it was the hooded-sweatshirt, sit-close-and-pretend-you’re-cold, bleacher-seat,
whiskey-and-coke homecoming that you never had when the leaves changed.
but the leaves changed anyway.

the damp grass smelling vaguely like your fireplace as the world got quieter,
your nose in your precalc and your foot tapping and how-many-years-left
of solo fridays, you counted the suburban stars but didn’t tell anybody
how ******* beautiful they were above your head, because they were yours.

when you wore your high school colors, you were cold for real. no pretense
in your shivering, no flutter in your abdomen because he wasn’t gonna talk to you,
and you didn’t really care, you shrugged. but the leaves changed anyway.

and you changed, slowly. grew taller and smarter and prettier and then the
remaining solo fridays shrank to none, and you left. big sweet snowdrifts turned to spring
and you shared whiskey-and-coke with the city, your stars dimmer but abdomen
finally fuller, and limbs warmer and no sweatshirt because you didn’t need one,
and hands all over to hold and feeling all three kinds of love at once.

and then the accidental homecoming, and the changing of the leaves
and the hooded-sweatshirt shivers and knowing you’re so much bigger now than the
suburban stars and the backward glances of the bleacher-seat kids, but the damp
grass still smells like your fireplace and suddenly you’re small again, just for a
second but god that second, you shiver and turn around again. you’re so much
bigger than this but homecoming, this whiskey-and-coke homecoming still isn't yours.

You see misery,
standing in front of you.
You walk away,
and never tend to come back.

You see joy,
attracting you like gravity,
you hold him tight,
and would never let go.

You see me now,
Neither gravity nor repulsion,
You stand in front of me.
Look in the eyes and,
Fade away.

A strike resonates
I twist, and I see the night sky
Felled- like ones before

VII. mitosis

i...
i love him
and i will pay with fire and brimstone
maybe i’ll realize
that the plot arc of my life
doesn’t really make any sense anymore
that i don’t know where i’m going
(i never really did)
and i’m falling i’m ******* falling

the potter's wheel lays in disuse
the clay has cracked
much like ourselves
crazed in the heat of our crucible
the teacups are but shards
and no golden lacquer remains
to mend, to smooth sharp edges

we cherish things until
we can replace them

"fragile, handle with care"
i didn’t test in an inconspicuous spot
i didn’t reset to factory default
i didn’t come assembled
but i didn’t come broken either

we were dealt the cards before
we even knew we were players

and i cry for innocence had,
and innocence lost
innocence misplaced,
and innocence taken

my nightmares lathered
in sterile surgeon cyan
after all, we lobotomized machines
could never feel

what pleasures lie,
in those frosty windowed wards!
arched backs, bucked hips
gossamer cauls of flesh unwillingly broken
bulimic hearts, skinny love
i need not drink but the viscous
milken nectar of our lust
what pleasure, achilles!
what pleasure?

what pleasure is there in
the supplication of sutured flesh?
iphigenia, astynome...briseis—
flesh blemished, removed, replaced
housing haunted souls

heracles, phaethon, oedipus, icarus...
are we too consigned to eternal song,
that bitter deathless death,
like our tragic forbearers?
our glory, our hamartia
lies only in our love, philtatos

when wisdom brings no profit
to be wise is to suffer

the proud will be humbled
and the humble will be exalted

quell your arrogance
mitotic spindle

my name means glory to the father
and i am the prodigal son

all is equal in the chaotic omniscience
of mitosis, of death, of entropy, of war

we? we are indivisible.

IX. cathedral

i am human
i am young and stupid
unusual, tragic, and alive
and this is my penance

you are not mine
to keep, to touch, to hold, to love
i will smile when i want to cry in your arms
and i will laugh when i want to scream
i will be content and happy
everything you gift me
will burn as incense, fragrant within
the cathedral of my heart of hearts

till roses bloom within these lungs
and the incense begins to choke
my minutes, hours, days
they are all yours

i only ask that you don't
drop this heart of mine;
appraise it, dust it off, and
replace it in an unsuspecting alcove
for in its fragility, it has been
broken time and time again
and i'm not sure i have it
in me to mend it once more

addiction
speed
immoral
ecstasy
in the
continuum
of
risk, reward, and rheum
everywhere
there is only You
and i...

am but shattered abstractions
fractured glass
in a mosaic beyond
but i will love You
in the only way i know:
wholly, in life and in death,
always and forevermore

goodbye and farewell,
my darling achilles.

VI. deidameia's danse macabre

we are sick, deidameia
till the end of our days
we are sick with mortality

we are the ants on the pale blue dot
alone in our fruitless toil
we are a godless generation
feigning synthetic emotion
philosophies oh so fragile
dogmatic pins pushed into
unsuspecting cloth dolls

i'm right
you're wrong
i'm lonely

but right now
we stand at the crossroads
of destiny
a former self behind
a well-trodden path ahead

we find nirvana
as the clock strikes thirteen

when my eyes close
i taste oblivion and holocaust
so we dance on the edge
round and around we go
the pauper child, the holy man,
the king, the tiller of the fields:

so you sow, so shall you reap

the dice are cast
the cards are dealt
the matches are lit

this soul has been aching
to burn once again
douse me with kerosene
light me up like
cigarettes to cellophane
choke back the embers
we live on the smoke

i'll hate you till my lungs give out
i'll love you till my body's dust

i've won the world
and all her pearls
i've got the world
except you