dear one
already you're
becoming no one

and I adjust
to yet another
kind of loneliness

the many memories
of your face inspire
faint longing and
a shiver of dread

somewhere you
go about your day
and there our joy's at most
a dissipating footnote
of confused regret

loving you was hard enough;
not loving you,
infinitely harder.

Love makes worlds
give birth.

You are the dream of a dream.

My love can dream better.

Be what you like.

You're no dream of mine,
with your gift of backwards
running
time.

And if you're guided by guilt rather than love
then think on your hands, which touched me
under false
pretenses.

As they will the next one, and the next.

I won't paralyze your pleasure
seeking with truth--God, *****
what you will--

How can I really condemn your half-
truths and your weaknesses, It's
you that said of others "We all
do our best, that's not enough,"
it wasn't I.

Fool yourself if you like.

I'd rather lose you and keep truth
--much rather.

No more missives of ordinary agony.
Control, control, tighten your belt,
and your lips, and your eyes,
and your smiles.
Hide your hands beneath your thighs.
Let them descend to your depths if they like
and in the meantime, keep it hidden,
pulsing, private,
let it bloom into a garden
in another world, that they can't yet see
and when they do, they won't know
what it means, that the water awakening and speaking in that garden
was the water of moments and secrets for them (that they could have had,
but instead, the other world has)

What a lovely walk I'm on
as long as I manage not to fall
down these pits and
cracks in the path.

And I, too, would give you the round
path of my love, without end,
but instead I can only offer that of time,
shattered and not endless,
though grand and
sweet just the same.

If my hand and my will were one and the same
I would reweave the strands of fate
and bring you to me in your sleep, in your light,
and here on a lazy day our minds would
play and delight and create.

My will however is only in my feet, so far,
with their certainty and their guesswork,
their endurance, their finding
and their leaving behind.

the theme of this love is ghosts
as it shivers by the sill.

what keeps us here, our grey shadows,
but our torn souls from the air.

loss echoes back for the ghost is lost
because of all the ghost lost and lost

sometimes one emerges and visits,
shifting from the emptiness, bringing thrilling chills

and sometimes I find I am the one
disappearing into the grey.

I am
the balance point
at the center of
a vast universe—
whooping with complexity
and groaning with emptiness.
And how absurd to see me
standing there,
powerless in an excess of power—
my only fulcrum
within me as I take a deep breath
and whisper, implore, reason, soothe
the great, uneven immensities
to be calmed,

and I dissolve my consciousness
into placelessness
so that I may place myself at the center of each
zone of complexity, each expanse of emptiness,
and center each millimeter within itself,
so that all this universe is a universe of balance,
continuously shifting yet continuously balanced,
her foot in absolute certainty on the path,
her body all containing,
the void her nourishing heart,

the enormity neither ordinary,
nor frightening,
nor any one thing,
but to see the consciousness in formlessness—
looking back at me—
all creating,
(and yet created, reflecting,) and yet
giving me
such power.

let me bare my soul
if I can find it
it was just here
last year
then it sank
back down
in the folds
I think you saw it last
passing down the hall
you said you saw a ghost
and so you introduced yourself to me
did you see which way she went

I take it all back. All of it--I'll eat every word. Every contradiction, every idea, every excuse, every truth. I'll eat it all. I'll turn myself outside in and start again--

only a fool
would sit here, aching
for nothing.

night after night after
day after
day.

and I can't stop
thinking about the one thing
that hints at what may
one day
be.

compelling

I want you to come closer, to be more intimate
but I'm not sure I would like it if you did, or like you so well
and I'm not sure that I like you so well now
although I know that I like you very much, or at least enough
though perhaps I would like you quite a lot if you were happier
which you would be if I loved you of course
and you'd be happy too, for a little while,
if I merely lusted enough, and liked a lot too
but what good is being happy for a little while, or even a long while,
if one simply returns to being gentle, intelligent, dour?
and then, though I know you would love to be loved
and you find me a natural companion, adequately and exceptionally,
I am not sure you like me now as much as one might, or that you will
and that is why I tell you so little of myself
though I wish you would know me better.

the zombie has opinions about nutrition
but lives off of tasty urban debris

the zombie is standing on the beach
whipped by grey
watching the waves roll in high

the zombie is on the computer again--
where nobody knows he's a zombie

the zombie seems to be listening but is looking at his phone

the zombie is not a joiner, so don't be uncool and ask
though he might join and then drop out, which just proves
joining was pointless in the first place

oh definitely the zombie likes to go down

the zombie bites the hand that feeds him

the zombie does not mind poison if it means saving money

the zombie is against bad things.

the zombie is not a sheep.

the zombie is dying of loneliness but can't ever seem to connect.

the zombie is spreading deserts
and drowning deltas.

the zombie is standing up for what's right, on facebook.

the zombie knows that *** is safer than alcohol
and it makes him safer

the zombie feels guilty sometimes but ultimately
not personally responsible.

the zombie is tired--not enough sleep, not enough brains.

the zombie doesn't need you,
he just wants you,
when he sees you.

ahem: the zombie wants you for your mind.

the zombie is free.

the zombie embodies Csikszentmihalyi's state of "Flow."

the zombie may have made you one of his kind,

you will never know because
zombies don't know they're
zombies.