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.

Yesterday felt like tomorrow
Tomorrow feels like yesterday
And my eyes don't
And my heart isn't
And my mind won't
And I'm not sure if all these sparkling tear drops
keep falling from the thought of it
or if the weight is just to great.
It was all figured out yesterday, but
yesterday felt like tomorrow
tomorrow feels like yesterday
and my eyes don't
and my heart isn't
and my mind can't.

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'm curating a list
one final time
Play it through
it'll feel like a crime.

All across your body,
lines written in rainbow thread.

A heart is only
so much weight, wait...why?

Would they dust your body
for the remnants?

What they have found,
is it hesitant?

Engorged like a hibiscus pistil,
covered in pollen
dripping with dew.

This is no request, but an order:
Extend your tongue
til it pulls with a bit of pain from behind your lower teeth,
open up,
and
prepare
to
swallow.

Today I was driving in my car, looking at my notepad
shoved without care
corner of a page bent
spirals grasped for life on the edge of that dive.

I thought that I felt I wanted to write,
but the glass inside my head was empty.
Forcing it full just causes it to break,
and so I wait for it to fill, fill, fill,
overflow and
capsize.

It comes suddenly:

a stroke in the section of the brain that biologists
have yet to identify.

a phone ringing at three thirty-eight in the morning.

a cat leaping from behind the corner, hitching a momentary ride on your calf.

a rush of amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman's crotch as
she stands over smooth tile.

How many pens have come apart in your mouth?
How much
redblueblackgreen ink
have you ingested in these pen-cap chew moments of inspiration,
trying to steer without looking,
shift with only *******,
scribble without seeing,
glances from concerned motorists in adjacent lanes.

How many
slips of napkins
notepads
envelopes
bills
book covers
receipts
skin
have you marked in fits of...

A mascara face print, where those tracks of teared-makeup
once ran across your face,
now dormant upon the bathroom stall wall like the print of a mushroom,
forever etched into that Formica board separating defecators from one another
all day long;
save the absent omnipresent five-minute stands that occur as ours did –
**** ******* against a fragile toilet partition as your recurring image
the face mashed against a solid substance,
standing behind you and convincing you of the ***** ***** that you are;

you already know that...but it feels so good to be persuaded this way.

Within
without
within
nothing like a truck load of pain to ease your reservations.

**** the flies
out from my eyes.
As it is,
all I ever see
with them dies.

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.

How easy my thoughts are lost
in you and simpler still my body pulled
into you held down by the weight
of the earth I’ve filled my pockets
with. I push my way into this welcoming
water’s body. I do not want to go,
but the ocean’s thundering applause
and its frigid love under my toes
sweeps me off my feet
as waking gulls
mourn the triumph of the sea.

I'll wear it like a broken record,
your weight, an open wound,
still.

How quickly the everything you were,
your void, a dripping faucet,
madness.

You swallowed my love in your throat,
your gut, a churning pit,
death.

What's left of my ability to feel,
your numbing, a left hook,
loneliness.

So please, free me, Star,
from the gravity of your being,
as it has left me crushed
like damp, wrinkled pages
of a book you no longer care to open

This vicious circle
once again
spins so fast
the friction
sets my hands on fire.

****, I miss you.
My eyes are bending down into this face.
I was smiling, but now I stand on my head…
I don’t feel I’ll ever right myself.
I gossip about you to everyone.  
You are a pillow cut open atop this twisted steel skyscraper,
loose the feather and no one can retrieve it.

We all watch you fade so slowly away on the wind.
We try so hard not to jump after you.
We are not as light, and less aerodynamic.
We would fall like stones,

and so

eyes misted with the dew of loss,
we watch you
fade away so slowly on the wind,
farther,
father,
until your point of brightest azurean love
is lost up in the deep glass sky.

He stares at the wall like certainty,
placebos poisoning his ability to feel.
The little special places where she once crawled,
now burn marks of self harm.
His nails won't dig in far enough.
His life won't end quickly enough,
and so he sets his ritual, his belief,
his yearning for illumination onto the prayers he sends to her,
his goddess,
Death.

You left me discarded
a dead leaf drying further
and went on your pursuit
of attention and power.

Not even the acorn
resplendent in its beauty
could pull you back
into orbit.

Well four decades
have taught me well
and I have pursued
you long enough.

I can father myself,
so *******.

I grew us a garden
at least that's what I say
but it was really my way
to show you that new things
can always grow.

Peppers, fleshy sheen
Jalapenos, green
Lavender, my eyes roll back

Your time signature
has changed
and there seems nothing
I can do to explain

Why the peppers are rotting
Why the jalapenos are dead
Why the lavender is dry and barren

So I roll my hand into
the dry, dead soil
of a garden neglected
and all the years we had,
like dirt,
runs away
through my fingers.

My top and bottom incisors do not meet
the wall of your big toe between them,
my enamel spades crushing against your nail bed so gently,
perforating your toes’ soft bottoms so exquisitely.

My tongue slowly dances with your toes,
the ridges above and the arch below the foot,
you flinch at the tickle.

My mouth dancing like an anemic acrobat,
it finds his way along the high-wire of your fishnet guarded legs,
their pale contrast to the red cloth exciting.

Suddenly, you shudder as the muscle in my mouth finds
your flesh exposed above the stocking line,
I am a conquistador and I have discovered a new land – I will subjugate it,
taking it’s precious jewels and spices,
consuming them and getting fat with the richness that is this New World before me.

I devour you so slowly – is my mouth even moving?
It is leaving a trail,
slightly damp like a dehydrated slug,
a leech ******* each piece
until the bleached skin becomes en-crimsoned by the bruises
my biting and ******* have made.
Will you try to hide them?
I move on to places where this disguising will not be a concern, and you begin to spasm.

I’ve hung myself on these gallows,
and so having to die because of it,
I will relish it;
an abandonment atrocity of aestheticism.

There are things I could tell you
about myself,
lesions awakened in a cloud of poppies,
burn the tracks and the bridge
that contained them,
only to realize
I was on the bridge.

You appeared
like a boat underneath
to rescue me,
but you being a ghost beneath,
only makes...

I'm falling asleep...

You are a dream,
But am I only dreaming you?

She approaches, the **** skin creamy,
Except above the eyes, she is hairless,
exactly the same as polished marble.

Her back and haunches
curve like an inverted spoon of wax,
*** an upside-down heart pining
away for you to invade.

Nubile nymph, teardrop-shaped *******
move with each footfall the same as a slightly disturbed water surface.

The arms, two extended columns of stone, support
in their upturned palms, the alabaster plate of offerings.

Peach,
fuzz-covered, not like her crotch.

Apple,
the shape of her *** waiting for your worm.

Plum,
smooth like her skin and soon slippery with your saliva.

Orange,
like her ***** waiting to be peeled back so the tongue can enter.

Rambutan,
red as lust, yearns for your peeling to expose the coconut-hued innards.

Ripe Akebia,
cracks open, now full of glistening white seed.

Your torso, stretched and squeezed by God's finger
and thumb, ever so gently
just between your hips and ribs.
Those long bow-shaped bones stretch against your near melanin-free skin.
Is that pink-tinge the blood vessels, just beneath,
or the marks of my touch?

I am heady;
you are ice on my tongue,
which slowly melts into warm
liquid as I mouth-
breathe.

You make me feel so *****-clean,
a pale patriarch that ***** his Sister.
I am so drunk
on your potency,
my memories flood in as absinthe, my inebriated
body replays that first night I tore you open.

Stretch your arms above your pretty poutish head,
I pull myself out from your bald lips -
coat you in white feathers.

Hypnotized by your blank kaleidescope
caress you like a Kwashiorkor belly
rotund
smooth and round abdomen, empty and
covered with flies
an allegiance to parasitism,
supported by the skeletal mass
too thin to pull the body along,
ground-glass ground
ochre earth,
away from the feathered death
stepping lively behind you
hooks pierce the sand,
soon your meat.

you scream at me
with colic voice
cut you open
I have no choice

A girl with soft teeth
grinding cavities

*******
in confession
with five weeks of absence

wrapped up
in confusion
with five hours of evidence

she's got a new kick
tomorrow, she says

tore up
in weeping
with five minutes of dissonance

I have:
coconut lips
wrist bindings
finger marks
hand prints
tongue on skin
palm on ***
nails on throat
stubble on neck nape
gentle caress
tender heart
shivering words
rough chin on inside of thighs,
soft,
wet.

Do you have:
lip to gently bite
hips to trace with feathers
collar-bone handles
eyes to drown in
body to wrap around
legs to intertwine
voice to whisper
scars to lick
mouth to breathe into
and hair to hold like a leash, until
it becomes release,
collapse,
lost breath,
speechless,
rocked to sleep?

I'm skipping stones on your plain
surface risking nothing
but every corrosive moment
in the clutch of feathered sadness,
dripping in milk.

I am not
stone building
mortared wall
mountain range
concrete foundation
giant rock boulder

I am
a cool breeze
rain on a sunny day
music in the trees
the beating of your heart
rich soil foundation
with deep roots of
hope
faith
love.

There are bits of glass
strewn about
this empty
heart of mine.

Spread this out
through your cries
broken little pieces
spread out
like your legs
shaking and bent
the rope remakes you:
a glass sliver contortionist
thorn in your side
like a kitten
lapping milk
with razor tongue

Scaffolding in place by those that value
a structure arranged and supporting,
housing community.
Community from its root of ‘commune,’
what exists from the efforts
of all those involved.
A building housing
opinions,
creativity,
debate,
and art.

What was once a poetry free-for-all,
now a pay to play disaster
crumbling down
at the swinging of a dollar-shaped
wrecking ball.

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.

How could it not be
that this branch
I've clambered out onto
would hold me,
but instead it lured me
false pretense
to climb further out
until it has now snapped
dumping me
into the carnivorous jungle
below.

I can pretend behind this wall
that I'm okay,
tender little teeth
wear the truth each night,
grinding down to nerves.

I've not gained so much as recently,
as I watch it all
drain
away.

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

Can you see these words?
Stare down the barrel of this
alphabet soup,
broth of blood.

Touch my hair,
trigger,
and muscles
turn to puddles.

These sleepy little scars reaching from the back,
where numbness holds a noose, can your *** free this hangman?
I could leave palm prints on your skin,
like  ancient art proto-men left on a wall,
with just as much animal rage,
and just as much desire to create a lasting impression
on the world.

He was cursing again.
The brittle drops of saline etched
their ways down his face,
carving evaporation trails.

He just couldn't fight
the feeling
anymore,
like that stupid ******* song.

Lashing out, he destroyed it all.

Smiling, he died.

And I'm still trying to figure out how to say that without feeling like a liar
Making up a screenplay in my head: dead
lead from the real way I wish to express, again
Exiting into your u-turn I always ******* dread: descend
Melodies I learned to hum when young
To someone now no one, flashes of red

You hummed them to me; child-like: off to bed
Implanting this seed in me 
I don't recall a single syllable you said
But still memories are melting me like butter on burnt bread
Talking to a ghost
Pointless...end.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not asking for much...just a
sliver of something to
hold onto.

I only want someone to love me
when we are old,
for the things they loved me for,
when we were young.

I'm the fruit you left
to die on the vine
so don't be surprised
when I don't give you my time.

My heights are like you've never seen,
I succeed where Icarus failed
and I touch the sky.

My beauty is
alluring,
but deadly.

I am higher than Everest,
and despite the many attempts,
none have survived.

My head sets on the horizon,
aflame with impending doom
scuttled like a sinking ****,
burnt and begging.

My hydrogenic mass defeats you,
surfaces spread thin like oil
on glass and there is only one way out -
immolation.

Sun-soaked dust clouds rain
their bitter truths on the
spires of steel antennae
violating my mind.

If I could hold you a thousand times
it'd never be enough
If I could kiss you a thousand times
it'd never be enough
If I could love you a thousand times
it'd never be enough
But if you could hold me
just once
and never let me go
it just might be enough.

I want to hold my breath
like I thought I'd hold you - forever

How
could this
be true?

This dream that binges
on my only source
of peace,
come true.

And all the times
you swore
that it wouldn't be,
have rotted to lies.

I am waking up in tears every morning
our songs echoing through my head
covered in sweat,
shirt soaked through,
hair on end like I've been swimming in the bath of
warm water and
memories
we drew over nearly a decade.

I'm spinning out of control and
I don't know if I can remember how to be a good husband anymore.

But mostly, I just miss you
like the desert misses the rain,
and just like that metaphor,
I am becoming a ******* cliche.

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

I'm sorry
I didn't show up
knowing all you'd been through
before.

I'm sorry
You counted on me
and were only let down
again.

I'm sorry
That I got comfortable
and took your love for
granted.

I'm sorry
That I gave you safe spaces
then slowly pulled them
away.

I'm sorry
I let my illness get the better of me
breaking your
trust.

I'm sorry
I'm sorry
Mija,
I'm sorry.

One: 24 hour denial
Two: Tears
Three: Try to stuff it down
Four: Fail
Five: Tears
Six: Completely breakdown
Seven: Go to hospital because you wish it were you
Eight: Destroy all semblance of normal
Nine: Tears, fear
Ten: She makes you realize the sky has fallen in
Eleven: You realize again, a star explodes, you hadn't seen the light
Twelve: Love