it's that time
not long after nine
when the lights dim
and him
(that'd be me)
asks her
( that's She)

would you like a cup of tea
or something?
she laughs
I bring the tea.

It's the thing you feel when he stares
The fluttering of wings that fills your head
Its the goodbye waiting to happen
The one you should have seen coming
Its the life that has no light
That you feel once he's gone

For all this is the way of love
Its tearing down your heart
While trying to mend
The single thing he broke
But that's not right
For he broke more than just one thing
He took the soul you had
Twisting it in two
Leaving it rotten in hell
He broke the heart you once healed
From a previous love
Not only reopening the old,
But making new scars, too
He broke your mind
Scarring your memories of everything you once held dear
Making the new ones in terror

The final thing he broke
The one that really counts
Is this body you hold dear
For he left reminders of his skin within yours
The way he touched
The way he kissed
To the way he stared
Now ever time you say your fine
Everyone will know its a lie
Because he made what he did to you visible
And you can't hide what's not inside

He destroyed me in four ways
First my mind
Second my heart
Third my soul

Fourth my body

Battleground
Of perpetual motion
Reigns upon calm thoughts
Of devastated soul
Called simply me
Though in fact it's
Wasteland from here
Until the rest of nights
Spent without you

But now
Your presence brings
No comfort

It's of no use darling
I turn off the light
And show you my back

Your tears seem scared and empty
Hush please
Don't you weep

Wait out the morning
And the sun trapped
In its journey without end

Then leave my bed
Since you can't leave my mind
Leave and don't look back

Or show me how to love
Give something that's missing
Cleanse me of sorrow in my mind

I know I know I know you can't
Your heart belongs to someone else
And mine is lost spinning

In the darkening night
When dawn is far
Unreachable to my spirit

It seems that it will never come
Stopping this perpetual motion
Of heart until one is none

Until the war is lost (no strength found)
And familiar hands of sorrow touch
My loneliness on mind's battleground

An ocean away from the Ivory Coast,
my feet are too clean and my mind is too *****.

i'm so far away from this euphoric, ruddy discharge that my bed has transformed from a lukewarm boulder into all of my favorite childhood memories-
the unconscious a candy apple,
your dreams a sugary topping.

there you are-
wavering like a flag torn piece by piece from the wind,
savoring my tears like a glass jar,
gleaming ubiquitous affection, yet stoic,
unaffected by the blistering mantle-heat.

this ocean is my hospital gown tied so tightly that i can no longer breathe in your deepest fears and swallow them like morning coffee.

this ocean is my mother, choking on soothing words, repelling suicide with optimistic rhetoric, neurons firing in a tone so hectic that silent meditation is an inaudible conversation.

this ocean is the anti-depressant that ***** on my skin like a vacuum, dr. nestling his blindfold like an infant

this ocean is my empty home, abandoned, lost in the noise.

someday my feet will be ***** again,
and i'll feel your unyielding warmth like quarries in the summer,
dropping all of the noise and mending with what matters most,
where i'm blending in with infinite shades
of the Ivory Coast.

in the interval
when the ice cream lady
came
we bought
Kia Ora
and a box
of Poppets

I put my arm around her shoulders
she said,
it's not that cold,
I was hot
chewing poppets
and when the movie started
I tried to kiss her
but
only once,
she told me
that she'd tell and
I would go to hell for it.

Her name was Jacinta and
we were at the Odeon
the Odeon's gone now
and
Jacinta married
Bob Shriver who
drove for Amoco

I remember her though
very well.