Seven days
Seven days repeat them
Repeat them over
One by one
Seven by seven.
Here we go
Seven colours the sky smiles
Seven times seventy
And seventeen years
Seven levels of hell
And seven sins to send you there
Seven princesses
Sailing seven seas
And seven sea monsters to sink them
Seven lies and seven truths
Seven wonders
On seven continents
That I will never see
Seven dreams
On seven nights
Seven kisses
Seven kisses
Seventeen years
Seven years for complete cell replacement
And it’s been seven
Seven years of plenty
And seven of famine
(which are we in?)
Seven seconds to count down
Seven candles to light
On seven lampstands
7-Up and 7/11
Seven days
Seven days repeat them
Repeat them over and over and over
Seven years repeat them over
Seventeen repeat it over
Repeat it over
Repeat it over and over
Seven cells replaced in seven
Seven tears cried in seven
Seven out of seven
And seventeen years
Seven dwarfs and seven demons
Seven secrets
Concealed by seven lies
Seven torches we bear
Seven oaths and seven gemstones
Seven spells for seven curses
On seventeen days
And the Seven Years War
In seven days I built myself
And in seven seconds I’m destroyed
Seven feathers fall to earth
Seven stars all align
And seven Gods stole my soul
Seven slaves owned by seven masters
Seven burdens
Seven burdens
Seven prayers leave my lips
Seventy Hail Mary’s to save you
And seven angels
Seven sweet friends
That left me
Here’s what they don’t tell you
Seven lives mean seven deaths
And seven joys mean seven pains
Seven sisters mean seven funerals
And seven suns mean seven rains
And seven
And seven
I’ve been stuck on seventeen
For an eternity
Repeat it
Repeat it over
Repeat it over
Seven
And seven
And seven
Teen.
Seven days
And I’ll be home to a house I’ve never seen
In a country I don’t belong to
And a language I can’t speak
And it’s all just seven
And seven
And seven
Teen.

Tonight while you drive, I touch your arm, shoulder, thigh; I touch the parts of you that I can reach. The parts of you that I know exist simply because I can fe­el bones under skin.
 
In front of us the highway stretches on and on, to the point that I do not know if it ever plans on ending or simply dissolving into the dark like the red tail lights ahead of us continue to do.
 
I worry that I am everything the tail lights are not: stale and unmoving, pleasing to stay in one place. I worry that I am everything the tail lights are: speeding on past the point of now, all too eager to find something, somewhere.

Your hand tucked between my thighs tells me differently and anchors me to this place, with you. I try to circle your wide, flat wrist with my small fingers, knowing that they will never reach, knowing that they will never meet each other. I touch you because I am afraid that you are not real.

I am dancing with the darkness,
I am flirting near the fringe,
I am swimming through the outskirts,
I am wading on the rim.

The reflection of my perspective is no longer recognized
By the less traveled sparkled stares, which happily float on by.

The peripherals of my mind are growing
Further and further in,
Wandering with broken gaze
My scope is turning dim.

With the darkness the ground is shifting
As I’m drifting through my mind.
The seasons change the more I’m seasoned
By reflections that graze my eyes;
Of broken scales, false fairy tales and smiles used for disguise.

While it's true it's - as the say - darkest before it’s light,
It still holds true
The opposite ensues
As bright-eyed sunsets sink into the night.

An occasional step, while slippery yet
Can bring to consideration:
That my darkened truth may yet be false...
... But I keep my hesitation
Because truer till is the fiction still that lingers in the sun;
Of droned routines, petty cravings, and gains ill-willfully-won.

These basking sun-tanners wouldn’t dare to enter
Where this jagged path tears my feet,
Making broken bones on shadowed stones
And a hopeful soul deceived.

The hope encased
Is slowly replaced
With new levels, planes;
Profundity of pain
And ever eroding faith.

My setting sun
Is nearly gone
While darkness takes its place.

The nights seem so much longer drifting
Into deeper dimensions, I muster.
Exploring further, I forge freshly charted paths
Discovering new tangential ways to suffer.

And all these feelings must be true, if truth lay in the mind
These dim lit paths are real to me, however seemingly blind

So still I wander through the night,
Rootless, lost, in pain,
Desperate for the smallest glimmer
That I might happen to obtain;
While shifting free
Through the scattered trees
Landing on the ground,
I sometimes stay
To catch these rays
Basking warmly on the stone....

.... But all this remains ephemeral,
As the sunray travels on.

So alone, again I tumble,
Lost and aimless,
Through the depths,
With broken heart,
Broken bones,
And a seemingly broken lens.

But perhaps... it’s YOU who play,
Lost and aimless,
in the luminous light of day.
For when all’s said and done,
After the shifting sun,
Retracts its comforting rays...

...Beyond that light...
...It is the night...

That ever will remain...

I.
I held a match
To my hands today.
Matrimony made
Between man and flame;
Incensed skin and molten ash
Show hot displays of
Love ablaze.

II.
Oh bright, blushing,
burning bride;
I walk wounded
For all my days.
Chard hands bare
Witness to
Love of flames.

III.
Oh spreading fire
And torrid pain and
Oceans of passions
In engulfing flames.
A charcoal soul and
Black burnt skin shows
Love's touch, again.

IV.
A monument
To fiery lips
For each hot kiss
Scars my visage with
Inflammatory bliss

In pain your name,
Melted to my lips
Can love, be not, but this?