My favorite photograph of you
was ruined today
by a quick current
of cranberry juice.
Its blooming, rosy streams
bled right through
your face
and then you were
indistinguishable.
I merely sighed
not because I wasn’t sad
but because I have convinced myself
to expect such accidents
and accept them
as a part of us.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 7:15 PM UTC
Last night, I told an old fir tree of you. The violet-blue of the night sky mocked me as I spilled my heart onto the dewy ground. I was met only with the lazy crickets’ chirp as I concluded my confession with ferocity. I couldn’t have expected them to understand. Sometimes, to me your palms look unfamiliar, something I have always feared but reluctantly forseen. I’m not one for superstition but I’ve smashed enough mirrors and spilled enough salt to know the consequences all too well. I spend each moment telling anyone that will listen about the imprint you’ve left on everything I’ll ever feel again. Not even my skin could breathe without you. And while it seems I’ve made you out to be a noose around my neck, none could ever say I spoke poorly of you.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 8:48 PM UTC
Poolside eyes,
up to my knees in
iris, mint,
azure hues:
I cannot do them justice
but neither could she.
In the fall,
she’d change with the leaves:
green to gold,
clumsily.
Cool air hazed the space between
fact and illusion.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 8:48 PM UTC
I could not
stop my trembling hands
I am slave
to sorrow
my bruised knees are going numb
I am dumb for you.
I have not
known sleep since you left,
I am blind
to solace
my swollen eyes are throbbing
I am ill with grief.
I will not
rinse you from my bones
I am deaf
to reason
my foolish heart is stubborn
I am yours alone.
Sep 3, 2012
Sep 3, 2012 at 8:47 PM UTC
She was the wilderness
in kind, earthy tones
and thick, lavish air
hanging heavy in the white
afternoon.
I was the ocean,
in heaving, sickish hues of green
and soapy, feverish fits
swelling onto the bay,
clumsily.
Her sunkissed stare,
and oleander skin
could bruise the freshest fruit
and so she left me with her
mark.
I spent August nights
dizzied by her spell
but encompassed in my sadness
I became
a ghost.
Even now, I drop apologies
like petals at her feet
and watch mournfully
as the yawning earth
flaunts her
as its bride.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 11:52 PM UTC
He had a charm like the forest,
wet and murky
it could pull you under
like quicksand.
And like a simple reed,
I was part of him
not wholly insignificant
but expendable.
I would look on shyly,
as kaleidoscopes of grey-green mist
filtered through his underbrush
and finally encompassed me.
To fill one’s lungs
with his marsh-water
would be foolish,
yet divine.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 11:49 PM UTC
I’d like to be your lungs,
a necessity,
forever expanding and contracting
always a place for me
inside of you.
Again I crack,
crumble
and settle at your feet.
Looking up at you,
you’re closer to the sun
than anyone should be.
I dampen my heels
in pools of nostalgia:
elixir of the heart
and a simultaneous poison.
Even the pale tree-leaves,
in a conspiracy
allude to you.
I tell myself
these circumstances
are beyond my control.
Sitting patiently,
I practice not thinking
of you.
Aug 21, 2012
Aug 21, 2012 at 11:48 PM UTC
One day my breath will catch
in my throat, forever
and my blood will run cold
and although I will feel
everything
slipping through my fingers
I will be paralysed, powerless,
left to watch it unfold
until there is nothing left of me.
One day the ground will swallow me up
I'll be nothing but dust
no trace of my existence
except unsent letters
addressed to you
that I'll have forgotten to burn.
One day, I will cease to exist,
spontaneously perish,
the universe will shift and I will be gone
inexplicably.
Nobody will remember who I was
because anybody who is anybody
is you.
One day, somebody will look into your eyes
and you won't want them to look away.
That will be the end of me.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 8:52 PM UTC
Thoughtlessly, I pledged myself to her,
so in awe of the eloquence,
I handled her gently
and thought highly of her smile.
Isn't it funny
how quickly fondness turns sour?
How quickly one realizes
such beauty should be broken,
into a million little pieces
and scattered into the sea.
If she were a chinadoll,
I might have chipped away at her surface
until only rubble remained
or perhaps I might have cast her into a wall
and relished the sweet dissolution,
the wreckage that became of her.
Instead, I planted venom
into her skin, so that it might
intoxicate her simple-minded exterior
and show her what the world
is really made of.
She taught me more
about myself
than I could have possibly learned
on my own.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 4:59 PM UTC
She spent her days in love
and I spent mine asleep
Me, I have no constant.
I speak in symbols and run-ons.
Disheveled prose streams
from my lashes
and burns onto the page:
a ritual.
This is not for you
or for him
or for her.
In the summer I would tremble
at the sound of rainfall.
This discourse sears its way
throughout my throat upon recollection.
Huddled close on humid nights,
we lit candles
and whispered of spirits
and auras
and the key to releasing the sky.
Her skilled fingers found the piano keys
and struck a sad, summer melody
that stretched throughout the house.
Like dust, I could only see her
in a band of daylight.
She looked ghostly at night;
her wispy, indistinct shape
moved and bent like a willow
alongside the lights
pinned to my wall.
By and by the morning would betray us,
and that's as far as I can recall
for the summer days quickly fade
and the ruins that remain
are far too parallel to dreams.
She was real, to me.
Oct 12, 2011
Oct 12, 2011 at 2:45 PM UTC