Lust, with warm and calloused hands,
You haunt my night and spare my day,
Not really what I had planned.

Dried leftover rice scattered round,
Half an hour until dawn.
Star-glaring, mighty muffled sound,
The river Styx unto a fawn.

Lips that burn with absence,
Absinthe out of reach.
Wind-up toys like naked crescents,
A melancholic speech.

What help is flowered language
With ennui on you on me?
Origami boxes, filled with sage -
What is groaning – if not poetry?

He thinks she must taste
Like lemon peel and whipping cream,
Must be, skin, plumsoft and raindewed.
Must be glossy,
As dampened trodden-on yellow leaves.

Fitted for a glass of wine
And tongue lips slow motion vibrate
Resonate with the bitter mull.

The woman mindlessly fingers
The marks of age on the oaken
Table. Claw foot. Barefoot.
Arched toes and back, bubbling
The wine on her tongue
Feel its taste.

He wishes those lips
Must be catching sweetness
In the moistened ravines.
He wishes the soles of her
Vulnerable toes, and
Tastes lemons in his cheeks.

Who else but you serves
such sweet coffee liqueur
in the morning when
the roosters crow and
cow **** wafts through
the lazy floating curtains
stained with bacon grease
and griddle clusters?

Who else but you *****
with certainty so unabashed
and confident of the pleasures,
niceties, and sacrifices you’ve
transferred over to me through
cable wires and USB ports?

Who else but you can trap a
great city in a corner and
claim it as your own, with
courtly love entirely free
of condescension?

Who else but you could stay
stagnant for five hundred years
with false aspirations and
then flip swiftly to a whole
new fantasy?

Who else but you tastes of smoked
salmon on christmas eve, of burnt
butter from a silver spoon, of cold
green tea, of sugared plums, of
eggshells and beer batter and wine?

Who else but you can laugh
like a hyena eating a screeching
cat but still make hearts melt
out of belly buttons and tickle
lungs with fresh air?

Who else but you rips holes
in my jeans and shoots freeze
rays into my eyes to dry out
the skin on my knees and bring
tears because you know you’re
the only one who can heal them?

Who else but you sparks
indignation with a kiss
and forms rebel alliances
with whispers in the dark,
in the cold, on the hard floor
of a ***** dorm room?

Who else but you is
palpable enough to
wring juices from with
my lips like a chilled
nectarine leaning on the
white metallic pool edge?

Who else but you makes me
leave turquoise and indigo tick
marks in the crevices of my
fingers and lifts me out of
languid slumbers through
dew crusted eyelids and
musky morning breath?

It has been time. All of the time.
And there is no one else but you.

This evening I will discover a fibrous black-green substance under the nails of the first three fingers on my right hand.
I will excavate it with a nail file, and inspect it in my palm, it will be poked, prodded, and rolled into a ball.
I will recognize this substance.
While I recollect,
There will be a sleeping sea turtle one hour south, twenty minutes out, and twelve meters deep with three long scratches etched into the algae - exposing a marbled shell.
My vision will narrow and my senses will perk.
I will breath long heavy breaths into my regulator,
I will feel fins pushing past, up and through my heart strings,
I will spill salt water tears,
The ocean is a fishbowl that contains only me, and a creature after my own self.

In the middle of the night
Toiling, boiling, out of sight.
Lurking on in caves or beaches.
What's to fear? Undulating leaches,
Bulbous tongues, or blotting popped pustules.
Nay, only thrice was found she on thy vestibule.
In normal dress, and broad day light,
not so pretty, and not so bright.
Mourning morning not such a creature.
Call the judge! Wake every preacher!
Feigned ignorance won't get you far
Just look, they've already set the bar,
That from the breeze your limbs will swing
When like the others forced to sing
Of demons and charms and heresy,
They shall force your tongue, by my troth, even upon me.
For which I might procure the same fate as you,
Pricked and drained, with a blackish hue.
O please! This girl is none to fear!
Throw her in water up to her ear!
See by the way she sink in foam,
Splash her with holy water and hear not a groan!
These lips hath spilled no blood,
No pact with the Devil, no sign of false flood.
Spare her and likewise me,
For I know if she be tried, so tried I too shall be.

The fire! The smoke! The Flames!
Suffocated with chaos. Who else to blame?
The feckless masses, like sheep they believe.
*No mercy, no God, no time for reprieve.

Inferiority and humiliation
Are my prison guards.
The body within my outer-self
Creates shivs out of my skills
But...
She is not very skillful at weaponry.
And the wall is plastered with anxiety
And the complete inability to
Express who I am.
My mouth is stitched shut, my shiv is
Not yet sharp enough, and
Its edges keep chipping.

The low-key spookiness
in the disembodied wail
of the injured 8 stories below.
I, asleep, content, objective,
lie cozy in my sheets,
seek to find compassion,
but fail and back to sleep I fleet.
The tremendous thunder
crash of metal
halting all my dreams.
A feeling irretrievable,
A lack to feel, it seems.