your eyes refract infinity
more times than the sky can count
yet there was never any room in there
for me

i'm sorry—
i'm not your youth
or the smiles that i shared with you
so long ago

i'm just another minute
on your weeping clock
shriveling up,
winding
down

he calls me on the phone,
says he's leaving in a few days.

what's new?

the tears that threaten to escape me aren't new,
my clenched fist isn't new,
my picked, bleeding lower lip isn't new.

you've always left me, dad.
even when you said you were coming back,
even when you said it wouldn't be for too long,
even when you said you loved me more than anything.

your actions betray your words -
the silver shavings in your hair betray the test of time -
the wrinkles around your eyes betray the man i used to take you for.

i hate this time of year -
because all i want to do is hold your face in my hands -
and feel the skin that belongs to me -
and look into the brown eyes that belong to you -
and i want to tell you -
how much, how much, how much i love you.

how much i love you -
despite the hurt -
despite your absence -
despite you being a man that doesn't know he has a child that loves him so much.

i still love you, dad. i'll be waiting for you to come home.

this.
this word.
mutter it softly, as the fireplace moans.
bring your bones to the pyre,
bring your dragons,
bring your friends.
come to this pyre and we shall burn
the past into the present.

do you hear the thin noise of action?
the things that you will do,
the things that you have done,
all rushing into that heart of yours,
that heart of ours,
that fiercely fragile thing?
yes. you do.
and you shall break the mountains with every whisper.
let your words proliferate across this crumbling world (spinning itself to dust),
a legion of ants on this blue sphere.

do, and your flesh will unravel into dawn.
do, and the vices writhing in all our skulls will have no choice but to yield.
do, and we shall leave all these broken lamps behind,
let them drift away on this slate-blue sea,

do,
and we shall burn the past
into the future.

the words wrapped in the shadows teach me how to bleed. in the hollow spaces of night, all is you. all is a search for you.
souls lay atop each other on reality's dark fabric.
your sight on top of mine. we are all 7 billion golden sights, blinking in on a pebble.

we're everything to each other. yet nothing. we search for ourselves. because we are ourselves.
we try to be other people. but the boxes are too tight.

(the last of the rain hangs from leaves, waiting lucidly for the final moments. in between cloud and ground, they wait. giants to an insect.)

silent butcher of my own words.
i am here, a heart wrapped around chemicals.

a living relapse. a machine for my temptation.
i am here, searching for a reason to bleed.

i am here, trying to find what endless means.
i am here, a hollow statue in black rain.

dying flower at the edge of the world,
i weep for you
for you do not know me.

dying flower with a thousand eyes,
i weep for you
and you alone.