ideas
bounce around in the dark
by themselves

there is no guard rail
and many of them will simply wander off the edge
and i will follow them

in a moment of truth
grasping at silhouettes
shadows that aren't there
smoke and mirrors
 
i've been tricked.

ohr (2012)

...hello?

I wanted to tell you
something

but I forgot
when you stopped listening
It struck me as odd then, but I carried on
as I often do

not knowing all the while
how deaf you were
or what language I spoke
or if you had ears at all

Today I brushed your hair back from your face
and it fell right back.

Eve (2012)

he sees the very least of me
the raw, naive simplicity
my outer layers shed and gone
a stripped and vulnerable Eve

my naked form - bare soul, bare feet
just dirty, plain, and prone to bleed
but free and safe for now at least
and that is all i'll ever need

your body is a microcosm (2012)

your body is a microcosm -
the very world you sought,
all wrapped up in an atmosphere
of soul and conscious thought

and flowers bloom behind your ribs
from rivers in your veins
that flow up from a phantom limb
to clouds inside your brain

a fire blazes in your eyes
then catches on your tongue
and just in time to light the fuse
that leads down to your lungs

and lions pace inside your chest
all growling at the heat
and hummingbirds will beat their wings
around the lions' feet

your blood will boil in swirls of steam
like lava, spurt and splash
and set the very earth aflame
and coat your heart with ash

starcrossed (2012)

I wanted to pluck the stars from your eyes
and knead them in my hands 'til I could scatter ashes throughout the earth
or dust sparks across sleeping lovers' violet skies
with warm unrest and discontented hope
that maybe the light could shake their shoulders and open their weary hearts
to be stripped and cleansed and stitched haphazardly together again
but loosely -
all alike in their fragility and so suddenly vulnerable
and each now lost for losing
what they had tethered so meticulously to their vanities
and as I watched them stumble I would dip a hand into the fleeting life of my hourglass
and smear the blood on my doorframe
so that maybe I could sleep
and just as sleep finally found me I'd fish your diamonds from my pocket
and as two seeds I'd plant them in my own eyes to take root and grow
and blossom for the world to see
even if
I may not

melting starlight (2012)

a star drip-drips in glowing drops
and hits your lips and swiftly stops
and pools inside your eyes to wind
in rivers to baptize your mind
or flows right through your empty head
and soaks into your empty bed
so you wake up trapped in its heat
all sweaty wrapped in silken sheets
for rapture stretching 'cross your face
and moonbeams fetching outer space
and rivulets of slipping light
just drip-drip-dripping through the night

Goodnight (2012)

"Goodnight," she whispers to the town
as sleep begins to weigh her down
She shrugs out of her golden shroud
and trades it for a scarlet gown

She rubs her tired, heavy eyes
then yawns and stretches 'cross the skies
"Goodnight," she mutters once again
and paints the clouds with blushing sighs

Then she concedes, with no protest
to slowly sink into the west
 And with a nod to her pale twin
"Goodnight" she breathes, and lays to rest

Sleep (2012)

Ah, we meet again, my friend
As twilight cedes to night
Quick, conceal me in your cloak
From daybreak's garish light

I'm loathe to cast you off, my dear
When fin'ly we must part
For only you can ease my mind
And truly rule my heart

I long for you, so near my hand
Yet just out of my reach
It feels like it's been ages and
the minutes, hours each

And lo, at last! I find you there
Behind a starry veil
Across a dark and quiet sea
That I shall hap'ly sail

I'll leave behind the bitter days
The sun's abhorrent glare
And drift into your gentle arms
And all the comfort there

I'll miss the things I had before
The life I'll leave behind
But now, at least, I'll be at peace
In spirit, heart, and mind

As the Ship Sinks (2012)

lined in silver and draped in gold
sprinkled sunlight over twisted assembly lines
shale and ash and cold machines
indifferent and smiling
the light, slivered
by their blunt sharks' teeth

and a spark catches the blood-thick air
flares and festers and grows its own lungs
breathes in all the black, black passion
and coughs it all back up again

fire in the throne room, fire at the floodgates
smoke bubbles over,
trickles down
and one
stray
tendril
tempts the fates, sends the waves
pulsing blindly onward
screaming their hoarse throats raw
"Victory! Freedom! Anarchy!"
as they overcome the famished earth
swallowing every formless thought
seeping in through every careless crack
of the sleeping city's hull

and they'll all laugh together
as
the ship
sinks

I have never considered myself a writer. (2011)

I am a slave, at best – a lower life form that exists to serve Inspiration.

Inspiration comes and goes when she pleases, and I am to fly to her when she comes and roll out gossamer sheets for her footfalls, so that their pristine path may be traced directly to me with no adulteration, no branching curiosity, whilst she so graces me with her presence. 
I am to bring her a golden goblet filled to the brim with the finest red, red wine, and if by some accident I have bled into the cup it is all the better, and she will pour it past her lips and let it trickle down her feathery bones, step by trickling step, until it pools in her feet and she again grows restless and must leave me at last. 
Then, only then, may I rest. 
And rest, I shall, for I am nothing without her. I am lost – a servant without a master, ink with no quill.

No, I am not a writer. I am her dog, my Muse, the lowliest of her suitors.

And still, she comes.

This is not a eulogy. (2011)

I will not shower him with praise, but I will bury him, not because he deserves ritual but because the earth should have him instead, I think. He should be swallowed and the meat sucked from his bones by the serrated teeth of time and decay and his skeleton should be left lonely until the soil claims it, too, and it exists as nothing more than a memory.

And as I bury him, I bury my darker self, that frightful twin which he had bred and nurtured from the very first – the cold other half of me that’s clawed at the hedges of my conscious self for as long as I have let it, and I have let it for far too long. I do not blame him for that; only we can face our demons and I was too weak, I could not hold them back. I should have been stronger, and I suppose it is in that weakness which I find my guilt.

That coffin holds not merely a corpse, but every jagged fragment of every heart broken in the wake of its life, now burrowing into its dead, dead skin like worms or maggots, starving vultures each and all similarly anxious for a slab of decadent retribution.

Spark (2012)

Give me any flaws but these;
I'd beg if I had pride enough to forsake.
I want to spark from the light of these eyes and leave them dull,
they've done me nothing but kindness and yet I cannot stand to be behind them,
or in them,
or of them.
These hands are not my own, may they bind themselves accordingly.
May they be still and calm and somehow keep what little dignity they have left.
I should run from these legs until I could step out of myself,
until they'd stop following and I lost sight of everything else.
But to be lost? Ha.
I should be so lucky.
Perhaps if I lost this body, this shaking heap of dissonance, perhaps then I could see.
I could cast off eyes and hands and legs,
and mouth and ears and nose
and feet and arms and every other part that is plagued by inadequacy.
Perhaps then, I could spark in spite of me, or it.
And if that spark should feed a flame,
well. There are worse things.

O, the Spider (2012)

O, the Spider walks the tightropes
of the disembodied soul
down the transcendental ski slopes
of a spectral bullet hole

and the space around her shivers
taut with fragmentary dreams
lit by dull phantasmal slivers
stitched with surreptitious seams

all at once she takes to mending
disconnected bits of string
tying ending unto ending
in a fragile, filmy ring

o, fatigue doth beckon plainly
countenance and premise fair 
in his purpose smiles vainly
saccharine in charm and air

still her weary legs weave quarter
of the most impassive kind
as her airy skeins support her
in the labyrinth she's designed

then at last, her work presented
all is as it should have been
O, the Spider, now contented
walks the tightropes back again

song of herself (2012)

her song is typed in pencil lead
confined in typeface cages

with graphite stains from where she bled

and sank into its pages

her song is but a few short lines

and smudged with an eraser
a testament to flawed designs
but still the words embrace her

her song is etched in black and white
and sssTuMbLeS off the tongue
she has to get the colors right
before it can be sung

for this is all she has to give
her very soul in verse
her magnum opus, just to live

her song, the artist’s curse

stellis (2012)

dance with me, my golden ghost
leave trails of stardust on my skin
for night is a resentful host
but not so brazen as her twin

you seem to me a fleeting flame
a moonbeam trapped in sun-red skies
like everything would stay the same
if only i could shield my eyes

so breathe your light into my pores
and shine in every piece of me
for what is mine is also yours
and what you are, so i will be

find her (2012)

waste no time with pleasantries -
find her, she'll be hiding
from you and from them

then take her by the mouth
and breathe stars down her throat
until she is bursting with moonlight

kiss her with your hands
kiss her with your lips
kiss her 'til you crack in two

she'll gather you up in her arms
and piece you back together
and stitch you closed with her heartstrings

so take what's left of you
press it into what she's become
until you are she and she is you

then take her by the everything
unzip her between the ears
open up her pages and read every word

firefly morphine (2012)

shh, i tell myself
hush, listen
there's a pounding in your chest
a heartbeat ringing in your ears
it's yours, don't you recognize it?

how foreign and how familiar
a black flag in the fog
signed on a dotted line
x marks the spot
don't you know what this means?

that shiver in your spine, is that -
fear? or something else?
trembling hands point to yes
at least, they try to

the cold overwhelms you but
your face is getting hot
are you embarrassed? why?
it's a natural reaction
fight-or-flight
your body is saving itself
from you, my dear

reality twists in your mind's eye
poisoned kaleidoscopes and shattered lenses
what do you see?
nothing, i see nothing
i see black and cold and blurry
dark figures, just shapes in the shadows
but nothing

everything is much too loud
i know, i hear it too
from the thudthudding of your heart
to the huffhuffing of your breath
to the silent shutting of your eyes
noise, noise, noise
reverberating off your bones
trapped inside your ribcage
like captive birds


wait.
did you hear that, too?
i'm not going crazy, am i?
no, there it is again.

a voice?
but what's it saying?
i can't make out the words,
just syllables and punctuations and emphases.
for a moment it almost drowns in the noise but then -
silence.
i hear nothing else.
every trembling fiber turns to listen,
and all are still.

i'll save that voice, gather up all the pieces,
catch it in a jar and let it glow through the night.

and the shadows will not consume me
with this new light in my lungs
resting peacefully behind my ribs
and warming my heart with its glow.

it flows into my veins,
and all is well.

impending light (2012)

She sees him and the world falls around her and melts at his feet. He doesn't notice; he wades through it, through the muddled chaos that soaks his shoes, through the cold, black water that she would've drowned in. It isn't until he reaches her that the blackness disappears, evaporates suddenly as if it fears the impending light. And then it's gone, all of it's gone, and it is not missed. There is not a single instant that either of them would offer to the absent world, no touch nor smell nor whispered word that they care to let go of for long enough to surrender it to the abyss. If there were light in place of the dark, they still should not see, for they are blinded by their very state and would gladly forsake their eyes indefinitely if they could only recapture this moment once more. Once more, and again, and another; they linger in each splendid second for longer than it seems they should. They are stealing these blessed moments and they know it, and this awareness costs them only their very selves - that which they have willingly given up already.

look at her (2012)

Look at her, she's just a shell -
a broken shadow of what was.
It's in her eyes, it's what he does;
she's been through hell.
She's just a shell.

Look at her, her edges cracked,
feel how jagged they can be.
It's in her eyes, it's plain to see;
it's just an act.
Her edges cracked.

Look at her, she's all alone,
but he's always in her head.
It's in her eyes, her eyes are dead.
She's not her own.
She's all alone.

Look at her, she's all alone,
her edges cracked, she's not her own.
Look at her, her edges cracked,
she's just a shell, it's just an act.
Look at her, she's just a shell.
It's in her eyes, she's been through hell.

tethered (2012)

 “I’m right here,” I say again. It started out as a whisper, I’m sure of it, but as I listen to myself reiterate the words for a third time, I realize that I am shouting.

I am shouting, and then I'm screaming. I’m screaming and screaming and my throat starts to ache and all of a sudden I’m not making any noise at all, but there’s a heat in my eyes and it boils over onto my cheeks until I’m crying.

I’m crying. I have crumpled to the floor and all but drowned. All is silent but for my sniffling, and it pains me to hear the weakness in my tears. No one will look at me. “I’m right here,” I mutter, but no one hears.

It seems impossible to me how very close he is, and it is this very closeness that is killing me. I search his eyes; they look through me. But he looks through me as if he knows that it is I whom he looks through, and while I know this hope is nothing but a foolish fancy, it seems almost as if he can feel me there.

I take his hand and he pulls away, certain that what he felt was nothing – nothing at all, just his emotions playing tricks on a damaged psyche. And of course it was nothing, wasn’t it?

But he can’t ignore the chill that sweeps over his cheek as I brush a tear away, and he raises his hand to mine, bemused. I tell myself not to be stupid, that his hand is merely on his face, but no, it’s on mine. It’s filling the very same space as mine and so I will tell myself that he is holding my hand.

This is the third sleepless night I’ve sat through with him. I wish he would sleep; God, I wish he would sleep, but he is childish and desires the mourning that envelops him. He must, else he would go ahead and get on with his life.

I just want him to know that I’m here – that I’ve been here, right here with him, from the first moment I was able. I want to tell him that he deserves to be happy, that he deserves more than this. I want to tell him I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused him – for the tear stains on his pillow, for the relapse in his drinking, for the hole in his wall.

He doesn’t deserve this, and I’ve brought it on him. I’ve gone and ruined the rest of his life because I couldn’t stand the thought of living without him.

I thought holding on would be easier, but it isn’t. Letting go would’ve hurt, sure, but it would’ve been over quickly - a gunshot wound or a head-on collision, anything but the purgatory I've trapped myself in. It would’ve hurt and then it’d be over and I’d be lord-knows-where and he’d be lord-knows-here and I wouldn’t be able to hurt him anymore.

But I am selfish. I am selfish and I couldn’t let him go, so I tethered him to me and held on tight instead of drifting away like nature intended. And now, here I am. Here we are. I say ‘we’ for convenience sake alone, for we are no longer us. We have been reduced to simply he and me, and both the me and the he are now entirely alone.

I am gone,

and he is here.

And I am here,

yet I am gone.

courage (2010)

courage
is having the will
to face another day
knowing that it won't be any better
than the last.