Nobody is in love.

Shoulder to shoulder, flesh spilling over
Flesh: our warm bodies heave
And contort together, leaving no room
For sentiment that goes deeper than
Your off white down comforter.

Nobody is in love.

The harsh sunlight seeps in
Through down turned blinds,
And thin, translucent eyelids,
Both half open, but oblivious to the
Indifferent world. Life is too much with us-
Never leaving us alone to really feel:

The cold, smooth wooden floor pushing up
Against the delicate archs of our sinewy feet,
As they drop down to meet the brisk  morning air,
That seems to coat everything revealed and left vulnerable
By the crumpled up sheets limply collapsed over the headrest,
Or the soft, steady breathing
Of someone left unstirred by the dizzying
Relay of thoughts that dance across my

Foolish mind. No one is in love, here.
The last fragment of hope
Was forgotten underneath mismatched blankets
That bear the faint scent of lavender fabric softener sheets
And something that lingers nameless beneath your presence.
The indented pillow, where you lay your head
Holds fast your hollow shape,
As if to remind us that reality is only as real
As those who are brave enough to feel it.

Time treads on and on,
Leaving us scrambling over coffee tables
And yesterdays newspaper strewn across the bedroom floor,
Blindly groping the abysmal space to find something
That isn't really there. Instead it's nestled between
The tiny slivers of our hearts,
Scattered across neon billboards and thee star hotels,
Pleading with us to acknowledge it's elusive presence
Before the world runs out of excuses,
And we're met with a big boom,

That probably will never even be felt.

Suicide seeps loosely from your lips-
Leviticus could only carry so much
Weight before the heavy words
Laden with your December-white
Morals and twice baked ideals,
Dragged him down to live with the lepers.
Sputtering out half delusional
Laments to your ever present savior,
Your words drip over the crisp white
Lines, creating muddled phrases
That you eagerly inhale
Off the top of porcelain toilet seats and cedar pews,
Because self loathing is natural
When repeating the mantra:
Only sinners can be saved.
Your frail arms, bent and convoluted over
Your tense and righteous face, inadvertently
Form the sign of a cross,
Casting a shadow on the sharp corners
Of your thin, puckered lips.
Sacrifice and repentance chase your vulnerable mind
Right off the deep end, and into the 3am abyss in which
You are perpetually present.
As you speak, your eyes catch glow
Of the searing flames that taunt your every thought,
Like embers, alive with the hot, igniting presence of the past,
They search and scan my face,
As if begging to be understood
In a language made up of truths
That only float
When they're dead.

It's easy
To stay inside
When you're
Busy
Getting lost
Within
Your silly
Mind.

I carry you with me,
Woven
In between
The frayed
Ends of my oversized
Sweater,
And the
Hollow pauses
Of conversation
Saved for thoughts
Too sacred
To be revealed.
I carry you outside of me,
Like the thin layer
Of frost
That dances lightly
Before collapsing onto the
Ancient windows of
My two door Oldsmobile.
I carry you above me,
Your presence as big as the
Wide open sky,
Yet also as unattainable.
Reaching above,
My fingers stretch out to grasp
You, but instead
Are met with the vacant
Feeling of air
Drifting between my
Clammy palms.
I carry you beneath me,
Supporting my
Staggering steps
As I drag my heavy feet across the
Uneven ground.
I carry you with me.
                                                                                   MB.

What is time?
A constellation of fleeting moments,
Loosely strung together,
By the hands of an indifferent god,
Like far off, iridescent stars
That long ago, lost their deep
Luminous glow to wishful thinking
And withered souls with nowhere to disappear to.
Swallowed up by the dark, subtle indifference
Of the vast ominous sky,
They desperately glisten, lamenting
Their distant remorse,
Flickering out only to reapper, as if they are trying to escape
The nagging, elusive truth
That they too are nothing more than a hollow echo,
Sounding out across the abysmal space
Between the seconds that fall dormant
Against our empty idea of what it means
To feel alive.

There is no honest answer.
Worlds fall from our wind-chapped lips
Like marbles, heavy on our tongues,
Hitting the ground with a muffled splat,
As we fumble on all fours trying to retrieve them.

There is no honest answer.
We push and shove our muddled consciences, unprotected, into  a dark alleyway
Full of lost chances and half hearted embraces.
Until there is nothing left but a small hollow pang in the bottom of our guts.

There is no honest answer.
Openly, we ask others what we are too afraid to ask ourselves, even in the private of our own minds.
Truth sits at the bottom of our flouncy ideals and broken promises,
Like the last drops of 2% milk,
That only come out of the carton once it's lying face down on the dumpster floor.
There is no honest answer.
                                                                                   MB.

Religion brought me tea at noon,
And taught me how to pray,
To God, and birds, and indifferent moon
That holds the world at bay.

Heaven came to me disguised,
Beneath the heavy drone,
Of millions of silent prayers,
Pleading to be left alone.

I heard the cries of anguished souls,
Lamenting their fate,
For penance costs a heavy toll
To walk the narrow and straight.

I found my heart laid out to dry
Upon the chapel floor,
As saints and sinners passed it by,
Too busy to implore.

I paid my dues at Sunday mass,
And sold my soul last June,
Because infatuation with the past
Brings even the pure to ruin.

I heard the angels singing out
A sad and passionate song,
As the world shrunk back in pious doubt,
They continued on and on.

I fell into a rabbits hole,
Full of all that isn't,
I accepted Him to make me whole,
The most righteous kind of prison.