I see your silhouettes standing like
empty ghosts

everywhere I look around this city,
on the static sidewalks,

and like the stars etched into your shoulder blades,
I paint inside your lines
with the colours
of my heart.

I've got so much for you,

(fingers that play twister with yours,

stencils carving your name just above your skin just
barely brushing baby hair around
your navel,

barely breathed words of love,

soft sandpaper stubble to drag out goose fleshed neck nape
as it reaches up to reach my chin,

slightly parted lips grazing yours and then a sudden
gasp of teeth into your skin,

waking wrapped around you in a moment I can make feel
more than a mere instant but like it would never end,

as the sun sneaks its way into the blinds
reflecting soft shadows off of your every angle,
and the power to
take
your
breath
away.)

if you'd only accept it...if you'd only accept it.

So much flesh,
crushed beneath
a metal press

and like my mercurial mind,
it flows from solid wax
to running oil

The smell of
the tropics,
and ***.

Crutching my way through the days,
until you come back this way.

Sleepless, harangued, hungry, tight.
Will I make it to the shore without your light?

Shudder the alarms,
I won't burden you with this weight
so fly
free
and come
back to
me.

The lens is out of focus,
for the first time,
the lens is out of focus.

This mixture of metol and phenidone is making
the edges show
clearer.

So hold me down,
run your fingers across me,
and I'll slide right into focus.

I was dreaming of things I didn't want to,
and woke towards your comfort

but it wasn't there

and that's what has hurt the most,
so far.

You burn them all away, keep me safe.
I wear you, I use you,
the only thing that is keeping me

together.

Like a woven basket falling

apart,

you thread me like a needle
when there is no capable shopkeeper.

You are a safe place to land what's inside my head,
you understand the circuitry inside this machine
because yours is the same.

I am writing words because speech is often too much. Writing to a black haired girl I have dreamt of, damage done. Aloe shatters in an explosion of feathers, lost out in between my tears. My weakness is something I call a strength, what broke was tempered steel beneath her gaze, wide-eyed in love. The Mother Mori bends her back, back at me again and I enter her, conquered. Do you even read me? I've started moving from your well of gravity and am writing a story of my life with myself as my own unreliable narrator. Would I slide into you? When it's never been a problem, the lack of your insides wrapped around me suddenly becomes one. Butterflies flutter around the butter that has begun oozing from the wound you have made in me, like a sweetly scented rot, a gorgeous gangrenous gap in my skin, attracting flies. When speech becomes too much, I write. You brought me to life by reading me. When you don't read, this dies.

Blankets never had it so good,
and I just need someone to hold.

Scarabs dance impositions across your navel,
flattening themselves out in honour of your belly,
as I am watching your pulse spell out cryptograms
just below your pink
hairless
skin.

I lap the insects up like a patient kitten, lingering too long
(just long enough)
as the tips of my fingers press down on your
pulsing
hieroglyphics.

I don't know which direction is up
appalled at my own circumstances,
retreating back into my self and floating.

When trapped between the asphalt and the stars above is it better
to spread your arms and legs, waiting for the stars to take you up

to Heaven

or push your fists into the asphalt, melting from the heat of the stars above
and steel yourself

for Hell?

You are not beautiful
because your hair is something love is made of.
You are not beautiful
because your eyes are brighter than ***** of hydrogen.
You are not beautiful
because you stand tall, stand strong (stronger than me).
You are not beautiful
because of the endless secret midnight reasons only I know.
You are not beautiful
because you survived assassination attempts.
You are not beautiful
because you bend, but have not broken.
You are not beautiful
because of the lust you inspire in every man that sees you.
You are not beautiful
because of the way our son shines in your light.

You are beautiful,
because you are brilliant...
because you give me life...
because you are creation's sigh...
because you are the taste upon my tongue...
because you are the whisper on my every word...
because you are the blood that caresses my every beat...

You are beautiful,
Holly,
because you are my Heroine.

I was counting the number
of your flaws for the first time,
trying to find an excuse,
trying to find some armor,
trying to find a modicum of control,

(letting go is always
easier
than being let go)

I was struck dumb by futility.

I was counting the number
of your flaws for the first time,
and for the first time learned,
that zero is a number.

I've got a ring
I don't wear it.

Even though it's on my finger,
you see,
it wears me.

I have this gold wrapped
around my finger -

For when you aren't near
For when I can't lay in your arms
For when I need to be held,
your ring holds me.

I said I took you for granted,
and I had.

It was how I've survived
being taken for granted.

I am sick of laying in the shallow grave
you have been forced into against your will.

I am still standing next to it,
my fingers spread,
beg you to take my hand,
pull you up
and into
my palms.

Don't
take
that
for
granted.

I've been looking up
to the stars every day

knowing

that though I can't see you
you are still here.

Earth risks freezing for lack of sunshine at Star's absence
green blades of grass turn brown
fallow ground, brown soil hardens
invaded with spiderwebs of white frost
the animals, frozen in place
the world - a tomb
there is no warmth without the world's
shining orb

the Moon is lonely, no light
to reflect
to hold it
to warm it

She is the One, the one and lonely Star
Burning bright
and like the Sun
it doesn't matter how far her orbit takes her -

the Moon still reaches for the light, his hero...
feels the warm photons
to reflect
to hold it
to warm it

until She spins back to Him.

There's a clear stretch of land ahead
of that broken dessert landscape
shattered in atrophy and assumptions,
wrong.

The things I took for little,
weren't.

That stretch is ahead,
though our heels are leaning back on the precipice
behind.

Ahead may seem empty,
but it's not.

I'm filling it with a road lined with dates,
trees a girl draws in journals, hope and want.
And just like those tree sketches,
skulls growing into cartoons that are non-threatening,
in black and white
like your face concentrating into that mirror
on March 5th,
the road will lead to wherever
we need to go.

Scold this abrasion
in weakling poses
dance with me,
Memory.

Awaken me
in the hold of your breath,
stilted in the lapse.

Our lights are bending
beneath the weight
of your gravity...

let it go before they break.

I can't see anything else, I've become blind
from staring into your eyes, like stars.

He's running to catch you, Marion
at the end of the dock
stretched out over cyan waters.

His hand arched out like vellum over dry bone
reaching for his dream
hoping that when he reaches the end
he finds something other than a requiem.

When you are tired, feeling alone
please know that I am waiting for you
in our home.

When shadows run marathons to catch
and hold you down,
blocking out the bright night sky
making the stars seem so far away
you only need to come to me
rest your face in my palm

Where the starlight of your eyes
reflects in and back out of mine
and pushes back the shadows
and you no longer feel alone
in our home.

I've lost myself
in you
but much prefer the me
that grew.

If I write it in words
here on the screen
how much remains
between what seems, and what's real?

They slow down the journey,
rattle your bones,
and so I will always put the passenger-side tire
through the middle dip in the yellow concrete bar
when I drive.

They say it is one of the rarest things in the whole universe
that there are only three known to exist,
(coincidentally enough)
but there is a fourth I know
that is so close it makes me wonder
how rare can they be, really?

I realize it only speaks to my fortune
to be so close to them.

Hollymylove, orbited by two smaller bodies
white flaming hair that blows in stellar winds
lighting up the insurmountable darkness.

So many wounds,
bled out over years
like ink on a test
failed over and over and over

turned into

So many scars,
raised up on the flesh
like the rounded sides
of speed bumps made too high.

will become

So many forgotten memories
faded like ink turning invisible in the sun
like cement smoothed by the erosion of time.

I wanted to write you a poem
but the words wouldn't come
I searched across my mind
I searched between every line
but found nothing and suddenly I realized...

There are no words
I could use to describe
the way these butterflies spasm inside
the way my heart reflects in your eyes
the way the starlight can trace your lines
the way my tongue ties up speaking desires
the way my life is more by your being alive.

And so I sit, silent
in front of a six-foot tall altar,
carved of white marble and onyx
covered in black raven feathers.

She has become my idol
her image replacing the god
I no longer believe in

and I pray to you each night.

It comes to fill an empty space
to fill in the spaces left by the loss of

our pores opened
our saliva blended
our sweat mingled
our velvet moments
our staccato line of site
our time spinning in reverse
our words spoken with our eyes
our family held together by a thread
our love stretched so thin over our bones

It comes like a dead wind
filling the emptiness left behind,
and I don't want that inspiration.

I had enough of emptiness,
the shallow grave I've been digging myself.
Lying to myself all this time
thinking I was digging to China
but only inches down
ready to fall in and expire.

But there is no expiration date
on love.

I didn't receive anything
I could hold in my hands
from you
But the best gift I received
this year on my birthday
was a chance.

I hold that
in my heart.

There is so much that goes on in that pretty little head of yours
un-shown to anyone with living or something instead of words
that mean so little when so much said causes burns.
So abbreviate, punctuate, silence and contemplate,
hold these conversations using only your face
those eyes of blue, convey everything inside of you:

the perfect despite what you tell yourself
the flawless despite how you rate yourself
the endless rattle of colic baby rattles
the voices telling you that you equal less
than the shocking
the breath-taking
the gasp of first love

that made this never-at-a-loss-for-words boy
stumble-stutter over himself
in his first attempts to get inside and learn what
goes on in that pretty little head of yours.

I am writing a new story,
but don't look here for the narrative,
because
I am not writing it with these words you think you are reading,
or the patience that I have found.
I am penning this new manuscript,
and all the illuminating circumstances that make those reading
wish they were the characters in the joy-tear-jerking plot,
the parts everyone passes eyes over in order
to make their own lives richer...
I am scribing my way through to the end
not with words, letters, jots, tittles,
but with
actions.

When you're missing something
(like a piece),
the only way to go,
is forward,
and one day soon,
you will roll over
what you
were
missing.

I should pull over,
but I'm speeding
through myself
too fast to stop.

I'm hurtling towards my rest,
not where the happy go,
but where men like myself go when
in need of water, warm,
to bathe in, cool
to drink
to quench this sandy-fingerprint throat.

A people wandering, lost
the temple, cracked
like spiderwebs spread across the surface,
pain captured in its lattice.

My sight lost from the goal,
for forty years it seems,
I've been lost, but...

I see the oasis, with its
materials with which to heal
the temple,
bring it back,
like the words that are now
coming back.

I go to sing with the gospel,
to cry tears of relief,
in the arms of you,
my temple,
where I kneel
in worship.

How the warm water seeps over your skin
in a bath that is too cold as it slowly pours into the water,
How the purr of a cat sometimes hits that cracking note
as it sits, legless, on your lap in Winter,
How a man can feel like a child again
when a woman undresses,
How I can feel so certain,
your bared back against my naked chest.

Oh son, my porcelain prince, if only your eyes were flesh and not glass
you could see that these things will pass.
Oh child, my fragile leaf, if only your roots reached deeper,
you could feel that this is only a short while.
Oh little one, my broken boy, if only you would grow up slower,
slow as nature deems,
time will give you foresight -
be patient.
I say this to help you avoid stumbling over roots,
or falling under the weight
that will surely come,
and too soon it seems.

My son, my pride, my knight,
my willow branch,
you will grow strong,
but remember to bend,
and do not let them break you.
Do not break under
the weight of words
the cold of shoulders
or the pollution of popularities.

Hold to those around you,
with deeper roots,
who have grown through the rough dirt
you are pushing through.

Hold to those around you,
because we love you.

Sometimes we feel a bit of pain
over things missing from our lives:

gifts,
childhood
toys,
that old silverware,
memories...

But there is a special kind of pain,
a person feels over people missing from their lives.

There is a trick;
it is not this simple,
see.

The trick is this:
Often, it is only when that person begins to come back
into our lives,
that we realize just how great,
acute,
that pain was,
and is,
and this mutes the happiness one would fully feel
at the reconnect.

I am the caustic clarity in a thought
I am the clearest day covered in storm

I am the brittle bit of bone
that Old Men toss onto the dirt floor
in deep emerald Congo

I am the Winter

I am the glass tube sliding in
the steel cold to the plastic.

I was once something that meant something,
but you see,
I am that lovers' kiss,
that first cross-room-glance,
that needing-you-like-the-desert-needs-the-rain,
that poetic ******* cliche'

And like them,
I,
too,
have become meaningless.

Hey, Starchild…

Can you feel me lean  into you?

The weight of the moon -
immeasurable tons,
yet somehow making you lighter?

(An astronaut on the surface
gaining more height than you expect
with each leap-step.)

In the end, it may in reality be that
the Sun
is illuminated
by the moon.

Of all that stood by,
he alone
ran into the water, fully-clothed
on that cold February day,
to pull her (flailing wet-noodle limbs) from the water.

He alone
recognized she was not waving,
but drowning.
Coincidence they had recently
discovered that poem?

He’d heard once that Bob Dylan said something like,
“When someone is close to suicide, they don’t ask for help,
by sending family a letter in the mail.”

He’d heard,
many times before,
How dangerous it was to attempt such a thing,
but love muted those mnemonic memories,
replaced them with muscle memories
(the heart is a muscle)
and he flew, wind-like,
into the ocean.

Neither ever felt the earth under
their feet
again.

He always just assumed she was joking,
when he'd say he loved her more,
and she agreed.

The sting was in realizing that he could hardly love her at all,
and it would still be true.

He’s staring into the grains, wondering how what she felt
for him could  have become even smaller than those little marks and flecks on the wood.

She’s staring at the screen, her face awash in the glow she now values more
than what he offers her.

And he’s pushing and squeezing on as hard as he knows…

But she sees him as the enemy, her Nemesis, the antithesis
of what she wants at this moment,
those moments,
moments to come,

Her happiness doesn’t come from him any longer.
His smiles, and words, and care, and love,
holding less real estate in her pretty little head
than dried sauce on a plate
or ***** socks
on the floor
by the door
he now stands behind staring at, wishing her face, aglow,
would be smiling on the other side.

Sometimes
I feel spread so thin,
like a man who desperately searches for his home,
and suddenly realizes
he is a vagabond,
and has none...

I spread gravel once
flat across a lawn...
wishing it was me.

I made a trash bag-wreath once
white-pure strips of plastic...
wishing it was me.

I looked up at the delicate sky
held in place forever
crying to be fleeting
trapped in existence: eternity.

I heard family ghost stories once
stained branches on family tree...
wishing it was me.

You found the truck
attractive enough to her
to keep her standing up after each time you ran her down
Each time she saw you coming
She smiled in hope
And ran to the street, stood mid-lane, waving until that moment when
Your metal smashed her smile
Your rubber broke her fingers
and you had won.

Knowledge: My meager roadside curio is more to her than the fastest automobile hatred can build

And now, you do not drive this way very often, and nothing much makes me happier

But we both know the saying, "If I can't have her..."

And you managed that:
braces she has to wear now
slipped disks
scars all over her body
and heart...

She is a different person, and in that,
you have won,
as you couldn't have her,
and now neither do I.

But there is something else:
You forgot that my love is nearly unconditional.
Unconditional love does not exist.
My love is honest, pure,
Not the hardly-unconditional love most advertises as unconditional.
Not the kind that is plastic, and
flashing on a sign on the side of your vehicle
The one I read through tears
Each time
Her hand slipped from mine
as she ran to meet you.

I love her,
no matter what damage you have caused
no matter how long it takes to heal
no matter if it never heals
and in that,
you will never win.

There's an igloo
glowing auburn-yellow from the inside
miles of empty snow and ice around
lead-blue sky bears down:
an endless weight squashing reality.

I'm trying to remember which muscles are required to make me stand.
I'm braiding the coarse-twine letters of your name into a gallows rope,
tie it around our necks,
place the knot correctly so the vertebrate split,
separate fragile cord that brings all life to the body,
same as the delicate thread that held us together.

Did it ever,
really?

I drip away from you
charred
marshmallow held over the flame
too long.
This ceremonial rattle shakes
full of seeds within dried husk
the sound tickles your eardrums
as you **** on the snow and ice
covered with its coat of
honey,
nectar,
black gall.

I am watching black and white films of ****** surgery nightmares,
the heads concealed behind bandages, contents unknown.

You are toothpaste: once I squeeze you out it is impossible to
put you back, as you occupy my life with your carnival apathy

Research has shown
that lithium
is the only drug
that guarantees a decrease
in suicide.

So slow the trajectory in which you came to me,
not simply difficult to see,
but difficult to identify:

felt the same as walking through a door and looking back to see a man approaching,
try to judge if he is close enough to hold it, not hold it, or give it the push
just enough for him to take advantage.

Awkward as a traffic light,
yellow,
too close to stop,
too far to go through.

Some people in my life are felt marker streaks,
they start so saturated
but fade to nothing as they advance.

You are the opposite:
slowly building from nothing,
continuing to get brighter,
containing more
color,
until the end.