Red electric blood
I thought of you again I
Bit skin off my lip in recoiled
Shock the reminder of you like
Buzzing of neurons, the missing limb
Fresh and shocking, both the
Absence and Presence
(alpha and omega)
That you exist in scope of me, you were here and
Now you aren’t you
Don’t

And I never told you how I feel
Poisoned, like a tired old thing which has
Died and been magicked back to life in the same
Lumpy, raggedy body
Sawdust at the seams, eyes dull from rubbing
A velveteen rabbit worn to skin, fit for the fire to
Wash away the contagion and stink of sickness

I convince myself this is not the case I
Convince people around me this is not the case but after the
Parties are done and the work is gone and the exams are finished I feel
That weariness in my bones that this is who I am
A dead thing that pretends to be alive

You called me silvertongue once,
‘You could sell beans to a bean farmer,’
Let me do you one better, bud,
I’ve been selling beans to myself knowing
That they will never grow
I spit them around me when I feel the grit in my mouth like
Malformed pearls, nuptial gifts to myself
The ultimate scam, they build and build around me, they balance on each other
Higher and higher they pile, pebbles on rocks until they wall me in and I think
This time with fear
What if they grow? What happens if they grow?
Is this what life is? Am I doing it?

HEY you have to BREATHE
in- stealing that oxygen and aether
your ribcage is a fox trap, in it lies that pesky hemoglobin that
begs and cries for sustenance, nurture those peripheral tissues
focus on the undulation of the diaphragm, the sticky heartbeat
the reddening cheeks that
scream that blossoms and bursts in your throat
but don't
let it out
the night is fragile. air crystalline. those icicles are counting on you
so forget
it get over
it just stuff it
down deep down and
breathe, OK
quietly
a warm wind thru an empty canyon a
billowing sail a
knife

MIDNIGHT revelations, or-
Not much so midnight as 5am,
(The darkest before the dawn, they say)
but I say MIDNIGHT because it
is softer on the ears, but less fuzzy in the head it reeks of
time still to spare, of cheeks tucked onto pillows of
a morning denouement, a chance to feel resigned and better even
if it is with puffy eyes and salted lashes but,

the truth, there will be no stolen hours of sleep I
am awake, that makes these MIDNIGHT revelations that
steal into my mind, set my heart racing, dry my mouth
much more sinister, yes,
and twice as telling as true as true can be
as hard as that blueing sky, the same color as
the snow, dizzying, dazzling,
those minutes of potential resolution ticking away
(but you must know) that these thoughts are the resolution
you have thought a thing, it is real, this is your ******
stolen in that slip of daydream between the dawn and the night
where the country lies sleeping but for those who are too troubled
to rest, they have bigger fish to fry
this is your night, your day, your comfortable bed to make
your MIDNIGHT, these thoughts,
like ice water over a shivering set of shoulders

blaring sunlight
louder than cars
stereos
excess
dusty sidewalks
grit
dirt in my sandals
migraine
knotted incisors
empty
aching cheek muscles
slowly
that pull of un-infinity
biding my time biding my luck
the end of a rope hint of a smile,

snuck

Crashed to an end, but you did not expect any less and
Nor did I, the
Slice of a new scent between warming air the
Flick of a wrist behind a straight back the
Toss of heavy-lidded irises to illicit territories

I stepped out the door and bounced down the steps
A blind man passed me the wind whipped my face into
a flush
Autumn rain in May
Icy droplets,
The pavement was barely wet

something heretical in our sera
a peeking thing, half mischievous
and i, trying to see if you are my mirror if you
recognize the streak in me as your own something familiar smelling like the sweat beneath your arms the
glossy glint off your scleras the
trail of forest on your body
heretical
something wild in the the skin that slips beneath my hands like a
many-worn silk of some old god like a
selkie would feel about the centuries old earth and the
neverchanging of days, darkbrightdarkbrightdark

something freeing about the sting of winter air in my nostrils something
ripped away from my long exiles in the city something
replenished in the true empty fullness of a silent tundra a
dirt-covered snowbank a
grey iceflow on the water something
dissident and infidel about your soul and mine together something
potent in our marrow something
wild and
freeing and

dying