what is faith if not gentle
fishing rods that cast out metaphors
to reel in hope with hot air balloons;
picture rainbows as skies
drifting into riptides

so then, who are the birds who fly
so gaily with their knife-sharp wings?
they drop reality like bricks and knock
the wind from gentle eddies
to bone-stripping gales

if i were to die on each evening tick
i'd save the air i would expend
to fill your room with bubbles; ideas
naked under liminal clothes

with you, i live between each heavy second
between each slow degree we turn
we could hold our weight with just a gaze
the weight of withheld gasps for words

one more solvent to dissolve
the polymers; my nerves
teasing paralysis so coyly
i thought i was insoluble

yet i find myself drinking,
or moreso drowning in,
this curious concoction:
so volatile but sweet

to breathe is unnecessary,
this form is but an interim,
for my place in rock and earth
was measured in years

this has reduced me to seconds:
a hot flash reaction
i'd rather die in love and alcohol
than float on waves of apathy

i want love with sleep in its eyes,
that when it yawns, and stretches
the bedsheets in a sleepy *****,
whips the night out the window
and breathes out a darling "good morning"

i want love that wears pyjamas,
that smells of stale-ish coffee and toast;
slightly-burned, like it always will be,
but on which butter melts, without a protest,
under the spell of our kitchen waltz

i want love next door to lust;
a semi-detached carnal passion
who, once or twice a week, comes for tea,
shares a bottle of wine, and raises a toast
to old times of late nights and later mornings

i want love with sleep in its eyes,
with its forehead rested against mine
with its legs entwined, arms aching,
but enraptured in the same embrace
i've grown to fit into so well

if one more drop of blood would spill
would it still taste of iron? or sweet
as honey does so fervently of sugar

spill a bath and compose a tune, then
of the gentle pops of bubble prayers;
and sing me one final blessed eulogy

drown me deep in fever dreams,
float an arrow between my pretty eyes
and **** me, beautifully

as the drumline spiels his deal,
his baseless accusations ring
the bell behind your eyes! sing!
mimic his air! your cacophonous snare
shouts like an °astronaut° on a •space-walk•

promise! never let the cold take hold
of your reptile brain; you're half unsaid!
why must you let the louder half spread
his legs in ecstasy? you deal in chastity!
who are you? some [ sci-fi ***** ]?

you can't be saved from your retroflex grave,
so dare to live where the rhyme scheme toes
the line of ~ cosmically acceptable ~ prose,
see? nothing matters!  - this jawless chatter
asks "who are you? some cerebral *****?"

"an ugly *****!!!" you might retort
but self-awareness does not absolve
the sins of online vanity; dissolvvve
me, untrue - drown in pixels green and blue
or wake up
                     in the nothingness
                                                     ­  of the space-walk