fingertips
touching lips
tracing blue veins bulging
indulging
in elastic skin
absorbing the texture, the mixture
of delicacy and sin

caramel waves cascade
and invade
brows and lashes curling
swirling
through my fingers
they  l i n g e r
on cheeks
on weeks
of sideburns and stubble

white steel
feels
stronger than stone
bones
big and square, like mine
though they bite hard sometimes

lacking pad or pencil
or stencil
my hands can replicate
the contours of your jawbone

it is to your outline
design
my palms are aligned

unable to act first
without complete reassurances

so i hesitate
contemplate
[wait]
finding solace in the imagined

while we're together
[or not..]
when we shared your bed
in my head
i've directed this scene countless times

CLOSE-UP / zoom in:
your lips seek mine
just briefly
plush petals pressed sweetly
between our pages
[faces]
intertwined behind
your neck my fingers & palms placed
& as i peel away
the corners of our mouths simultaneously draw up
as if on strings
[in my daydreams, we are my marionettes]
& my hand tugs at yours
to yank our bodies
from the middle of an evening street

this depiction
[fiction]
is lost in reality's roughness
practice is pretend when imagined
so i beg for steady hands
just to place one
FIRM
hand on your chest

counting off fifths of bourbon,
each one i labeled as my last,
the rows of glass bottles, empty of amber
crowd my subconscious

and now, clinking from my passenger seat
at the bumps in the road
sings a tinkling melody of my defeat

i blame those nights,
[which are most nights]
that are drowned by a persistently resonating
lack of noises and voices
which urge me to stifle the drone with a triple shot on the rocks
hold.the.mixer.hold.the.water.&.no.last.call

so when i can manage to recall
how much lighter i am
on those rare mornings,
unburdened by the sloshing, sickened weight of the evening's burning fog,
a subsequent golden haze effectively numbs me
and the thrumming darkness fades into liquid amber