"She left the city as a girl
And returned a woman
In the same shoes
On the same night.
A face in the darkness;
The reaper glimpsed
At journey's end.
He straddles the bridge
Between tonight and tomorrow--
He's a revolver with
One bullet missing
From the chamber;
He's the Wheel of Fortune
With its terms unwritten;
He's an unsigned DNR notice.
He's the end of the line."

...Now, here, I stand,
miles ahead,
on disconnecting tracks,
a once-raging fire,
slowly fading,
to a silver smoke...

Wondering,
...where did you go?

Have your own wolfish eyes,
peered into glassy irises
that even, in the silences,

reminded you,
of mine?

What existed, in me
that you let me, survive?

Mister, oh, please, let,
me in on your secret...
and tell me, now, do you regret ...

how you kept me... alive...?

You're hardly there...
sketched, into the backdrop
of my convalescence,
in hematite brush strokes.
Not a flicker, of breath
warms the cold curve, of my cheek,
but I feel you cup it, anyway.

My own hand,
bloodless, bleached
collapses, in pain.
Fatigued, it creeps,
across the coverlet
in a wraithlike half dose,
to seek you, sleepily
and pull you, across the void.
To capture you, by the mouth,
and bring you, like a magnet,
into another dimension.
Lips, press down, as if stitched;

the Cupid's bow,
folds itself, into the lower lip,
and sutures shut.
It forms a thin veil, of suppression,
and secrets.

Stay with me...
stay with me, a while...
stay with me, until I fall

...a...

...sleep, overtakes me.
I'm too weak, to wrestle with it,
and sink, below its dusky tides.
Darkly, they swallow me.
I float, in an indigestible stupor;

caustic waves, ripping away
at whatever remains,
of me:
half-consumed,
in the raging belly,
of the beast.

Still... the melted glaciers, of my eyes
seek you, above the insouciant turn,
of melancholy tides.

I wish to tangle myself,
all around you
to knot about you, composed,
comprised, in looping ties
like ropes... that only bite,
into the fruit, of your skin
if you draw me around you, tightly.  

And though, there's naught,
but an echo, of you,
above the seismic waves,
of pain

That same thought, rises
A shallow cry,
but it rips, through my soul
with the sudden release
of an arrow, leaving
the taut, aching pull,
of its bowstring.

Stay with me...

stay with me, til night, falls...
hold me, til the dawn, breaks...
love me,til our worlds,
collapse...

and, stay......
stay with me.

Over sticks, and stones...
no broken bones ...
only thick bands ringing
neck, and throat.

I floated onward, anyway:
my fainted,
fading body, splayed;
swathed, and rolled,
in a jacket shroud,

as gently, as...a paper wave.
Yet, onward, pulled,
on grasses, loud,

As softly, as
...a blackened cloud.

There's something...
infinitely beautiful,
dancing, delicately,
on pulled threads,
across nimble fingers:

the cat's cradle,
between emotional agony,
and mental silence.  

When every tear, is at last, exhausted...
when your lungs, wheeze, fluidly,
from helpless overexertion,
and, gasping for breath,
you turn your cheek, for air,
your pillow:
now, a man-made lake...

the numbness... suffuses,
your entire being.

Loud suffering, falls silent.
Red-rimmed eyes,
become too swollen,
to examine their own pain.

The nothingness blankets you,
in its warmest embrace.
You become swaddled; baby-soft, again,
yet plated, in auric detachment.

...Nothing, can touch me,
nothing,
can inform, my placid heart,
to beat.

in this moment,
I am free, of its emotional trappings.
its threads, can't pin me;
its pull, can't drag me down.

My lips,
shape a smile,
but it only serves, to show...
that it no longer hurts,
to stretch a wooden bridge,
across the gaping void.

...but even so... it's just a band-aid.

It won't fix, what's broken,
and the blood,
will seep through,
the gauze, again.
The pain, will return;
it'll grow knuckles,
that form fists,
which wield knives.

But, for now...
I lay myself, to rest...
blunted, mummified,
in a buzzing swathe,
of pristine, white.........





silence

I feel myself

atrophy
Thoughts, splayed
like beautiful, oiled legs
in a ******* centerfold...
Thoughts, disarrayed
in a state of feeble decay
I'm taken apart,
deconstructed
What's a brain, with a broken vessel,
what's a spine,
when the medulla oblongata,
falls,
to a gelatinous mush?

put me away, piece by piece
in boxes
that open, to reveal,
smaller boxes, and smaller boxes still
I become...miniscule... miniature
inconsequential,
in the great nature of things

a little wooden matryoshka doll, being peeled from its shell
layer by layer...
but what if the innermost chamber
is hidden, under lock and key

and what if you crack it open, to find
your fingers are smeared,
in the pungency, of my blood?

It matters not...
I drift skyward...no tether,
to pull me down, to earth again
and there's not enough oxygen,
to breathe,
as I drift through space...
but if I return to Earth...

the sudden resurgence of gravity
will bring me crashing,
to the ground.

...And it all...Goes...Black.