So, you've read my poetry?
You've skimmed the lines and picked out words you think are pretty,
delicate, intelligent, or odd?
You understand me now, I see!
I'm yours to dissect, pick at, ****,
but never keep, of course not that.

Yes you've read my poetry,
but did you know I sometimes cross my l's as t's and often wish
to travel far and far alone.
Alone: myself and only me.
I'd adventure, danger-prone;
You would only slow me down.

So what if sometimes late at night I want to dance on balconies and feel your breath upon my ear?
That really doesn't matter
for I don't need you, and you don't want me,
even though you've read my poetry.

A tornado of busyness, preparing to go away
You were a ghost today

I predicted this
Then why is it you I still miss?
Ensconced in your job, you're already gone
Wanting you, but I must move on

Hoping for a connection
Just a little wisp of affection

I see you through a broken mirror,  with edges razor sharp
The mirror staring back at you, you're bleeding in the dark.
As if the night were long my dear, asleep I  laid to rest
In everybody else's eyes, it's probably for the best.

You focus all attention on lies and cheating souls
Remember who your father was, wash away your goals.
Helpless wounded flesh, upon this heartless sin
I'll close the door forever, let anybody in.

The dead they'll jump to say hello, collection to their bed
Now all that's here, or left of you is broken up and shred.
You did this to yourself, was people out to love
But broken up reflections, the one who fits the glove.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

I heard a cry in the night,
A thousand miles it came,
Sharp as a flash of light,
My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,
You waked and loved me so—
I send you back this word,
I know, I know!