i.
we're tangled in sheets, and i'm moving from your lips,
to your cheek – i feel your fingertips trace,
the outline of my face, and we're breathless;
you called my mouth the horizon.

ii.
the only time i really feel loved,
is when i'm on your tongue,
    when you hold me down,
    when you mark me up;
come on, look at me, baby,
eyes filled with lust.

iii.
i can't keep away from your touch;
fill me up in ways i didn't know i was empty and call it love,
because i just wanna feel whole again.

i.
and in that deafening silence,
i've never wished more to be heard,
wracked with endless demurs of regret and remorse –
impure, impure, impure.

ii.
but it's my choice, isn't it?
to bear the knot of pearls come undone,
to feel it shift from skin to soul,
to speak of loving, and then let go.
(i see this now as a luxury i could not afford.)

iii.
if i don't rise come blooming spring,
ring the church bells for those left unheard,
wash the red from the bed sheets,
please unhinge my strife from the earth;

and know this:

iv.
a man is no longer a man,
after his unbidden pillage,
has left an innocent soul shaken;
unholy and impure.

i often think,
of empty grocery store aisles,
dusk in summer,
the home i grew up in,
tea leaves,
and sugar,
and cigarettes,
and you –
forever an anomaly,
a notion at best.

shall i search for home amid foaming waves,
and on the shore, whereon i sit to weep?
kisses ‘pon sailors’ cracked lips twixt their graves –            
porcelain dreams, aye, i’ll sing thee to sleep.

and i, warm wishes and an unknown name,
n’er-ceasing sighs ‘mongst mine own doleful face –
soft! thou would’st think i, ethereal dame,
would amount to more than moth-eaten lace.

pray romance blooms ‘tween chapters one and two;
for us each morrow t’will be but a dream.
even but now, i shall bid you adieu –
i go to seek life more than this doth seem.

ere wish i upon stars in evening sky;
perchance i’ll send for thee, midst last goodbye.

fog dense and still dripping,
silver buck moon,
and my cutting tongue,
spewing venom –

but it has no bite anymore.

falling out, into an empty bed,
i played the part of a devoted transient –
in all the artifacts,
“i was here.”

said it used to break his heart to see me cry,
but now he’s used to it.

“must be hard to end it when she’s so pretty.”