The lights stretch back for miles, hollow stares
all trained toward the twisted, shattered steel,
waved on in pairs and threes like visitation lines
at ******'s speed, slow enough for a glimpse,
high enough for everyone to get a turn.
The night turns every shade of paint black,
each window to a tinted mourner's veil,
glass shards strewn by an uncaring hand
to scintillate like starlight in the glare,
sirens wailing away like the bereaved.

I'll while away the summer breeze with you,
Content to watch your smile outshine the sun
Our fingers twined while watching skies of blue,
Our laughter rising as we see clouds run.
I'll stroll with you through autumn as it flies,
Its reds no equal to your blush, its golds
******* by your irises, your sun-ringed eyes
A touch of warmth before the coming cold.
We both know winter must descend in time,
Despite the sun and smiles, the golds and reds;
I cannot fear its gray and chill. A rhyme
From me to you will ward those from our heads.
In passing that with you, I welcome spring;
with you, I've faced much worse than growing things.

the moon despite
its bulk
seems small from here

the fury of the stars
signifies nothing
but a cute twinkle
in a smiling eye

funny how injustice
withers to nothing
at a distance too

Passion-flicker pyre,
Pipe the heat around us.
Brace your shoulder's burdens,
Burned to smithy sparkings.
White-gray flakes of winter,
Wilting tinder's children
Scraped together, given
Gimlet stares and scattered,
Dusty little leavings.
Lean against another
Passing bottle-poison,
Poise and cold forgotten.
With a little winking,
Wish the glass a fullness.
Call the bottle closer,
Clothed in sunset glimmer.

By the time this reaches your ears, if
Someone chooses to spend life speaking death,
Know that I left you nothing but dust.

I won't offer you a pretty corpse to stare at,
A bower to water with tears I didn't beg you,
And my cold hands won't rest under yours.

They won't stitch me up or mute me any more
Than I mute myself, leaving these words
On the lips of someone who cares enough
About you to share them.

I have left you dust and ash. If you must,
Go ahead. Take a vial, a fistful. Scatter them, or
Keep them, or whatever feels right to you.
I'm not much for demands anymore.

Know that you hold in your hands nothing.
My transfiguration is complete - even that
Gray waste between your fingers isn't me,
Not anymore. I've moved on. You should, too.

Will you - your sun's inferno burning bright,
Your radiance demanding all the sky -
Reach down a blessed fingertip, tonight?
Will hands know how to meet as you and I
Lock eyes and blind each other with our light?
Let darkness fall. Burn me, your firefly.
The gods will have the sacraments they claim.
These words, an offering, burn just the same.

And will you turn your moonlit face from me?
Will midnight mystery reclaim your smile,
As silver starlight fades to reverie
Until the sky hangs empty, mile for mile?
If I must spend my sight, myself, to see,
At least we burn with your exclusive style.
What shades of you remain are paradise -
A shame I won't bear witness to you twice.

The silence rages at the walls as,
In the bowels of the science building,
Thirty sweating, stifled faces stare
Through the glass of flat-bottomed flasks
To witness annihilation: acid and base
Finding a measure of peace, as it were.
In measuring and pouring caustic hell
How bile overflows in a rush to quench
The rising roil of acid in your gut,
They replicate results nature produces
Largely by accident, and so do they.
Later they'll forge their reports
With Vulcan's own creative gleam,
But here, it's patient swirling,
Steady hands, and holding breath -
Excited, maybe tired, maybe terrified.