The painkillers in my pocket rattle
with each step
toward the unreachable moon
in strange harmony
with the untainted snow
crunching
beneath my feet.

Two or three
aren't enough to numb me
anymore,
no longer enough
to shut my brain off
for a little bit...
to quiet these thoughts
that stalk me
and whisper
how no one would find me
if I just lay here
on this nameless road
with a mouth full of pills,
face to the stars,
and die in the arms
of a snow angel
who'll carry me away to a heaven
I only believe in when I'm high.

I squeeze the bottle in my pocket
almost to the point of crushing it
as I turn away from the wind
and look back at the light of
my grandpa's cottage
drawing my attention
away from my midnight daydream
and the moon
that hangs like a sliver bullet
stained with the blood of monsters
from my mind.

How many times
have I walked this path high
praying to God's gleaming eye
for death,
as it winks slowly
with darkness
as if indicating something
beyond my comprehension...

All I know is
the cottage is warm
and I should go back.

safe inside a box
the christmas bulbs
from our shattered family

After your death
I'm rummaging through the drawers
for your bottle of Vicodin
hoping your ghost
isn't watching.

Why can I never stay clean?
Is it because I'm weak?
I see myself like your husband
in 20 years
a tired young drunk
sick of feeling old,
who died before his grandchildren
were even born.

I hear footsteps in the kitchen
and wonder if it's you
hiding them from me —
but I hear lots of things
when the floor beneath me
crumbles
and I'm left dangling
from my barbed sanity
with ****** hands.

I swore I'd keep it locked away,
this heirloom of addiction,
but right now I need to hold it
and feel it
because I miss you
and I'm not strong enough to accept the fact
that you're gone
just yet.

So far this is the only moment
I've told myself you're not here,
when I find and swallow the last
three pills
that couldn't stop your pain,
then wash them down with gin
that wasn't enough
to stop mine.

While running my hand
across your casket,
I leave fingerprints
on the polished wood
that will be lowered with you
into six feet of obscurity,
telling no one, only the darkness,
that I cared enough for you
to watch your unbearable decent
in to peace
while the January wind
further numbed my core.
I have nothing
so these are the only things
I was able to leave you with,
but at least I know
no one will ever wipe them
from the cherry oak surface
that even my tears slid from
so easily when I cried...
But my hand
the hand that felt the last twitches of life
in your fingers
and squeezed them until the warmth escaped
has left such delicate mementos
that will never wither
with the expensive bouquets
and flowery wreaths.

Inhaling your breath against my lips gets me high. Love this potent should be illegal, it feels so bad... like someone sold me your heart in a little plastic bag from the pocket of their hoodie in the cover of night. I lit it on fire and breathed in every panted wisp of smoke pushed up from your burning core. I bet distant cities can see our flames on the horizon, and the citizens are rushing to church to kneel before God and pray to be spared from the glowing apocalypse crawling towards them. What a beautiful way to die... but the world has already ended to me, because nothing matters in this moment but you. I think I can hear their screams beneath yours, as the ****** of Armageddon firestorms falls from the angry heavens that generously matched our souls.

Then silence... the beautiful silence that drapes the earth once everyone and everything is dead except for us, at least until the sun returns, and the alarm clock rings and resurrects the world from its hallucinated grave, and I head out to work hungover with love.

lying together
in the last of the darkness...
I awake
to the hiss of flames
and plumes of candle-smoke

You're my stillborn butterfly
afraid of your new beauty
with limp wings,
pried from the safety of your cocoon
by my old hands
in a forest where everything
is charred.
Only the skeletal trees
once lush with life and birdsong
can admire your strange elegance
as you lay listless on their roots
that thirst for a storm of passing love
and thunder.

I want to carry you away
to my field of wildflowers
and resurrect you with the unmasked glow
of the shy moon, who only shows its face
in this meadow of lies.
I'll watch the breeze wake you on my fingertips
then let you fly away, carelessly
into a world of color
I'll never compare to.