My pulse keeps time with the leaky rusted faucet of my bath tub.
Tiny ripples, like cold shockwaves through my body,
wake me

                                from deadly trances.
My streamofthoughts race the fan blades on my ceiling.
Eyes chasing like mice on wheels,
retreating to

                               nowhere fast.
Pebbles thrown, bouncing off well walls like your voice.
Gently it screams, like whispers in silence, “These things take time”.
Never reaching


                                the bottomless black.
Just white noise,


                                a sea foam screen.

I want to rip my bellybutton open
(tear through the ****** mess of fibers,
the knots of lies I’ve woven,
and the constricting seams that stitch me up)
because I tore off a piece of my soul
buried it deep down inside
and left it to suffocate in the cotton filling,
screaming and shouting
beneath the padding
till it’s voice began to fray—
moth-eaten.

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

There I am, I think!
           With finely worn shoes and
           The exact amount of wrinkles in my
                         Knuckles cast in bronze.
Just Look! at the way the streetlights and
           The trees conspire to sketch feathers on my
           Jawbone, as majestically angular as the
                         Blocks I stand on.
Try to Believe! how many colors there are in the
           Tear rolling down that perfect hairline, as
                         Substantial as a granite butterfly.

While her hard feet roughen the sidewalk and
Scratch into the ground, looking for the
Warmth she's learned is beneath.

          While the air she surrounds gets caught on her ribs, and
           The wind in her lungs shakes the aged leaves down to the
           Bench that tries its best to cradle her through the night.

But Look! there's never been a sun as bright as the
           Glow that wisp of hair kisses to that brow.
           Such a glow I've never seen,
                          I'm sure.

When she turned her gaze upon me,
I was a mote of dust
caught in a beam of sunlight
I was huge and beautiful
and bright.

I laughed and danced
and shone.

And when she turned away,
a cloud moved across the sun
and I was extinguished.