Cut the limbs
off a boundary

of trees,
and the police come running.

He was more supported--
there was evidence--

twisted branches
on the ground--

video of it
in action.

It took three days
to go from comfort

to sorrow--
she who freed me

also made me
a ghost.

My i
diminished--

blood on all
my four walls.

I'm still
the only one

who sees red.
His wife doesn't seem to care.

She can always deny
everything

and stick her head
in another book.

Before that August--

(strange month                                        echo)--

bloomed in the east
sunrise bomb                                           sunset dawn

you sometimes
                                                                   rose
(unbidden)

to the surface
of my mind.

These were some of my triggers:

Calgary                                                     (always Calgary)
me too
Christmastime.

And all the times                                     you attempted
to reach out to me

(sucker punch                                          sleep ****).

And then that August--

(good mornin'                                         bombshell)

the news--
for shame.

For I had fallen for the lie
(while you talked all the while
                                                                 in your human voice).

So you like 'em young.
So you like it rough.

August sun                                            beat me down.

It took this glaring
of a light

to show me
the darkest                                             of men's natures--

and that I knew them
intimately.

Feast or famine.
The dry summer or monsoon season.

It’s not as though he had
murdered me.

That would be easier to
prove. There would be

no hiding
the blood of it.

And how I did bleed—
years later,

red all over it.
Improper.

Fuel for the fire.
Combustible.

But nothing trembles
as I weigh the being

of my existence against
what stoppage.

Order or chaos.
Black or white.

What has been spoilt
rotten can never be

golden. These are
the questions I ask myself:

Am I loved? Do I
love? Can I love?

While there is the story
he tells himself, reassuringly:

It was just ***.
It was just ***.

I live with
holy sunshine—

but I wake to weep.
In the sun,

shadows stretch
long behind me,

where some things ought to
remain buried.

I did not go digging you up.
Bees do not normally

nest in skulls—
but I know

they hum in your head,
dripping honey of me.

Gentle wolf,
you came in the guise

of a friend.
They tell me that they would have

rescued me
as you made your advances—

except
they were never there,

in your lair.
And by that time

I had already
been eaten.

All that exists
between us now

is a history;
the guilt that still

weighs on you,
and poetry.

And if your guilt ever becomes
too much for you to bear,

and if you ever feel like
confessing,

my poems can be
your Hail Mary’s.

Tin man, on the eve of tin,
your apology rings hollow.

I think that you
were only trying to

crack a window,
find a space to crawl back in,

attempt to
erase me some more.

Meanwhile, the police
are off investigating

crimes that happen in
real time. They like

to catch their perps
red-handed. Even with you

cast in the limelight,
confirming that what you did

to me was real,
it was my own nightmare.

I know, we fall into
that grey area.

In a garden of blooms
you walk freely,

inhaling and dreaming
of touching

those yet untouched
pink and yellow buds.

birds of a feather
no one has put

two and two
together

daisies gone
Occam’s razor

and he
our common denominator

no monsters under his bed
but in it

scars ripped open
I thought had healed

hurt to heal
heal to hurt

words I had never spoken
out loud before

hot lava
righteous anger

memory loss &
found negatives

was that a kindness?
to ply me with alcohol so that I wouldn't remember?

two weeks
no sleep no eat

hurt to heal
heal to hurt

a new hurt
to contend with

suddenly ghosted
back in the dark

like all dark
eating away at light

till only the stars remain
maybe signalling

to one another
I see you, I see

you, I
see