Stuck on the apple;
the map,
the watch.

Though less than worse before.

I grieve for the ghost;
the writer,
the lover.

Though never this nor that.
Over it and over again,

Throw out the hope;
the pity,
the spite.

Though they won’t stop growing.
For this reason I am sure,
I know little of love.

I’ve escaped into Summer’s Eclipse,
Where the frost flows continuously from your frozen lips.
It’s numbed my bones and pierced my skin,
and ceased every knock from the vessel within.

They say if you tame the body, you’ll tame the soul,
So, there’s hope that I’ll gain some kind of control.
You question why but don’t ask me,
They tell me I’ve traded my brain for a pea.
For the mind is a grave we bury ourselves in,
I tell you, who we are, where we’ve been,
All’s the same once you’re dead,
Your life’s a sweater you’ve worn to a thread.

I’m clouding two thoughts and producing no rain,
Give me a moment, I’ll try to explain:
Consideration, admiration,
I’m not really getting anywhere with this presentation,
of who I should be and who I am,
I’ve chosen to be cordial rather than condemn.

That’s not to say sincerity is vain,
(I’d argue that ego is what we should blame),
But I’d imagine silence would prove me more bold,
And keep me upright in this freezing cold.

Now, to address the former, I say this,
I would have taken the Winter in your kiss,
But time, it ages, and so it goes:
Pride is costlier than a rose.

Raconte-moi une histoire (Tell me a story)
Skip the beginning and don’t try to work out the end,
Just the middle.
It really is the best part.

You remember how it went:
Finding what you should have had,
Wondering why you took what you didn’t want,
and hating how you lived in a heart for two years too long,
Twice, as a matter of fact,
but half as wrong.

You said,
“Pain is pretty because it means growth.”
But you aren’t a tree, so please don’t use that expression.
You are more like sap; sticky like syrup,
Stretching as you flow down,
Becoming thinner, flowing faster.

You’re afraid.
You’ve become a paradox of both slow and swift,
And you’re starting to see that the middle is becoming an end,
And all this time you’ve been carrying everything with you.

I can see you tiptoeing around the thought as you walk home in the cold,
shivering mostly because you just didn’t wear enough clothes.
You justify forgetfulness with, “We all become naked souls, anyway.”

And you know that if you cut across Elm, then Walnut and North,
You might slip into the endless snow,
where you will fall slowly and continuously into the norm.
Step lightly; you’re dancing on the edge of the masses.

So,
Raconte-moi une histoire (Tell me a story)
One that has no beginning or end,
Just a middle.
It really is the best part.

coffee trips
and trips over the stair.
count three, not two and blame the painter.
she added an extra coat to disguise what was once there

in letters and

words alone,
and alone for Christ’s sake.
note a one in three
and tell a lie to strengthen the hand

like,

“dimes saved,
save for two weeks.
suffer for a few scenes of pride
and pay for it later.”

but,

play on.
and on the eve,
watch the parallels converge and marry.
she’ll add an extra coat to disguise her own affair.

It’s funny, the things we hate:
Desert and tundra, are opposite, yet the same.
The hand, the foot, the heart, the brain,
I’m suddenly more fearful of monotony than change.

For repetition is lifeless; to be dead as sin,
This rhythm is what wastes all the years in the skin.
But flesh is flesh, and cannot be undone,
When one story ends, another has begun.

So, if change is merely a cycle, of mountains and then troughs,
Then dark and light are closer,  than perhaps they truly ought.
But if juxtaposed means together, and similar, different,
Than I know but nothing, or perhaps I am illiterate.

All this to say, there is truth in opposition,
And please don’t disregard me,  I mean no contradiction.
I think whether to or fro, we can’t help but be tossed,
When the only thing consistent, is the very thing we’ve lost.

January’s coarse kiss
has buried me.
not unlike the Flesh of a man long dead,
whom I had given more than gold
and amputated members.

so, i think of spring,
lessons from Chesterton,
collared dresses and cloth shoes,
an open window,

and of June,
when i’ve been stripped down to bare bone,
the mind and body released under the sun,

i’ll sew my arms back on
with silver and string.

but not tonight.

and not tomorrow.

the needle sings songs
of things too sweet and lustrous.

and the sun,
it pains my skin,
made pale by lack of embrace.

so, i think of morning,
dreaming and waking,
warm socks and soft hands,
a closed door.

January’s coarse kiss
buried me.
the dirt rose like a wave,
only to cover my feet
and desist.

We think on what we can’t have.
Our thoughts hold on so our arms don’t get upset.
Thoughts, arms, lips; they feed on cyclical envy.
Why are limbs such jealous things?

Staring at maps and pointing at places,
Hoping for the chance to say, “I’ve been there”,
But only heard after days spent blurring the lines between okay and better,
And not how we wanted to hear it.

I’d rather hear, then not at all, (I think?)
I sailed out on an ocean deep and sort of yellow.
Yellow because of the sun and summer,
Deep because my legs are short.

Now my legs are stuck in the rocket summer,
Under the dirt, beneath the snow vanished,
Which winter promised but misspoke.
Though He didn’t get it wrong.

So, hands will serve and learn to understand,
That affection gives and gives,
And that’s quite alright.
We’ll never be as empty as we think.

By afternoon on the fifth day, the sun had already set.
Though it did not set on time, it had set on moments.
Vivid moments contained in smooth, red glass; the cup I drank from in days past.
When the seconds had already begun to crawl away,
Like rain off the edge of a roof, after the last thunderstorm of the summer,
Where I held my breath and mumbled, “this is it”.
Even then, the black river had pushed us along,
In between beats of the heart felt in silent moments and quivering hands.
Yet the river never flowed.
The water in the rain and quill dried up,
Like hands breathed on by the wind in winter,
In which the sun now sets on all that has been sealed away.

Let the sun set.
Moments are not to be kept in glass or in cupboards.
Still, I question whether they should be contained at all.
For the rain bites and the river gnaws,
As I again hold my breath and now assuredly say, “this is it”,
Yet never to be said with the same inflection.
For how long will I linger on a feeling?
How long will I hold onto a thought?
There is no place to store such things safely.
Perhaps that is the point.

By morning, the moments will appear dim in the red glass,
As they should and ought to be,
Though I know I’ll find myself dropping in on them now and again,
Stroking the glass, knocking the edge, hoping that I’ll awaken something that has only fallen asleep.
I laugh at my own folly.

Outside these three walls,
we assemble and separate.
We’ve gathered up all that was received and given out,
only then to burn it all in the end.

Forget the Barber, the Barista,
the man who borrows heels,
and those who argue that all are wrong in and around the snow.
All know me as the easy mark.

Remember the slaves to the letter
who are washed and cut in red,
Agony and age written well on hands blue,
live life in a mirror, too.

But these words spoken at the seat of the head,
and underneath twin staircases
high, low, and in between your hair,
Suggest that longevity isn’t so bad after all.