Time is but a soft breeze
too weak to rustle my chiffon skirts.

Here, where the air is denser and darker,
I sit dully in a cloud above my room
to watch the details below me like I am not a part of that world
but detached, as if my sadness has manifested around me
and become a tangible, misty box.

Eventually, my cloud will mix with sky.

Its ivory vapors will be lost to the blue expanse,
letting me fall back to the Earth,
and then I will have escaped the reverie which has bound me.

But by then, my skin will have grown coarse and rough;
my hair will have turned as white as clouds.
And you will be gone, probably
because time moved too slowly for me
and too fast for you.

when I think of dying,
I think of you--tombstones
crushed beneath your feet
because you are my Dark Angel
and that's why I picked you.

because you aim so well
with those daggers hidden behind
the pasty irises of your eyes,
thrown adeptly
at every person that bites
too ******* your neck
like me, like me;
your favorite, your cane.

Tonight, the waves seem gentler
and the moon's white light curves softly to me
The trees cease their restless shaking
and urge my thoughts to sit peacefully
inside my head, so they do, they do
And my feathery heart meditates
to the ocean waves and its breeze

I have become the wind again
It plants braids into my tree bark hair
My skin, like flower petals
ripen and bloom and fall
from my arm branches in rivulets
to join the cool night and quiet air
While my toes **** life
from cold, dark earth

"Let me live," I chant,
"Let me live and feel life."
The waves, they listen
and lap at my feet
and rock me, rock me
to and fro

"Let me live and feel life,
Let me live and feel life."

The brilliant sun pierces
straight to my heart
every morning;
it used to embrace me
like an old friend.
But these days, sleep,
that paradise of faraway unconsciousness,
that heaven in which
his face means nothing to me,
caresses me, soothes me--
and with tender arms, I
welcome it gladly.

My eyes bore holes into
distant objects
more frequently than usual.
The hand that grazes my arm
to wake me
feels like ice

(because it is not his.)

Another piece of me recedes.
I can feel my bones, meat, skin
thinning
unraveling

like thread.


Everything feels like ice.
The grave must feel like fire.

everyday, I wake  
to the kind of dullness that doesn't go away
but ebbs and flows, and carries me
like a small, nearly-sunken boat
through these rooms with their tight walls.
all the while, I see nothingness,
and over the years
it has swallowed my body,
and here I am,
gazing out from within it at my surroundings,
unhappy and afraid,
but because I have sailed
for so long now,
I don't feel anymore

I am tired
of watching my legs move
and my fingers twitch
as if someone above me is holding me
by many strings
like a puppet, controlling me
so that I don't have to think;
I don't think

I sail blindly, I am held by strings.

Deep within a damp alleyway, the worker gathers his coat
and walks swiftly into the crisp air of a late fall night.
Above him, the stars twinkle restlessly from light-years away,
illuminating the path before him as he hurries home.
Around him, in heated homes and comfortable beds,
the city people are lazy and tired,
shifting into monotonous nightly routines
of teeth-brushing and pajama-wearing.
Beneath him, the ground stirs and then settles
as his feet briskly tap along the surface of the dirtied cement.

The worker does not focus on what is in front of him -
the empty roads that amplify his sense of foreboding,
the street lights that make ordinary objects seem to stew in shadowy evil,
the lonesome cars littered along street curbs, looking abandoned
without a person in the driver's seat -
instead, he catches a cloud and drifts home,
to where his children sleep in bundles of soft cotton,
illuminated by the hazy light of a distant hallway.

From there, he glides silently into the living room,
where his wife is wrapped tightly in fleece blankets,
awaiting his arrival.
Her body soaks in the warmth of a nearby fireplace;
her eyes gaze into the flames thoughtfully.
Her sweet, kind face is contoured by shadow,
but glows from the gentle light of the fire.

Carefully, the worker floats into the seat
beside his wife on the ottoman,
but she shows no sign of any awareness of his presence,
continuing to watch the flames flicker.
At long length, she relaxes
and reclines along an arm of the sofa,
legs stretched out before her.
Her eyes close and her breathing slows,
and the worker believes that his wife has entered sleep.
With a feeling of satisfied content, he hovers above her
and watches her chest continuously rise and fall ever so slightly.
Her body, once young, giggling and bold,
has now blossomed into one of mature, refined beauty.

The worker catches a small glimpse of unshielded skin
exposed by the low cut of her womanly dress
and remembers the first time she let him hold and touch her,
her cheeks burning pink with excitement and lust.
He remembers the gentle curves of her body,
the silkiness of her pure skin,
and the small gasps she made into his ear as he caressed her.
He remembers the late nights spent at her bedroom window,
away from home, from his unknowing parents,
from where he should have been.
He remembers the tears that peaked
along the edges of her eyes,
intermingled with the joy and happiness of marriage
and a sense of forever,
as she spoke those fateful two words.

And here she is now, his wife,
dutifully awaiting his return home
while his body lies stripped and motionless,
face down on the dirtied cement.