Whenever I read your voice  
Draped across the tree-tops  
In misty strings and fog  
its ships sailing.  
  
Wind-whipped sails ripple,  
Wave-wake slaps along salt-worn planks,  
The smell of ropes and rigging.  
  
The feeling of open skies  
And unfathomed depths—  
Swirled green, turquoise, black  
Sea dragons and sailors,  
Treasures, charts, and pirates.  

You skip so easily along the tips  
And tops of the world.  

Horses run across water.  
Wars and lovers both rage  
As the ground shifts,  
Tides bulge and bow, ripping at the shore,  
Tectonic plates slip and crumple  
Shaking the world's foundation.  
It revolves in orbit,  
Balanced on the tip of your tongue.  
  
I am cross-legged,  
Listening to the way the world is  
Watching birds cut the sky  
Bleeding onto the clouds  
Listening to the creak of your mast  
With envy.

time, the great unraveller,  
unwinding things into  
eternity with heartless determination.  
I have seen it lay rust along  
affections and arteries so  
that neither may flow or pump,  
but i always thought us, or  
hoped us, more rare  

that the constellations hung in your eyes  
would never dim for me,  
but guide me as they always had  
to home  
to you  
to us.  

perhaps you never dimmed  
only the constant erosion by minutes and hours  
chipped away my veneer, and the truth  
of me has made mutiny of your affections.  

when did I become someone you sleep beside  
and not with?  
the inches between us stretched out  
like country roads in winter, belying our beginning.  
my fingertips and your skin thick as thieves  
adventuring over the lines of your horizon  
each curve and mound and crevice  
the hot breath of exploration panting on our lips  

I can only fabricate excuses for so long,  
brushing off your brush offs,  
the turned shoulder,  
the recoil of my hand in the small of your back,  
the betraying hesitancy in your lips that  
wounds me like an unpracticed lover.  
when did you exchange your desire  
for obligations, wicked and sour?  

you blame it on chemistry  
hormones and pheromones  
molecules and valence bonds  
breaking apart our marital-structure.  
so I curse science and pray for alchemy  

I'm tired of sleeping  
In bed with you  
alone

you loved a boy  
and he loved you  
though he had loved before  
or at least, had thought himself to love before,
this was wholly of a different kind

the love he had before didn’t feel like this.
true, it had started off with heat and sweaty hands,  
as most loves do,  
but then it lost its brightness and became cold,  
something that ate away at the boy  
and however much the boy offered  
it took and took  
and never gave  
and wasn’t soft or kind

so the boy was left broken  
in more ways than he ever told,
in more ways than he even understood.  

but then you loved a boy,  
a boy who was broken  

and you were good, and beautiful, and true,
and your voice sang a love song that was only for him,  
and your touch made him fear that his heart would break
in the most wonderful way

and the boy loved the girl  
completely  

this love was warm and soft  
and air and breath and life and  
more  

all the boy wanted was to be
consumed by the girl  
just to be closer to her  
so that he was never apart  

and then it was gone.  

and the boy was confused  
because this love hadn’t changed,  
it hadn’t grown dim or dark,  
it was soft and full and fire  
and gone…

and it could not be the girl  
because she loved the boy,  
she had told him
In her honey whispers late into the night.  
the boy knew her words were true  
because she was good and true  
and because she had saved the boy  

then she was gone.  

and the boy was left more broken than before,  
the only thing left in the boys heart  
was the horrible thought, that perhaps  
he was not worthy of love;  
and it was horrible,  
because I believed it to be true

Fire has to burn.  
I wish I could hold it.  
Feel its flicker – blue flame  
luster spiraling along my lips.  
Have it dance on my fingertips,  
sweep across my longing skin
in streams of copper gold.  
Tuck it between my ribs  
and tame it.  
But fire has to burn.

There is a greed inside of me  
an apparition that feeds on pity—  
a desperation that would so casually consign you  
to the same misery  
just so I would not be alone.  

A selfishness that would entwine a piece of me  
so tightly along your threads  
that I could never be unstitched  
from the seams of your patchwork,  
knowing that I could never relieve you of that burden,  
never be more than an incessant itch beneath your soul.  

Because in the quiet, in the dark, I sink  
into the horrible truth, like I am  
swallowed up with the light-  
I will always love you,  
but never love you again.

Because in the quiet of the dark, I sink  
into the horrible truth, like I am  
swallowed up with the light-  
I will always love you,  
but never love you again.  

This unbearable knot,  
assuaged only by the vilest condolences—  
the thought that somewhere,  
you are being swallowed up too.

Why is it the dark thoughts,  
the shadows that hang at the edges of my mind  
that so easily creep out and stain the page?

Though love and joy may be found  
they never seem to draw my heart out into words.  
At least, not in the same way.  

It is regret and misery,  
longing and melancholy  
that moves my hand to compose

The introspections of my afflictions
what could have been or would have been,  
if only…  
if only.  

Perhaps it frees me in some way  
to trap these long lost deliberations with ink.  
With a time and date scribbled down on paper.  
To bother me no more…  
or perhaps, to bother me all the more  

I weigh the merits on my scale.  
To stand firmly on the shore  
or dip my toes into the water  

To let myself sink into that dark place  
to retrieve some trinket from the depths of my soul.  
All the while keeping my head above the waves.  
But what if I tire of treading  
or the weight of love and sorrow pressed together proves too much  
sinking me down below the air  

If I open this door  
what if no one can shut it

A sixth sense for cruelty,  
Like you could smell the paper-thin scent of recovery-  
Waiting for me to stand at the world's edge  
Let the tide slide over my toes  
And imagine myself becoming whole  

Cruel - like it was gifted by the gods  
Like you could sense the feeble first-steps of recovery-  
Waiting for me to stand at the world's edge  
Let the tide slide over my toes  
And imagine myself becoming whole  

You look at me like a Greek myth  
Full of serpent-stone, sirens and Aphrodite  
Remind me how easily you twist me  
Around your wicked finger  
Stake me down in your palm like a sacrifice  

Maligned and mangled at the foot of Olympus  
The spent offering, the naive fool-  
I'll stitch myself together in a practiced ritual,  
And wait for you to shatter me  
On your altar again