They say that the manic people
are most passionate

I am most passionate about
our love, your hands, thoughts, and words.

Our love, your hands, thoughts, and words make me
m a n i c.

and then...

PANIC.
The breath is stolen away by the demons
who stick their pitchforks into my brain
repeatedly, allowing my past to ooze out
and spread like wild fire.

PANIC.
The tears that try to put out the fire but in return
send shivers up my spine. The body turns cold as if it is
d e a d.

PANIC.
Is the worry of the ashes left behind by the fire.
Who is going to clean this up so I can breath again...

or will the flame begin again before we can clean up this mess.

But slowly the individual cells begin to heal
and when combined with chemicals that are released
clean up the left over ashes even faster.

We need one day to talk
and one day to rest
and one day to clean up the mess

and after it all
we'll move along and i'll forget those chemicals are in my brain
and when you look into my eyes....

I hope you'll see me.
and not the panic in me.

A poem falls short; I'd like, instead
to draw a single line from me to you
and watch it curl into a word
so beautiful it's still unsaid –
or press paper to the window pane
so that the day might saturate
a note that brightly warms your hands,
spills birdsong from imagined trees
and buzzes like fat bumblebees,
but I am bound by language, love; I can't.

I haven’t got a heart of gold,
Gold is too soft and beautiful.
The world sinks its teeth into gold
And leaves a bite mark for every hungry mouth
And I haven’t enough surface area to accommodate them all.

I have a heart of silver.
Let the wolves bite into that,
Let it stick in their teeth.
They will not break the skin.
The don’t deserve to see my blood,

My silver dragon’s blood,
Running down my head and chest,
Dripping and pooling in the darkness,
Shining and reflective
Like a thousand little moons
And worlds made of moons.

No, let them trade in gold.
My heart is ugly enough to survive
And beautiful enough to live.
They will not steal my blood to spend,
The will let it pool and lie
As unattainable stars lay in the sky.

If any other silver bleeder comes to claim me,
Let me be his and he mine.
If any blue-veined miner puts away his pick
And loves me without claim,
Let him be mine, I will not hurt him.

But if, God forbid, there is yet a man
Who bleeds gold and loves me for my blood,
I will love him to the reaches of my sky -
I will spend myself on him to the last cent -
For that is a claim that cannot be paid,
It is a love that would destroy me.

Oh, these women
In their heels and mini-skirts
With their painted youth dripping from their faces;

Oh, these fruits of the city,
These sumptuous, soft, plump, self-destroying
Women that need devouring -

God, can't you help them?
You made them this way,
Hung them in your garden
From Eve's forbidden tree,
Gave them sweet juice and lust to be consumed;
Only to plant the seeds of knowledge
In the dumb beast who eats them.

Oh these damning fruits of the city,
Who bring forth generations of saccharine poison
By nature of their trade,

Oh, these women
In their heels and skirts,
They were born to be condemned.

separation

                             like a curse

carved upon frail arms

forever does not last

the two lips
                            
                             parted

never to touch again

frozen as a

                            memory

the ghosts of our past

pieces
      
                            of you and I