Heart of mine
you ache
****** truth-teller
be silent.

As I lie here
alone
with my spirit flailing wildly
normalcy and whatshouldbe
hold a pillow
and smother its breath.

**** opressors
they are everywhere
they're in marriage
and picketfence
but some cellular drive
made me leave you for them.

I want you
so physically
and cry out in pain
as my heart begs and pleads
for the one that it loves.

I need you
you know me
my mirrortwin, completely
Never have I been so naked
as I am beneath your gaze
I look into a liquid reflection
that adores me,
ether,
bone.

I have simple words only now
they squeeze out of me
bloodied bullets
I wince as I extract them
my gutless runner's high of a promise of security
wears off now
and I notice and I notice
and I notice
the pistol lying comfortably in my own hand.

Oh! my love!
I feel I'm dying.
You were beauty......

On the wind now
the warm, bitter wind
you are gone.

Bruised.
Left and right, top and bottom,
Inside and out.

I survived that hellish tsunami of pain
that, flying like a 18-wheeler with cut brakes
on spiteful repeat
wrung my mind and emotions to alternating panic
and zombie-like numbness.

Funny how bruises blossom in different ways;
your betrayal, so deep, sends up saplings to sting me
at the most inopportune, unpredictable times.
I thought I was immune now,
Enough brushes against the anemone
sufficient tapering of the drugs of anger and regret
And I was sure,
sobbing alone,
in the bathtub,
  done.


.

There's a small vice on my heart
that you turned incrementally since the day we kissed
Always there was space to manoeuvre
wriggle
a gap to shift around in and say, 'That's better'
to comfortably fool myself that I was not caught.
But now, my dear....
Now the grip leaves me gasping
and that metal feels cold
and I cannot ignore it.
The trouble is
I kissed your elegant, beautiful face
and I guided your hand to that vice in my chest
and enveloped your fingers with mine
We turned those keys together.
I was so enamoured
and I wanted your love.
I told myself I could get out at any time.

Too late, my love
It was always too late
For we're kindred souls across lifestyles
and lifetimes
and my body knows yours like the taste of my tears.
I resign myself, then, to bleeding.
I resign thee to Fate and what she may decide
knowing only that never shall I be your jailor.
I refuse to allow
that wild tempest soul to be anything but free.

I am happy to be caught.
Though I writhe with this pain
and slumber eludes me in my misery.
For one thing I have realised
is the depth of my cowardice.
Although yours came out as tenored and trembling
you still had the bravery to speak the words emblazoned on your heart
the ones that threatened to fall from your lips
as my head lay perfectly in situ against your collarbone
and my heartbeat and breathing lined up with yours
in our quiet symbiosis at 3 a.m.
I danced around the words
flitted lightly, noncommittal
and said 'I think I'm falling in love with you',
which was a lie.
You are far braver than I
and to this day I've run
but you deserve far greater than that which I have meted out to you.
You deserve honesty.
You deserve the breadth and depth of what my heart aches to tell you
though I am frightened beyond words that the vice can go no tighter.

I love you.

Why the belated savagery?
Why pierce my flesh, perchance to bleed?
On precipice high
my principles already leak down my shirt
and drip from golden-bangled wrists
to paint the ledge in leaky watercolors of loss.

Numbness, is that all we want?
we freeze our brows, and beating hearts
so none may dare to show inflection,
Or galloping strides of untamed lust
much less the small, sweet, flickering Love
that sits, whitefeathered, in that gilded cage
Oh, sweet she hums, her plumage falling
as hopes of freedom slip away.

Oh, cruel is passing time
Oh, fate;
how idle you creep by, and then
I wake in fervour, nightmare-hot
His gaze has passed me by at last
I should have silenced all my cracks
and filled in flaws with repartee
and been undamaged Demeter
rich flowing harvest, aglow with life
oh, shame to wither to that dark of day.

.....We wish for deliverance, grant it Us;
for what good are we, as faded cloth?
None wish to sew the fantasy tapestry
on patches, holes and crinkled past
You must not show these embarrassments
and so the poison is paid for gladly
and so you never know our fear
and so; the eyes will linger longer
and so we hold our Place, still here.

Molecular tales, these wiles of mine;
amygdala soaked in weeks of wine
will only function half the time.

And fears, in-fight-or-flight response
are jaded flickers only, now
arousal first, aggression next
you cannot choose the ones betwixt
your memories peeling, still unfixed.

Life's luxuries cannot soothe that sting
And soon your troubled nerves won't fire
Silks and satins won't mean anything
And countless women not suffice
The contrast between cloth and skin
will blur to numbed-out Braille and ice
But you sir; still insist on this-
To drown yourself in every vice.

You may go out in fire yet
If one day all becomes too much
I wonder if you've passed that gate
The one marked 'Point of No Return'
And if you saw it, smiled and waved
or felt a pang of hostility
or sadness,
pure futility......

I cannot save you, no-one can;
I'll not be your last gluttony
And thus I submit my defeat-
The impotence of this soliloquy.