New love,

Once thought lost or impossible,

Brings two lives to intertwine

And waste together in tandem.

And with it new light,

Not more than a faint sliver, sure,

But enough at least

To illuminate the cavern walls around me.

Today I stand opposite

Beauty behind my back and

Here I am

Looking to find myself

Reflected in a dully mirrored treeline.

Meant to be watching all else,

I still can't help but

Sneak the odd peek

At life ablaze

Behind me.

Stood observing

At the edge of eternity

Absolute.

Freeway whisper ahead

Echoing behind

Empty

Sweet

Calling me at once

Closer and away.



A step into nothing

The fire for the water

Already teasing the horizon.

A breath for no reason

One last greedy look and

Down.

Just in time to witness

Black to blue,

Salvation shines pink on the horizon.

Watching the notes on a turnpike stave,

Watching more for a whiff,

A gesture back,

Humanity lost on the trailer of an eighteen wheeler

But delivered to who?

Silent

Save for the soft turnpike sigh,

Washed with fog over the water,

Siren song

Calling me

Down.

Torn at once

Two ways

And not at all

By two friends

Who want nothing to do with each other.

No one out for blood,

But it's almost worse that way.

I
Think only of myself.
Even now.

I miss you dearly,
Small back pocket-softened notebook.
Barely full,
echoing old.
I wish I had found you
as easily as you were lost.

The new hears even less,
another chapter left empty.

Reflecting the sky,
The soft-stirring water is wild with fire.
The last thing I want to see before I die.
The water is freezing,
but it looks so inviting.

Even my lonely bridge is sleeping fine.
Though an occasional soft stirring sigh,
You won’t be singing for me tonight.

I don't need it.
I can dream awake
I can melt into water
I can become nothing even without.
I am more behind cloudy eyes
Inside the storming headache.
I don't need to sleep.

Empty eyes black,
Begging for blacker,
for sleep.
It won't come.
The body does what it needs,
and it needs to be weak.

Fortress fortification
No concern for invaders,
but built up for prisoners.
Even I don't know
What damage behind falling bricks
Will show.

Empty, begging for something
Anything.
A broken five year streak?
But who knows how far water
Behind a ruined dam will go,
or what damage could be left below?

Stop screaming,
Watch,
You never sleep.
Clear I can hear you
Marking me.
Let me forget
Just once
When I am
and what that means.
My mind is failing,
Thoughts are disease.
Ticking loud time
I can’t get to sleep.

Your hands covered my eyes and I couldn't see,
Burning sick with the sorrow I couldn't leave,
All that was left were my own hands in effigy.

Suffering the soft buzz resonating in my head,
It's been two days. There's no resting, instead
I can't sleep.
It's exhausting enough to breathe thinking there's
Something disgusting,
Nose burning,
Toxic pocket of air.

Offering my eyes, dull pain itching their backs,
To the dark of closed curtains, cotton and skin colored black.
I can't sleep.
It's demanding enough attempting to think; There's
Nothing but disgusting
Brain sloshing
Beneath scalp and hair.

Unable to find sleep
familiar.
Listlessly following dark streets
familiar.

Wordlessly speaking,
as if actually searching for a reply
from my oldest friend
the cool lonely night.

But we need no words,
only each other's company
familiar.

Give me one more drink,
I think I might find the bottom.
What a comfort to sink just beneath
Breathing in this cool and burning filth.
Through the warm portal
I can slip down into forever
with my arms outstretched.
It's endless
and unbearably deep.
You can taste it,
it's coming.
I can feel it.

I think I might be dying.
God I hope I do
with my guts spilling up
and running down the hand
checking my pulse again.
If not now,
when?

Small and consistent
Sixty beats per minute
Wristwatch chirping from the table by the couch
Filling every silence in my home,
No sacred sleep is left alone.
Chirping from the table by the couch

If you were my sight,
I could never be blind enough
to forget you.

It's raining here
All this rain is so good at finding every hole in my brain,
Stagnating and providing home for bug and disease.
You might have understood that,
But leaving you to your own crawling things
While I learn to love mine;
It's apparently a betrayal.

Your name was good news,
But the sadness in your face
Was hiding the light of your smile
And the slightest look would easily unclose me.
So I’ll keep you lit,
A small match-fire memory,
But only from dark can there be light.
Though now I have closed myself as fingers,
Leaving you unfairly, unkind,
Painful doubt in your eyes.
The last words to you of mine,
“You should smile more for strangers.”