Are you there?
If so,
it's less.

And you say don't plant flowers,
then wonder why we have no garden.

And you say don't call you by name,
then wonder why we've become strangers.

And you say don't give,
then wonder why we share nothing.

And you say don't speak freely,
then wonder why meals are so silent.

Are you there?

Are you?

I look to you
but there's no one
there.

And this non-silence
cuts through skin
leaving only nerves
unwound like noodles.

I can quiet this vessel
with lies and straw
like the effigy
lit to us.

"What will my parents think?"
she whispered as his eyes flashed red.
"They won't even know you're dead, "
spoke his venom just outside her head.

Brittle flesh
Delicate hair
Cloth on mouth
Lack of air

******* and your righteousness.
******* and your heart.
******* and your pretty head.
You were dead from the start.

Your lips taste like gunmetal
and I'm a waste of time
and energy.

So I held her down
under my tongue
until she
fired her life off into my mouth.

Picasso on the wall
intricate patterns and raw shapes
leave the message I always
wanted.

Pull me back,
expose the nerves
violet scabs as
we relieve ourselves
in each other.

Darkened doorsteps
in the collapse of a decade.

Fill me up, drunkard.

Empty me out, wife.

I am nothing without you but everything.

Will you stay?

The days fall together
like books falling
from a shelf.

The walls have faces
where the clocks
lost hands.

And it is,
so it is,
and shall be
in a cascade of
goose-flesh
and
happiness.

Cradle, my love, in my arms
and hear the wind whisper your name.

Open your heart,
the world is cold enough already.

The storms that have
spread their grey fingers across you are such a burden.

Listen to my nursery rhyme
that drips from my lips,
and as you feel the
heavy comfort of my hand
on your head,
sleep.