I. quinine and honey

His fight and fierceness
are unrivaled
inviting
like the solace of sleep
to the freezing

addiction, dependence, provocation
i’m washed in the tide
of His everlasting breath
plunging out in rimy clouds
he reached out
and thawed me,
hands interlaced
if only for a moment

i take in His body,
the unleavened bread:
delicate, diaphanous
caramel skin
dappled with freckles
stretched taut over a
light but athletic frame

doused with
mulled wine
an earthy sweet redolence
of spice, sour cherry,
fruit and florals,
smoke, and amber resin

reminders of those cold,
firelit winter nights
flannel button-up pajamas
rosy cheeks and cracked, swollen lips
strong pourover coffee and
steaming jasmine white tea
at five in the morning
when i would shiver
and He would hold me tighter
we were so happy we were afraid

i run my fingers
through His silken
sun-softened sable hair

His heart, however,
holds sentiment
incomparable to my votive
there is only Him

sometimes
even the quinine
finds itself too bitter
that it may yearn for
honey
to drown
it

V. the ballad of briseis

my heart is of
the flesh of figs,
and that which
i cannot touch:
grainy sweet
garnet nectar
pretty to behold
but easy to bruise

no god shall speak for me, briseis
for this fig-heart, like the heart of man
craves art as it does god
and though i know you not by name,
but only pseudonym:
blood, words, and love,
we are kindred souls

i'd like to believe that we
are cut of the same cloth
hewn of the same mound of clay
(or cast into the same iron, i suppose
for we became one another's anchor
the day we met)

i once told you, my dear briseis,
that if you taught me symbiosis
i would teach you love
for you found pragma
in philosophy cold
markov's blankets
freud's ego, plato's cave
whereas i found pragma
in alchemy's poetry
chekhov's gun
freud's neurotics, plato's human

it means nothing.

the alchemy lies
beyond the chemicals,
beyond the seed and the egg,
beyond our festivals of atonement,
beyond my prima materia
and your unfulfilled magnum opus

it lies in simple interdependence,
the oceans, the heavens,
the forests, the deserts,
the storms, the famines,
the herds of wildebeest,
the colonies of ants,
the beady dew on the spider web
and the purling river shallows,
our acrid mouths yearning for mother's milk,
the boy who makes us cry at night,
the fiery logs roaring against the cold air,
the hoot-owls and the faces on the wall
(our skeletons never did stay in the closet)
bathed in that slow, hideous wonder
those interplays of love and symbiosis

as i drown and die in reverie once more
pray that the stakes may be forever higher
that i find those eternal elysian fields
so long as our achilles lives to fight again

we are more alike,
than you or i would
ever dare to admit,
briseis

so humor this fig-heart:
hold me and tell me
that it'll be all right

I lost my soul.
Somewhere between Atlantic City and Wildwood, NJ.
The salt still lingers in my hair, eyelashes, and tears.
The moons changing cycle as we eat candy on the beach and chase our childhood memories away
Creating tiny drawers to stash away keepsakes and overdue dreams
You pet me like a long lost lover with a fragile hand
Brushing out my knots and curls before we continue to share our sparkle

I want to feel the universe exhale around me
Leaving the feelings of it all
But alas, no prevail.
And the ink dripped
Round and round
Wrapping tightly
Around my mind.
I fought,
Tirelessly,
Beating and hitting,
Till my last breath.
I've done this for too long,
Too much and too long.
I didn't want anymore,
So I let it take over.
Fitting me into a spot
I was gone,
Only a shell left to see.

~Fin.

What if I feel like I'm falling
Into a pit of everlasting dark
There's nothings to light the way
What if my wings are clipped
And the now dead stars are blown out
What if I can't fly up
I want to go back

~Fin.

TO: icarus
i don’t feel anything when i look at you anymore
TO: icarus
but, sometimes, i miss your freckles like crazy
TO: icarus**
okay so maybe i lied
TO: icarus
i keep trying not to
i keep failing
TO: icarus
but i guess it’s just that
you are like no one i’ve met
TO: icarus
and it’s dumb to call you my first love
when you didn’t even love me back,
but… man, you were my first love
TO: icarus
i love(d) you so bad.
TO: icarus
and if i see you on the sidewalk,
i cross the street because i’m so afraid of brushing by you
and falling all over again
TO: icarus
i don’t think i’d be strong to crawl back out this time
TO: icarus
how dumb i was to think i’d be enough for icarus
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he dragged me into the sun with him
TO: icarus
i loved icarus and he let me drown in the ocean,
grasping for the feathers of his wings
TO: icarus
you made me want to understand gods,
but i only knew about monsters
TO: icarus
god, you didn’t deserve the immortality
that i gave you
TO: icarus
you didn't deserve a single thing
TO: icarus
so if i’m ever the kind of poet they write biographies about
and whose work high schoolers are forced to analyze,
some underpaid english teacher
is going to have to talk about you
as the mysterious and slightly vilified figure
prevalent in my work
TO: icarus
you're in between every line

i sent you a text at 3pm asking how youve been
you read it at 3:39 pm
you replied at 3am saying you were missing me