there was a moment in time
when death sat beside me on a park bench
and he had rested his hand on the gap between us

i,

too,

rested my hand there
and brushed my fingers against his

and for a chaste moment
i savoured the warmth of his skin
and intertwined my hand with his

but he stood up

and left

and maybe he knew,

it was for the better.

two pulls. that’s all i had;
just two pulls of someone
else’s joint, and four
overpriced beers,
and i’m more ****** up
than i can ever
remember being.
flat bloodless faces
stuck to the walls
won’t stop looking at me
and i think a girl
is looking at me too
for the first time
in a long time. and there’s
a woman talking about
her feelings, and her voice
comes in threes and
sinks sinks sinks
and it’s all so important,
so important that
the vignette strangles me
more than it ever has.

somebody’s talking about
how she should stop going
to bristol. and there’s a guy
talking about getting fined
and my skin is tingling
where it usually dries and flakes
and it feels like the ******* i took
two years ago is seeping
out my pores and balling up
and i’m getting real quiet.
and there’s a trans person
talking about bleeding
on the bathroom floor,
i think, and they’ve lost me
in the words. i’m too dumb
to understand the not-basic
language they’re using, and
probably too dumb to know if i’m a
man in a man’s body or
a woman in a man’s body
that is just attracted to women.
******* weird, man.

Promises made behind the veil
the self-committed to the unsaid
are realized in graphic bliss
tempered by impermanence

those lurid dreams of the obscene
exist beyond morality
harbored in the inky depths
where restraints tempt the fates

chains cast aside in pursuit
of revelation deep within
no longer held by the norms
a celebration pressing flesh

the dull sanity of the dawn
asks too much in exchange
when a longing for escape
begs for sleep instead of wake.

© 2019. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20190924.

Did the self-encasing ice
Ever melt enough
To reach beyond,
So you
Stretch your tired fingers
In the cool spring air,
And flicker your eyes open
To the mid-morning mist,

Breathed in just shallow enough
To soothe that rain-like pit-pattering heart
And coo the aches of chilly soul,
Hushing the wisps of winter wither
Beyond the mind and somewhere thither.

I cried my eyes out on our double bed as you yelled, cursed and threatened.
I gave in.
You know me better than I do. It was a mistake, you’re right, you’re right, I wanted it. I’m sorry, I’ll do better, please forgive me for my victimhood.
I will never forget the taste of narcotics and the touch of his hand on my thigh, or the smell of alcohol and so much worse.
Hold on. I can barely remember this. You’re a liar, you scream, I know you wanted him too.
I froze.
Well, you were there. You should know. I’m a cheat, you’re right, you’re right, I had a small crush on him. I’m sorry, just please stay, you don’t have to believe me.
I will never forget your dead eyes as they bore into me, all passion gone, as was all trace of the love you had for me.
You hated me for something I didn’t do, you’ll never forgive me. Eventually you leave me, you tell all your friends.
They all think I lied, a wolf in sheep’s clothing who cried his own name
Howling at the moon that I didn’t do it, I didn’t want it
As our black sheep, that’s you, whispers of the wolf that I was.
There is no happy end.

I wish to bury
     my toes like roots
     in the soil,

Breath in the crisp
     summer soaked air,
Ringing out a day's worth
     of yawning afternoon sun,

And fall back into
     the sleepless nights
That drifted into days
     that didn't matter.

I waited all day
to hang out
on the waning
crescent moon
but a storm came
in from the north
so we sat  on
the front porch
it’s just a phase
we all go through
my dog said
and oh how we
howled at the rain.