the only thing that kept us together was rock n roll
but lou reed died today
and now we are that much more alone

We adulterate ourselves; this era together.
Purposefully, we work
to blur the edges of night-
memories already fragmented.
Perhaps it will cost less if we are
cautiously destructive,
perhaps the tangle of empty sheets
will be less likely to drown us if
we begin to forget before

the end.

Here I stand again in this broken town
Where my face turns up and I turn down
Here in the streets of home I'm bound
Tracing our names carved into the ground
You I see under each streetlamp's fire
You I made a crown from copper wire
Each gust of air whispers into my ear
Your name; I write it with every tear
I wanted to be your strength, your queen
Yet for all those mistakes I made unseen
You paid in full, though I tried to give
Myself for you-my life so you would live
I wanted to remove your pain and sorrow
For I felt it too, and it stripped each tomorrow
Of the hope felt in our endless coast
Where once life was what we made most
Little I cherish what has happened to me
I've endured such you should never see
It matters not, and naught that I care
Except for making these days you bear
Less difficult, and much I will find
To do for you, to make clocks unwind
I will spin you those lost ribbons of gold
The little worlds that went untold
I know them all, my memory's treasure
Though my sadness comes from pleasure
I will always remember what was true
All our moments and our failures, too
And the night when my lips faded to blue
I realized, there was no me before you.

In the honeyed season we cry for the missed lips,
Those slow strolls along the coast of nostalgic seas.
For the ones taken and for the ones lost
Those who vanished through doors without keys.

In the hopes of what we will find in the morning
We are dismayed opening our eyes to grey.
The months gained and the days lost;
We our dreams of sunlight fade away.

In the hearts of the victim and hunter
Both bury pain and anger beneath sorrow.
Though one is running and one is chasing
Both hunger for the honeyed lips of tomorrow.

I don’t really know why I’m writing this, except somewhere, to someone, to no one, I owe an explanation.  I also deserve a small rant.  The past two months have stripped me of everything I believed to be true, and all my perceptions have become a gallery of laughing spectators. This whole big thing we call life is absolutely insane and has severely twisted ways of tripping us up and holding us carefully at the same time.  All I can say is that I got a second chance at it, and the blows keep coming harder and harder but all I can do is roll with them, because giving up is not an option any more, and there is beauty underneath all of the suffering, and an exuberance that emerges in survival.  Every day, we are fighting, fighting, fighting to survive.  I’m not the right person to say if it’s worth it or not, or to give advice how to swallow the pills we’re given, or how to show humility, or give forgiveness, or find a little corner of happiness to hold onto when we slip.  But I know there is a reason why I am here, why you are here, and why time runs in circles, and why things happen the way they do.  We are both slaves to destiny and masters of choice.  We have an innate bilateral symmetry that manages to be both.  Someone told me there are no do-overs, but there are don’t-do-agains.  I may not care for this person, or perhaps I love them wholly.  I think it could be both.  When these scraps of wisdom float by, grab them and put them in your core, no matter who says it. It could be an ex, a professor, your mom, a stranger-it doesn’t matter.  They are giving you a gift. Try it all, and if it doesn’t work, move on.  Hurt people and get hurt.  Go out of your way once, and if it doesn’t prove to be in your best interest, walk away.  Do what you want, but don’t destroy yourself getting there.  Just keep walking in the direction you feel is best.  Everything is difficult, and it will always be difficult.  That is why this life is so ******* magnificent.  Each day we can celebrate that we made it.  There is nothing more pure, or more raw, than moving forward and understanding that no matter how hard things are, and how ****** everything looks, if you just keep moving, and don’t look back in order to bring the past with you, it’s not horrible at all.  Each rough patch is just a foothold to climb on to.  We all have to be up to get down, and down to get up.  No matter what choices you’ve made, or the guilt you carry, know that tomorrow you can wake up and check that baggage at the door, and simply walk away with a list of things you can’t do over and things you won’t do again.

You don't know what it is to break
You think that I am made of stone
My home is what you chose to take
Reducing me to skin and bone
My poor child, rich in tears
I am the monster behind your pain
You do not count your golden years
As black and white fortifies your cane
You know nothing of what is true
Nothing of hunger, or rattling breath
Of sidewalk beds and bruises blue
The trembling that induces death
You do not weigh 110 pounds
You have never known fragility
You cannot hear those awful sounds
The silent anguish of instability
Have you ever been forced into the dark?
By hands larger than your waist
It's just a stroll into the park...
Until its blood and torn lace
This is why I must come back
To the home you took away
So doctors can silence each attack
Though who would listen, I cannot say
Ice or stone, whatever I may be
I am broken - there is no me

My beloved,
        The night is orange with the oppression of city against cloud.  I sit outside, staring blankly at the exposed brick of another building as mosquitos prey upon my distraction.  My heart cries out for you as I do - we ache together in the solitude of our nights.  I do not know of the future, for all I feel is the cold knife of your absence.  All I own is hope, hope in the anguish I hold, the longing that serves as proof of the intensity of our love.  Though I know we will be together soon, I hold our nightly funeral, guarding our ashes and awaiting our ressurection.  This death that is worse than death consumes me, yet day forces my face to change into one of complicity.  If those who surround me could only feel how much I yearn for you, they would leave me silently by our tomb. However, I stand alone, a woman with her eyes upon the horizon, searching always for her sailor.  I touch the Atlantic with the knowledge that it is the only obstacle that stands between us, and embrace it as a friend rather than a rival to be conquered.  Soon, this sea will deliver me into your arms, and soon I will no longer serve as sentinel to our funeral pyre.  Your hand will touch my shoulder, awakening me from this reverie, a long-forgotten dream of the past.