always mindful
   not to love things

living so that they
   all could burn
and it would be nothing
   but an inconvenience

three objects
   have escaped my plan
maneuvered
   through my designs

1. old white macbook
   my beautiful
       smart
         well-designed
  whirring piece of brilliant technology
you are already gone. next.

2. wedding rings
  irrelevant
sold those motherfuckas in an instant

3. asian machine love
  i am having a hard time
having to let you go
  my beautiful, black mitsubishi.

i chose you.

i researched for weeks
  analyzing data
comparing machines
  prices
trying to be reasonable

and out of all the machines,
i.chose.you.

you are the perfect shape
  of all vehicle shapes, mitsubishi
i have a slight obsession with
   design
     lines
   c o l o r
      efficiency
speed
    and b  o  o  m  i  n  g SOUND

you are the perfect balance of safety
  including 4WD
and fuel efficiency
  (but you already knew that, didn't you?)

your headlights are so bright
  and your high beams
so magnificent
  it's almost embarrassing

mitsubishi, you little snake...
  you have a manual mode
so i can choose to be a race car driver
  whenever i want

mitsubishi outlander sport, i love you so

let's talk about your face
  you have a pig-face like me
your nose is abrupt
  it's blunt and it's different
and i love it

you know i hate the cold and the snow
  i love the sun and the moon
so you show them to me all the time
  moonroof, mitsubishi - brilliant
(with mood lighting for night? you dog!)

you wipe away the rain
  without me having to ask
you cast light into the dark
  all on your own
gps
  usb
subwoofer
  rockford fosgate
bluetooth

mitsubishi, you shake the earth
  alerting my family
that i am almost there
  blasting music
through my dna
  so that i am made
of vibrations and air
  invisible to the naked eye
or playing my science fiction audiobooks
  at a reasonable
and responsible volume

mitsubishi,
you respond to me with such grace
showing me impossibilities
with a rearview camera
saying, "hello!" in the morning
and, "see ya!" when i leave
(and i believe you mean it)

you heat my ass in the frigid winter
  an alert me with an icon
when i am losing traction
  or there may be ice
i could not ask for more, my machine love.

the deer was not your fault.
or mine, or the deer's.
  we were all doing what we do,
and to be quite honest,
  the deer got the shit end of the stick, mitsubishi.
i'm sorry about your dent and your crack
  i wanted to fix it, but i love you even more now

you are my one machine love
  with power
combustion
  and pistons
you are electric
  intelligent
and you boom
  sleek
comfortable
  well designed

i don't want to see you burn.
it would be more than an inconvenience.

two out of three things are gone.

but i chose you. i want you still.

my home is gone - fine.
my things are gone - fine.
that bastard is gone - fine.
my job is gone, mitsubishi.
  i am being stripped bare.

i am being humbled, mitsubishi.

i have to let you go.

but i'm not ready,
my asian machine love.

I exhale
As I watch the blood slowly mix in with the bathwater
You deserve this
In the winter everyone wears long sleeves

Most mornings,
I can still feel your memories crawling,
like ants,
up and over the creases in my skin,
collecting my scars like leaves.
Sometimes I can feel the strongest burrowing,
until I can feel them gnawing on the surface
of that soft grey thing we call a brain.
until I can't remember the order
of those strange sounds we call our names.

So you see,
it wan't my fault—
when you asked me the time I told you I loved you.
I was never any good at writing love poems, darling—
in the same way I was never any good at loving the right things.
Like a kid with 26 cavities loves candy,
each time you bit my neck I fell in love with the bruises.
Sometimes I still press my fingers against my collarbones
trying to re-create  your violet imprints.

Say my name one more time.
It always sounded scarlet on your tongue.
Cast your fishhook words at my shins—
until I  can feel the syllables sinking through my skin—
until I can feel myself limping forward again.

These days—
they call me unstable,
like a half-brokes table.
And I keep trying to slip things
under the too-short leg
but nothing seems to hold me up anymore.
It's been 7 months and I still shake each times someone tries to lean on me—
I used to be someone people could lean on.

Summer is coming fast and i'm still to faded from the winter to greet it with open arms.
I've fallen in love with the cold and I'm not ready for the too-bright sun
to kiss burns on my pale shoulders.
I miss the overcast days too,
like us,
uncomfortably blue.
I used to believe you loved me too—
It's 6:26 am and I'm still thinking of you.

Struggling in the coldest of rooms. Feeling blue, saddened smiles. Empty. Bloodshot eyes and fractured bones.This is all that's left. Vacant eyes. Black eyes reddened. Everything I touch turns into stone. The whispers in my mind fade away. I kind of feel like, I am meant to be this way. That this loneliness is destiny. This sinking feeling which rushes through my veins , then leaves and trickles down like autumn has met winter and the sun has failed to shine. That the motion of nothing has given more purpose. Fading shadows and life which is breezing through my mind, through dark shadows. How do I cope? When everything goes wrong. Who do I trust? When people do wrong. Longing for purpose but closure is so far away, the hearts of those that are beating are disconnected from the smell of ignorance floating through the air, and consequences of my mind will destruct. I can't focus solely on anything anymore, and I wish I could end everything, every spec of dust which falls over the mountains and rushes down the hills, trickling through the paths of despair. I would end it all. This world has lost all meaning. I have lost track of everything.

It's late and cold outside
The breeze has a chill
and it reminds me of you

Winters embrace
is fading into summer
open arms unfolding
inviting in

Enjoy the last vestiges
of winter wonderland
Effervescent translucent
otherworld kingdom

These stately still
halls of ice
Chill lightly rests
It's fingertips on everything
Alighting here and there
Bestowing some winter wonder
Everywhere

I want to walk
down these halls of winter
our cold fingers
entangled and intertwined
numb from cold
Winter branches woven
together

I want us to be numb
together
in the timeless heart of winter
forever

-Azrael Always James
© Copyright 2013

I love how you can see your breath in the winter,
It's like some sort of poetic justice,
A beauty to make up for all the leaves that die in the fall,
Something to cope with the tragedy of it all,
Funny,
It happens every year like clockwork,
And no one notices,
This is proof that magic is taken for granted

Watch out, the stove is hot.
White iron teeth that will bite your tongue,
split chapped lips,
then eat salt and vinegar crisps.

Sharp streaks of nerves,
grinning with missing incisors
drip in lines down your chin
of green and brown copper.

If I had a fish pond
to throw these dimes into,
I would never have to know
where they came from,
why they didn't fall out of
my coat with the turned up collar.

Unwashed wool wraps and rots
round warped shoulders,
gnarling strained fingers
between ball and socket joints.

Fussy tea cakes and strands of hair
relinquished to the wind
hobble up and down outdoor train stations,
old-fashioned floral prints swept aside,
a puppet show of sickly chicken legs
pocked, potholed and pickpocketed.

Lost in the war, between couch cushions,
baked into blackberry crumble
in go egg whites, out come memories
of snow that tightroped power lines,
good dogs that stayed,
coauthors of the oxford english dictionary.

Badly rolled cigarette smoke in the streets
writes gregorian poetry for darned socks
snagged on shoddy repair jobs,
splintered wooden bones.
Pour yourself a stiffer drink,
it’s going to be a gangrenous winter.

And yet it’s been so long…
All summer, all winter long…
Uncycled revenge is how I remain,chained,by death and all his friends…
I refuse to battle from beginning to end and therefore ran away,
Knowing life is for living, not wanting to live it alone or astray…
Only superstitions say we never change but oh how I try…
We shall meet at the strawberry swing…
Now the sky…

crisp from the core
cut in half and a bore.

I want some more sand!
I'm tired of cement beneath
the slabs of meat I call feet,
the movement doesn't beat
the heat:
it fuels it.
burning
on my way uphill, the stretch
is between my thighs. Sweat!
this weather is no good for fancy clothes,
I've got pit stains up these hills.
I'd say I'm looking on the bright side, but
it's more of a stare, or perhaps it's the light
that's stalking me, because I can't seem to
escape it!
burning!
this soul is melting through this flesh which
can't let go of winters breath, what once was
afraid to freeze to death wants nothing more
than a cloud or four, to shade their skin from
sinking in.
the rays,
the haze,
the heat begins.

Summer is no enemy,  
Winter is no friend,
all I want is Fall again!
The spring is here,
my nose is rose,
the seeping of color shall spread
ahead,
down and all places around,
it'll push and shove as
my body is covered
in the guilt of not taking
the time to properly supply myself
with sun screen.