to be so full of love I shine like a beacon
I want it to fill me like glowing water and drown the darkness in me
to drown when I cry
flowing light and glittering ideals
to hope, hope despite evidence that may make me stop
soft like a blanketing of snow
suffocatingly, deafeningly, consumingly soft
love like a fist and hope like sea and stones and the endless rhythm of tides
to be soft and loving and hopeful
tasting blood and cracking knuckles, to be loving, to be soft
to never be hurt again

love is a sin never planned for
be unrepentant with me
be, with me, a sin your parents and your priest will never absolve
love me like you're saying a prayer, late at night, hopeful
evangelize the feeling of being in love to everyone
love me like you're singing a hymn you know by heart
exist in me as god does in everyone; in love
sin with me in adoration
pray to anyone who will listen, this is purer
a clean sin, victimless
purgatory at worst

I want to be spring
I want to be soft buds on tree branches, the low murmur of melting snow, the fresh blue of newly clear skies
I want to be soft, brisk wind whipping across forests and plains, animals moving as one from darkness to the world again, pollen in the air
but I'm not
I'm winter
cold, unforgiving, ice and metal and skin, the heavy blanketing of deaf snow over miles of the world
frozen branches snapping in silent nights and the retreat of all living things deeper into their homes
winter with it's dangers, it's unknown, a set of footprints in the snow leading deep into the woods and never coming out
I want to be warm and soft and new, alive again every year
but I'm not

we are so very different
you, you are the moon
you are cold, glittering, distant
silvered with stardust
beautiful and wan, you are
slim and precocious, all the things you should be
of the moon
between us are lightyears of void
occasional stars that burn and burn and burn
more than we can count between us
call them a group, all the stars
call it all of them
I am a thing of the sun
I sit heavy and wet in dawn light, newly hatched each morning
I am a thing of mars, dusty and cracked
aching for water, alone with a robot
I am a thing of pluto
distant, frozen, devoid, small.
I am a thing of jupiter
huge, unstable, storming
I am a thing of the sun-touched sides of these planets
a thing of the harsher, hotter light of day
I wish to sit in the cold, watery light all of them
and your moon
would show me

the moon is mirrored in your eyes
a glittering satellite reflecting light onto the sleepy planet below
I wish I could take your hands and tell you I hung it just for you
but I'm not god, and I don't think you'd believe me if I was

we, all of us, are born to die
some just get to tell a better story before they do.
the end is never dignified, never clean
we cry, we bleed, we scream, we beg
we lay, silently, beside our loved ones, all praying we'll open our eyes just one more time
just one more time.
one can only hope there's more beyond it
something else, something different
a new life, a continuation, a god to smile and say you're here
you made it, I'm so proud of you
even a nonbeliever can hope
someday
that you can find the end you're meant
that you're not forced to be martyred to meet someone waiting for you at the far end of it all

what strange fruit grow in the shadow of the grown
strange, bitter fruit
inky roots grow up, gripping ankles to pull down
fertile ground, grown up children
each step through dark, muddy ground
those who grow in this soil plant seeds
more inky roots, bitter fruit
to reach forward and drag in the weaker
we walk alone together
the roots are in me, the seeds are in me
I could be a disaster and not even see it
feel the roots wrapped round my spine
I could be just as bad
feel the roots wrapped round my brain
I could be even worse
feel them drag me down deeper
I can't let it happen
feel them in the lungs
I can't let it happen
feel them in the heart
I can't let it
feel them under skin
I can't
I can't
I can't feel them anymore