I have an image in my head

As unlikely as that may be

Of a Spike in love with Jelly

Splitting it at the seams



But the Jelly doesn’t mind

As the Spike rusts and chips

There’s always room to be made

And loves the Spike to  bits



I see that image

Even in my dreams

It looks like me and you

And it makes me want to scream

The faucets in Lisbeth's bathroom leak.
She soaks up the saltwater;
Hard cotton on shea butter skin.

A lens, everyone, no one, Lisbeth
Shines fluorescence on her starving sorrow;
Examines the gnawing.
She wonders how long she can survive on her own flesh.
Does not ask for food, but for advice.
How do the rest of us do it?
Subsist on ****** thumbs and bitten tongues?

Lisbeth, we start within.
There is a black hole growing in my gut,
Born of the desperation and repression I have harbored
Since the day I broke into this world, ****** and ravenous.
The devouring is slow,
But, one day, it will swallow me whole.

They will bury me in the weeds of an abandonded corn field.
And my hunger will slowly eat the world too.
Because I was starved.
Because I was not loved.
Lisbeth, you are hungry.
Let me feed you.
I will love you.

It was me, not you.
It wasn't the right time.
I was still getting over my last poem.

We can still be friends,
but when I say friends,
know what I mean is friendly.
Know that I won't save your seat at my table.
They are all taken by my books
my clothes
my love for another.

But when I say friends,
also know that, years later,
when the pain that first brought you to me
is as distant and hazy
as the smoke from my first bridge burned,
I'll smile when I see you;
Note how the core of you is unchanged.
Even with your new look,
your melody rings the same.

The clouds are reaching for the earth
Longing for embrace
Making the air sweet and dense;
A blanket as we lay

Tomorrow, we will wake to fog
Walk in love
Till the sun brings the mourning
And burns it all away

I'm trying this thing
Where I soothe my constrictor instincts,
Don't cling so tight.
But I learned life in extremes.
Only consume in excess
Or not at all.
How do I temper this,
Portion out my love,
When I'm so
*******
Hungry?

The white expanse is
Stifling in its liminality
Limitless in its containment

There is no here or where
Before or after
Just now
Just this endlessly eternal instant

Chester the jester,
My favorite guard!
Stuck in his twenties, but
Twice over the hill,
Recalls peace-time war stories,
While taking his pills.
Tells me all his tall tales  
Up ‘till wife number one
And the other loves that failed.

This is how abuse looks:
Elderly, jovial
Shirt tucked and boots shined,
Rare catches of
Old scratches on new glasses,
Liver spots and laughing lines.

Glassy eyes blinking away  
Dust from antique memories;
Sepia-toned ponderings,
Less like days of summer
More depression-era dust bowl;
The ever-hope for May.

Chester the Jester,
Old of bone
Young of heart,
Keeps the laughter going
To smooth your broken parts.