the city is beautiful until it corrodes.
the city is beautiful until you are trapped.

send me home,whispers your heart beneath
a grey blanket,but the city is where love and

genius live,we can't leave,we can't go
send for home,it yells,and now it is tearing

you apart it is picking through the sinews of
your warmth it is shredding you out

you push it peels you stop,it peels,
the book of chaos sits next to you

should you open it now?where does wisdom lie?
is it in your palms,or beyond that,somewhere

hidden, unfolded?
you don't know because the city is still beautiful to you.

you don't know because you never open that book.
(but your heart peels on.)

if you kiss a statue in the dark,does
it leave a mark?like the moonlight's

cold stain on pale columns of necks and
thinner bones of knuckles,or like the

heavy-handed cracks on thighs and
mine own,leaking gold to match.it's

easy to admit a mistake in the dark is
what you say,but marble lips leave

little space for contrition.there's irony

in that,in rennaisance-made lovers who
screamed for dominions and settled in

ash instead.history is adjusted,and the
cycle continues.but they left their jaws

open,and the light is pouring out.

have you ever felt a masterwork in your heart?
          a repertoire of delicate sounds, of heartstrings and chords manifested?
tell me, far away, you can hear mine own, relentless thrum of the borrowed and forsaken, the lost and weary ,
hear its rising echo off alleyways and dim streetlights and broken windows and the backseat of your car, tell me
i am not deaf to a thousand sighs when
i can feel the sinews pulling towards the light, when
i know they tighten in repose and soften in memory.

i read somewhere that the world ends not with a bang but a whimper.

but eliot was wrong, because mine ended before it ever left my mouth.

how do we see age in a flower?
is it marked by the withering of her leaves, or is it in the soft sigh of her petals as they rustle lightly against the zephyr?
is it in the tender droop of her stem as she bows to an expanse of her sisters, forgoing her youth's firmness and resilience for a gentle acceptance of what may be?
as the dawn speeds up does she, too, speed up, until all that remains is a pile of potpourri in a glass bowl? or is her fragility yet remembered in the vestiges of her beauty, wisps of a girl who is no longer but could have never been forgotten?
where do we find the age in a flower?
for i do not believe she is timeless.

a mercy misplaced
a raven's cries amiss
fallen and forgotten he stands over
petals dipped gently in blood
and a dagger slipping silently from cold hands.
it is a treacherous thing, his heart,
and it has betrayed his lips.

there's a rift in your heart (as there
are in the hardest of hearts)
and it festers like an unsolicited wound,
inflamed by the ire from which your deeply-seeded roots grew, from which you longed to escape but could never run from  ,
but leave it, now.
lay it low,
in a river of forgiveness dispel your grievances
and come up, come again, unbowed of burden,
lest it finds its way downstream to you once more.

Valhalla, land of martyrs, where
brave men come to rest their banners.
Hear the glorious call, beckoning,
for a thousand more await you in the hall of gods.
May you step into the light
with your sword at your side--
the blood on your hands speaks of victories untold
by the lives of mortals,
stories that will be sung
by the blades yet to swing and
warriors soon to be bred.
Rise, do not weep;
ascend, brother,
for the gates hewn by time welcome you.
Come forth in armor no more,
and we shall embrace you as the king
you have proven to be.
Worthy in all manner,
purest of heart, strongest of will,
forged from those beastly fires of heaven;
enter, and your reign shall never perish
under the withering storm of eternity.
Enter, and be remembered for yours, the legacy unforgotten.