As if I only have that much time to type
a lifetime's worth of beauty.
Or it may have only been
that seven minutes of memory.

Seven minutes to scream out
the glory of a first kiss, and
the shuddering surrender of an ******,
sweat and fire and ecstasy.

They told me, when I was young,
that I had to find my love
and let it **** me.

Seven minutes of music
the world rolled back and Samsara
a mere smile in the lamplight,
just another of the gods' company.

I've found many loves,
and their knives tearing holes
and their beauty a weapon
and their innocence a torch
and their hatred a drug
and their pain abhorrent
and their abandonment a sin
and their touch heretical
and their eyes of jewels
and their words made of bullets
and their hope a sad Gypsy
theirs tears a lonely guitar
striking chords in me and
God forgive how good they feel.

I am undone, overthrown, emaciated,
torn out, weary, overcome, eviscerated,
redeemed, hallowed, sanctified,
all of this and more.

I love you.

I have yet to die.

Shutter filtered moonlight bright and clear as a flashing sword
    my surest guide over the landscape of your body.

I cannot say whether it is my hand that pivots brush and ink,
    or they that carry me along across your back.

This then is what the sages meant by formlessness:
    I am the Brush and Ink and Moonlight.

Your voice on the wind
A sigh in the night

Trailing fingers across my neck
The kiss of flowers

Folding into each other
The embrace of rainfall

I turn to your presence
The sound of water

I think that enough time has passed
  enough rain fallen
  enough memories swallowed
  enough pottery shattered and remade.

I think it is time to write again.

Eyes that speak without words
mute gestures out of the darklands
a pleading and a despair and a hunger
for who the **** knows what.

Walk across the red room of your soul
reach across the red memory of your loves
say yes
say no

I won't live the next ten years
as I lived the last
Pulled apart by the future
and the past.

It's taken me ten years
to wake and touch
ten years to fling all shame aside
and burn my many masks.

How does one learn to hope again?
How does one learn to trust again?
How does one be...simply be....again?

Lesson learned, lesson loved
when you do things to forget
you only forget the good
and the bad sticks around.

We live the life that has been given
all we can expect of ourselves
all we owe to our hearts
is fire.

The mighty men speak of power
and the low men speak of power
power to break and power to bind
as Mr. White explained it
a very long time ago,

Live
Live as if you were dead
and were looking back
As if you had nothing to lose
As if you had everything to lose.

I really hate the nothingness that we became. With confidence I can say that it was your doing and not mine, but that doesn't make it any less abhorrent. Your absence tastes like ash all the same. I'd like to think that your thoughts turn to me as often as mine turn to you, but more than likely you give hardly a brush of me. That's alright though, I'd be terrified if someone like me started digging around in my heart and asking questions, challenging every self deprecating statement I made too. The odd thing is, I know exactly how that feels. I lived it, ten years ago, and I ran the hell away, not knowing how to accept it.