Running running
silently as
Godspeed You! Black Emperor plays
in our shared
binary ying-yang.

Escaping, we fly,
inspired to stay audible
and we are free.

I stood in the day
outstretched arms
as I stared directly into the sun.

I could feel its life giving aura
bounce off me,
not penetrating my brittle heart
and often times

I'm ready for it to end.

When you can't
carry the weight
how much
can whiskey hold?

I uncurled myself today
dug my fingers right in, nails first
like putty my skin gave way
and I reached inside
sinewy tendrils I grasped like noodles
slippery and slick
and I pulled until
I removed myself
from myself
and unraveled
in a wet pile.

All zeros and ones
binary becoming
the form of my dream
out of the digital screen.

You've spun your pretty blonde hair
and now you just look away
and I'm left, stranded
driving off into
a neon horizon.

"You are stronger than you think,"
she said,
not realizing
my situation
only came about
because of my weakness.

A gradient of gravel
rough, coarse,
thins,
and the asphalt cries
tears of tar
where you once parked.

My stomach turns like
the violence in your eyes
spun around dizzy upped
lost in the love we have
for each other
when everything else
wants to destroy us.

Empty like your love for me
poured out from a broken vase
that you considered
throwing out.

You're moving out,
a bit at a time,
coming back for everything,
except me.

I still turn to talk to you
I still expect your smile
I still hold on to your soul
I still see the rest of my life
in you.

And so...

I'm still fighting.

I would have moved the very crust of the Earth
to save you from myself.

I could only want one thing for you and that's
happiness, even if it's without me.

I can stare into this bottle of
whiskey in the jar
until the end isn't different
but we play pretend,
like it's okay it's not okay...
...okay.

And so I'll release you
but I may need to release myself
as well.

What would it be like
to die on the vine?
"You spin and you drown
searching for a rhyme."

Suffocate the children
leave all outs behind.
Run your fingers through
my ****** hair
lips to lips
to who knows where?

Children outgrow you,
it's inevitable.
But isn't all you ever wanted,
was for them to be better than you?

Now they are.
Now they've flown.
Out living in their
own new homes.

Follow instructions,
you know then well...

...obsolete
   ...outdated,
...erase
   ...destroy.

Like a child
you sleep
worriless and innocent
fist under cheek
breathing sweet
baby's breath.

I look at you,
and you are twelve again,
before time took her from you
before he betrayed you
and I only wish you
this peace.

My tears
can't save you
but I hold you near
in them
like a child.

Just before bed
I turn out all the lights
and for a few moments
I am bathed in darkness.

In the moment before
I turn the bedside light on
I imagine you'll be there
In bed
smiling,
in love,
when the light comes on.

But you never are.

And this nightmare-come-true,
tallies on another day.

I cradle my head
like the Old Guitarist
the leather of this couch
a cold and dead reminder
of your flesh
which I would feed on
in this very spot.

We are more than this.
The evidence?
Those many memories,
for example, this:

The never-ending date
in which at about 7:30 A.M.
your legs opened
like I was returning
to the eternity of death
through your gate-of-life
warm
soft
and wet
crying for invasion.

I knew there was no escaping you.

"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.

My brilliant past
has constricted down
from a vibrant family life
full of
love
smiles
hugs
support
memories
unconditional

down to a bare leftover remnant
of all that was.

And my tears over this
and my cries of

"I want my family back!"

into the black

mean nothing
miles away
from what doesn't even exist
anymore.

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.

Expedite my end
bring it to a close
the new me that deserves to be
is something I'll keep close.

I've lived for the taste of your
flesh, wet with desire
a mess between your legs,
lapped up like a dog
unworthy of worshiping you.

I have prayed at your temple
white cream formed from your lips
engorged
I enter you
and never
again
are my prayers returned.

Here I was,
writing
the beauty of you
the beauty of us.

The unwritten holocaust
redacting facts
written in
my mind
written on
my heart.

Distanced distractions
now too close
arrange my Catopaxi,
inverse flow
the molten snow
from every crevasse
to the waiting sea.

Wouldn't it be easier
if life
made more sense
than that
last line?

I'm day dreaming
as you night dream
and I can only
imagine what inverted blessings
have I done that now
reveal you to me,
sleeping,
away from any problems,
only
innocence
and
beauty remain.

I should've loved you better
And I'm sorry for the love
you gave so easily and I neglected
caught up in my sickness
and this ******* disease
which took me away from you
and now we don't know
where we stand
and my feet
and soul
are crying.

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.

****
****
Me
You
Give
Receive
Dominate
Submit

I could bring the blood
of a thousand sacrifices
spilling entrails
through the fingers
just to hear
you call me
by My name.

A cunning girl
who knew how
to get exactly
what she wanted
at the time.

Passing out at pulpit
never assuaging
signal lines fraying
straying lights praying
playing heights failing

Corona solitude
ember has a magnitude
un-burden your burden
fail the feathers: fire, ice, leaf.

Is this a dream,
or am I just remembering
a trinity?
Is it minus one?

If I've coagulated,
then the emptiness lost
is a cancer I will remove.

"Dasehra, make these shackles go away. Dasehra, as long as I am injured. Dasehra, as long as I remember." ~ Cedric Bixler-Zavala

A tongue across top teeth
brittle spaces they hold
inside the guts of an urn
spray painted indigo,
and that
is your color.

You always say you write
Water,
while I write
Fire.

I write flame
and I burn brighter than most,
my love.

And you are the water
that somehow held me
alit
until the moment you
no longer could.

(my neglect, my taking for granted,
my mental illness [Bipolar etched ****** features], death and loss)

And now,  I've slipped
and been doused.
I no longer write flame
I write the snuffed out
I write the ones who lose
I write the loss of
purity
innocence
childishness
love
My little girl...
... gone.

And so it seems I've been drenched
in November Rain.
It's true, you know:
The pain of loss remains.

Give me succor
Fill my heart
Let me pray here
where

the only thing more bald
than my tongue
is the *****
it caresses.

I
am
nothing
like
my
dad.

I saw you out in the water
thought you were waving,
but you have been
drowning.

I'm swimming out now,
I've realized my mistake.

I'm going to pull you ashore,
or drown trying.

What do you do
when the person
who is
your heart,
dies?

How do you love the right way?
How do you trust the right way?
How do you accept the right way?
How do you?

How
do
you?

You should have
hit the light switch
as you left, cursing me.

The apologies dissolve
as the crumbling blocks
disintegrate in whole
equating into nothing
but my cracking heart.

The thing you begged for
and were gladly given
has turned
and you have bitten the hand.

For a decade,
I put drops in
your child-like ears,
always getting infected
and agitated,
just like a toddler.

An act of service.
An act of love.
An act of commitment.
An act of desire.

An irresistible desire
to show you love.

And now,
here I am,
without you,
feeling like a child
with no one
to put them in
my own ears
but me.

And the wind is yelling
through the absent leaves
and like a child
I am afraid
and you are not here.

Right back there
in the basement
dark,
Dark Crystal on the television.

Right back to age six.

It's funny how betrayal
will nuke you right back
to the Stone Age:

No comfort.
No relief.
No touch.

No touch...

And so I sit
six years old
and watch
this movie
again,
alone.

Slide across your subtle folds
Tease with fingers
Wetness
Your body always responds
It knows the touch
of me entering your honey
Slick, like a baby seal
and just as bald.

Ocean-sized my arms wide
taking pictures of a happy girl,
washing away in the tide,
the water split at sun rays,
sand was beneath your feet
oozing up through the toes,
pulling you longingly outwards
as the water slid by
and back out
to where it came from.

Broken images
flash through the mind.

All the joy and togetherness
of family
gone.

When you live in a kaleidoscope
the loss of colour to life
leaves more emptiness
in its absence.

And your tears
are useless platitudes
to the thought
of ever having it back.

And her love
has become
the very thing
you always feared
it would.

And this broken family
has broken again.

Your Mother died
at only thirty,
when you were just
thirteen.

I'm sure you've always wondered,
and so have I,
whether you would live longer
than her.

Turns out,
you died at thirty,
too.

Disintegration
to
Reintegration

My lips hang from the edge
of your lips
for a moment,
then meet...

(My soul is blinded by you.
My heart is only for you.
My love will not fail you.
My mind will not destroy us again.)

...and part.

A bright beacon of hope,
A window to eternity,
A pride-inducing hope,
A lustful desire.