I ache as if you have died
but yet you still breath
just not me
so I grieve
for the ghost of us,
for two
for we only lived in me

I have never been
a believer
in love
from afar.
Distance, not so much
a killer but a destroyer
to unravel the façade
of a lie I regarded as truth.
I will not have you be my destruction.
But there you sit, absent and present.
There is no cavern in my bed, no warmth
to give away your presence, but it’s you I feel
like a bruise
pressed with words never spoken
the grace of your thumb.
It makes the air heavy:
your dissipated scent
the exhale of your cheap cigarettes
the now and then.
If I concentrate hard enough,
squeeze my eyes until they weep
I can almost recite the talks in the night
as the snow fell and I prayed it would
Seal me inside and we could start
some sort of life inside this globe,
this dream
I had
to fly
away.
I have never been a believer
but I’ve always believed in you,
love.

I hope
this is what you
                   want,
need
know
taste
touch
with every bated breath.
(breathe)
See all of the forced smiles.
I sincerely hope
You can.
Drop it off,
gift delivered
fruitfully, faithfully.

I cannot pinpoint the moment I felt you,
Not in me and fleeting and exiting,
But within me, burrowing and thriving
Transcending past superficialities
And sailing, reveling,
Deep into some place I cannot see or reach.
You see, it’s been sleeping for a time now,
That unnamed force that inhabits the place.
But what I can do is pick moments,
Scattered like colorful tacks on a map,
Tracking my movements throughout the city
I borrowed for a few days, imagining
I’d return
Like a spontaneous library book
And back on the shelf, considered momentarily
Then gone again.
I didn’t think I’d bring a fragment home,
Aching for the remaining pieces,
The cathartic peace.

I breathe
with hands pushing
inside of my chest
independent,
dependently.
y(our) kiss,
crush
I smile (lie)
fighting
crying
you (willdonotwillnot) see
sweat
I am fighting
flying
arms breaking
broken (a token)
It is all.

I loved you
and such is the most succulent sorrow
to be written over like one scar upon another,
erased and retold, I can hardly remember
the way your fingers intwined with mine
and settled like the roots of the tree
resting in the front yard of our minds.
The gated iron face was weakening,
left, unattended by our neglect, our
endless longing.
The path was smoothed out for us.
I didn't desire to work in the coal mines
for you,
lungs, black and tender, to hold in
the weight of your laughter and me,
caged,
hummingbird.
So persistent is the exit wound
between two broken ribs.
You would kiss the scar tissue.
Tell me all would be well and I would
weep because how could it ever be so
lovely as it was before my fears rose
to the surface like a bloated porpoise bobbing
with the current and I'd stretch out my arms like I am
declaring allegiance.
To the starlit collisions that illuminate
this fate we were committed to from the start,
to the god I dare to mock:
once I loved you,
and you, I.
Once I lied.

rip love off the wall.
the smoke and the blood
and greasy fingerprints
that some genius copied
onto your own brain
so your double helixes and its
transformation, a chimera that bears
the weight, the demons
you
discover. pallid bones
are trapped within
these jaundice walls,
dusted so thick.
no end and no beginning,
but of life releasing,
splicing,
the presence of another
for the ******* of yours.