I still find strands of your hair on my clothes

How many?
How many dreams have died?
How many hopes have withered?
How many loves have faded?

How many futures have been shortened?
How many voices have been silenced?
How many friends have been lost?

How many shall have left us wanting?
How many shall have left us needing?
How many shall have left us empty?

Too many.

I’m so ****** tired of feeling compelled to suffer a penalty for you falling in love with me.

You knew I was a Jackal when you first tasted me.

I don’t owe you an apology for having survived nightmares, for loving you the best I could with what I had while horrible things were happening that I couldn’t tell you about.

I’m not an imposter, or a liar or less of a man than I presented as.

I fell in love with you and I didn’t want to.

We tried to staunch the blood still flowing from each other’s wounds…without knowing that we liked the taste.

I'm tired, so tired
They look into my eyes and some
turn away
some hold their gaze.

What do they see I wonder,
what would they say
if walls between crumbled?

I'm weary of the game,
weary of throwing up my soul
in dark alleys so that the yellow men
won't know that I'm considering their offer.

Cicero was right though, **** him
all is indeed vanity and it is my lot
my cursed blessing to be able to see
through the tides of ******* nearly
hitting the high water mark.

It's an old game we play,
I the Jackal, and they the fat takers
those peddlers of ease, the green frog skin men
the flimsy platters of slot machine tokens,
the pale promise of pleasures unending
if only I sign on the dotted line,
in triplicate and also a thumbprint
and also we'll need your social plus two pieces of mail.

Whenever I get a bit too far gone they're around,
pushing their world with far better skill than
the very many dealers I've bought release from,
and yet the ultimate deal remains the same:
give us your identity, your fire, and in return
you need not suffer any longer.

It's a decent offer I guess, but they push a bit
just a bit too hard to play it off,
they always show their hand too soon and I know
that for some reason they want me more than
I want the release they have on display.

Sorry boys, I'm not the guy you're looking for.
I do have my moments, I'm a deeply broken
scarred and horribly imperfect person
not above taking bribes or stealing to survive,
lustful, greedy and wroth.

For all that you misjudge me,
thinking perhaps hatred of those who've
cut me so deeply could be useful,
failing that, hatred of myself would
perhaps be more beneficial to your plan.

Go ahead then, cut me away, turn my love to ash,
pull my once bright courage down into
the slime that brought down my grandfathers.
Do what you will and I will indeed despair,
indeed I despair even now, loveless and alone
exiled or freed I know not which.

In the end it doesn't matter,
for you are just as berift as I my enemy,
and we'll meet face to face one day
upon the shore of a distant sea
or perhaps in the darkest heart of
the great river which helped birth us.

Do your worst,
but understand
that which you do unto me
you do unto yourself
poor beloved shadow of mine.

/\

Missa

"Here's to pretty girls with filthy thighs!"
So the time-honored toast goes; another festering monument
to the God of Ignorance upon his writhing throne.

I smile and drink and try to lie
attempt to pretend that I can simply laugh instead of cry,
but behind that smile there's no misunderstanding
of the results that mind-set implies.

And then there are eyes shouting blue nuances from a corner,
deep wells of liquid Band-Aid summoning me
to worship yet again at the altar of Hedone.

The usual small talk, no realization as yet
of who it really is speaking about flowers
and reaching casually for my ******, stricken hand.

She has no name, but she has a face
like carven ivory, she has no past but a tiny diary
which peaks out of her leather purse like a toddler.

She is in my closet of a room now, no pretenses
and all passion, arms around me as if there really
is no tomorrow, and I am all she has left to love.

Out of nowhere, holding my face in both hands and leaning close,
staring me down she whispers "Follow the music."

Symbolum

I found him in a bar I'd never been to,
and I wasn't looking for him, or anybody else that night.

Something about the way he grimaced
when his friend shouted a bunch of crap,
endeared me to him then and there I think.

I've met and slept with so many that I
can tell about things, I can read people too easily,
and he was haunted, like me.

I don't think he knew for sure exactly what I was,
but I have no doubt he guessed,
as he easily stated no other women were
as bold as I am.

Farewell my Love
you have gone to a place where my soul can't follow;
perhaps there peace may wrap you in her arms
and fill you with a warmth
that I never could.

These reflections of a future that will never be
a mirror into the great perhaps,
such as what you always wanted to find in the end.

I would have followed if you had let me,
would have poured myself into all the fissures in your
beautiful beating heart;
would have burned my own as an offering to you.

I see that I have not the power to take a heart
and by the power of my love
make it whole.

I thank you all the same for allowing me to see
that all we have are memories and choices.
It is the choices that give shape to our souls,
that make meaning of memories.

Such courage for you to have to make a choice
to spare me a greater pain
and for you to suffer alone.

I stand now weeping and empty
alone in the house of roses
and where now I go that your spirit is gone
only the wind knows.

When you caught me compulsively washing dishes at 3am

When we agreed to tell each other if there was anyone else

When you cried in your sleep and all I could do was hold you tight

When you were still there for me after flashbacks even though you didn’t know what was happening to me

When we were so shitglued that our accents came out and our friends had no idea what the hell we were saying

When you shattered your Chanel bottle all over your bathroom and I smelled like you for days after

When I tried to cook eggs drunk and you didn’t have butter or milk and had to save them from me

When a tiny version of you found my pirate wig from Halloween

When I moved heaven and earth for you at work

When you took me to the fanciest Italian place I’ve ever eaten at

When we entered a room together people stopped and noticed

When I caught you compulsively washing dishes at 3am

When you orchestrated Thanksgiving and taught me about family

When I bought you boot socks and moleskin to heal your outrageous blisters

When you took me along with you and your daughter to look at Christmas lights, and you didn’t know what I was fleeing from

When I found you folding my laundry at midnight, and I left my heart on the couch next to you

When first we go to bed together
careful I will have to be
in my passion
not to tear your dress
for I sew terribly.

Haunted I am
by images of you
wondering how you might
feel against me
as I labour on
through the night.

A question I have
that stands wonderfully
naked to me
how many ways
shall we find
to love each other?

I accumulate ghosts the way other men collect trophies