I am both deeply in love & deeply
melancholy
which feels like
being tied to horses
& pulled between them
testing who is stronger

I want him to pull my strings
rough play
with the softest, most gentle of souls
as malleable as mine & kindred to it.
He loves me so utterly, so completely.

I have a habit
of hypnotizing myself
I like to put on my veil
a shroud of alteration
marry myself to the haze
again & again
I baptize everyday before I
light the world on fire
lose myself in the afterglow
live in the confusion

I love the girl who is
the sister of Leila, Ophelia, Astrid
o, Sweet Mother Mary
pray for me, stuck in melancholy
& losing ground
unity in Heaven's Rose
you are euphoria
mostly because I have
arranged my wills
to center & propel
those wills of yours
think for me
show me I can't live without you
can't
do for myself what you do for me
let's swim in the river
where I forget everything for a little while
enrapture me
all day every day all ways

I don't think
he knows that
I have a habit.

lilting. my world is tilting overward & back. I've been folding myself, twisting & turning my skin; packing me away, as organized as always. I label everything I see & document it elsewhere, then put the note in the bottle, seal it, select a spot on the wine rack. don't give me uppers; you know I'm not that kinda girl. you know I like to sink, not drift with the clouds. You know that when I feel I've died, I just want to find myself a nice place to rest my bones. preferably quicksand, or a pile of freshly overturned dirt; give me anything to help me bury myself alive. I'm just the only person I can trust to lay me down soft.

This morning
I got up
& was not afraid of the monsters in me
I stared down the girl
on the other side of the sink
I thought
for the first time
she was beautiful
we
have some battles yet to fight
but today
we looked at each other
then briefly
stiffly
embraced.
This morning
I listened to the conversations
the birds were having
while I sat there
a visitor not unwelcome
just unnoticed
with my black coffee & brown cigar
like the man
who sits unattended
eating in a restaurant
content to listen
to the conversations from other tables
alone but not lonely.
This morning
I couldn't distinguish who was who
from the bird's voices
the visual noise
of the sun enlightening & uplifting
the faces of
half the leaves on every tree
almost drowning out
what the birds want to tell me
another green
that is
violently striking
to me
in the morning

she was my everything
& I wasn't good enough
she haunted my thoughts
as if my mind
had always been hers
& she had just returned
from a long trip
to find her house
filled
with someone else's belongings
But
he is the air I breathe in
I find his fingerprints
on everything I own
though
I know
he has never touched them

magic woman.
flowing...life never startles her.
takes each piece of paper she finds
& hides it away
between the pages
of whatever book she
happens to be reading that day.
soul filled with fire:
encapsulating &
changing any & all
that come too close;
whatever man
that thinks he can let the flames
lick his fingers
then pull his hand away,
unscathed.