The wish, that of the living whole
  No life may fail beyond the grave,
  Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
  That Nature lends such evil dreams?
  So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
  Her secret meaning in her deeds,
  And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,
  And falling with my weight of cares
  Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That ***** thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and *****,
  And gather dust and chaff, and call
  To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

Could I have said while he was here,
  'My love shall now no further range;
  There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear.'

Love, then, had hope of richer store:
  What end is here to my complaint?
  This haunting whisper makes me faint,
'More years had made me love thee more.'

But Death returns an answer sweet:
  'My sudden frost was sudden gain,
  And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.'

What hope is here for modern rhyme
  To him, who turns a musing eye
  On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshorten'd in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain
  May bind a book, may line a box,
  May serve to curl a maiden's locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane

A man upon a stall may find,
  And, passing, turn the page that tells
  A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darken'd ways
  Shall ring with music all the same;
  To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.

-

how it begins

you need to look in the eyes
of the person who broke you,
even if that person was yourself

-

rose

when roses grow from the
concrete,
they are cut down
but when they grow back, they are
more beautiful
than ever.

-

he

he looked you in the eye
and you danced
but when you took off your
pointe shoes,
they were full of blood

-

kintsugi

the night
you left
i shattered
every dish
and my own
heart
and then
mended it in gold

-

whatever

whatever hurt you
can no longer
touch you
because i
am here


-

Look at how large the tree is
with all of its branches
reaching for the sky.
Look at all of those people
hanging off the edge,
limply swinging into each other.


What a disaster.

I
three a.m.

there's a certain
type of loneliness
when the nothingness
becomes everything
and everything becomes your face

II
tooth and bone

i don't remember much
but i do remember
when i promised you
a temple of teeth
but my hands are swollen
and my mouth is bone dry

III
requiem*

to whoever it may concern,
will you still love me when
i'm gone?
we both knew this was coming
but i didn't leave anything
behind

i left the party.
everything felt better when i got some
running water underneath my feet
and felt the brisk winds kiss my rosy cheeks,
the only thing i need brushing up against me.
looking down i found
the riverbeds and arches were laced
with fleeting reflections of fireflies.
i'm missing the meteor shower tonight
sitting in the village square i come to
when i'm sick to my stomach of staring up
and not seeing a single twinkling light.
because pollution has plucked the stars
from my city's night skies.
there's a street corner over a city or two
where we could see falling stars perfectly
in the graveyard or by the nelson monument.
somewhere much more romantic.

Hello midnight we meet again my distasteful friend my lack of sleep is killing me but the contents of my mind bring together our embrace every night this pattern holds no end in sight so I sit here writing criticizing myself in a way no one else can or wants to be criticized themselves I rip my mental apart with each passing thought praying that I wasn't put on this earth to rot my eyes are bloodshot and the positive serenity that I crave and want back with me will not let me keep it's presences but midnight is always a comfort to me it tells me of an assured bad morning and another emotionless dazed and confused day

She sits on the table her head tilted back and her mouth open wide ready to catch all our unfiltered trash.
Planted firmly on the worn wood along side the water rings from long forgotten and unattended cups.
Her round body adjacent his long frigid fingers, tediously tapping the decay off his cancer.
She gathers up her strength and holds her pose like a marble statue at display in the louvre.
Like a switch she shuts her brain off from reality and allows him to dump his filthy bitterness into her.
Her lips close along with her eyes and chokes down his worthlessness, equivocating at the burning as it stamps itself to the inner wall of her stomach.
She solemnly reminds herself that is she is beautiful and that she is strong.
That without her dust and char would violently float amidst.
Her chalked and caked lips reopen awaiting the next flick of his fingertips.
She sits on the coffee table wishing it was coffee that we were drinking and that she was a coaster.
But we dont drink coffee; we smoke cigarettes and she is just an ashtray catching all of our secrets and regrets.

sitting down in the shower
cliché but appealing,
if i could feel a fraction
of the feelings that they're feeling,
the things i've been hearing since
the day i grew ears.
looking for reasons to love yourself
in someone else's clothes.
every year that passes
i've managed to convince myself
was just another mid life crisis,
because i'd be overwhelmed
with another fifteen, twenty years
or how long can a person last
convinced they'll find a romance
that distracts from how they hate themselves.