Land bewitched by the breathy ash,
Which falls, unreal, around me,
Subdues my inner ticking
With a single, ringing note

Or the dulled sepia mufflings
Of distorted joy and feeling;
An amber pool of flickering light
and blind entertainment.

The bright, unfocused conversation
Drifting in lazy circles,
Gold silk stretches between us
And smiles become light

My limbs slow, and my mind speeds up.

The fading world echoes these
Surreal rythms, softened life.
Yet panic blinds and cripples me,
As the grey fogs take hold

And the
Snow is gone.

Here we lie, tangled in
Each other, yet apart

My eyes focus, I track across
Your face, this room, these clothes
So known and yet as blurred
As the graphics on your shirt

I count your eyelashes
As though they are rosary beads,
And try to find you hidden
In their shells

I see you, but don't know you.
Bittersweet memories
Crash and break around me;
I lose you in their depths

Two pairs of lips in a blind dance
I barely follow.
Disgust and want fight over me,
Love lost in waves of apathy

Hormonal needs are met by hands
Ill-conceived kisses greet them-
Breath is caught too quickly
And my desperate searching fails.

Your mask grimaces. You smile,
I’m blank, and pale and still.
My mind and soul are smothered
By dark polluted thoughts

And when it's over, it's not finished;
You study my face for clues
While I trace the etchings of my skin
And yearn for clean release

It's not you, it's me.

It's not you, and it's not me either,
This room is not your room.
I drift, unanchored, unresponsive
Too tired to understand

So I silently indulge
You in complicity
And although our bodies join
We both miss our connection

My mind has turned the one I love
Into a stranger.