The evening sky ripened and the melting
snow trickled lightly as we walked past the man selling orange and cactus and the restaurant on the corner hosting a pink and frilled quinceañera.

The light that blasted through the fog went away not with a stutter but backward with a slow reversal of fate.
The I that was and I that am couple and copulate in a resounding we that quietly submits to Time’s mastery.
And you: an eternal centrifuge.
Spinning and pulling only to stop
And send me on a trajectory forever towards the pins that will never fall.

Sometimes there are moments that are never meant to play out fully and
In an instant
Sheets straighten and clouds
Clamor back across the sky.

*Good morning.

Conduits of Blood
A self that is itself
Within itself.
My pen is my sword
At the mouth of your pyre
With which you will be slain,
By your own hand.
Or was it me that took the hilt?
Not out of anger or frustration
But out of sadness, maybe confusion.
You vex me and you are beautiful.
Your fire which is burning
Always just behind
Lights your hair a glowing orange
And leaves me tired, breathless,
And beside myself, within
Myself, burning veins that
Are itself.

Not like a needle or a knife or a wound,
A dull pain caresses the senses.
A buzzing dilutes the brain.
A weakness so strong the beat of your heart is enough to make your body sway.
Conundrums like nothingness live behind each blink, not wanting to take your eyes off the road for too long.
And your fingers twitch to the rhythm of the anxious mistaken watch that needs winding yet again.
Headlights lead you down the tree lined road, but deceives you into thinking you're headed towards lightness, towards home.
The beams grow further and more narrow as you sink back into the molten black of back roads at night.
The dullness is full, complete, thick.

1.
You sit on your stoop
And you listen.
You sit on your stoop
And you breathe.
You sit on your stoop
And you take in.
You sit on your stoop
You don't leave.

2.
A car comes down the block and you fill it with ambivalence
There are artifacts of previous tenants in your walls.
Whatever you do you can't stop the faint buzz of the sun
Or the rattling of your morning coffee.
One on one.

3.
One on one you lie back to the marble.
You drift off to sleep in the end.
You can't help you don't look you're unable,
You throw the frog away in the end.
The croak drove you crazy and the tongue made you cringe
But there was something of value...
You don't think, I can't think, in the end.

4.
You squeeze and you pry
You don't listen.
You drag and you moan
You don't breathe.
You curl and you sigh
You don't take in.
You plot and you play
You just leave.

5.
You have anxieties like pop rocks
Once they fizzle down you accept another
Handful.
In the end.
The frogs in the bin but it's ribbit breaks through
And the spread of its tongue still reaches me.

The wanderer cloaks the moonlit path a stormy blue.
They have been here before, this string in their hand
Surrounded by finely trimmed hedges
And gossamer busts of strangers.
It is dark. And dark means sleep.
But without the distractions of the day, the jagged path, the endless labyrinth, what more is there to do than crouch in a hallow and cry.
The wanderer lets the tears spill,
Like a broken fountain the flow of water sputters and spills over their cheeks
Coating the dirt and foliage below with sticky bittersweet remorse.
The wanderer does not want to sleep.
They follow the string in their hand
Down the same path they've been on time and time again.
They've been here for years, being led by their past decisions.
Feigning ignorance and indifference to the existence beyond the path.
Never letting go of the string.