**** you.

Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,
Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
And without any feet can go to you;
And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
And if you set this brain of mine afire,
Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.

Until today, I never understood heartache.

I never understood that thinking about you (how the thoughts come unbidden yet so welcome entrancing encompassing dizzying worrying wonderful) -
your name
your voice - strong and low, speaking softly, only for me
the thickness of your hair, the way it feels against my fingers when I hold your head in my hands
the way your skin tastes after a night of making love
the warmth of your hands and your mouth and your laugh
your scent, that somehow reminds me of both my childhood and times and places I have never known

the feeling of you inside me, molded close and perfect, and the way you toss your head and ***** up your eyes while we're at our peak, as if I were the one who was so unmissable

- could make my insides curl and twist so hard that I have to stop what I'm doing, set down my glass or pen, stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk.

I am drowning in you, taking in deep lungfuls of you, absorbing you into my bloodstream.
The sweetest little death I could ever imagine.

I smash open my skull and pry apart my frontal lobe ,
so I could forget how your smile made me felt.

I pull my teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers,
to make me forget the taste your tongue left me.

I tear my fingernails off and replace them with sharpened glass between the ripped flesh,
to forget the tender sweet touch from your hands.

I gorge my eyes out,
so I can forget how you used to look as you slept.

I stab my ear canals with scissors,
to forget the sound of you laughing.

I plug my nose up with mothballs,
so I forget how your clothes smelt when I wore them.

I peel off my skin piece by piece
to forget how soft your skin was.

I can’t forget.

Have you forgotten how one Summer night
  We wandered forth together with the moon,
  While warm winds hummed to us a sleepy tune?
Have you forgotten how you praised both light
And darkness; not embarrassed yet not quite
  At ease? and how you said the glare of noon
  Less pleased you than the stars? but very soon
You blushed, and seemed to doubt if you were right.
We wandered far and took no note of time;
  Till on the air there came the distant call
Of church bells: we turned hastily, and yet
Ere we reached home sounded a second chime.
  But what; have you indeed forgotten all?
Ah how then is it I cannot forget?

Strange name for a cat, I know.
She had the drawings and
Attitude of one.

The fact that she preferred to
Be left alone most times made
Her my little best friend.

Four years ago she fit in the palm
Of my hand. The last time I held
Her, only her head did.

No more pain free
Cures for what bothered her,
And yesterday no little black dot

Came bouncing across the field
At the sound of my car.
No tip of a tail dancing hungrily

Outside the glass door when I
Left this morning. Funny how
Two sleeping kilos can

Form such a presence in a room,
And their absence the same.
Caught myself about to fill her

Bowl when I got up, then told
Myself to man up and swallow
That lump in my throat

That I hadn't felt from the loss
Of an animal friend in
Decades.

It felt big enough to fit in
The palm of
My hand.

I have this creeping ache on the edges of my bones
like the way crystal forms,
slowly.

Like the way prehistoric bugs that live in caves die every day.

I think I forgot to close my eyes and woke up blind.

I live my days hoping to grow inwards until my bones
start the delicate tearing of my skin and
water fills my lungs.

I have longed for this to happen ever since i was 7 and
I heard drowning was the closest you can get to

euphoria.

Oft I remember those I have known
In other days, to whom my heart was lead
As by a magnet, and who are not dead,
But absent, and their memories overgrown
With other thoughts and troubles of my own,
As graves with grasses are, and at their head
The stone with moss and lichens so o’er spread,
Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them? After long years.
Do they remember me in the same way,
And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
And yet the root perennial may be.

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Your eyes-
coal black fire
mirrors of my desire

Your mouth-
warm bath of oaths
bespoken for

Your *******-
rouged red-bullet tipped
honeysuckled bliss

Those hips-my reins
move you the way
I need you most

and your kiss-
like a hiss from a dip
of a branding iron

burn me with your lips
and make me yours-
ride me into the abyss

-of sighs.

r ~ 9/25/14