Eyes shine bright like streetlights against
The brisk air of October;
She is the caryatid of the night.
But the veins of the city have long been abandoned,
No more circulation to revive the stillborn pigments of her skin.
And so she cries a brittle tear immediately
Frosted by the breath of the night,
Staining her granite skin,
Can’t seem to lift her beaten anchor
And sink it into the cornucopia of being,
Lavished with daisies prepared to drain her salted rain.

Eyes on fire, skipping through swarming streets
(I’m not scared).
The cacophony makes me breathe
Out the dust from my lungs.
What are these morphing molecules of madness
Annihilating my arteries with their acid?
You surrounded me with red-hot gasoline,
Lit candles on fire to make a star of me
Before making love.
Said the demons will pass on
To you,
To children,
If you entered me.
I set the rest of me on fire
(Did you a favor).
Placed my ashes between the balmy bricks of your home.
Turned my ashes into ashes.

And I have long since
Forgotten
The way your voice bakes
My heart
And burns the edges
Just enough
To turn me bitter again
When you have left

And I can only read one poem
Per day, per month, per year, at a time,
Or else its eternity of letters will replace the oxygen I breathe
And cause me to release phrases of love and trust,
Of infidelity and mysteries, of insecurities,
And scars along my throat that never seemed to be

Deep enough.
But mostly I can only read
One poem per day, per month, per year,
At a time, because those were the words you wrote
To me while drinking your cold
Dark coffee that Tuesday morning when I hadn’t come
Back from the bathroom yet. I said I’d just be
A minute but with a minute I meant
An eternity, an eternity of blood along my left wrist,
Dripping from my pale white night-gown. I said I’d just be
A minute and you said okay and continued
Writing about the torture you’d feel having to wake up
And come home to silence,
While sipping from your cold dark coffee.