She has brittle pale wrists.
She hides them,
like sunshine,
in her pocket.

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.

I was thinking about
your phantom body pressed warmly cool against me,

and I thought of...

tasting your harmony breath,
tracing fingertips across your vapour soft belly skin,
tickling rings around the small of your horizon bending small-of-back, grasping your silk as *** ***,
swallowing your sweet sticky blooming sugar flower.

and then...

*******
              grabbing
                              choking
                                            spanking
                                                             scratching
                                                                            moaning
                                                             slapping
                                                   biting
                                   pinching
                screaming
*******

a cleansing storm

                       all
   over
             you.

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.

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

All of my books are committing suicide
dive off the ends of my shelves
fall into oncoming traffic
pages ripped away by tire rubber
just as if they were hair

from the head of a trichotillomaniac

bandages from a burn victim's
rice paper skin
still wet and half-grafted
to dull pink gauze.

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.

Little acorns, fallen by the tree
anchored into soil.
You had just begun to grow,
when mother wilted.

The comforting shade of her branches, gone.

The support of her vital roots, gone.

Yet you remained.

Little sapling, snatched at by a predator, tooth and claw. You held tight to the soil, setting shallow roots,
clinging to the earth,
rich with remnant memories,
ghosts.
You set your branches up, grew quickly, reached out with earnest energy,
to shade the acorn below you.

Gnashing teeth, fangs of a predator. Violence, a flash of red lust into your branches, pulling, ripping.

Yet, for your acorn, adopted, your remained.

Through the jealous filter of grief, you remained.

Through the threat to your own body, you remained.

And even though Mother is gone,
you have taken her place.
Your roots winding deep into fertile soil, finding your way through paths
she first dug,
you find your strength
as protector,
anchor,
life-giver,
to the little acorn beneath you.

The comforting shade of your branches, remain for her.

The support of your vital roots, remain for her.

I want to *******.

*** inside you.

Not to ****.

Not to get off.

But to show you
that you are now owned
and safe.

Sway, little leaf.
Fragile like the wind that wraps about your mind,
pushing places where you fear you will perish.

Float, little leaf,
searching through the illumination in the dark.

It will come, little one,
it will come.

You will find a place to rest,
set down your roots,
and grow strong,
branches without boundaries,
encircling our world.

The pain of loneliness weighs you down;
do not let it.
Spin high and free,
carried by the winds of your desires,

The eyes around you are not looking with disgust,
they are looking with envy,
which makes the forest green.

Where are you,
for me to put my arm around from behind,
snake up between your ******* from behind,
my hand lightly holding your throat.
My face covered in your black hair,
scented of you,
my little spoon.

You - taller than me,
but I made you small
you fit so perfectly,
back to my naked chest,
just like I fit so perfectly
into you,
my little spoon.

Someday I'll see you again,
and that will equal all the pointless counseling and
therapy sessions that only delayed my inevitable.

All the things of life:
love
***
learning...

mean nothing in the end,
so why should they matter now?

Someday.

I look forward to it.

I've been looking up
to the stars every day

knowing

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

the trunk, withered
the leaves, fallen
the Winter, dark

And as I sat there, in the midday
That tree like family skeletal
My hope was present
My hope was bright
My hope was you.

A skin of ice
so fragile still
lit by the sky
and beautiful.

The warming sun,
is higher now
frozen wings
and solid vows.

"Shake me loose,"
she said to me,
"help to repair
my galaxy."

And Winter's not quite here it seems
Despite the white and hopeful dreams
And every moment left with her
I keep and hold intact forever.

"So when you're lost,"
to her I spoke,
"I will make sure
your stars aren't broke."

Words no longer have meaning.
I strip them of their false hope,
reaching spaces in between,
letters like notes in a song,
between which, the truth
is told.

You couldn't pry this void from me.
I grasp onto it like a greedy child,
sloppy and heady from
your soury-sweet mother's-milk,
drunk like you never were
from my ***.

Love has an empty story to tell,
and I am sick of listening.

My memory is fading,
your face, a burnt and ashen sillouette
of blood in my mirror.
Catch me, I'm falling,
hiding in a nightmare of *******
unrealized sexuality,
unwanted.

I'll spin on out,
uncatchable,
ruining lives along the way,
carrying only the broken memory of you,
Love.

Just a simple twist of words
to tighten maybe pull the cord
as brittle as the shells may be,
there's the watchful eyes of Miss Luci.

I've been unaware
holding this head under water
driven in by tiny bones
ossuary of the lines on your
face.

He's been stirring
water pours off as he rises
attracted by brittle bones
sarcophagi of dreams
broken.

When your blonde hair turns black, through the lenses of dark ink
I cannot wash away,
I breathe your name, in syllables,
wrought like the iron fence
you built to keep me behind:

Mare-Eee-Uhn...

It's of no use.

You bore my ******* name,
and I cannot ******* bear it.

I choke you down, into my sleep,
down to your knees,
and I consume you,
a foaming ****** from the *****-
hole of my conscience.

If I had known all of those moments
seen them coming so slowly
feathers raining from the sky
drop down onto me
embryos, suddenly cut from the umbilical cords,
they fall,
shatter brittle bones on the ground,
and you run back to the safety
of your maiden name.

Maybe if I were to die
you would die too
and the world would be
a better place?

Maybe you should
be unloved
and empty
for the rest of your life.

Maybe there'd be
some justice.

She's just a little girl.
Please, just leave her be.
The way she looks at me
shows me eternity.

So leave her in peace,
this cold-bed night alone,
for sure her heart knows
which way is home.

It's funny,
you know
that this relationship
that seemed about
teaching me to trust again,
has only turned me
into a Mysoginist.

A light at the end of the tunnel,
bursting out from the dark,
into four days of
midnight playgrounds
rainbow bracelets
highway lanes and passenger seat,
full of music at four A.M.

A little bit of hurt,
never a milligram of harm,
brings this closer
than standing in front of your desk,
idly moving words between us,
ever could have.

I'll be

dreaming...

Salt...Sand...

Your brown skin
in the Sun.

There is a long tail of madness
that echoes from this wreckage. Molotov is making cocktails,
as Kalashnikov assaults us
at forty-two plus five.

Triptamine takes the backseat,
and your carpet bombs
lay me to waste,
******.

I love you.

You are
the only
woman
I will ever
trust.

The green hill's mist
is weeping through
the blades
of grass.

I wonder
if this gun
will ***
in my mouth
as hard as he did
in yours?

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.

There are three dresses,
drinking the rain
and the sky is doing somersaults
in your bones.

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.

He watched, eyes like bullets,
as his innards spilled down
the ziggurat's multicoloured steps.

Sacrifice impetus:
To win the Gods' request

And as he breathed his request,
she was his again,
and he died
happy.

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.

"Life is pain"
it says to me,
my broken, mending heart.

"Just cut here,
and you'll be free", says
my broken, mending heart.

But you're just hurt
you must agree,
my broken, mending heart.

And in time,
you and I,
will reconcile reality.

So take your time,
but come back to me,
my broken, mending heart.

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.

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.

My love
pure
like new.

If ever
questioned,
know
it's true.

My eyes
dilate
when I look
at
you.

When you wake,
the clouds of your foggy head shall part.

My semblance of what I could be,
my treasure of all,
the ghost in my shell.

In comfort,
feathers drop like dew to your skin,
mocha, gold, soft and hairless.

My flower blooms for you,
in this bed of weeds.

When my inspiration is gone,
there is still always you.

I
am
nothing
like
my
dad.

I'm reading the Codex Gigas,
one hundred and sixty pounds of flesh,
black hairy tongue,
penitent Battenti sponges staining the robe with blood,
stalking through Campania.

Crushed insect nests,
a shiver up the jaw from food not had in too long.
Squashing caterpillars,
the insides squirt from their ketchup-packet bodies
in a spray of slime-neon green.

Pheromone cream drips from your *****, I gag it down,
curdled milk-paste.
When pulling the dress down, one never knows
whether you will get a paper cut,
or a gaping jaw of hairy
life.

We all live like pigs, but need to clean up to appear to live
like everyone else appears to live when we visit them.

You rob me of myself; a teacher
walks into a food bank ashamed and finds his student working there.

My life experiences pile up like broken infant bones,
fragile phalanges of famine,
until all I add up to are decades of
Holodormo,
the Killing Hunger.

You hide in the sea,
I lick your left palm.

My stomach is full of feathers,
and in the same manner with which you pour venom from your eyes,
I leak ozone from my pores.

There isn't enough time in the world for me to impress you
to the point of ******.

I cut little pieces of your words apart
in my head, like paper dolls. Pulled
apart slowly
(don't tear),
stretched in an accordion waltz.

The tune they sing
is spoiled milk.

We had such a luminous trial
survived our sentence, self-imposed
on cluttered hearts.

We could have had everything...

But you started listening to other voices
The ones outside our heads,
fused at the soft-spots.
The ones that sang sweet ******,
the ones we left our suicide
to please

and those murmuring homicides
murdered what we were,
scalped our skulls apart,
and you let them.

I have been bleeding to death
from the top of my brain
ever since.

Remember me?

I'm the man
who stood by and watched
as your own Mother
your own Father
cut you out of their lives
and your own brother
told your husband he should have succeeded
instead of failing
to **** himself.

Remember me?

I'm the man
who pulled you out of closet
you would hide in
screaming, crying, wanting to
hurt yourself while
your own Mother
your own Father
your own sister
were deaf to your cries.

Remember me?

I'm the man who was there for
half a decade, learning to
care for you
bathe you
give you space
(Just don't lock the door, love.)
laid on your back
when the weight of me
was the only way you could
feel safe.

Remember me?

How quickly,
shamefully,
selfishly,
you forgot
on that day last June,
when you told me,
you were leaving.

I didn't forget you,
or that kiss I knew would be our last.
And I wish I could remember that
last look as you drove away,
but the image in my mind
is blurred,
just as it was on that day,
as the tears bent the light
from the face I loved,
as it drove away,
free of tears.

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.

There are times when I feel like I am dying,
and I never wish it were true more than when I realize it isn't.

My imagination runs wild like wind through wheat,
catching on the trailing edges of her summer dress as she runs by,
and away.

My fingers just cannot hold on.

I can see through her dress when the sun hits it right,
and I can feel the waves her hip bones made
those times when we came together in that field,

but she is a mystery now,
no more familiar than the feeling of the bottom of the sea.

I close my eyes, dream of her, and fade into the soil.

Drinking down your melted chalk,
yet always choke it down.
Which of your nicotine stained lies,
inside this belly's grown?