Every inch a battlefield
Charred and pitted
Earth
I can admit no
Seeds
Only black
Veils
Of mourning

It’s on my tongue
Dripping down my bones
Its eaten away everything
So don’t be surprised, if I
Sway when I should stand
It’s like a horizon
The furthest beyond I
Can ever
see
My marble eyes crack, melt in the
Sulfur of its
sunset
With forceful strokes, I
Always paint these acrid colors

Almost out of body
Almost mad from the
Pressure of it-
Great leviathan
Crouching on my rib cage
My heart strains to grow wings,
To take flight when I glimpse
The poisonous rubies of its eyes
And when its fanged mouth opens to
Set me aflame
I wonder if
I’ll ever stop burning

Holding a broken compass
For you were my way
Feeling I might as well
Not have feet at all

Arms full of it
Only half knowing
It was golden
Only half holding
On
Always believing
In roses, in doorways
Cut from air, leading from
Dawn to dawn

I turn my lips from your
Black kiss
But it drifts on the
Wind
Its poison sting finding
My trembling skin
Turning all of my gold
To ashes

Frolicking foxes
Leap from your lips
Rip
Past the white and ruby
Toward the denouement of
Empty disputes
I watch from behind
Chain link fence slicing my fingers
The weight of my silence takes
Shape in your eyes
Heralds a rush
Of crimson blazes