I am standing in the dim hospital hallway.

My soul has left her body and she is travelling
through a syringe tip,

squeezing life

from lung.

She pauses beside a broken skeleton
and admires his sunken eyes and feathery hair.
Edges along his arm cut the apparition to her bone
as away he rolls, like a cadaver
she loved before the dissection that destroyed it.

Then, sudden warmth in blue
behind her, smiling,

burning

in a language futuristic.

She recoils and responds, lizardlike,
cold, unfeeling,

full.

The ghosts snaps back inside me,
agitates my insides,
and I leave my dinner on the linoleum.

years believing the world was wide enough,
lost to April fog.

I'm reaching back to tell you what I know:
mountains hold more majesty in clouds
shrouded in a dying winter rain
and their smallness holds warmth
within the wet.

you'll never feel as strong as stone
supporting feet beneath a forest floor:
but two vines climbing
entwined as lovers' fingers
touch sky with pride enough to bloom.

you want so much to be enormous
and take up space like we deserve:
but we fade like flowers in the wide expanse,
Scattered and lonely, small and frail,
who breathe joy into the cliffsides by the sea.

you need to catch the world on fire
in the hopes of a vengeful burn,
but when wildfires frenzy the fields
from them grow the gentlest blossoms
outlasting what had once consumed them.

I know you have wanted to feel alive,
but I have never felt as real as when I see the stars above me,
And feel the daggers of cold within me
shaking in my bones,
and feel the pull of a lover's hand to ensure I do not fall,
And watch with peace, inseparable,
The purple cliffside by the sea.

You and I are movable as April fog,
Blown about, weeping,
and yet the sun has not cleared us for good.
Always we return, cold and damp,
soft and exhilarating,

take a moment to breathe,
the world is wider than you thought,

you are not allowed to leave this earth
because I cannot draw well enough
to capture your likeness.
graphite doesn't show the contours of your lips,
the way they pull back, like flowers unfurling,
with lush smiles of satisfaction,
or radiant laughter.
any brushstroke is too dense and heavy,
for the gentleness of your eyes
stills my hand, and as inspired as I become,
dexterity is lost at the look of your gaze,
glistening in wonder, or locked in mine,
while I wonder the language in which you see.
your voice proceeds all music,
and no siren song could pull me in
as sweetly as your absent ramblings,
no piano could break my heart as the sound of your agony,
no strings could soothe me to sleep
as the lullaby of the rise and fall of your chest.
all poetry is short of explanation,
and couldn't define the depths of your soul,
no matter how hard it seeks to try.
this poet tries.
clearly,
all fall short.

you are not allowed to leave this earth,
because nothing I can create is as you are,
entirely human,
ingenious, exhausted,
melancholy and joy,
the only muse who is
as broken as I am,
and who is loved,
so very much
the same.

When you held me in the forest
we stared at the stars until our bodies were numb.
If I were stronger, I could build iconoclast dreams,
but when I close my eyes I see the moonlight in your own,
and I know that one of us was blessed.
How many statues could I ***** before I realized
gold would never feel as your soft skin on mine again?
Don't leave me your robes when you go,
because what will happen on the day the incense fades
and they will never smell of you again?
Would my last breath of you be known to my memory?
Sleepless nights retain you,
would I be who I was when I knew you in the morning?

My love is grief in the future tense:
the fear I will not live long enough to keep you living, too.

I cannot breathe myself to sleep,
for you are on my mind -
and should your image disappear
in the presence of a calm spirit,
then I would set loose my heart
to the roaring sea.

it was grasping at the air when your throat closes love.
drive down and back in a snowstorm panic,
only to ***** at the sight of blood and stool,
so just say yes kind of closeness.
i always struggled with the difference between
need and want.
maybe I just wanted to be needed.
skeletons didn't hide in closets in our house.
they were out in the open for me to bathe and feed
and for the skeletons to grab my *** and call me cute,
and ***** me when they wanted,
and it was fine and we were
Happy.
what is the difference between a hospital bed and a couch?
there is no punchline.
i'm bad at jokes.
what's the difference between a joke and playing house?
i'm bad at jokes.
so when something hit the floor a little too hard
i simply walked away until it was picked up again
when i returned.
so when you sat in a house filled with smoke
i would try to pull you to safety until
the weight of you made my arms numb.
so when you told me you didn't know how to cry
i would kiss you just a little too hard to see if you'd bleed
and you learned that was how to kiss me back.
i'd pretend it didn't hurt, then come back with
Do you want a time out?
Don't talk back to your mother now
(unless its in bed, and you really want to try it,
and its always been a dream of yours, and you won't feel whole again until I remind you that you are, and you haven't been able to feel like this in years, and pretty please?)
(i'd say never, until i said,
fine
just once.
i didn't hate it
i guess).
giving became the only way to strengthen your sinews
my body was somewhere between the size of housewife and pornstar,
adjusting as needed to fill in any crack in the wall
left by an aimless controller or fist,
the fatty tissue to replace anything your aching body lost
and was trying to find in the empty space you left
between rage and apathy.
i was choking on hospital food
and grabbed for something so i could breathe.
what's the difference between loving and dying?
i'm bad at jokes.

he lives in rainy season,
soft between the mists,
sunlight smile evaporating
the cold morning dew,
cliffside heart longing
for a ledge.

he is the room rental
with chipping wallpaper,
holding it together for a bed
and a bottle of cheap whisky:
it is warm and quilted,
a comfort until dawn.

he is the clouds veiling the moon,
expanding its luminescence,
the rush of adrenaline
after diving into a March sea,
the palpitations and peace
of sitting with not knowing.

he is the beauty of molding homes,
old pines, winter waves,
damp scent of death and moss
filling your nostrils as you freeze
with no fear in your heart
in the arms of a lover.

I am a vessel for the songs my father played
late in the night as I drifted through dreams.
The melodies, hanging in the air like twinkling stars,
faint and cool just before the morning,
enter my ears and set off fireworks among my cells.
As the snowflakes land softly on my eyelashes
on the darkest nights when noise is ****** away,
the weight of my steps falls in time to my breathing
long ago, curled away within my blanket,
surrounded by the mystery of the deep winter.

I am a protector for the songs my mother sang
in the dim light of spring evenings when the wind blew warm.
And I, in little yellow sundress with dirt between my toes,
grew, a stubborn **** before the windows
that spoke her poetry in tendrilled flowers of sound.
On days when orange light oozes through the leaves
And fire fills my chest in rage and glory,
Rustling breezes take me towards piano’s edge
Where the smell of molding notes and yellowed melody
Stands stagnant in the glowing haze of summer.

You say we have the same eyes,
and I could spend eternity trying to wax poetic,
emphasizing ambers, honeys, and suns,
that can only mimic their radiance from our forms.
But they fall short of where my agony lives,
and I say agony because
lyricists say this is roller coasters,
ferris wheels, sunny days, and stormy nights,
where joy is the absence of suffering.
But somewhere in history,
four small hands grasped dirt and dust
only to find life inside,
abandoning philosophy for something more precious.
To think our fingertips have touched the same earth
is what the pious must feel before death.
How can you say we have the same eyes
when mine are wildfire tragedy,
and yours are January’s starlight?
When we were once rooted there was something shared,
only for it to be ripped from my body
to feel like a winter without snow.
I am undeserving, and yet
it will only be moments until I remove your ribs,
stealing ichor from the gods,
because it is my own vindication,
or perhaps,
the only thing I know.

And still, you only graze me like porcelain.

I stabbed myself with scissors
then I found it hard to stand.
I only hope ripped sinews aren't familiar
in your Hand.

A gentle child of sunlight
losing footprints in the sand,
somewhere on a map, you form a compass
of your Hand.

Hear a universe expanding
without heaven's killing brand.
Fusion of the stars comes bold and tragic
from your Hand.

Metal falls on concrete walls.
You hope that they withstand.
Soft and aching, something burned by fire,
like your Hand.

Sunset skies and flaming eyes
attempt their reprimand.
Desperate for life, you grasp to end it
by your Hand.

Falling down with airplane trails,
surviving where you land.
Digging in the snow, perhaps the frost will
save your Hand.

Thinking of it's suffering
and hate it should demand.
You feel it when you see it, still you cannot
lose your Hand.

When I feel your fingers it's like
lightning's reaching strands.
Are memories like thunder when I reach to
touch your Hand?

I wouldn't know the answer
and my love has come unplanned.
So hold my skin like something lost and found
upon your Hand.

And finally, you find me,
say you hope I'll understand
that when your world collapses, it's just nice to
have a Hand.