Their ghostly limbs around me
Your voice in a hum
You linger in a grey house writing poetry
You mark my lips with self-doubt

You haven’t lasted me
In a deathbed hollow
I closed my hands on nothing
But a phantom emotion

These flowers in free fall
With their withered stems
Drank their last purpose
When I severed their heads

You slipped your noose around me
And choked the breath away
I writhed for seven hours
And broke the dawn with a gasp

You scattered motes to the ceiling
And rode the sun’s first light
Sever your black wings
Wither my heart

Can you taste the disappointment
When you linger on my lips
Cold scents long languished
Sparking dead neuronic wisps

A frantic reformation
For an addict to the bliss
In the dust realms of a blanket life
Where fiction can exist

I’m the broken bones you found alone
And kissed into a whole
I know
That everybody dreams of the soul they had, the soul they let go

But I’ll find a way, hold high this ache
Breathe life into every mistake
And grow
Into the man you never had, but mourn to this day

I’m grateful
For everything

I remember a girl whose eyes were liquid fire
Whose passion dragged me under
She had lips frozen by winter
That melted on touch

Between summer and autumn
The air breathed hot and cold around her
And her eyes grew soft
And her heart grew close

We lost a year in a teenage rush
Of after school talks, and pre-dawn love
Of where we’d go, and what we’d become
A forever we never touched

My pre-dawn conviction is weak
This cold ember death will sink its teeth
My winter coat is a sickly sheath
Sloughing with every retreat

I hope you know
Your eyes lit a thousand snows
We drowned beneath

I hope you know
Your lips caught aflame so cold
Disintegrating against me

For whatever reason
Your glassy stare broke apart in the autumn chill
Fluctuating against summer’s warm laugh
Our first wavering dance

We soaked our skin in teenage radiance
An adolescent haze of lust
Plotting our dreams
In the lull before dawn and dusk

I know I’m dwelling on better times
Wasting my life away
Can’t ******* shake this habit of mine
I guess I miss the days
When love was just a song and dance
And every breath held weight
I’m catching ghosts in the pre-dawn light
Lost in a memory daze

I watched you go
I watched you go
I watched you go
I watched you go
I watched you grow
I watched you grow
Without eyes
I watched you grow

And I’ve been trailing
Ghostly figures wrapped in pain I’ll never know
Just to see if they’ll notice

Take off your bed
Tied to all that sleep
Descending motions
Air warmed with defeat

Set the sails
Out from under me
Those anchors on your eyes
Will disappear if you leave

Cower complete the bitter dream
And drape this dead desire through the streets
From crimson flush to blister black
You rot through my hands
And leave me with phantom death

Your lips shed a thousand words
That coloured your chin golden
To blend into the last light
Of radiant, dying Autumn

It’s open window
It’s closed
Running circles into old sheets
Once was something worth knowing
I’m dreaming old pains
Aged misery with replays
Of people I once knew
Losing nights, losing sleep
It’s all too real for my head
Painted memories on a canvas
Agony plays pretend
And I’m thinking too much
Wandering mind loses touch
With everyone
Claiming once was, once loved
I’m chasing echoes
Tailing happiness
When will I catch up?
I’m too scared to start this flame
I’m remembering
All the times I burned, hands hurt, stomach stirs
I’d rather chase shades
Than face a hope so easily snuffed
It’s almost enough
Almost
Those bedside talks ain’t coming back
The rattle of bone chilled teeth
Those winter nights
Breath and fog, we were
Dawn’s kissing sun
You breathed a life into me
Blossomed colours, set a fire with every retreat
I don’t think
My heart can take it

That dancing
Lover
Is empty
Caress
Faded
Photography
All encased
In memory space
By ageless
Glass
Over ancient
Death
Waded hands
Over welts
Over
Skin
The tightness
An heirloom
To your
Troubled
Breath
A rasping cry
In perpetual
Iterate
Recursive
The motion
Of ending eyes
When all lights flutter
And die

I’m still surprised by change
Of half a dozen deaths
A crooked spin towards new age
With dying cells, replenished skin
And if a body can be replaced
Does the same apply to the mind?
Are you gone completely?
Or do you relapse from time to time?
To a person I know
With yearning touch and softer eyes
Remembering our lost lights
Suffocating silence with muffled love
Hasting the future
Stretching reality thin
I’m gone so far from comfort
Forgive me
Forgive me