I thought if I could swallow the stars
I’d be as beautiful as the evening sky
I tried one night    with fireflies
They burned my throat
Their legs striking at soft flesh
But my skin did not glow
No moon crawled from my eye sockets
I was left with corpses in my stomach
I soon learned I would only ever be
A cemetery

Poseidon mourns with the mumbling sea,
froths and foams and falters,
for everything I long to grieve.
Silver tears fall, the fruit of tree.
I grow her from the cut of me,
watch her take up roots and leave.
Wait, while she becomes all I thought I'd be
and steals the silence from my memory -
abandons peace for chase of ecstasy.

I joined the worshiped in their gentle garden
and trampled every orchid, bright and sweet
just to prove I could win such pardon,
live to die another week.
We were all of warm and wild
skin feverish to lonely sun god's touch.
My tongue took blood of grape so mild
I found myself -nothing- in the middle of much.