I chose to deny I was running
in a circle - around now
I'll start ignoring the ground

under my feet is red and
still damp enough to preserve
my lone footprints over the many
I brought with me before -

under my feet is full of
bones and broken shields and
furrows like scars in the earth
where my fingers fit perfectly -

under my feet is a number
and it's one, and so am I staring
across too many skulls for one
body.

I walk straightened, slowly and
forward, and I know.

Two mosquitoes fly buzzingly
around my head with
perpetually aggravating grace.

One of them is you.
The other is an errant
thought, an unwanted
distraction, a piece
of myself.

A mistake in the pattern.
I crush one of them
under my hand.

Occasionally I manage
to glimpse someone
I can never know

in the odd tilt of
one word or
the reflections on your glasses

and I wonder.

And then you
start to
wish the distance was
physical.

You complain of the softer
world's lack
of the definitions you
have become accustomed to
in your field of clear lines,
where notation is not
an abstraction and knowledge
may be clearly told.

I suppress a smile, knowing that
you have taught me
the lion's share of those
things that can never be said.

I have worn
you as my livery, you
as my prison jumpsuit, as
my cloak of darkness wrapped
around me when light
meant burning and I
preferred to stab myself
into my hiding place.

I have worn
you for so long I have
forgotten what it means
for you to creep
up on me, for you
to ambush me as I bask
in the light, to
be suddenly present
when I did not
expect you.

Snapdragons are one of those
flowers that wilt in springtime, not
because there is
anything wrong, it's just
that their season is over.

I wonder whether
snapdragons ever fall
in love with the hawthorns,
though I really shouldn't
have to.

I know all too well the
feeling of having to love
someone perennially as
you both alternate dying,
for lack of rain,
for want of sun.

"He was only twenty."

My reaction shouldn't be

"lucky *******."

I am in
so many different
kinds of pain
this morning. Don't
worry, though, I
have no intention of
disrupting the peaceful
start to your lovely
day. Here, watch
me grit my
teeth into a smile.

I have never hated
myself more than when

my traitorous heart
raced, when my lungs drew
gasping, shallow breaths that dried
my mouth and made me
feel like I was choking on
the taste of ****** metal, when

I allowed my shoulders
to heave, when I allowed
myself to tremble, when

I couldn't stop my head
from twitching slightly
to the right before
jerking back into place (again,
and again, and
again), when

all you needed
was a pair of arms to hold
you against a steady heartbeat,
the rhythm of calm
breath against which you
could time your own, and
someone else to be
the most okay person in the room.

There's a green sort of light
falling through the treetops
alighting gently in your hair.

There's a green sort of light
shining from your fingertips
into my skin. I can't see it
but I know it's there.

And you say
there's a green sort of light
my eyes catch from the sun
spin it out in a web to ensnare
yours.

The times when you are
here are precious to me, yet
they all blur together, becoming
a long streak of warm, orange
contentment, marked with
moments of yellow and more
of red.

Yellow, for when the orange
burns brightly enough to move
beyond mere contentment to
a fierce joy.

Red, for when the orange
recedes, its glow dimming
to reveal the uglier side -the
possessiveness, the jealousy, and
the detox.

When you bind
   yourself to someone you
      never realize how the chains
         add up.

                                               I didn't. It didn't
                                             matter, though, as long as
                                           you all tried to work
                                         out the tangles and pull
                                       me in the same direction.

                                     Now
         I have let you sink
                                             your grappling hooks into
                        all these little pieces
                                 of me and none
         can decide which way
                                                           to go
                nor do they
                                   have to as
         you tear them
                                            apart
          ­                                                           from
         each
                       other
                                                          I­
cease
                                            to
            ­          exist.

You are

the single flower petal left lying
in the wake of the wedding
train years later as I yearn to

see the splash of color against
the ground of gray and I
kneel to lift you and

breathe life into your lines,
clasp you in my arms,
call you mine, yet I stay

my reach and skim you
gently with my fingertips, not
daring to risk

a tear.

My life was always accompanied
by poisoned suns, suns that did not know how
to step out of their twilight and so had
to jump far beyond that,
a supernova, and I learned not to be blinded
by the changeable light.

And when I realized
that all that is left after
a supernova is dust and shadows, my eyes
changed to the slit pupils of
a snake, and I learned not to be blinded
by the darkness.

But when I was confronted
with the steady, cheerful glow of
a hearthfire, I had never learned not to be blinded
by a light that stays, constant despite
its flickering. I who was a child in the land of
dying suns never learned not to be burned
by warmth, and though I long to linger
by the fireside sometimes I must step
out into the bitter wind to remember
who I am. I can only
promise to return.

I do not bottle
myself up anymore. I
no longer push my soul
through the glass neck and
shove the cork in after it.

But underlying the bubbling
explosion of my sentiment
stands the apprehension that I should
stop shaking the champagne, that I should
never have looked so hard for
the corkscrew in the first place.

When the bubbles have finished
rising out of this inadequate container,
less will be left inside the bottle.

My words cannot be professional
actors in a play that I direct,
as child actors are not legally
permitted to work seven
days a week, and such
a production would need
at least that much
rehearsal time.

My words are not yet grown.

They appear at counterpoint
to my thoughts, single notes opposite
the hundred-piece orchestra of my emotions,
bashfully attempting to express the essence
of an eight-part harmony in a simple progression
of notes flowing, one to the next, each
tremulous, uncertain, both
hopeful and despairing.

They are the child trying to finger-paint the Mona Lisa
with the clumsy hands of a toddler -
they do not even have the skill to hold the paintbrush.

I nudge those children paralyzed by stage fright
out from behind the curtains,
up to the center of the stage
where under your gaze, your eyes
as you fill the seats, they
will attempt to act out
Shakespeare in the stumbling
cadence of second graders, to dance
the choreography meant
for a prima ballerina with their inept,
faltering steps, and I will love them for it.

I will love them for their endeavor
to convey to you, my audience
filling the seats of this theater, the design
I had created within my mind.

I will love them for their missteps, the dissonant
notes that were not in the sheet music, the colorful
fingerprints they leave all over the kitchen table.

They have not performed my intended purpose, yet
they have made me happy just the same.

My head is heavy
My back aches
My eyes are burning
My hands shake

And yet there is no one to blame
For my own sorry plight
Except myself, it's all my fault
I should have slept last night.

This connection
is not a tangible thing
by its nature, technological,
yet it seems we have
entered some shared place
where I can almost
touch you.

This place
is not a joyous one
by its nature, sweet
yet also bitter as we have
come so close but no nearer
and the comparison
is unflattering.

When I wake breathless
distraught in the night
I do not compel you to
rise and join me.

Rather, I watch
you in silence and
ponder the nature
of estrangement.

Sometimes
my pain is a fire
that burns me, a beast
that rends me, a battle
to be fought and lost.

And sometimes
I just need to
sit here and stare at
the walls while I watch
the tide come in.

You asked me how you can know
when I am not alright,
because as my skill at painting grows
the murals on my walls become more lifelike
until the differences disappear.

I cannot tell you how long
these cracks in my facade will last,
but I can tell you this:

Look for the blood under my nails.

Look for the blank, empty stare of my eyes
as my mouth contorts itself into a smile.

Listen for the faint sound of rising hysteria,
a note of sobbing amidst my laughter.

Watch and see whether I can hold your gaze,
if I'm looking into your eyes
or just pretending to by staring
at the center of your forehead.

Wait for my silences, and watch my face
to see it twitch a bit every time they are broken.

Notice when I am bit less willing
to let go of you at the end of our embrace.

Count the minutes I take in the bathroom,
to know whether or not blood is dripping
onto the tiles.

As cliched as it might sound,
look for the dark circles under my eyes.

Remember the way I am when I am happy,
for I surely cannot.

And when you have taken note of all these things,
do nothing,
unless you want them painted over, too.

Sometimes my
memories are
too sharp
and I run
away to
the now
where you wait
for me and
I try not
to seem out
of breath.

At some point                                                            ­                             I miss him.
along the line                                                             ­                      I haven't slept.
my thoughts changed.                               I can't remember how to be happy.
As nothing progressed                                        I can't escape from my head.
and I began                                        My nights belong to the nightmares.
to feel at home here                                                           I haven't slept.
the stillness                                                        ­                                   I miss him.
trickled into my head.                                                                        He's dead.
It's such a little change                                       I can't stop looking for him.
but now                                               I don't know how to deal with this.
the landscape is colored                                 I don't enjoy being alive.
with unfulfilled waiting,                                                                         He's dead.
unmet expectations                                                                          I'm not dead.
excuses.                                                                                        I still miss him.
The sharp brightness                                                         I still haven't slept.
of the initial pain                         I still can't remember how to be happy.
(and I had never felt so alive)          I still can't escape from my head.
fades to dull colors.      My nights still belong to the nightmares.
My eyes don't burn                                   I still haven't slept.
anymore.                                                 ­  I still miss him.
Maybe I don't have to run.                He's still dead.
I can just embrace this;          I still can't stop looking for him.
this stillness          I still don't know how to deal with this.
stop expecting             I still don't enjoy being alive.
stop waiting.                           He's still dead.
And in that case...I'm still not dead.
                  *Why not?

When the nightmares come to play
When they still remain by day
Stumble, fall
Now you're small

When the voices fill your head
When you're paralyzed by dread
Find a friend
Make pretend

When you can't escape the ghosts
When your loved ones haunt you most
Fading breath
Wish for death

When the rage inside you burns
When the hurricane returns
Disbelieve
Time to leave

My eyes
may burn.
My lips
may tremble.
My breath
may catch.
My hands
may clench.
My voice
may break.
My shoulders
may heave.

But not one tear
will escape
between my lashes
no matter how
I crave the obliteration
of a flood.