Where do you go
when you die if you
don't believe in heaven?
Because you found out
and I'm so scared
that it's my turn
and I'll see your face
across from mine in
some dark place and
you'll tell me that
we were wrong and
I'll smile and laugh
and say I  guess so
and that will be the
end of that
But even so I will not
let fear be birthed in
my chest
I will die screaming
with my nose turned
towards the sky
I will meet you in
meadows or dark forests
wherever it must be
and I will finally tell you
that I'm sorry that I left
you alone, I didn't know
at the time the burden
I left you with but
now I understand
and I feel it, too

I feel it
in the air like a plague
it's sticking to
the fibers of my lungs like
a cold fire
In what stage of grief
are we now?
It's all so frail like
the small, white
flowers in my backyard
I keep peeling off the
petals like maybe they
just want to feel something
too
It's not healing when
I'm just trying to replace
the feeling because
I don't want to deal
with it, I was weary
and I still feel it like
a buzzing in my ears
that gets louder
when I think about it
I want to say I'm sorry
but I'm not
Not really

some kind of alchemy
transmuted these old, rotting
organs into wrought-iron
my heart is a machine
that's been skipping beats
for too long
I beat it into place
try to lift the weight
off my ribcage
and now I sit down to
write it out
but this time in first person
I've been cracking my knuckles
with newfound feeling
like I've been sleeping
for too long

There's always a ringing
like gunshots
in succession
or a bellowing from
some heaven
I can't help but
feel grace
when the clouds
give sway
to gentle sun rays
on my sallow frame
Until I'm reminded
by the old man in
my head who
tells me it's only
the wind changing face.
White paint on a
blue field
that gives way to
gentle sighs from
any direction
any passing cry
and that reminds
me of someone I
don't want to be.

All manner of
vile things
drip from the roof
of my skull and sit
in waiting
behind my teeth,
those crooked gates
that keep the enemy out
But when morale
breaks, they
pour out like lava
down my lips
down my chin
I wretch to the floor
Is this what I am
kept captive for?
Ignore the burning
scent, that's
just my ****** features
I've held it all behind those
tall walls for too long and
now it's shades of cinder and
my teeth are only splinters.

That chill breath from
the branches to my flesh
Shook me like a eulogy
and it resonates in me
like an old home
collapsing
I've seen what we can be
reduced to
Not speaking
Not looking
Not breathing
with purpose
Have you seen what
the rain washes
away?
That thin veneer of
hope and habit is
what keeps me coming
back, and
I'm not so sure
I want to live like
this anymore
What I'm looking for
is that sense of placement
that endurance
that pristine conscience
But we keep the grass short
because the snakes like it
tall.

I sever my tongue each and
every time
In a useless attempt to quell my
unshakeable arrogance
But at the same time I hold myself
in disbelief:
I don't believe that I
can create anything.
That requires more deft hands
than these.

I am racked with indifference
and yet I am obsessive
If at the time I thought it right,
does that make a difference?
I used to see your qualities
as a pillar, but
now they are as the
broken bones and blood
beneath my feet.

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.

A dry-lipped smile
Decline of the chin
to the chest;
birth of ice in your breast
Atop a stooped bone pillar
I command, I expire
breathe out;
crackling flames from your mouth

I will never hear silence again.
In motion, repose, alone
With the crest of my head to the floor
I will never be sure.