Purple Dreams

you check on me many times a day
with my antique ears
I hear your squeaking shoes
on these vinyl floors
someone laid for those who came before
like passengers on a stalled bus
with windows that allowed only one view

I know you and I wait for the same thing
for you to check on the passenger who replaces me
he will be no different
a few more hairs, perhaps a few less stares
you will gently place your hand on his wrist
write in his chart, and maybe
glance at the date of birth,
do the mindless math
and wonder without wonder
if my replacement will have a bigger number than I

but I am still here
gazing at your angled eyes
while you count the beats
which slow a little each day
waiting for you to say
how long will this one last?

don’t worry, squeaking vinyl floor walker
when my drum stops pounding
I will try to make sure it happens
while I am asleep

Crooked smiles breaking after midnight
Diamond eyes sparkle in the electric light
Running through through this modern town
We own the night
 As the lights dance upon our starry gaze
Invincible we fly towards heaven bound
This liquid silver runs coursing through our veins
And gives emotions thoughts yet unbound
And we sail ever toward the moon 
In ships made of fine gold thread spun 
From the suns last heavy sigh
I look towards the sky
And see innumerable burning seraphim
Dancing dancing in this city's glow
Of opportunities spread through our time
And chances mistook for mistakes
That led to a night of passion
Dripping dripping with tears unshed
We loved like lions and never once left
Our cocoon of embers never shed
I love I love I pronounced to the
Unending ocean of dreamers lay dreaming
As this body coalesced 
And my soul intertwined with yours
Forming a living breathing breath

When I get lost I depend on you
to help me find my way but lately
I can't see because of the weight
of what I'm missing.
Will it ever cease?
For a while your love was enough;
shit, it should still be enough but
my brain’s imbalance
is fucking me over with
constant neediness of something,
like a craving for citrus or salt…
I’ll try anything to make
the need go away
and I already have.

Many work well but not for long,
others work fast but not as strong,
The best work fast and leave no trace,
but ask for more, and more,
and more until without
you just might die,
and with,  
you're just getting by,
the deceptive little fuckers
will eat you up in the end,
while you chase the need  
and wish you could go back
to where you didn't know
what you know now.
but would it matter?

They say to be partial to only one
is fortunate. I don’t buy it.
I try to replace the one with
combinations of 3 or 4
but shit, they will never do
for me what one did.
I won’t say what one is for me
but you know what one is for you,
and if by chance
your one is more than one
I pray God have mercy on you
because fighting one battle
is battle enough.

Have you ever considered that
to be clean means to live
every day for the rest of your life
with complete knowledge that
you will never, ever, as long as you live
feel as good as you did the first time?

I give in once in a while,
then go cold and sweat for a week.

You know you’re fucked
When the suffering is worth it.

he liked it black
scalding on his tongue
to wake to pain he said
rather than wait for caffeine’s slow tugging
that was his way

while she lay on crumpled sheets
breathing the air they scented with their raw rolling
he wanted a reminder
a scorched tongue to bring him back to his solitude
to remind him their naked chants cast a spell
that lasted no longer than the moon’s arc
if they were lucky enough to be fooled
into thinking their union meant immortality
rather than a desperate throbbing in fading light
with him closing his eyes to avoid her stare
and her wondering where he went
in the aftermath of lust
while she slept with dripping dreams…

she only knew what he said
each new morn
he liked it black

fields of yellow flowers
pasted on Morpheus’ silky screen
could not hide the blood and screaming
in that steamy sea of green

I wake to this in dawn’s gray hours
and can’t return to sleep
with morning’s feeble promise
we no longer follow like sheep

what force inside feeds the powers
that will not let us forget
we once were young and killers
and still owe an eternal debt
to those who died at our hands
and… to whomever let us live
but still dream of flowered lands
where those we slaughtered, can’t forgive

.

maybe
there are earthquakes
in my skin. maybe
they hollow themselves
into the arches of my feet
and maybe i walk on rocks,
crumbling and cracking
under my toes.

maybe
i taste in color,
maybe i hear in
visions, maybe god
built a temple in my mouth
so its roof would fill my tongue
with the perfect words
to say to you.

maybe
heaven is not
shining white, maybe
it is green, i want to see
a forest when i get there,
i could never go an eternity
without a good climbing tree
and the breeze that blows
through my heartache.

maybe
when i tell you
that skeletons are
gorgeous, that
these empty bones
tell stories i can feel,
maybe you'll tell me
that even the corpse
has its own beauty.

maybe
you'll teach me
how to fish for crimson,
how to cast off my years
and be glad to the brink
of fear. maybe you'll teach me
what the Earth felt like
in 1836, maybe it was
a mystery, one not even
you could ever feel
working through your chest.

maybe
this familiar ache
inside my eardrums
is only my spirit
learning how to
listen
to the dawn.

.

i rope in your lungs
with my fingers,
there is a space
between your bones
and i want to fill it,
pouring in the lines
they told me
before they left me,
one by one,
leaving you
to carry me home

your fingertips,
they are riverbeds --
they are waiting
for the moment
when i can grow gills
and swim with the words
that crowd inside your chest
when you can't find
the right ones
to say

there are stars
tattooed onto the underside
of your stomach, there are
tiny planets swimming
in your blood stream
that i wish i could
dance my fingers through
just to remind you
that there are heavens
stirring in your heart,

this heart,
it chokes with shadow
some nights, but there is
a beacon shining in your bed
that i can't wait to discover,
submerged in the wreckage
our bodies left behind

and someday,
let me stir clouds
into your eardrums
let me breathe life
into the caverns
you've forgotten existed
let me fill your skull
with salmon finding
their way upstream,

you found your way
through the stream
that flows in my wrists,
you kissed the reeds
growing in my blood cells,
and one night, you held
my jaw together
as the sickness threatened
to break through it --
you always knew

how to unlock
the fastenings
in my vertebrae,
the ones who beg
to pull me down.

if somehow
the darkness
in my throat
began to spread,
i know
you would be the first one
pleading
to be dragged
along
with it.