Like a lonely rose
froze to stone,
heart hardened to marble
below a coat of snow;
barbed bones grow
labored and slow
but red petals
still radiate, aglow-
posed not quite open,
although not quite closed.

Warmer wind blows,
rain drops
clapping, lachrymose;
spring-lit spirit sprints
towards summer solstice, awoke;
green leaves,
emerald embers stoked,
emitting dandelion smoke.

Trophy bouquet meadows
of romanceless nosegay
and posy mosaic laying apropos;
seeds evoked and thrown
from my own torso.

Emotions
forwards flown
to almost certain vertigo
then swiftly sunk in undertow
from only breeze's uneven strokes;

No thing hallowed,
corpse bloated, decomposed;
worms hunger and burrow,
tomorrow sowing unknown woes-
soul harrowed as if I chose.

I was listless,
but my fist still twisted,
fingertips gripped
with arthritic stiffness,
grasping for
a gift misgiven.

Spirits lifted,
so my heart skipped its—
yet hands still slipped
with a vicious quickness;
ripped a rift across,
swiftly drifted.

Ill-equipped to fix this
vertiginous abyss
from my precipice,
til obsidian black eclipses
even the lips
that kissed it;
beloved blisses
left amidst
empty wishes,
beyond the reach of wrists,
which shifted;
crippled by what exists—
a distance.

What was the catalyst,
and how long did you mask it?
How long were you drifting across this canyon's blackness til vastness
held your passions captive?
What happened?

I told you I'd have done anything
if you had asked it...
I actually loved you
and it wasn't just some infatuous actions.

But I just walked away-
it's in the past and time elapses;
I wanted to plea for you to take me back-
but no, I won't do that-
in fact I'll bury the casket.

In **** communion with you
two bodies blooming,
fluidly fused.
Blushing, rouge-
human muse
illusion's hues
in but a glimpse,
a view;
maroon turned blue,
and like sweet honeydew
exhumed at the roots
feelings bruised
as you withdrew.

Like a window smashed,
waxing accidental cracking of glass;
canyons mapped as light refracts fast,
captured through snapping fragments and gaps.
Hung unintact, procrastinating its shattered collapse,
stress tracks have the last laugh
as paths from impact form webs and traps.
Gilded, a net of gold wraps as fractured attack grasps
before being scattered and blackened to an abstract mass of countless unmatching halves.
Tangled, travelling passions cast into a savagely scratched mask;
mouth closed, asphyxiated, and afraid to gasp.

Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.

Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.

Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.

Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.

Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.

Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.

This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.

Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.

Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.

On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.

A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone

Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.

I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.

Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.

Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.

Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.

Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.

So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?