One day my breath will catch
in my throat, forever
and my blood will run cold
and although I will feel
everything
slipping through my fingers
I will be paralysed, powerless,
left to watch it unfold
until there is nothing left of me.

One day the ground will swallow me up
I'll be nothing but dust
no trace of my existence
except unsent letters
addressed to you
that I'll have forgotten to burn.

One day, I will cease to exist,
spontaneously perish,
the universe will shift and I will be gone
inexplicably.
Nobody will remember who I was
because anybody who is anybody
is you.

One day, somebody will look into your eyes
and you won't want them to look away.

That will be the end of me.

Thoughtlessly, I pledged myself to her,
so in awe of the eloquence,
I handled her gently
and thought highly of her smile.

Isn't it funny
how quickly fondness turns sour?
How quickly one realizes
such beauty should be broken,
into a million little pieces
and scattered into the sea.

If she were a chinadoll,
I might have chipped away at her surface
until only rubble remained
or perhaps I might have cast her into a wall
and relished the sweet dissolution,
the wreckage that became of her.

Instead, I planted venom
into her skin, so that it might
intoxicate her simple-minded exterior
and show her what the world
is really made of.

She taught me more
about myself
than I could have possibly learned
on my own.

She spent her days in love
and I spent mine asleep

Me, I have no constant.
I speak in symbols and run-ons.
Disheveled prose streams
from my lashes
and burns onto the page:
a ritual.

This is not for you
or for him
or for her.

In the summer I would tremble
at the sound of rainfall.
This discourse sears its way
throughout my throat upon recollection.

Huddled close on humid nights,
we lit candles
and whispered of spirits
and auras
and the key to releasing the sky.

Her skilled fingers found the piano keys
and struck a sad, summer melody
that stretched throughout the house.
Like dust, I could only see her
in a band of daylight.

She looked ghostly at night;
her wispy, indistinct shape
moved and bent like a willow
alongside the lights
pinned to my wall.

By and by the morning would betray us,
and that's as far as I can recall
for the summer days quickly fade
and the ruins that remain
are far too parallel to dreams.

She was real, to me.

I've got a handbag full of stanzas
with your name all over them.

By the end of each week
I've crushed every word
into dust
and I watch from my window
as the crumbs rise
to form the milky way
(your favorite).

As the ruins ascended
through the layers of atmosphere,
they lost all consistency.
To you, they were minute flecks of gold
sparkling in the sky.

I linger on the impolite outskirts
of wishing-wells
and for each coin that ebbs to the floor,
I surrender another page to you.

And who knows,
maybe this complex is not complex at all
- a simple thread needing to be scored,
or maybe that
would be the end of me.

For all I know,
you're made of smoke and mirrors;
I could only hope for such a mild disease.

It was the heat.
That is the only conclusion I've come to.

It was far from
exclusively physical, in fact
it was primarily an inner-warmth.

I found myself persistently pressing
myself against his chest,
as if curling into him
would have an incubator-like effect.

I could be covered in a film of sweat
but beneath my skin I was frozen.
Not in the emotionless, stoic way
but in the starved for touch, anyone's touch way.

I wondered if everyone else
stayed as warm as him
all the time
or if it was just my own perception
which had a habit of being warped anyhow.

I was content with not knowing.
I didn't need to know everything,
or anything for that matter.

I filled my own gaps with
the consuming, wolfish ache
for that same warmth,
the only thing that could thaw my skin
and whatever lies beneath.

I must have only been able to endure
that frenzy for so long,
because now I discard the notion altogether;
hot or cold, it can't be helped.

I stand in your queue
but my legs give out.
I land, instead, on my knees.

A tempest or a lullaby –
a fierce roulette
of which I am the quarry.
I creep across the minefield
and receive my consequence.

This waiting room
its blinding lights
intensify my thoughts.
Time has nearly stopped;
your face hangs crooked
on every wall.

My skin
it weighs me to the ground
heavy with anticipation.
Hysteria hovers idly in my mind
finally settling
and I succumb to infinite madness
where I will wait no longer.

I place my doubts even in the hat that proves your existence;
the sun burns out and people change
there is no space for me.

I was in it for the way you looked at him.
This lavender-green sunset will swallow me whole tonight.
My body hurts but I won't break my bones for you tonight.
This summer sickness weighs so heavy, heavy, heavy on my heart.
Your eyes will haunt the monster in me tonight.
This heavy fog will drag me down, will swallow me whole tonight.