This is the first and last time
that the moon and the planets will align
in such a shape.
At least, the last instance until the sun burns up.
You said "Look out your window."
I did. I looked out;
I blamed the window when I couldn't see it.
then I went outside
it was negative nine degrees
and my face was set to freeze
yet the moon remained hidden.
I drove to the end of the winding road
in the orange darkness
Even in the opening of the trees
there was no lunar disclosure,
no planetary apparitions
to soothe the frostbite I inflicted
when I stuck my head out of the sunroof window.
I never found what I sought
I feel robbed, violated
a sense of entitlement
(wrongly felt, I suppose).
Then again there is a guilt
when something is so beautiful
that there is an obligation to share it
but it was then refuted by the premature death
of this moon,
and by an acute tardiness
held tightly in a clenched fist.
Next time I promise not to miss something
so revolutionary
and sensitive to time.
It was fleeting,
we tried to catch and match it
like lining up squares of cloth to cut
"Isn't it funny how everyone is seeing
the same moon?"
Look out your window before it's too late,
drive until you can't feel your hands
or your face or really anything at all
and come back full of life.

17 feb: offbeat

I couldn't stop thinking about
grey tartan and gin
and soft pink skin.
Cigarettes and typewriters,
drops of ink on the paper
leading away from the word
"desperation."

But there it was.
"I'm leaving for the afternoon.
Your choice is to prune
the bushes or to water them."
What was I to do?
I liked them full and so did you.

You were frantic.
As though you'd misplaced something
when really you were just searching
for a fishing net.
"Look at the sunset."
Oh but it's gone, it's over, I'm sorry.

[Friend, friend
do not cower or back down
from this but know
that I am listening for you,
to you, always.]

Left to rot,
built to spill,
one of us was always ill.
I was waiting for you to come home--
I have not touched the bushes yet.

It was not the trunk
But the stretching roots.

All right, it was partially the trunk.

He still hasn't figured it out.
He thinks that he has.

He was aching
and I was leading him astray.

There's a cemetery down the street
from my house, I used to walk there
It felt like a breath of fresh air.
                             Is that morbid?

"Here is where our bodies will come.
Here is where our bodies will go.
It's just a matter of time."

The clouds have been branching out.
They now cover such a vast belt
of the sky, so there are always shadows.

Here is ours. Here is our shadow--

He was impossibly great,
And I just hated myself.

That was the beginning
And it'll probably be the end, too.
Such waves of danger do we swim through.

Any attempt at predicting the weather
Becomes instead an excuse
to keep ourselves, clouds at dusk,
from birthing a downpour.

The sun will continue to tell people
How they should feel.
And my mother still yields to conflict,
but everyone seems to do that here.

How is there not a larger collective fear
of lying beside someone for eternity?
Headstones almost identical
Decaying bodies almost gone.

But I suppose it's natural.

a sliver of light
fractured and feeble
gleaming like a beacon
between the door and its frame.

the only truth was a name
without a face, but with a death toll;
she walked in shadows and
was reigning queen of no-man's-land.

tapestries on the wall
the gold and scarlet sacraments
a vicar and a witch charged with sacrilege
and yet never greeting penitence.

in light and with light
the dowager queen stands upright;
the barley fields whisper her name.
the truth is a facade.

11 feb, 16:03

It has just happened.
There was a lot I said
    and a lot I didn't --
                    couldn't.
What was I supposed to say?
Your feet were always shuffling
     like you wanted to leave right away,
       your fingers ruffling your hair incessantly.
It was as if you were never content with
the way things were at that exact moment,
                    and you did what you could
                              to change them.

My favorite record
                  is broken.
This particular one is my voice
   saying "I'm sorry,"
and then yours -- "You shouldn't be apologizing."
It's just that,
    over and over,
        it won't stop and I'm not going to stop it,
                    that's for sure.

Disillusionment is a virtue for some.
For me, it was every minute I spent with you.
     I'm not sure why, but I think it's time
  I started paying attention.
We are always walking, walking,
     strutting around in circles to avoid talking,
        and getting lost, always getting lost.
Another virtue: honesty.
        What is lying by omission anyway?
           How much should one reveal?
And what is forbearance?
It has just happened. It has
                               just happened
       and I am still lost.

Despite the ebb and flow
Of people as they come and go,
Voices rising and digressing
Eventually altogether lessening
And turning to silence
Only to return with vehemence--
I remain still
And still remain.
They are mobile in their clumps,
Always crying out, always counting
The ways in which they are the worst.
Inside they feel not remorse,
But that is not the intention.
Yet the inglorious ascension
Of their voices to the vaulted ceiling
Has such an effect on their audibility.
I hear every word.
I drink it in
Like a poison,
It's addictive; it's ******.
I cannot focus nor be steadfast
As long as this prattle is to last.
Their words are never directed toward me
But they never push me away--
It is my unspoken job to meet them halfway.
I am not a link
But a hammer, disguised as a bolt
Or should it be the other way around?
The incessant ingemination of sounds
Is too heavy a burden for ears such as mine.
I could not keep a level stance
And so I fell into a state of haphazard dissonance.

You left yourself there.
I guess I was so used to seeing you
against those walls
and never pinning you to them
that I began to wonder
if you ever left that room.
It was never warm where we were
but we wore coats.
We listened for the howling wind
and turned our backs against it.
Your cheeks were flushed
and I could not help but rush
to look away.
You had this way of making people feel
like they were seeing something they shouldn't.
I am not very clever
but I know this:
you were happy and hopeless
and I tore that down.
You were a lark building his nest,
so timeless, so graceful, and I can attest
to the fact that you were content
exactly where you were.
There it is--
there is the difference between us.
I was a different sort of tired than you were;
mine was perpetual boredom with the world
while yours was a pleasant aching
deriving from a day of labor.
As I said,
you were the type to build a nest.
I was the sort that aspired to fly to heaven,
and hit a windowpane instead.
Call me Icarus,
and I will call you magpie.
I have never been one for terms of endearment,
but these seem to fit,
don't you think?
In a dream you met me for the second time. In the same dream you left the city, something you swore you'd never do.
In a dream you shone out
like everything I had ever been told
about the end, the eschaton.
Maybe you were meant to crush the serpent.
Maybe I was meant to write the book of Revelation.
We are not alive to exist in captivity but to consider how we might one day escape.