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.

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.

Dear world,

No, I will not be functional this week.
No, I will not tell you why.
No, I do not expect you to cut me any breaks -
    what I'm pulling right now is not actually acceptable.
No, I do not want you to go looking for a reason -
    assume there are no extenuating circumstances
    and stop being surprised that someone is doing
    what you you seem to expect of everyone
    and taking your **** in silence.
No, I am not okay.
No, I do not want or need your help.

Now, *******.

Sincerely,
Me

A woman stands
Alone before the darkness.
Her battered feet
Will let her run no further.

She lifts her hands
Blood dancing down her arms, lest
Her wrath retreat
Allowing her the ******.

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.

I say I need you
like I need air
but then I remember
you had a habit
of proving that oxygen
is overrated.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I watch her crying from across the room.
Impassive.
The glances I occasionally cast in her direction
appear idly curious, perhaps slightly superior.
No better is expected of me.
I barely know her, and I already have
a well-earned reputation
of indifference.

My every action in this scene is a lie.

My glances across the room
are stolen, furtive things.
My eyes are half-lidded
not in derision
but in an attempt
to hide the intense glare
burning in them.

The tears overflow from her eyes
over small nothings,
spilling down her cheeks, and
I am jealous.
I crave that form of release.
I long to get up and beg her
I need that, give me
your tears because
my tear ducts
have shriveled up and
died
by now.

My posture slumped against the wall
masks the tension pulling at my frame.
I am only looking away
in an effort not to stare openly
for fear of shame.

I do not fear shame in her eyes.
I fear it in his.

His voice
speaks softly in my ear
reminding me of who I once was.
He points out
her weakness
his contempt for it
his contempt for me
for not sharing his opinion.

So I will not betray my fascination
to him. His absence
is the reason for my envy
of her weeping,
but then
so is his presence.

**He does not exist.
His voice whispers from beyond death and
I am going mad.

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.

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

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.

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.

It's not your fault
that when I'm curled around myself
on the ground
and I hear footsteps
approaching, quietly
you're not who I expect,
who I need to see
when I look up.

It's not your fault
that your hands on my back
and in my hair
are the wrong size
that your heartbeat against my ear
in your embrace
is the wrong rhythm
that your voice on the phone
telling me to be okay
has the wrong timbre.

It's not your fault
that when I hide in your arms
I'm trying to find my way
into someone else's,
arms I will never find.

It's not your fault
that I go searching for a dead boy
and find you instead,
I am not disappointed
I was just
hoping.

The mark of his
presence is
branded
across my existence.

I see him
in the long, thin frames of teenage boys,
in the gentle winter sun,
in the color green.

I hear him
in the heavy ***** of combat boots
     and the near-silent steps of bare feet on stone,
in sharp laughter
     and wry voices,
in the quiet rustle of leaves
     nearly drowned out by the howling wind.

I smell him
in petrichor,
in the bitter-salt tang of clean sweat,
in citrus-scented soap.

I feel him
in the rain that leaves stinging kisses on my cheeks as I run,
in the brutally playful clash of limb on limb,
in the touch of human skin.

I taste him
in the aftertaste of "I love you"
     long after it has left my mouth
in the sharp, metallic flavor of adrenaline,
in mint tea with too much sugar.

I mark
his presence as
it floods
into my consciousness
every sense saturated.
But these
marks of him
do not have
the power to bring him
back.

His ubiquitous absence
is unnoticed by the
winter sun, the
leaves, the
rain,
yet
it makes
a marked difference
to me.

Now
the winter sun is
     blinding,
soft footfalls pound
     at my ears,
laughter is
     a knife.
I flinch away from
     the touch of skin.
I choke
     on saying "I love you" and
the scent of oranges.

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.

"He was only twenty."

My reaction shouldn't be

"lucky *******."

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.

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.

Night after night, in the small hours
   I am still awake
I remember and I write, 'til my dark power
   rises, intoxicating

I seek you out, for once it's not in vain
   and you are here
Beyond a doubt, I know I am insane
   so I reach for you

My lips part, my tongue becomes a dancer
   in harmony with yours
Behold my art - I am a necromancer
   and you are here

It's unhealthy, I think.
Night after night
in the small hours
I am still awake
Thinking, hurting, writing
I intoxicate myself on you
your presence
I can only feel it
when I am not completely sane
when the crack in my mind widens
letting you in
embracing you
a mouth, lips parted
to meet yours
tongues dancing
I am kissing a phantom
in love with a memory
addicted to madness
to you
enough that I will raise ghosts
delude myself
I am the necromancer
in love with her own conjuration
when the night is done
I will have had my fix
and be on my not-so-merry way.
I think unhealthy
doesn't even begin to cover it.