Your figure appears
only after rainfall
desecrating the plot
that protects my remains.
The garden sacrifices itself
welcoming the footprints
leading to the home you built
in the shadow of my doubts.
As the moisture leaves,
so does your image,
a mirage with scarred hands
begging to be held,
fading into the horizon.

Clouds fog my irises,
protecting distant ideals
from the wreckage
I've wrought on myself.

The mirror reflects distorted features
as I stain the glass
with empty breaths
I exhale between each lie.

Only in my sleep
I can see my true face,
masked in inconvenient metaphors
I've chosen to ignore.

Forever on stable trajectory,
I’ll never look through the fog
to accept the reflection
of the face from my dreams.

Reminiscing in halcyon oases,
hidden in rough terrain,
our decaying remains pale
in the shadows of mountains.
Picturing a setting sun,
they shift only to the tune
of a thousand year erosion.
Tarred and feathered to warn the crows,
we committed to the scars on our wrists,
rather than the parachutes on our backs.

Chasing ambulances
in pursuit of tragedy
to formulate a fractured identity,
your warmth dissolves
in each empty embrace
complementing the bitterness
in each bare meeting of our lips.
With hands warmed by contempt
we manifest in each taste
of foreign breath on our tongues,
our reluctant fingers reject familiarity.
Through the absence of static
failing to bridge tortured vessels,
a self-fulfilling prophecy
guides clipped wings to take flight.

Two porcelain roads
meeting at impasse,
routes of addiction
defining the slave to your map,
devoid of electricity
yearning to exist
between heavenly bodies
in our tragic afterlife.

Slave to sordid thoughts
governing my well-being,
I am constantly consumed
by chemicals I cannot control.

Consider me a scorpion,
surrounded by fire.
With no options left,
I turn my stinger on myself.

Pierced in the back,
I am my own assailant.
With only meaningless metaphors,
I welcome the scorpion's sting.