My head has been up in the grey-clouded sky
mining for silver linings
collecting bits as thin as paper and sending them
to my heart like little love letters
folding them up into pretty origami figures
boats, birds, and butterflies
hoping he can continue conveying that he loves her
even though he never comes down

My heart gilded herself with his glittering gifts
optimism peeled from the bones of black storms
and soon, empty, she found herself alone
Always
No sliver of truth or falsehood, however bright, would grow
so much as a touch, or even a closeness might
and in her furnace, lit and stoked, bellows blowing, spewing smoke
she melted down the cover of her shell

From fire it grew, was poured, still hot, and as it cooled
from pool to block it realized it was two
A set of twins, mirror image blades of purest silver lining
pressed together, face to face, a simple pair of scissors
taken in her hands as she rose to meet him there
in the tempest sky, evil winds on hollow heart and head
she cut his hair and with it, all, and everything fell away
quietly fading like music slipping softly into the soul

"Write what you know."

I want to write about
beautiful things,
but I only know
ugly.
Ugly hearts and stone blood.

Fetid loyalty.

I want to write about a love as pure as honey,
but all I know are the poison-tipped thorns of betrayal.

If I could put the right words
in the right order
at the right time
and explain what it means to lose you,
nobody would care.

I'd like to write about
my happy family,
laugh filled birthdays
and joyous gatherings,
but I only know
fractious,
secretive,
*******.

I want to touch another soul
make a connection with my words
share a part of my self
and help someone in the process,
but all I have been taught is
taking
keeping
lying
hiding
running
ruining.

I would love to write
like Pablo,
of wheat
and bread
and fields that don't weep,

but all I know are
desperate fumblings
in ******,
beer soaked bathrooms,
back alley
drunken
*******
by black
barely passable trannys,
diseases and
barely consensual bloodstains.

I cannot speak of such things.
It's bad enough I think about them,
even worse I write about them.

I write what I know.

'This is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you/and from above you how I sank into your soul,' Jeff Mangum croons through the crackling speakers*

...similarly simple,
like the coyness of corner smiles,
I  am exposed
finally
  to your bedroom,
and the snug universe you've built within.

Cross-legged on your bed
I hear your nervous, careful stories.
Spoken into fidgeting fingers, silken wrinkled
bedsheets debauched and  re-washed--
your words fall into them so easily
like you've found  benevolence in their silence--
their softness as language.

Imbibing every ounce of you,
I wish to endure
like the canvases that span your wall.
But I dissolve back into winter
as you regain your right mind.
The ascending stairs creak
hungover and meek
like me

We lie there
on that awkward ugly couch,
laughing so hard that I would roll off
if you didn't have your arm
wrapped around my waist;

not close enough

We press closer
and I trace the invisible hearts and swirls
that tattoo your arms,
while you search for my heart
between my shirt and skin;

not close enough

We press closer
breathing in tandem,
soft rise and fall
of our two chests,
now one;

not close enough

We press closer
and your breath dances in my hair,
while pieces of your story sneak into my ear
until I am every bit as full
of you as I am me;

not close enough