The boxes
which keep my blood clean
are stacked as tall as I,
a monument
in the spare room
to past battles.
Too many words,
too many thoughts
******* in the
hand-to-hand combat
with mortality.

No more.

What life I have
will not be defined
by an indeterminate end.

I live to write poems;
I will no longer die in them.

She had permanent grass stains on her shoulder blades
and the skin on her back always carried
the scent and salt of the earth
her hair danced like green fields in the wind
and had the subtle fragrance of lilacs
and though her flesh was tied to her bones
and her feet walked the ground beneath them
her heart was not bound by these same rules of gravity
and was often found swimming
in the space between the stars
and her eyes where painted with scenes
of the sky held up by oceans
and oceans held down by the sky

he could see himself in these reflections
broken and incomplete
and that somewhere in his life death would be there
and this would still not change in the end
and that no life lived is every complete
and last breaths are just interruptions
of what is that turn into what will be

he knew she had mysteries to be
and mysteries to discover
and questions to ask without speaking
and answers that couldn’t be put into words
she was perfectly herself inside
and outside of her human frailties
and she held a comfort
that could only be found
in being comfortable with your flaws

somewhere in the sound
of the syllables of her name
was a love open and free
that needed no redemption
gave no judgement
held no sin or shame
only the willing connection
to those seeking to find something more
than just the infinite stars
splattered across the endless universe
the something of wisdom hidden
in the heartbeat of not knowing
what is still to be found
and finding what can never be found
by anything other than the truth
of giving love freely
to the greatest fears of the unknown

bones of truth
rattle in the cupboard
and they make for
a most disconcerting
sound
like as if the conscience
of past foul deeds
are awakening
to be relived
again

they who hear the bones
being haunted throughout life
the rattling in the mind
that petrifying fife

no key keeps
them suppressed
ever they'll
wish to be heard
and the possession
of them
so unsettling
the beholders