Bright, glowing rays slanting through naked branches.
Crisp air and moving masses of formed metal.
Kept beards, tattoos, rising wisps of coffee roast.

It's cold.

The table is clean and the fork and spoon,
They lay in bed, blanketed in a white embrace.

Are they happy? I wonder...
I watch them, waiting for something,
Thinking of someone else.

I am not alone. Her eyes give her away.
She smiles, I smile back softly.
We touch and our eyes meet.
She's warm, she helps me forget.

She gives me her lips and I drink.
Give me more! I want more to drink...
More to forget why I'm thirsty.

Thirsty for her laugh, her dimples, her skin...
Her hopes, her scars, her warmth.

Etched in forts, in long drives, in eyes, in tacos and salsa verde y roja.

But it's cold now.

Are you human... a lie perhaps?
Now that we're talking, let me ask you this;
Can you be human and not be a lie?
I don't know, but probably not.
Do you know?

Questions, oh how we love questions...Don't you?
How old are you?
Do I know you?
Have we met?
What do you think?
Do you love me?
Do you hate me?

Questions, they keep strangers at bay.
You're troubled when you don't know.
No matter how many you ask, there will always be more...
One stranger, than the next.
Are you satiated yet?

Stranger, are you a lie?

Sleepy pebbled creeks,
rolling, winding, weaving.

Eyes, behold the vision.
Bright and young and fresh.

Grey concrete treadmills under my black converse.
A new city, as fresh as mint by the Pacific breezes cool over me.
I left everything, but nothing that really mattered, for this new space.

Found my friends here, they were waiting for me.
Urging me to leave the ache behind, so I did.

I'm on the beach now, but I miss what was before the ache.
Everyday a little less...

I watched you trickle through my palms and fingers.

You quenched my thirst.
You brought life and wakening to my soul.
You made spring happen.

The harder I tried to hold you there, the faster you left.
Were you ever here? The memories turned subtle vapors as my hands dry.

I've finally woken, it's been a year.

Happy anniversary my lovely girl. Last night I moved over to take up all of my bed.

Somewhere in my mind and in my chest I was waiting for you to walk back in and cuddle next to me.

Tonight, I stopped leaving your space next to me.

I've finally woken.

Black Friday was our setting.
Your room and shower, our stage.
You and I, the actors of our own decisions.
Don't you see? It's all a joke, let's laugh...we don't know what we're doing.
We lie to each other, that helps a little. Sometimes.

I don't like this...
Sitting next to you, I felt it...the distance of once.
A crumbled castle with the veneer of strength. Once so strong, now in scattered ruins.
A husk, empty of the seed that promised so much once.

I hate this...
My role, the executioner. The captor that never was.
I swing my ax and cut, slice, shred, rip my way through a warm mess.
I walk away, now done in pain and blood dripping red,dark, and empty.

This hurts...
Clawing through skin, muscle, bone...
You see, it wouldn't come with me, it demanded to stay and I yielded.
There, somewhere near you, I left it.

You won't notice it...
A bloodied heart, still beating for the soul it tried to heal.

I traveled back in time and stared into the pit.

Men crawling and clawing at the open sores of the earth. Stained with the glimmer of something more as the pain whispers into their souls...

Standing tall, shoulders back, they gazed through me.