bitter coffee helps camouflage the tremors
I shake my apologies inside closed fists and wait
for them to roll, always gambling for that final breath        
climbing beneath god's hands
reaching for empty bottles that offer cold handshakes
all the deals I made and now the devil has come knocking
on sharp metal and cracked windshield
her body will be found
in the midst of my soul's wreckage
I was given everything but love was found
in the glass bottom of momentary bliss
where an angel's shadow now resides
her memories will be turned into stories told by loved ones
that begin with "She was" and end in "If only"

if only I had lived a gentler life  
she was a catharsis for my demons

her death was the sound of everything ending

the hardest part was starving it
every ideal like springtide flowerets
you turned to archaic grisly gravel
watch them crash through
weathered rooftops
watch them fall

drawing maps with hungry voices
winding staircase. hidden street.
drained from stepping on recurrent
cryptic papers scattered floorboards
no matter how many times they're
cleaned, there they are

bright coral turns vile muddy brown
when it stays in the sun too long
alone, everybody knows that
that's what they thought
beneath a brittle beacon, cloudy day
they'll keep pretending, it'll be okay

The children are all crying in their pens
and the surf carries their cries away.
They are old men who have seen too much,
their mouths are full of ***** clothes,
the tongues poverty, tears like ****.
The surf pushes their cries back.
Listen.
They are bewitched.
They are writing down their life
on the wings of an elf
who then dissolves.
They are writing down their life
on a century fallen to ruin.
They are writing down their life
on the bomb of an alien God.
I am too.
We must get help.
The children are dying in their pens.
Their bodies are crumbling.
Their tongues are twisting backwards.
There is a certain ritual to it.
There is a dance they do in their pens.
Their mouths are immense.
They are swallowing monster hearts.
So is my mouth.

Listen.
We must all stop dying in the little ways,
in the craters of hate,
in the potholes of indifference--
a ****** in the temple.
The place I live in
is a maze
and I keep seeking
the exit or the home.
Yet if I could listen
to the bulldog courage of those children
and turn inward into the plague of my soul
with more eyes than the stars
I could melt the darkness--
as suddenly as that time
when an awful headache goes away
or someone puts out the fire--
and stop the darkness and its amputations
and find the real McCoy
in the private holiness
of my hands.

There is a loneliness felt with
the snow falling
headlights reveal only
what lies ahead
perhaps winter chose for us
the easiest path

your body shifts
closer to the door
as I catch my breath
at every turn

your hands let go
for just a moment
and home feels
a million breaths away...