I’m a cauldron of ardor and incertitude
A flourishing garden before me
Flowers admired, but not for the touching
I clutch at every word
Incoherent incantations fell accordingly
And bled down my window like tar
As time decelerated, and coalesced in my elixir
If all people held auras like yours
I’d have my cure
But due to lack of the latter,
You are the last essential ingredient
And the only one that matters

Relinquished like the evaporated ground
of where a lake was once found.
All my misfortunes cease eruption;
The volcano: a piano you play
You lullaby me by day
You likely ask Father Time,
Your old friend,
Where I’ve been.
I’m sorry I’m late
Forces forcing my hands in dances
I never asked for,
You dissipate the scary faces
And the monsters under beds.
Yet I know,
Awaiting as patient as a broken loom
You perch with the birds,
But I’ll be there soon,
I’ll be there soon

Talk to me like rosemary and oil,
Like the sour with the sweet,
The heat of the noodle stew,
The first sip of a red wine,
The juicy steak with thyme
And shiitake
Look at me with eyes as gravy
And talk to me like honey
That drips like melting ice,
Like fennel and onions,
And biscuits with peaches
Talk to me like umami risotto,
With leeks
Like viola lemonade
And cinnamon cherry pie
With lime
Sip me like your creamy earl grey
And talk to me like toast and egg,
Like bergamot marmalade
Talk to me this way

If I drink from the empty jar, do I swallow
Will it be my pride, or the things I hide inside and cried over,
And if temptation offers it’s hand do I spit in it,
Do a bat my eyelashes,
Do I grin at it
Do I sin, and take hold of a dream up in ashes

If an empty jar calls me like a seashell song, do I press my lips to its rim
And drink from within
The drink that is desert air,
Dry as my skin
As empty as my hands
And do I grin
When it fills up again

Let’s save the epitaph for the grave
And sip on our tea while it’s still hot
The spiral stair case looks daunting from the bottom step,
But I’ll tie your shoes,
And I’ll wipe your cheek when it’s wet
And when we hang our flag parallel to the timber,
I’ll gather the arrows of your quiver
And each one sent to the sky
With a well wish
Like a wishing well dime
As the weight on your shoulder decreases
I’ll flatten the creases of your coat
And remind you that the climb is behind us

The right of me stays,
And the left jumps.
The left holds on to a fleeing thought;
A candy apple haze;
While the right stays.
I mount the rusty carousel and I want to go straight.
When circles repeat a darker grim;
A haunting I put myself in;
My fate.

My limbs stretch thin.
My ticket to ride; the unforgiven sin.
But the clown grins upon my feverish state;
My fate,
That I put myself in.

Clenched fork
I see the horror scene but before it was just my bedroom door
Just a block of wood and handle
Just a frame of come and go
And now it slows and slumps
In an echo
A world I didn’t know before I knew
- Then you spoke, -then I knew
And the door became skewed
Like the thoughts that used to comfort, that I felt and I coddled and I clenched
Like my fork
But now I clench with a sore throat
And a dimming hue
A feeling I never knew until I knew