umber spilled from his lips
and shattered light from his fingertips
when the helium of blue giants has all gone, his solar system
crumbles with it
and he grows
he grows as much as he can, holds on as long as he can, but
everything falls apart.
you can see the remnant of his supernova in his face, in his hands, in his shaky breath and tremulous words
in the heart, still glowing brighter and hotter than any Ia star,
but that pulsar, his mind, keeps spinning and spinning
long after he's nothing but
dust.

When the life inside of me begins to wither
like the leaves on winter trees,
And my breath begins to slow,
I'll use the very lasts gasps to say
how I get high to the smell of rain,
And that sunflowers
make me smile so naturally.
I'll say how I like the time spent alone,
And the nights I can't seem to find sleep.
I'll talk of the chills that overcome my body
when crashing waves reach my feet,
And of the beautiful ryhmes
always running through my head.
I'll reveal how I'm secretly drawn to the cold,
And how summer is my favorite season.
I'll tell them how the woods call my name
as I walk by,
I need their mystery.
And with my final bit of life,
I'll say how above all,
I'm happiest when I'm dancing.

last night i couldn't stop thinking of the way your head always fit into the crook of my shoulders,
or the way your tiny hands would wrap around my warm waist.
i kept feeling your bright blue eyes burning through the back of my skull,
pleading for me to never lie to you;
never leave you.
but i did i leave you.
you had nothing to call a home anymore,
because i kept you so high up in the clouds.

all i can say
is that the way your lips curved up whenever i smiled at you
is haunting me,

and i think i need you.

It's hard to hide a smile
When you should feel defiled.
Is it wrong to give my soul,
act as a ***** in the bed and
reconcile your acts as nothing but
worthwhile?
My skin and mind are afire
we're lying side by side respirating shallowly
admired, reviled and inspired I let myself wander
with thoughts of our beguiled afternoon.
Love affairs are seedy, needy and just
without my lover I'd feel nothing but bile
for the man I let slip a band on me.
I want to stay awhile, but the room will
be needed by the next coupling.
And, until next time I have to veil my
vile, yet necessary secret
And that I do with guile and style.

At one time, for a time
The flowers danced beside me
The fields swayed with the music of our hearts

At one time, for a time
My heart was overflowing
Knowing love would never leave us part

At one time, for a time
There never was a question
Doubt was simply a word we never felt

At one time, for a time
The ugly glistened lovely
For through your eyes the darkness seemed to melt

At one time, for a time
The ladybug would giggle
As it flew in loops around your smile

At one time, for a time
Your love would heal my sadness
Oh to live that one time, for awhile

Hide in obscurity.
Cryptic visage.
Anonymous shimmer.
Arcane mirage.

Be the enigma.
Wear the unknown.
Always a question mark.
Forever alone.

Loneliness is pages splayed across the bed
It is clutching the empty space beside me
Writhing in agony, knowing very well
You're not there

Loneliness is having my blood run cold,
My feet solidly planted to the ground
Every time I hear the unfamiliar ring
Of my (prosaic) name

Loneliness is basking in the sweet but transient
Moments of companionship, when your supple
Lips brush mine (and sparks flit down my back)
Knowing they will soon be relics

Loneliness is donning heavy, splotched clothes
Sodden from last night's tears and broken memories
It is having your mind plagued with yesterday
*Loneliness decays your today

Hayley Fienne scattered herself a year ago today. A hammer. A trigger. I sent flowers to a funeral home in Chandler, OK. I called. Said, "I can't imagine what you are going through" and something about how time turns the past into a form of fiction. DeLillo wrote that, I think.

Her mom said, "That's not true. That's not true."

And I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't known Hayley like I knew Hayley. She used to do these oil paintings on the nights she knew she wasn't going to class in the morning. I've a layman's knowledge of visual art but even I could tell her work was real. As opposed to what? I don't know. You just felt it. It kicked you in the gut, left you spinning around the room, asking every ******* in tweed, "Can I get some water?"

There was one large canvas in particular that stuck out. She called it "Dissolution."

The work depicted a seemingly amorphous spiral of headlight blues and star whites against the murky black of space. In the dead center of the piece she painted the face of a young man, broken into quadrants. The face was nothing more than a faint veil. If you scanned the canvas, you'd miss it.

When she showed the piece at a gallery event, featuring the work of outgoing seniors, I asked her who the man was.

"It's Jesus."

"You gave him a shave."

"It's actual Jesus. It's 'I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism' Jesus. It's lonely, masturbatory Jesus. It's the Jesus who stares at a ceiling fan wondering why Peter won't text him back," she said. "And above all, it's the Jesus God asks a little too much of, the Jesus that calls in sick."

I said I was unaware such a Jesus existed.

"Exists. Dealing with impossible quotas, he has to shave."

"I think your Jesus looks like you."

"He is."



Now it's a year later. I find comfort in the painting, allowing the erratic brush strokes, both fleeing and advancing, to lull me to--what? Just lull, I grant, aimless and asking answerless questions.

I think about her at the end, at her end-- but not the violence of it all. No, I think of the release.

No intended romance. I simply wonder how she would have wanted that final let-go in life's calendar marked by letting-goes to wrap. I imagine her body separating from her mind, her mind separating from her memories, her memories separating from her name. I think of her matter fractured and dispersed, directed where the universe, in its imperialistic expanse, requires.

I call her mom. Say, "I can't believe it's been a year" and something about how outer space makes me think of Hayley.

Her mom says, "I don't understand."



After I hang up I look at the painting. I look at Hayley's Jesus. And I think in memories, memories that may or may not have happened, I think of them in my chest--not my head. I think about mercy. I think about the infinite. And is there a place where they intersect?

I wrote this for you a long time ago on a coffee stained napkin, after you left me, full of love, lingering in a cafe.

"For you, in all your follies and faults and the way they make you so perfect for me.
For you, in the moments that linger in the vehemently insignificant corners and corridors of things, as if drifted of their own grandure.
For you, for the words that spill to the floor and the brilliant way you understand the deafening silence that follows.
For you, for your supernovas and clever shades, for your daylight smiles and nighttime skins.
For you, for your familiarity and the impossible truths that stand as martyrs to say that I have loved you before.
For you, despite the treachery and quiet sinister fun of the world.
For you, for making me so terribly scared of dying."
Yet here I am, in your wake, so full of so many thoughts and demons. Know that I have died, that I have loved and lost with equal measure.

Naive, I was not. I grew up
on tattered books and nihilistic ideals
while the other children read
books about stuffed bears and trees.

They warned me about the addicts:
The fiends with black capes and red eyes,
the ones who wander the night, searching
for new corners and new highs.

They warned me about the *** offenders:
The neighborhood sweethearts with soft eyes
and cold hands, who are more often than not,
but not restricted to the body, of middle-aged men.

They warned me about the murderers:
The ones with ice for pupils and books of spells.
Who drank smoke and whose hearts reside
in the far off corner somewhere in east hell.

These are the people my parents forgot to warn me about:
The lovers with a knack for spoon feeding me lies, whose
wings were black and who were blessed
with golden eyes.

They didn't warn me about the pretty boys.
About the ones who cup your heart
in their hands, and play around with it like putty.
Somehow, they forgot to mention that part.

But, then again, you can't teach a child about heartache,
and the only way a child will know what you mean when you
tell them that the stove is hot is if they burn themselves
on the warm, steel door that is life.