Liner runs thin
as I examine the skin
where I look for a tell-tale mark
Left of a ring that would prove
I'm not alone.
(it's not there)

My back arches and
my body quakes
as deep inside
Infantile sexuality wakes
as my lips let fly
assumed and guessed sighs
of fabricated pleasure
(whatever that is)

They did not teach me these things
I was left to assume
as hearts often do
when they are kept in a room
and ushered away from the pains and joys
of Love

I stare into a mirror
and I stare back
Until all of a sudden
my smile cracks
and I'm left to stare
into the eyes of one
born to lose.

I hug warm pillows
and stroke my own hair
Until I realize he
is not
wasn't
and will never be there
and I'm left to assemble
a Shattered Glass Heart
with nothing but hammers for tools

But then I see myself
beauty and flaws defined
and at this point I know
the only glass heart I need
is mine
even in pieces, it retains it's strength
and waits to be whole again

So dormant I sit
mesmerized by the prisms the pretty pieces make
as I wait
for a true artist to come
and give this
Shattered Glass Heart
new form
with the heat of reassuring and shared existence
and the grace of gentle words and sweet kisses.

As we hold our tongues in our heads, like nuclear threats, we are sure that those three words, that simple three word voice command, will be the end of us both, in a beautiful bloodbath, *** like war.

Two entities struggling for power and satisfaction, an atomic blast that is sounded with a sigh and an arch. The aftermath, sheer destruction, nothing anymore dominant than the next, everything melting into itself and one another. An overwhelming lump of calm and submission.

A skirmish for primitive power and oneself. The treaty of two bodies, silent, secretly sweet, and sullen. A whitewash of disdain where passion had just been.

*** like War
Anger is an Aphrodisiac
Hate is fuel for Passion
Love is and Instigator

We couldn't hate enough to love.

A sunny serenade of Cyan Skies

On a Strangely soothing Sunday afternoon

In the south wing



The White Rabbit tells me about

Beautiful Butterflies batting their wings

To the beat of a bohemian movement

and I blush at the gesture

And

The Mad Hatter tells me about

The Kevorkian crawdads clawing at each other

Under the crystal clear stream

Bent like a Candy Cane

And I cry for the dead.



I hear her, I hear her

But I also hear the

Marsh Hare

And

The Marsh Hare tells me about

The analytical anarchists armed with arms

Marching around the inner atrium screaming

"All hail Anarchy!", "All hail Anti-Society!"

Aiming for the heart

And I amaze myself



I hear her, I hear her

And because of her I hear

The chains and restraints



The Queen of Hearts tells me about

My fantasies of White Rabbits

My dreams of Mad Hatters

My imaginings of Marsh Hares

And how only she is real



The straps are too tight

The clothes too thin

The walls too thick



And she stabs me

With a Red Rose

All in white, The Queen of Hearts Says


Wake Up Alice


And now I can see

My sunny afternoon is shady

And

I am barred from my butterflies.

I felt him between my thighs and my heart sang songs my mind didn't even know it knew.
Warm and honeyed thoughts fill me until I am full and I am ready to concede defeat and open myself for his occupation.

But doesn't it always?
The body delights in new and welcome sensations and the head creates them.
I could easily dismiss it all as a ballet of chemical reactions and well placed hands, profoundly meaning

"Nothing".

Because everyone knows when the heat dies down, and the temperature drops, when the passion has waned like the moon, and the tide falls, only the bare bones of you are left and there are only calcium pillars to protect the flame.

Because everyone who has loved, even as a passing thought, has been left in the wake of warring bodies to observe the aftermath.
Was the tenderness making way for lust?
Did every kiss have a drop of hard truth imbued that I missed?
Were his hands caressing shallow intentions into my sensitive skin?
Did I miss the message?
Or were my eyes too open in awe, that they had closed on the casual way his hands and lips met my own?

"And what had all this been for?" Is the question that dances on the outskirts of my mind, while the meeting of my thighs still burned, and my heart had descended into free fall.

Satisfaction? Fear? Gratification? Doubt?

Love?

The worst feeling, of course, not being betrayal, confusion, shame, or loss, but plainly, uncertainty.

Nothing hurts the heart worse than not knowing.

Eyes cross paths.
Darting to avoid the other.
A dance of dark brown and blue.
Smiles to show fondness, and smiles that show affection,
those smiles, you'll never see.

Words spoken in haste that make the school children blush
and sing nursery rhymes that are both cruel and true.
and words you'll never hear me say.

A volley of suggestions and misleading requests.
A lie.
My lie.
For you.
The lie that I give to you
as a gift
like the glances and moments I wish that we shared.

The thoughts in passing that make me sigh
the kind that would make old lovers coo in rememberance.
The longing gaze from across the way
the gaze I pray you do not notice.

The lie.
My lie.
The lie that sits in my stomach and sours.
The lie that I wish I didnt have to tell.
The lie I tell for you.

Or for myself.
The line blurs and I'm hopelessly lost,
lost in feelings of high school adolecence and mid-summer nights.
lost in my love.
Lost in my lie.


Oh, it's nothing.

The Red Curtain Parts

JUNE

The world was gray that morning
Sticky dew on the ground
Like sleep in the corners of my eyes
Feeling Empty and cold
I hear her departure

The Final Act of Chasity Donloe had begun.


SCENE ONE

A rainy day, in a harsh city
In a steely room that smelled of iron
Was when she took
Her final bow.

Wrapped in white, Accented in red
Was a mask
The face of a Love
Many Loves
Enveloped in fuchsia hair
Soft, wide lips, and cold
The audience sighs in recognition
The mystery solved.


SCENE TWO

Carted away on steely wings
Hearing the cry of a lonely mother
Feeling the grip of an angry brother

I forget my line
And the curtain
Is Drawn

The end of Chasity's Act.
No Applause Please,
Not until all
Have made their exits



Thank you.

Sending you crossed kisses and looped hugs
Wishing for the longest goodbyes
You are just out of my reach
The vacuous glow of the monitor captivates me
and I forfeit my love to the pixels

How close you seem, until I lay down to rest and your absence becomes known
the blankets, thin, like you, but too thin to fill the void
The moon is too cold to replace your warmth

The cold reminds me of how much I missed you, I care not to remember.

The bitter taste of tea without you
the scent has no senses to tantalize

The study conveys the impression of empty
The silence we can't share
And the chair in which you might sit
is as lonely as ever with no company but dust

The harsh bite of nicotine on my lips
reminds me of yours
and I long for them.
Soft and bitter
like the cigarettes you so love
And the death I've learned to savor in your wake

Seeing words arranged beautifully remains reminiscent of you
And poetry, itself reminds me of your breath.



In the leaves at the bottom of the cup I see the day that we met

and in the sun I am reminded of how fond you were of the dark

and in the ashes of my loneliness I'm reminded of what's to become

of us.

I dreamt about how I wish
you were the boy you said
you'd be.

You crossed your T's you dotted your I's and your heart belonged to me.

Your touch was soft, you held me close, I felt your love, a love to boast
about and when it ended I had cried.

The boy I wished you were is gone.

You lied.

My mother is Mother Nature.
My mother is mother Earth.

She bore me like a seed and nourished me with her body.
Strong and true, even if abused and dirtied.

Cares for me with all she has, and all she will have
Envelops me in her love-zone to nurture and grow.

Will care for me even after I've grown tall and seeded my own.

She'll stomach the loss of all the riches that have been taken from her
Will hide her pain to keep me safe for as long as she can

And when she can't

When her rivers of tears run dry
and her mountain of strength cracks

When her burning core of a heart cools
and all does black and the flow has ended

She'll leave a story, a tell-tale rock
Of how she tried.

Visions of him start to smear

as she looks into his eyes

His pain and screams a mystery to her

and all she sees is lies



He paid for this when her hatred grew

Not in gold or silver, but in life

in the currency of blood

into the purse of her knife



Once the image of an angel

now an incubus, most foul

Thinking back on her tears

she fails to notice his agonizing howls



And she sighs



Hands sticky

brow cold

Heart breaking

and it's all getting old



The moment has passed

and she sees what she has done

The light in his eyes dims

and then he is gone



She sits down beside him

feeling warmth for the first time in years

Loosing control of tendons

Too numb to feel her own tears



Her love ran beneath them

like a sea of red regret

as she stroked his hair and closed her eyes

and kissed the lips of death

A dream is fading fast and I open my eyes

Cold.

But I can feel loves warm breath on my neck

Blue.

The color of the light that floods across the floor and over the edge of my bed.

I kiss loves forehead and walk to the window

Shades of Grey

The ice has glazed everything over and seems to have taken color with warmth.

Shiny, Cold, and Dead.

The bringer of my warmth and my life calls to me, telling me the world has stopped

And I lie with love once more...

And fade back to dreams

To think is to hear you
The sound of rushing water
Rushing against the walls of my skull.
Your words rippling deep within my psyche.
A cacophony of movement and noise
Built to push and pull.
Roll and Crash
Intrinsically, like the tide.
I am adrift
But familiar in unfamiliar water
I learned to swim, long ago.

I could look at the art of you for hours
turning you over
again and again
endlessly
drawing new appreciation
for facets of your wonder
not yet seen

I could study the library of you for ages
lost in the piles of text and subtext
that I devour wholly and
enthusiastically
a scholar of your thoughts
an apostle of your book.

To be a Light
Means to draw moths to you
You draw them
and appreciate
each powder and fur

But lights cannot shine forever
So the moths lie in wait
Patiently
Until they can dance in the light
once more.