These cells are full
bloated
swollen
the point of splitting,
the membranes taut
rigid with
tension.

Touch me,
ever so gently.

I'll come apart,
a fine mist.

I don't know
if the blankets are enough
spindled about my head as they do,
suffocating the desire right,
left,
out the skylight
and into the blood
that sleeps above me.

Wrinkle pastel ribbons
into your mouth
right down your throat
into the pink folds of flesh,
down deep.

How can we philosophize,
when we are no better?

Coming down the carpet
between Iowa, drawing toes.
You still feel it...
the taste of chlorine (I think so)
5 AM,
              6 AM,
                          Midnight.

She's
up
on
me.

She has descended
her wings bursting forth
like molten metal.

I can't.

I tell her,
"This is the end
of everything,
and if I enter,
I will not survive."

Do mother birds mourn
when baby birds leave the nest?
Well I'll bet the pain of two at once
is something difficult to express.

I could watch it
I could see
If that could ever
be enough for me.

Do you ever get so low that so low becomes slow?
And I never dramatically quoted "that I was on a sinking
ship."
or that this heart is relinquished to obscure riddles
cement limbs
everything pale yellow-hued
cracking knuckles
limbic askew