The world’s light shines, shine as it will,
The world will love its darkness still.
I doubt though when the world’s in hell,
It will not love its darkness half so well.

Drip. Drop. It’s raining, but not outside. This rain is not clear. It’s cold to feel but warm to touch. The feeling is lower. The feeling of rain drippin, running, leaking. The monster spoke with me, talked with me, ordered me around today, as it does every day. He's very persuasive. I didn't let him see my fear. I don't believe I was scared. No fear to even be seen. He got the best of me though. He can talk me into a lot of things. He tends to lose his anger with me a lot of the time too and the fire ignites in his eyes, the glare on his face shines bright against the light. He lets go of control and bites me, sinks its sharpness deep into my skin, my leg, my vein, my blood. Now this is the feeling of the rain dripping, running, leaking. The rain drips freely down my leg and into my sock. It's cold running down, but when I wipe it away with my hand, it's warm. I hide under the covers to escape all light. The monster likes the dark. It feels as if its sharp teeth are still sinking, gnawing, digging deeper, but when I look down, he's not there. He leaves me with that feeling. The feeling lasts for a long time, keeping me awake. Maybe because the rain never stops, and the scary thing is, the monster and I are very good friends. I like him. Why shouldn't I? He makes me feel better, stronger, more alive. Good enough to keep me motivated. I can tell him anything and he'll listen. He loves the taste of my emotions. I miss him when he's not around. I crave his touch, his bite, his presence.

The sea gave off a cry tonight,
It plays home to a child,
Her father threw her out of sight,
The sea swallowed her, so wild.

Her mother pushed and screamed all day,
Until the sun shone twice,
The blood would flow without delay,
Her grip was like a vice.

While pain would ebb and flow for her,
She knew her life was slipping,
But he refused to let her go,
The fear was ever gripping.

When finally the child was born,
And mother gave a sigh,
The father cleaned as best he could,
The mother closed her eyes.

A wail crawled from the fathers throat,
A pain beyond compare,
He'd lost his only love that night,
To love this child, he could not bare.

He struggled down the beach, that night,
With baby wrapped in cloth,
He swore up to the lord with spite,
And stepped in to the sea- like froth.

The sea crys out in pain tonight,
It's tears make waves, so wild,
A life, just barely started off,
She plays home to a child.

Two boys
and girls
unclothed each other
simply at a picnic
flush with wine
alongside
sun-flecked trees.

The girls,
easy as the
forest round,
burned,
delicious,
as the boys
eager and nervous
in unequal measure
partly gave up
concealing
their joys
at forgetting
or remembering
in flickers
their bare bodies.

It went on
over nettles
and half-hours
and clambered
trees and
photos taken
almost formally
(on film,
of course).

And boyish lust,
at first sinuous,
a darting tongue,
began to
soften against,
for instance,
the sheer,
unthinkable
texture
of the two
girls carved
now backward
over the bough
of a storm-felled elm.

And there
in the embers
of evening
they learned
to thrill originally
at the vast,
gorgeous
and astonishing
irrelevance
of what
might happen next.

woke up back to back with another piece of myself and
tried to absorb dreams through his sleeping.
these attempts proved how useless a lot of what led to this moment were.
I’m clean, and in the dregs of my suffering heart,
playing my strings, smacking my keys, snapping with rings
of bruises. grease stains on my skin.
he was good *** in the moonlight
but he didn’t bring me the pleasure I so often seek.
“If I can’t find love with you, I’ll find it somewhere else.”
he’s a tangled leg, a darkened face
a mirrored mask.
I see him in the colors he avoids
in his search for solitude.
now it’s my turn.
and I’m going to bend.