poetry lives
not just in the dreamy glow of the moon
across your lover's eyes
on a perfect evening, or the
mesmerising game of light
and shadows dancing on
moving waters, through
wooded greens;
no,
poetry lives in
the little things you
don't see and don't say:
the sharp edges of heartbreak, the
magnanimity of forgiveness, the
soft sighs of love that
*won't go away.

Learn to love the fall,
to disappear like a radical ghost
shaking chains as a forgotten name.

Make your nests in piles of broken mirror glass,
court heartbreak like a 19th century candlelit lover.

Smile at the No,
bring it into your chest,
breathe it in warm.

Collapse the roof,
blow out the window,
cradle your shattered legs and kiss them like sleeping children
when they try to drag your broken body from the burning building.

And get your blood all over everything.