Ridgehead
Barreleye
Bristlemouth
Loosejaw
Daggertooth

The names he was called
The identities he became

Things of that nature run deep
And crush like the depths of the sea

A warm wind touched my face.
I walked out into the open space,
I saw a blurry, fading horizon.
Somewhere, you are,
I am here, after a sleepless night,
Writing another reflection,
Tired like an empty battery.

I do not like the masks that shout.
The fight over who is right.
I do not want an analysis.
I touch the bark of the tree,
I hug the birch with my arms.
I see its white pages,
Written with irregular lines,
Torn, fluttering in the wind,
Which I cannot read.

Her eyes look straight into me,
They understand –
How well they understand me.
The rustle of leaves lessens the tension.
Autumn will come soon,
The summer wind whispers to me:
This country, this language,
These people, these doubts.

This is not blind luck,
This is your blessing,
Purple, rainy months, a fleshy heart,
Falling hair, joy when relief comes,
Crying into a pillow –
So as not to disturb another’s dreaming
About the so-called reality.

Bare feet touch the ground.
I tread carefully on the edge of worlds,
To be both here and there
With my integrity.
I am everything and nothing.
I am gestures, epilepsy,
The belief that I see human thoughts,
Inconsistent with what they say.

Blue, sun, and somewhere you.
How good that you stayed.
When everyone was saying:
She is different,
She talks to ghosts.
You stayed, showing me
Your true face.

across my face.

I saw spring coming
in the meadow
where the wildflowers
whisper to the wind.

found freedom on a snowcapped mountain top,

smiled to the child offering violets
cradled in her tiny hands

and when she smiles to me

her joy ripples like sunlight
across the sea of love.

the curtain is lifted.

the soul becomes visible

(always in the wild places
in my heart.)

Pain is seemingly eternal
It always seems that way.
They know not, it is ethereal
So 'stay on it' they say
Unknowingly they keep asking
But we know, so we pray.

Nauseatingly comforting,
making me wonder,
if I’m addicted
to this suffering.

You're hardly there...
sketched, into the backdrop
of my convalescence,
in hematite brush strokes.
Not a flicker, of breath
warms the cold curve, of my cheek,
but I feel you cup it, anyway.

My own hand,
bloodless, bleached
collapses, in pain.
Fatigued, it creeps,
across the coverlet
in a wraithlike half dose,
to seek you, sleepily
and pull you, across the void.
To capture you, by the mouth,
and bring you, like a magnet,
into another dimension.
Lips, press down, as if stitched;

the Cupid's bow,
folds itself, into the lower lip,
and sutures shut.
It forms a thin veil, of suppression,
and secrets.

Stay with me...
stay with me, a while...
stay with me, until I fall

...a...

...sleep, overtakes me.
I'm too weak, to wrestle with it,
and sink, below its dusky tides.
Darkly, they swallow me.
I float, in an indigestible stupor;

caustic waves, ripping away
at whatever remains,
of me:
half-consumed,
in the raging belly,
of the beast.

Still... the melted glaciers, of my eyes
seek you, above the insouciant turn,
of melancholy tides.

I wish to tangle myself,
all around you
to knot about you, composed,
comprised, in looping ties
like ropes... that only bite,
into the fruit, of your skin
if you draw me around you, tightly.  

And though, there's naught,
but an echo, of you,
above the seismic waves,
of pain

That same thought, rises
A shallow cry,
but it rips, through my soul
with the sudden release
of an arrow, leaving
the taut, aching pull,
of its bowstring.

Stay with me...

stay with me, til night, falls...
hold me, til the dawn, breaks...
love me,til our worlds,
collapse...

and, stay......
stay with me.