all I have to offer are these ugly, ragged breaths.

They had your funeral,
there was no eulogy.

the plants trust that rain will come next
and whatever comes next’s what it is
that they need
and the ants seem to hide just in time
from the rain;

suppose I fill a niche, situating myself
on the top step, front row and imbibing—
yellow sky of a fog rolling under the storm,
empty bottle for capturing lightning.

why do i wait til it’s bad
to do something nice for it

drill
. deep,
. drip
slow.

sweet,
. distilled &
. crystalline
flow.

outdid yourself, truly,
politely with neatness.
it’s yours now,
. the sweetness,
. please take it and go.


dark &
delicate.
deliberate,
. divine.

tapped some pure purpose
right out of my spine!

like sugarcane grasses,
from sorghum,
molasses;
congrats man,
. you did it —
it’s yours now, not mine.

Earlier, my brain bumped into itself.
and I mean, it was clearly an accident;
I saw the whole thing happen.
Still, none of us knew what to say!

Please don’t leave those bruises on my thighs,
for me to look on fondly when you’re gone.

just cuz ya
want it
don’t mean that
ya get it

& just cuz ya don’t
doesn’t mean
it’ll stop

It’s love!
   or something

   it’s probably not

-
one day the sun will blink out
and i won't be there.


:
my god is right now.
my hell is control.
my joy is devotion
and my grief is an absence;
maybe the hands of a clock,
quickly ticking
and unwilling to repeat itself.

;
my purpose is god,
desire is hell,
my love is my joy,
and that sun blinking out
without me is my grief.

The world is very vicious
violent
cold, and quite alone.

And so to find something so gentle —
that gentleness, I think, is bliss.


Not sure.

I’ll let you know.

ain't it so hard to find sometimes

there has simply got to be  a freckle factory
hidden somewhere 'hind your ears  i swear
& when i find those smokestacks breathing
sunshine 'cross your sweet & every smile i
will apply to work there.

I am alright.
I have a face mask
nicotine stick
& a heating pad

I have lavender, in epsom salts
and healthy food & ****
and I am lucky
lucky
lucky,
I should tell myself I’m
lucky

I’m alright,
I will be fine
(and I am, guess,
most the time
besides
I am not going to die
and still have quite yet
so much time.

hold my hands above my head
— a fun workout
make me wish that i was dead
— a fun workout
empty pencils of their lead
— a fun workout
deeply dig but lightly tread
— a fun workout

I had a dream about you,
so intense it had a score.

hours and hours on end
building and blending
and smiling at me
and for once,
I know how it ended.

i am suffering from a crush we agreed upon
stephen
my face is red but i wont call it blushing

i want to burn you a ****** cd
whats my problem
stephen stop smiling
stop smiling at me

you asked for my hand,
with a ring made of paper
and then i kept the paper
and then i wrote the date on the back of the paper

i asked you not to touch;
you did so lightly when i let you.
just before you left
after you made my parents laugh,
you had already met my brothers
and they like you,
like you plenty.
and i like you like you,
plenty

and you like me like me,
plenty

i am suffering.

-

i am tinder, i am kindling:

i'll hold your fire
if you've got a match
with naught but a couple of strings attached
(also flammable)


i am quick and light and airy,
take on more than i can carry.


you, like reliable firewood:
must be.
you'll have to be sturdy,
or you will not trust me
that i could inspire,
for all to admire,
a fire: to light up the dark.

and though i have no doubt
you don't need my help,
perhaps it's not something
you want by yourself...


so imagine.
a night
with the dew fallen down.
if your light is low, too
while no one is around
then remember your kindling,
— i could warm you up.
i will give you some more
if at first's not enough.
if you'd want, we'd be roaring,
a knowing so well;
we'd reach up to touch heaven,
the envy of hell.
i give myself freely,
keep you blazing on
until sparks in the air
become ashes at dawn.


ah, we could rest then.
(get a good breakfast in.
cannot wait but i will—
burn all over again.)

∙

I want to feel love for myself
like I look for in someone else,

I’m good, enough—
I’m brave, I’m tough!
Courageous, rough and
dangerly, abrasive
when I’m made to be;
(at least I’m not afraid to be.)
I’m “always, always”: faithfully
and double-downing loyally,
allegiant as if royalty
— You Are to me:
who'll ever be,
so already, I weep.


I want to love all women
like my mother never did
and I want to love the children
like I wanted as a kid
and could give or take a man for now
I‘m focused — have a plan, but if
you tap my love like sap just know,
it’s sweetest from my hands.


I want to love, just want to love—
a gift and curse from hell above
caught in this vessel I am wrestling
so I get all tangled up.

Imperfect love, but that’s enough;
I’m purely love and that is something.
My intention keeps me bumbling while
I figure out what’s what.

-


...i hear it,
even when it makes no sound.
it is so deeply hollow,
even Empty echoes 'round.

(and i'm so sure of all of this
because i hear it now.)



it is a disembodied pleading—
a guttural, deep shrieking. mercy
calls you from your being
as it all becomes too much.
i recall i, cold and lifeless,
watched (beside myself, despite this)
as i clumsily engaged in an
attempt to wake you up.



enough time dissociated,
we begin to wonder when
exactly, where exactly:
how does this all end?

-

imagine my surprise to see
a golden road, unfold, before me

where no path had been,
less had it leapt

with my every once-ashamed
and trepidatious
baby-step.



there are trees in the distance.


country-wide on either side.



and it's suddenly so bright? I adjust to the light,
blues and greens, to be sure; that is,
if I could see,
for the tears that could, might
source a new, fertile stream.


so I will start it, crawling;
grateful.
and I will take off running,
soon.

I use your urn
I use the heart shaped velvet box I keep your urn in
to prop my phone up during therapy.
A choice I may choose to examine.

I keep it in my “workspace”,
a workspace I neglect
until it is time for therapy.
telehealth with Sherri Steele,
a professional


It’s a place so hard for me to be,
to think, to straighten up.
Sealed letters, dried flowers, undeveloped film.

then I walk away when it’s over.


There’s a secret
I do not disclose


to Sherri
or myself


In lucid moments I can see
the shade you colored my life when you left.
Out of focus, still on my mind

a crushed, pale blue.

stumbling, stumbling
but standing back up.
doing things better but
having worse luck.
the ground moves me forward
while time races back,
and one-thousand diverge
from a singular track.
I am stumbling, onward;
my frame growing strong.
I am stumbling inward
though that shouldn’t last long
and from clumsily running
I will arrive stunningly
just in time, loving;
alright from all wrong.

do you feel like
you have gazed
to eyes of God,
or do you not.


do you feel like
every ray of sun that shines
has now surround you?


do you long for it
in heavy,
quiet dark;

and do you weep?


and if you do: because you Know it,
or is it because you don't?

I kissed you;
I mean kissed you.

and the rain between the buildings
loudly lauded with applause.

incredible,
incapable:
a feeling that's unshakable
like Fate, you know
(it’s make-believe.
Sensational
like seeing things)
So gratefully and
hateful, I am
stirring in my sleep.

so Crucial.
incandescent—
I'm a piece of work
progressing I'm
unsynthesized,
incessant
I’m a Wreck:
an honest blessing.

no illusion,
there‘s no losing
so my pain is
of my choosing
in the end but
Not for now,
if I could soothe
myself somehow,

like to rebreak so to reset it;
Forgive so to forget, I cannot say
I understand
but, ever woefully
I get it.

i miss you sweet, soft women
with the knowing i know, too,
and you remind.

sweet, strong women
— who can carry me,
(or drag me from behind.)

mean & dancing women,
deep romancing women,
rough & fancy women—

: I miss you all so greatly,
I'll wait patient for our time.

burning all my candles
completely at both ends
to be as close to you again
as quickly as i can

stillness or stagnance
collection of fragments
which stand,
but not weathered—
they're worn.
happiness staggered,
she talked herself haggard:
she thinks herself fragile
but she is the thorn.

I think it’s awful and it’s beautiful,
I hear it the way you do —
not the way it sounded, but the way
you meant it to.

It sounds like the night I slept
in your shirt.
Like the first time that you asked me
if I was sure
when we touched and we touched and
we touched,

Like when I whispered I loved you
and knew I would miss you —
it sounds like exactly how much.

It’s awful and it’s beautiful, just once
or ten times through, you know
Not sure you knew the piece of me
you had but, now you do.