I will retaliate with his mouth,
and you will become what you have made
me.
-- you leave me to stagnate;
talking myself in and out of love, I
forget the curvature, and allure of your body,
and the parts of me that fit in it
starve.

-- call it neutrality, abandonment,
or an "inability to live within" yourself -
call it your serotonin's-seppuku, or
the fact you are inconsiderate;

call it out, like you did in your sleep: "I love
you;"
I do not.

something is wrong with the pendulum
above; my chest has been carved
into new designs;
I am awake with a claw in my head;
I am asleep with nutrient-rich vision;

last night I dreamt
that gnats clouded out from my mouth
as though they were seeding the earth

and I was stupefied; when I awoke,
cold sweat in both hands, I recognized

that apocalyptic mornings
with magma-like light
dripping new over dew,
and the cold stone of night

are a separate entity
from the splinter inside of me

give me that space between
hunter and hunted
where even in mastic war
one can chew stillness.

Overcome by this inverted lightning, i storm
into an abbreviated tomorrow, where i flood
into the dreamscape of today, eyes raining

down and inward. i sleep forth into the world
of waking, overcome by the temperament
of this mummified mouth. clawing the dragon
now hungry for my golden intimate currency

our love hides at the ends of my fingertips.
Fire nibbles the soles of my feet through
to my own heart, crumbling me clouded

where i go blind. i am sorry, marooned
on this island, where the corals reach down
from the sky. where stalactites rip the sails
of all incoming boats, the dragon survives

in an ephemeral artery, or in some capillary
where his teeth reign over whatever empire

smothering into, he becomes my face

to she that saves me. i have learned to love,
in that love has shown me it is beyond me;

where
the dragon follows my fingertips to your hair,
you walk beside me. where i am given i,
but awakened, beneath a golden sky

the dragon suckles everywhere

that i am saved. by the weapon of giving,

we carry an honest love
between our outspread palms

richer in treasure is
the continental freedom of having
washed ashore together.