maybe it's there, in the crevice of his hard heart, that he heard the soft echo of light.

maybe, if the wound really is where the light enters you, it's in the heavy handed claps or in that gruff way men tell their sons, when it seems like the right thing to do, that they love them,

and then it's gone,

vanished into the cold nothingness, behind

rough hands and hearty laughter and the slow descending numbness of duty and honor and being a man.

it's faded, worn over, rusted old coppers,
until there comes along a boy who'll tuck the rough love away, who won't stand startled but rather perplexed,

who'll keep it boxed safe like pressed flowers between thin brown paper.

and then maybe, maybe that sweet boy will spread a few more, until his love is no longer a coarse and dying brittle sea air but nourishing, sustaining,

and maybe then he can start over.

and then she said
          i'm going to touch the stars
        and hold the firelight so strong
      so that even when the sun
    folds up sunken in decay
  i will hold its lost burning
amidst my sullen dismay.

does she recede into her lair of solitude and silence, or does she slip away shadowless to the soft secret of her dark cove?

or, rather, does she sink into a sweeter place, a heavier place,
lifted high with the smell of  
  deep oleander and tall curtains of swaying stalks?
    for down and down she goes,
      the descension into madness made so easy.
        down and down and down until she is
          all that place and not at all that place.
      and so until her descension halts,
    down and down and down

she'll go.

red stains, fading, cracked, scented

     if i kissed your prints, would they kiss me back?

sighs, thoughts, spaces between prints

     spaces between words, between parted lips and floating thoughts the world! is so crowded with space but yours is the one i want to fill .

     but where are the lines? lines of loss, lines of lawns, lines of ink and rips and more stains and letters, in the hands and on the pavement

where are the lines?

why won't you go there?

why do you hover in these foul, indomitable spaces? why do you seek that which you should not?

     if the shadow of lines slinks in your quiet expression, then why are you still here?

     if the echo of your soft face lingers in my hands, if the whisper of your breath and the heat of your skin still singes my own, then why do you disappear?

lovely wraith, lovely memory of a thing that once was, why do you sit so alone?

because i am coming to your space, and if you can see me, of shadow and fog, then i will meet you there,

     on a line of our own.

>because it's a death premeditated and i can see it unfolding,

     sharp wounding painful

and the discourse in the sky is telling me so, yet why do i keep walking west?

she's so pretty she looks like florence welch with her

orange hair all sweet and frazzled and her

verbena scented fair

skin skin freckled and smooth and sunny like

a ******* miracle wow you're so ******* bright and just.

**** i could kiss her face.

there is a place i have to go, where i will always have to go.
and it is a place you cannot follow, because only i know how to find it.
it's a secret, but it's everywhere, and it lives in the groves and bowery inside me,
flourishing and green and quiet and steady.
its lungs are my lungs, so i must go to give it air,
but to also breathe a deep breath of life back in when i feel most stretched or worn thin,
and especially when life has been quite through with me.

but it grows cold and lonely at night,
and i have to visit it then, too,
when fell things awake and bright suns slumber in their shadows,
because im just as much a part of the day as the night.

if you will wait for me, where i've left you on the edge;
if you will trust me, believe in me, even when you don't fully believe it yourself;
if you promise you will leave me my hidden place,
then i will always, always, come back to you.

a glass chalice shattered on marble steps,
a cherub speared by his own arrow—
    do not tell me you do not hear it.

where moon boys and glossy girls live boldly,
they glow, shining and tacky like transparent saran
wrap
a rope around your neck and
stay.
for where death is present, so too is its midwife.

inhale exhale
in the dark
help guide me to the exit sign

oh! perform for the lords and ladies,
lie down under lights and washes of blushing love,
over your body
lay a rose for crows who do not sing.

but beware, when slowly will a golden shroud descend

and you will fall to your knees.
(as petals fall to the ground, so soft)
and it will part a way
(if buttery light could cleave so)
not clear but swiftly fading, slowing

illuminated faintly dimly glowing
above me reaching inhale
exhale inhale exhale inha—

thank you.

.
oh fallen child, where have you gone?
is there really balm in Gilead
or is that the mistaken hope of every saint and sinner?

it is a silent night tonight, blessed with only one star,
and i hope that it is yours.
for the world went black when you closed your eyes
and will need new seeds of light.

how did we fail you so badly?
how did we fail to see underneath, fail to
hear you screaming, telling us you felt wrong.
you spoke out for us, lifted us in our silence,
and yet, we said nary a word during yours.

it is not hard to tell someone they are loved.
to let them know that they have done well, that they have worked hard;
to lighten someone’s heart with a simple word or two.

for in this life of stop and go, the rush and sigh of a few billion souls
runs fast like rapids beneath the feet, and
it is not so hard to be
lost ,
swept up amidst a current of
mockingly pulsating restless life,
all the while being buried ,
fathoms beneath a violent sea of wrath,
a tempest held in depthless waters, a fight unresolved—  
where, under the shadows of a brooding cloud and a weeping rain,
our sorrows will wash over us.

but what good is a battle unwitnessed?
address it say its name.
stop hiding it behind plastic flowers and brittle leaves,
under rice-paper skin and honey smiles.
rip the valance off
of this drapery of deceit
and lay bare before the world the truth.

it was suicide.

he took his life.

mental health is real.
perfection is not.

reach out.
speak up.
give love.

if anyone can be saved, then
let not your death be in vain.
.


rest in paradise, jonghyun.