How did we come to this?
The hate
                       the fear
                                              the cold holes in our hearts.

We had one chance to bring about good, real change.



How did we come to this?

In the moonlight, she looked almost blue;
the silver of her hair, glowing-
the white of her smile, gleaming-
the amber of her eyes, burning.

In the moonlight, I thought I saw her shiver;
in the pale skin, a twitch-
in the lithe limbs, a tensing-
in the hot breath, a stutter.

In the moonlight, I met my death;
through her sharp teeth, biting-
through her long nails, rending-
through her rough tongue, savoring.

In the moonlight, she howled proud;
in the thin back, an arch-
in the wry bellow, a glee-
in the bleeding drops, my soul.

I
was a crab
and you
were an aphorism
for a broken heart.
and I hate metaphors.

I
am a crab
alone in this field
as the moon glimmers along
my spiked shell.
but you’d moved on.

Bliss, the closing warmth of
tangled arms
                      looping legs.
My head upon your chest
as the rain
            patters
            down
and we drift
          off to
       sleep

Hear the voice of their god as they twitch
Somnolence and discomfort prevail
Silent bones in a crumpled display
Peaceful corpse of a deadly poison

See them locked in the pose of defeat
snoring nose- still’d eyes- silent voice
Thousands frozen in corpulent time
As they wait for their planes to arrive

seething, as the sour fruit
bleeds its poison along my tongue.
leaden with the weight of memory the heart--
but twice too much.
a day? an error? a mood? the regret of--
but twice too late.

t'was not mine own tongue what spake those words. I know not why from me they rode. but while I may not know the origin the result; still mine to bear. the responsibility still mine to own. The regret--
but twice too much.

As alone I walk these emptied streets
the only rhythms heart and feet
I all around am sure I see
myself amidst the trees.
But no it cannot be, says me,
I am no scarecrowed bag of bones
whose clothes hang slack
and innards seep with leaves.
I am a man, methinks I say,
a human living breathing man
with no such predilections wrought
for suicidal sentiment.
It cannot is not mustn’t be me,
that body hanging limp in-tree,
that bullet ridden slumping form,
that sorry teenage lover-boy.

watch them dance.
see the way the blood trails behind?
vivid footprints, declarations of madness,
a history lain in red paint and black ink
a story, seeping from an open palm
to pool with indifference across the college-ruled stage.
watch them dance.
the impacts, do you feel them?
those collisions of thought and language
wherein reason is sought through brutal force,
berating the ears as they skate and
sprint across the plastic tiled minefield
of truth and bludgeoned metaphor.
watch them dance.

Called back after years away
a voyage once more to the fray
to live amongst forgotten days
to few and far between.

To anxious, nervous, brave that door
re-enter worlds ‘akin’ to yours
to take the plunge to reach the side
of friends you left behind.

To be greeted there by sleeping eyes
and busy hands and nothing “hi”s
but for the girlfriend of a friend
and a kid you never knew.

Bereft of meaning, course, or rhythm
floating lost in my little corner
struck by how great the divide
has grown through intervening years

Triple-eyed,
The mind divine
stumbles o'er its
fetid feet

seeing but not
knowing, what
thoughts there
must be growing, but

ever downwards
does it mumble.
Blinded, that
marble face.

The pestilence of greed and fire
inching winching crux desire
feeding off the lives and livers
rotting in an open grave.
The meaningless and base of choirs
calling to the bed of liars
dreaming screaming down on heaven;
begging for that grand release.
These the sounds and sights of days
gone by, enshrined, in tragic blaze.
Of lovers lost in mingled haze
all strewn and torn asunder.
By mighty men and gods of thunder
raining bombs upon eachother
leaving in their wake the weary,
hopeless, and the ******.

Yet from these ashes grave and barren
from this soil sewn of blood
there comes from under, sleek and shining
blossoms of an open bud.
These blighted fields, clear-cut and quartered,
forests downed in disarray
yet still may feel the light of morn
the golden glow, a new day.
The green amidst the darkness, spreading
life amongst the white toothed rows.
A beauty still, this scar’ed smile.

buried half in half I watch
the crescent of your face,
sunken to the pillow, sleeping
miles from our nearing noses.
Hopeless 'crost this gap I linger
listening to your anxious rustlings,
playing back the hour's horrors,
staring at your one closed eye.
Waiting out the distance
mine own mind wanders
sinking back to ifs and maybes
stewing in the seas of self.
If I'd given you the blankets, if I'd
stayed to hold my own.
If I'd done my part, I could have kept
your heart from aching, racing.

What hurts the most is that I don't know how she feels.
What hurts the most is that it always ends the same.
What hurts the most are the million broken sentences flooding my mind.
What hurts the most is that she hurts deeper.

It came to me in a dream, this thing. It came to me in a dream amidst the mountain jumping and tree growing. Came like devastation. Something so world shaking as to knock me from my feet and shatter what I had thought I'd known. and how to say it? when to broach it? could I have done it better?

It was a kiss which sealed the royal decree.
that fair weather friend of uncertainty.
a pistol shot through meat and bone
to liquify my straining soul.

no one. not again.

I am too good to be true.
that little cure for wellness.
A mirror edge’d nothing of my own immaturity.
A smooth and shapeless form waiting to be fed
the venom of an

Heat rising
inflating the folds of my brain to disastrous proportions
Arms and legs numb, pounding.
Hands climbing the walls of my throat.

I shouldn’t have offered. I recognize that. It was done for the same reasons as the spider-bridge remark. Too scared am I of all of this; my mechanisms joking and sarcastic. Moving faster backwards than towards a conclusion.

and as I sit, trying so hard to think
knowing that you're waiting on my words
the music grows louder.
louder.
blotting out any other thought and though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.
You are waiting on me and though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.
and I'm burning and though the truth may vary
this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

a week turns into millenia, turns into hours, turns into one. one moment, one beat.
one drag of the eraser.

no words will make it better. this confession has meant nothing.
It's ******. I ****** it.
No more.

I forgot how empty you feel.
how incomplete.
how utterly alone and misplaced.
how everything comes back in a flash
and before you can reach for your lines
you've been swallowed in compressing darkness;
breathing lung-fulls of tar and tearing at old wounds.
the scents make your hands tremble,
the buildings, your legs weaken.
the flash of red hair and familiar curving nose
plucking at your mind with razor'd fishhooks.
oh misery, oh woeful rains,
to think I'd almost let you alone.

Louder now than ever
I hear that twinging song,
see the crimson scriptures
writ of iron-tipped scrawl;
thinking not about the pain
but seeking some control.

as one admires a waning moon's final phosphorescence,
the brightest burn before its departure,
so was I too, late,
chancing only a glimpse of your blinding luminance
as you passed us by, unto your next life phase.

how I wish I could have seen the whole magnificent show;
and to not have only chanced a friendship
my first, your final, semester.

the scent of woman broke about me as
I entered slow the small shared dorm,
his mattress lay stripped bare and I did form
the reason he had asked that I delay.
his anxious questions sought to fill silence,
an empty space that she had left behind.
In truth I would not say I was unkind,
but how I tried to torture roommate mine.
I was not bothered he had used our space,
I too in past had indulged love's embrace;
but this only happens once in a while
and how his discomfort could make me smile.

as amongst these stones
     on mossy tread
I wander rounds
     throughout my head,
I whisper soft,
     salutatory,
the names of carved
     and aged glory,
in hopes one day
     far down the line
someone may
     treat me in kind.

Welcome to Platform 6'0, northbound track.
Please, make yourself comfortable,
take advantage of every amenity;
I hope that I can to make your time here perfect.
Your exit will wait for you.
I would offer you to stay, if you wanted,
but no one ever does.
This is, I am, after all, only a waypoint.
However, if I may ask,
when you are ready to leave,
won't you please let me know?
It's horrid to hunt for someone
who is no longer here.
Tormenting, really.
But! Here now,
let me help you with this baggage,
this load you bear.
I am here for you.
No, I don't expect any compensation;
I only hope that, when you leave,
you leave with a lighter heart
and eased mind.
That said,
what would you like of me in our time together?

In my bubble, everyday
I move and do
the same routines,
As all the while
All around,
I feel the world grow mad.

A real ******* Kiley Minogue moment

Am i so easily replaced?
So ancillary as to be discarded,
left behind in the dust
of your burgeoning adventure?
Am I so wrong?
Should my pain be chalked
as simple overreaction?
As a miscommunication,
too hung up on the past?
I knew I never “had” you
the door to love long since passed,
that it was always meant to be casual;
but in this long, constricting lonesome,
the thought of “losing”,
even what one does not possess,
peels nails from their fingers-beds.
Jabs holes in florid memory.
Should I not feel so alone?
So scared that that once-normal life
cannot be resumed?
I will support you, my friend,
I know regardless I must,
but haven’t I a right to hurt?

Those long dormant curtains begin to rustle,
Sway in the ponderous undulations of the time heavy,
and I hear them call to me in deep,
nigh-imperceptible murmurs.
Uneasy, scared even, I stumble from their velvety touch,
scramble for cover lest they be fully drawn away,
their gracious obscurity revoked,
but the ties which you so thoughtlessly undid
unfurl towards my frantic ankles;
tie and tug me into recognition, into exposure.
They have been set in terrible motion,
the dirt of sleep falling in droves through the harsh light,
and I, in awful new waters, cry your name till my throat runs raw,
knowing that your waves cannot be reversed.

Ne’er has there been such peace
as side by side, platonic slumber,
eases back the shuttered blinds
frees Thought to its lurid dance;
as resting bodies twine their roots,
our dreams perform their spiritual coitus.

A wall of doublethink
denies my hands,
wrapped and bound
by wordy chains
I bend to their demands.
Look; the questions on my knuckles,
phrases down my fingers.
These second-thoughts like shining buckles,
locked tight; words left to linger.
In haunted glass I watch your decent,
unable to reach out;
wishing words could extricate,
but gagged am I by cruel doubt.

He lives in my mind
an obelisk to my utter uselessness,
my self-doubt;
but I can’t imagine time without him.
Without the pain.

The agony of his friendship
has been the greatest pleasure of my year.

Maybe it’s her smile that does it,
something so simple
as a flexing of muscles
to give me pause.

Or maybe it’s the eyes,
the way she looks at me
while we talk,
even as she mentions her boyfriend.

Could it be the way she stands,
So close by my side,
when the work is slow
and conversation is all our time allows?

But that smile,
lending an unfamiliar familiarity.
Was it coy? Did she play?
Do I read too much into the little things?

Perhaps it’s all of it together,
how those eyes squint
when pushed up by round cheeks,
that blossom in a grin.

Maybe… maybe.
Whatever it is,
my heart does sing for her;
that forbidden fruit.