for

    once,

   i would

love

      to be

         the poem

and

     not

         the poet

It is morning, the sun has yet to rise.
There is a crispness to the air
The moon is waning
and the stars are tapered
I dreamt of your face,
for a fleeting moment.
You were alive.
Were you going up the staircase or down?
I don’t know.
I do know I miss you.
Every since the light burned out before midnight,
I have wanted to see your face.
When you were here I felt strength and safety.
At times you burned hot and cold
But I always felt the ambivalence of your disposition.
There are people that you will get only so close to.
They are the ones who will be farthest away.
You are as near as the impending sunrise
and as far as the moon.
I remember you and I won’t soon forget.

The mind is a beast
we are all tasked with
taming

But how? When mine
ducks every lasso, throws
me from the saddle, kicks
dirt in my mouth

Is an ocean of riling blood
beneath the throbbing
bruise of sky

Colliding thunderheads
thicker than smoke threatening
a slaughter of rain

And I:
shipwrecked in its mess

A splintered mast and torn
sail swallowed by a wall of
water black as my most
poisoned thoughts

Sinking like a pearl to the
shifting, tectonic floor of
my own body

Drawing breath through
a mouthful of sand, my pruning
hands bound by the mangled
leather of a pair of reins

Yet reins cannot tame the sea.

– mrg