We are sitting on the shallow side of an empty pool,
avoiding the remnants of algae water settled in small ponds.
I am wearing a burgundy, baby doll dress, the one I used to wear I was 8.
I say something in slow motion, you laugh like a child;
I forgot how the lines gather softly, around the corners of your eyes
as if you were squinting at the sun.

The day you went away
was the day my world stopped turning.
We both always knew this would be temporary but Three Hundred and Twenty Seven days of you was never going to be enough.

The flowers here wilted
and shrivelled away when you left.
They only ever blossomed for you.

The grass dried up
and the leaves fell down.
Dusty tracks now where once lay roads.

The birds flew South
but not just for the winter.
To be with you.

This place,
our place,
the town that brought us together
is tainted now.
It can offer me no more.

Come home.

For W. P.

The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
Lest if we entered, peace would go.

We circled it a dozen times,
The wind was blowing from the sea,
I only felt your restless eyes
Whose love was like a cloak for me.

Oh heavy gates that fate has locked
To bar the joy we may not win,
Peace would go out forevermore
If we should dare to enter in.

I commit myself to the homicide
of my thought-flowers.
I indulge in the **** -
Killing my darlings
for the sake of art and sanity.
What a paradox.
I have bloodied my hands
with it even so.

No more love-lite poetry!
No more adolescent chinks of the
pseudo-heart!
No more infantile fork-stabs
at the plate of kid-intellectualism!
No more Wikipedia pages
on thoughts
that can swallow computers
whole!

I'm killing my darlings
for the sake of art,
for the sake of sanity -
what a paradox.
Blood is flowing.

I'm a murderer of ideas tonight -
today I will write
about many of life's very few truths.
Like trees.
Like soil.
These are the only constants in mathematics.
These are the identities.

In my garden, I reach out
to crush an
almost-crimson hibiscus.
Petals squelching with skin and nectar -
no perfume.
The hibiscus roils, unliving.

Red pulpy mess;
heart out of chest.

It's somewhat funny
But it's also somewhat sad.

I can be surrounded by dozens of people, family, friends...
Yet feel so alone.
So empty.

Or I can be with you.
Only you.
And my world is complete.

how many times do I have to say
I miss you until it becomes poetry

how many since it mattered

how do I tell you I haven't let
anyone touch me since you
because as long as your hands
remain the last
you still exist here somehow
how do I tell you that doesn't even
begin to describe it
how do I tell you all the places you
touched me still sing
like a phantom limb

how many days did it take
for your mother to ask about me
if I'm ever coming back again
what happened to me
what happened to us
what did you tell her
and how bad did it hurt to say aloud

how do I tell you even the simplest
things are crippling without you
how breathing is wasteful
when there's no other lips to taste it
how badly my body has pined for
yours again

how cruel must you have been
to make me want like a child
to lead me senseless
to the brink of everything
I ever wanted
to lead me giggling and trembling
touching your face
and to leave me here alone
without a warning
heaven was not heaven when I
entered it alone
all this love I have to give
is shot to hell if I can't give it to you

so how many times
do I have to say I miss you
until it becomes poetry?
because I'll do it
I'll do it and do it until it matters
to you