How do you hide from the mirror so well?

Your tears are so faint I almost missed them;

I almost missed you!

That fluorescent smile, so wide and so "true".

As though your mouth were not curled
around rough cinder chips…

Hide the cuts on your lips
so masterfully, too!

A smile and a laugh.. you dance like a leaf
blown by hot fume and ash…

Your tattered edge hidden from view.

No, I am not like you.

I dance more like pebbles rolled by the tide..

all scattered, and cracked…

My smile is chipped and askew...

And my laugh is absurd!

Halting and gruff..
not lovely like you.

Not chorus triumphant with heaven's imbue.

You're harp strings and viols in rhapsody blue!

And would you believe, I once had the mind

to smite myself coldly and leave me behind

to emulate all that is you?

To laugh and to sing - to dance like a flame -

to speak the way only you do!

Yes, I wanted so much to persue!

But, your lips drip with nightshade in honey-sweet dew,

so viciously rich!

My ache is entwined in their hue.

No, I could not be quite like you!

© Nathan A. Brock

Early in the morning, I hear them
at the little Catholic church two streets down.

No one's here.
I watch the same anime I've been watching for
years, accompanied by the clink of a spoon
stabbing at the bottom of my cereal bowl.

Why would she want to be here
only to lay unattended in the midst of broken pencils
scattered among my coffee stained children,
as much failures as their father, laying crumpled and forgotten like her?

I could think of a thousand reasons why
it shouldn't have been any different,

if not for those god ****** bells.

© Nathan A. Brock

Would you **** me if I asked you to?

The knife was loose in your hand when you heard a tremulant voice utter "anything"

That voice was not your own.

Perhaps it was mine.

You are no demon's concubine, but a wistful fae thing with eyes that strike at my heart.

That heart which you held in the palm of your hand.

Would you cut me down with that beating blade, if only I would ask?

© Nathan A. Brock