the LORD & I have been arguing for days
over four small words:

[thy will be done.]

let this be known:
never is there a bigger sacrifice
than compromising the cloth that has woven your soul,
choosing to burn its textile
rather than cling to its strong stitchings & worn-in, familiar pattern,
leaving you in nothing but incinerated rags.

I plea for maintained remains of
this combusted fallacy of joy,
whilst He responds with simply

[I am making all things new.]

please hear this:
there is truly nothing that can mend you here,
nothing that can weave you together &
save your heart from being torn
as a love letter ripped into shreds of its possibilities,
leaving you with nothing but
disintegrated
dreams.

my past is aching to become my present,
& my perceived future has begun to rewind.
my place in this world has become null&voi;;
without the hope I once held close.
for what happens to a princess
when her earthly prince continues to commit slow suicide?

[peace, My child.]

I can hear my bones screaming to be heard,
as songs on a broken record,
stuck on repeating the same old refrain:
please please please please please…

[on earth as it is in Heaven.]

night sweats--
when your mind cannot stop running even whilst you sleep.
shaking limbs—
when your heart trembles & begs to stay alive.

[plans to prosper you, not harm you;
plans for hope & a future.]

I’m strung out on all these things that keep me sane
while my mind feels like its going through
withdrawals of the Holy Spirit—

WHERE ARE YOU, GOD
& WHY IS THIS YOUR PLAN?
YOU DO NOT LOVE ME AS YOU ONCE DID.

[those who hope in the LORD renew their strength.]

laying on my bedroom floor
with hymns pouring from my mouth
like tongues of fire & bile
I feel farther from glory
than I ever have.

[He restores my soul.]

LORD
as Christ once begged of you
Take This Cup,
LORD
I plea
for deliverance
for reconciliation
for an exodus from this body that is
full of intoxication
& self-loathing.

[until the very end of the age.]

LET MY SPIRIT RISE FROM THE ASHES
& BE HEALED OF THIS HORROR.

i am beginning to see the ships--
like phantoms, they sail in&out;
of the ports they choose,
only to leave as they please
[disappearing just as mysteriously & mischievously as they arrived],
leaving dents in the worn docks they rail into.

& i am as worn as one of these;
just as covered in filth &
weak to the sea winds &
sinking in the high tides
[& looking for places to hoist anchors away]--

visit me at sea someday,
as more than one who stops at the pier to drop off another's shipment,
but as one who desires to stay for holiday
[a few weeks, a month, perhaps]
before going off into the sunset alongside the wavering seagulls
toward a Light at the edge of the ocean

*for at harbor,
there is always refuge.

-prologue.-
I've been wearing a weatherproof coat
for what feels like
1,000 years,
& if only I could know
the rain & the snow,
& how a storm in the evening feels...

-1-
a test, a test, a time to--
learn how to breathe (again) to
trust the wind to
exist in the dark-

(the boulder crushes,
crumblecrumble
a wave crashes
in&out;)

wake up--
open your eyes &
there's more to life &
there's more to life than happiness sometimes-

(the clouds in fast forward,
crackcrack
a thunder clap
boom&roar;)

-2-
come back inside
my mother ordered, as the wind began to howl
it's getting late,
& I would hate
for you to be caught in a storm.

let me sit beneath the aspen tree,
let me feel what it's like to be struck by lightning,
for it's better to be hurt & reminded that i'm alive
than to be safe&bored;&lonely;
inside.

-3-
there's pain & there's anger,
long roads & u-turns abound.
A time for what was never expected
& a time to be left unfound.

because darkness exists for a reason,
if only to push us to crave the light
there is beauty in brokenness, glory in downpours,
& falling feels good sometimes.

-epilogue.-
(eventually, the tempest subsides,
breatheinbreatheout
& the gale becomes a comforting whisper
remember&res;;).

these days
crochet blankets aren’t as warm as they used to be
and my dreams beneath them
aren’t quite as vivid as they used to be.

[I used to be a scavenger,
burrowing for knowledge and love under rocks and hills.
and the treasures I’d find
used to be so much more meaningful to you.]

but these days,
I traverse new territories still unseen
and my dreams rise with each golden sun
and lo, I crawl from beneath the blankets to greet them.

I remember how your brown eyes shine in the sunlight stretching through your truck windows;
& I remember how we used to do the same,
like a bang & then oh,
such a whimper…
—-
but like a supernova, what we had brewed with so much energy
[all. too. soon.]
& it reached the point where we glowed as brightly as we possibly could be.
so our walls bounced off of each other,
& the implosion consumed the both of us.
-
so we continue to exist out in space somewhere,
mere particles of cataclysmic stardust resembling what we once were,
but what we had was lovely & brilliant;
(& isn’t that what we are:
lovely &
brilliant &
temporary?)
-
but hell, do we shine.

convergence.
Foggy black & white contusions appear in my nightmares
& on my wrists when I awaken;
some appear to be visions of you when you were young
& so much more hopeful
(or perhaps it is I?).

You always look so much more appealing
late in the evening
after I’ve already bid my inhibitions adieu.

But even when you creep across the threshold of my apartment,
there is nothing I can do to truly bring you close.

I’ve spent weeks dumping bottles of liquid down my throat &
into my lungs, but
none of these bottles have Labels;
just warnings.

You had a label, such as this;
branding you across your ever-furrowed brow.

cleaving.
Indeed, months have past since we touched at all,
yet in the moments when we converse,
I seek nothing but your breath on my neck, singing,
You & I
are one in the same.

& as we both sink further into the pits of our own self-imposed darkness,
we seek light in the dimming pools of each others’ eyes.

Your smirk is full of cynicism & regret,
but what of your grin?
It brings nothing but tidings of ways to rip me to shreds
again.

bound.
I long for the throbbing sensation of pain after an altercation with my past demons has occurred;
at least it would be familiar company,
consistent & vivid in its haunting cackling.

When I feel as though I’ve sunk too low,
I find rest in searching the depths & finding you there
always,
fighting your own demons.
Sometimes we let ours rip apart each other’s,
so that we can have nights without them
& with each other, instead.

fraying.
Those nights smell so sweetly of the incense & essence of
two peoples’ pain being placed on a bedside table,
glowing
& lighting the evening of their indiscretions
(she grits her teeth & he sobs into her décolletage).
It hums gently,
careful not to interrupt the façade of happiness in numbness they share.

But it is always there,
always
there.
There so that it may continue to entangle them;
not in love
or even admiration,
but in the spirit of their willingness to delude themselves.

& that is the most binding agent of all
…

unraveling.*
& lo,
& yet,
You &
I awaken
each morning
to observe
as I


come undone.

the heart.
a heart was painted on canvas at dinnertime
in the midst of laughter & embarrassing memorables.

coloured in her blues & ice as though recently shipwrecked,
it clashed with the musk of a third glass of wine.

it melted into the paper’s weight,
absorbing the music of two lives colliding.

his reds were opaque with a firm pursuing
of what he had been searching & for whom he had desired.

the opaque & the ice became one,
a juxtapositional melody humming vibrantly in harmony.


the hearts.**
meanwhile, his eyelashes, full & plush, gazed toward her flourishings
as she ran her fingers across his own parchment symphonies.

he rested one hand on the cusp of his palette,
the other entangled in his sable hair,

& she held close a momentary glimpse of euphoria
whilst she nibbled on the edge of his paintbrush.

as they shared this evening with each other,
the hopes & dreams they kept,

her blues & his reds blended as one;
part of him had become hers.
(& she, his. )

I open* up your old wounds this evening—
ways you used to feel, and strangely,
things, I, too, used to know.

I wonder how you’ve gone this long—
walking among the roses with their blooming thorns.
It seems your gashed ankles will continue to bleed out only until
you finally choose to leave the bushels behind.

I believe in things we both have, at times, left on the side of the road—
like how faith can restore and
love can sustain and
heartbeats can harmonize but
we’ve both become callous and torn.

I sleep with the dogs tonight—
they lick their wounds, as do I.
Chasing demons in our sleep,
stretching our limbs in the waning hours,
waking for a drink of water to quiet our
frenzied hearts and minds.

I can no longer be a part of this—
you must paint your own house in this new color
you refer to as “escape,”
but I only know as
scarlet.*

I will whisper nothing more of
how two hearts each approaching the same eclipse
somehow managed to tread lightly
on a great perhaps.

I have imbedded the sewing needle and thread into your palm,
and though it may have hurt for a time, you must now go:
stitch up your own wounds.

I wonder how long it will take for
you
&
I
to be back in the same spiral again;
both aiming toward the center of the earth--
toward the center of
the bottom of
our selves.

for you were there
& I was here
& though I am not apologetic for our
circumstances,
perhaps you can perceive my
acceptance
for why these things must be.

closure
is such a cliche of a word,
isn't it?
but yet all cliches exist because of a certain
central
truth
(such as how I need you &
you need me &
how we cannot use each other when
we really must use our own
strength
in the early morning sun &
the evening's seeping darkness &
all times in between).

closure-- here it is.
for you at least,
but never,
never,
for me.

so like an unnamed grave marked only by a ghostly white stone
I
disintegrate
without any one ever knowing
what truly happened to me.

but let this
at least
be the last nail in the coffin
of us
for you,
dear one.

I am a guardian angel,
cooped up in a cage up north,
with my wingspan so long
but the bars held so close,
that feathers enclose their own home.
--
I once told a prince a tale,
of how he could find his voice.
So he lifted his pen
& he wrote her a song,
& the cage was once again closed.
--
I visit a lady in black,
who wishes to be left alone.
But I visit her still,
& she weeps just a bit,
just enough to be at ease again.
--
a ghost I once knew still haunts me,
though I’ve fallen from my perch up high.
he begs me for wisdom & mercy,
so I enclose him & dry his eyes.
--
oh, there are woes among His people,
not one soul is saved from all this.
but His angels protect,
& they clean up the messes,
but even they have a cage to forget.