I imagined the scent of you
To be what love smells like
To be what kindness bubbles with
To be a beautiful spicy soft aroma
With the strength of leather
Smooth yet unbreakable
Inhale...
If only I could bottle you
And spray you on me
When I need it

I’m so tired of loving you.
Of holding a space
you can never fill.

Your absence
is all-consuming,
constant.
It presses.
It stings in stillness.

I close my eyes,
and your face
is still waiting for me there.

I don’t want to forget you.
I just want the remembering
to stop tearing me apart.

If there’s a way
to stop loving you
without falling apart,
please-
show me how.
I’m too tired to keep trying,
and too full of you
to stop.

Rings of Headrick
Stabilize the flight
Of a broken equal

In zero atmosphere
I record you remembering to smile
Pixel pleasure
Whether or not
In zip ties

Cloud on the brow
Rain in the ashtray
Storms we all breathe in heavily

An end to camaraderie
By critical distance
By counting back from ten

Zero is an even number
When discord is no longer odd

I bleed with ink.
You breathe in brushstrokes.
Still, we meet
in the same shade of ache.

I call it a stanza.
You call it a sky,
but both are ways
to survive the silence.

My pen trembles like your hands do
when the colours won’t blend.
We try to tell the truth,
but it keeps slipping
into metaphor.

I say “I miss you”
through rhythm.
You say it
through smudged reds
and too much blue.

We never made sense
in black and white.
But somewhere between
my verse
and your canvas,
we almost
became a masterpiece.

Alcyone, my heart is yours alone,
Though waves may pull me, tearing love from shore.
Beneath the storm, the sea may drag my body,
Yet love defies the tide, it fights once more.

Fate’s hand may tear my flesh from bone,
Yet still, my soul resists the reaper’s sweep.
I will not cross where silence makes its home,
Not yet, my love. I vowed—and vows I keep.

You pull my body, drag me toward the black,
Yet love remains, though flesh may fall away.
I beg no mercy, ask no solemn pact,
For I am hers, I am bound to stay.
The tide may take, the wind may plead,
But I will not depart—Alcyone, heed.

Not yet. Not yet. Death calls, but I won’t go.
The sea may tear, but I am not undone.
A shadow lingers—whispered hands pull slow,
Yet love remains. I stay. My heart is one.

Alcyone, I call—do you still hear?
The tide may claim my breath, but not my name.
Not yet. Not yet. My vow will not disappear.
I swore, and I swear still. I’ll remain.

Alcyone. Alcyone. Alcyone.
I speak your name, though water fills my throat.
The tide may take, the reaper calls—
I will not go. I will not go.

Alcyone. Alcyone. Alcyone.
I swore, I swear, I will not fade.
If time dissolves, if fate decrees—
Still, my soul remains. Still, my soul remains.