say I love you while you can,
and while you mean it,
and in as many ways
as you know how: there is
altogether too much time
when your heart is not beating
in tune with hers,
you may as well admit it when it is

and do not be
ashamed, my friend,
if she proclaims
your eyes are starlight
your lips are moonbeams
and she does not look like any sun
you've ever seen

perhaps just turn away,
let roses rise in your cheeks
and whisper a soft thanks
because you know her heart
beat so loud for you
it poured out through her mouth

and wait for the moment
when you can say the same,
or if you cannot: do not
lie and say she is
your world and stars and sun
when she is none.

there was a time when I was not
what I am now.
to say that your death warmed me
is an understatement. to say that
the fire which turned you to ash
lit my soul
is a clean metaphor
for the gruesome truth:
I am no phoenix

but people say I look like you.
people who loved you better
who knew you better
say I am becoming like you.
I don't want to be you.

I loved you
like a planet loves her moon,
and now you are more distant
and more close to me
than ever before:
you are both
here and not here,
and if you can hear me
I'm sorry, but

your life is gone already,
and I don't want to carry
its weighty remembrance.
I am not the result
of your ashes.
it has been two years:
I will not stay rooted
in the past, no matter
how much it changed me.

For all your versatility, though you change more constantly than I do,
There's a heartbeat, smooth and steady, running through you.
You take my compass and spin it round.
Now South is up and North is down.
Winds from nowhere lead me on. I cannot turn my sails away.
My heart is rooted to your earth, my feet will go no other way.
So forward into you go I, and never to return,
Though always I loved to wander, it is now for you I yearn,
And bear upon my shoulders the heavy yoke of destiny
Which my forefathers did not accept so readily
But turned from love and light and hope
To deep and dark and turn and stroke.
Now in the heavy earth they lie,
Observe and laugh at all that has gone by.
Six feet under does not bury their love for the sea,
Six feet under cannot bury me.

she invaded the space behind my lungs
and slowly, by degrees, pushed me out
of my own life. she took over
my heartbeats, my hair, my voice.
I wanted you and now she does.
I laughed in the sun and now she does.

people ask us if we're sisters
and I can't say yes
and I can't say no.
we are linked, two peas in a pod
she built from dust and desire,
but she is not me. I am not her.

my hands and my eyes are not hers.
my thoughts are not hers.
but I am hers, I belong to her,
without her asking or my giving
she pulls me under and I don't
even beg for mercy: I want to be drowned
in her stupid tidal wave.
perhaps then we will find
the line between us: that I am dying
and she is living; that she is standing
on my heart, pushing the blood
into my throat.

why is it that you only remember kissing?

or fumbling with plastic buttons in dim hallways, or folding his pants alongside your dresses
or laughing, or heading home to a bed you both could call yours.
why is it that the nights you spend crying in the next room- why does that fade?
you remain always dusty. god, all those days and months seperated by borders and waters you spent rationing these precious packages of recollection, closing your eyes and watching from a distance, as a younger, softer you rested her head on a pair of shoulders that were always there, a pair of shoulders that grew arms to hold you with, and a mouth to kiss you with, and fingers that would trace you and taste you and smudge you. now you know everything about love with nothing to show for it. now the safest place is nowhere near you.

you remember reaching out in the middle of the night, you remember why you quit smoking, you remember how he tasted, how he pulled you closer under the covers on cold sunday mornings. you would make room now when you would never make room before. now that it's too late, now that you are not fine. you remember kissing.

Coffee shop of small-screen fame,
playing fields for hunting game,
winter's dominance is sanity's gloom
of life extinguished in this eternal room.

Oh, this world is slain
by capricious men,
but one day soon,
we shall live again