Some days  I am not sure
that I am breathing.
It is only the rising wind
which swells my chest,
and its death
which beckons out my breath.

These are the days in which
we construct our worth
from small stones to towers of
sun-baked earth.
I aspire
Oh God, do I aspire
with my knees against
the dry corpse of the earth
I draw a direct line
from my throat to every
cloud in the sky in front of me.
I desire more than what I have seen.
I rub the skin of my hands against
the skin of my hands and I
recognize the absence of apt plans
But I have knelt against the dirt.
I have seen the wonders we have built
with all of their crumbling grandiose
and their gilded egos.
Death reflects my fear like
a mirror, and
illustrates my face with the
weight of my mistakes and
I will run.
I will run until my knees collapse
and I lay my face against the aging ground.
I don't want to talk about it.
I don't want to be around.

With derelict ears
I ignored
the prose in the wind
I will never again.
It demanded
"How dare the languid enter
my august presence"
and since then I've
been ruined
I feel the weight of my
indecision; I collapse,
I collapse,
I collapse into routine
I follow along with
the wrong melody
I am a ghost in living clothes.
I carve my initials into
Anxiousness,
that towering monolith
and I think back
to what the wind said:
My august, languid presence?
My anxious, living pretense?
I forget
Until in a wave of
surety, I realize what it meant:
I am my own opposition.
Each of my contentious life revisions.

Christ is a false God
that's it
I've finally penned it
and I feel alive as an
April Wind
subtle as a thunderclap
my head spins
my vision shifts
the floor, wall, ceiling
inner lids
the brightest constellation.

It's a slow fade
or a sudden fall
my flesh is an idol
this house, these words
Where is my fulfillment?
it comes on the breeze
as if whispered by the marble sky
or up from the soil
which stains my tepid skin
I step away again.
It's meaningless.

sing like the cracking
of far off glaciers
melt into a desperate sea
I am not me
Not I, Not I
far away across the country
your insides shriek
they know
Red wine makes my
head swim
so diligently

Chisel
peel my skin back
it doesn't fit

Subtle
marble contours
fading shimmer

Men
used to stare
lessons in architecture

Return
A cold pull
Longing; that chill ache

Part
I watch you walk away
I stay in place.