Everything was right before,
but lonesome after.
One of us is always leaving.
We'd fall asleep together.
and wake up alone.
Lets just say:
If it's love,
we are each in love alone.

They get excited over the waves flowing when I walk by.
They look so weak
And I feel so strong
But then it’s all the same
I feel like this makeup is warpaint and my short dress sometimes turns into armor.
Honestly
I would wash over the world with my waters and crush buildings with the wind at my command.
But I can’t
Instead I have a flute playing wonderful songs and all these boys follow me into the ocean.
To drown
While I lay there unsatisfied

Take your heavy hand
And reach into my chest.
Break the skin
And tear my ribs apart.
When you find my heart,
Don’t stop.
Dig your fingertips into
The deepest ventricle
And pull to the surface
All my insecurities.
Every
Single
One.
Leave none behind
As it will not be able
To fester
Like the others;
As it will not be able to
Turn my eyes
Black
To the world;
As it will not be able to
Spark the fire
That needs to
Burn
My
Flesh
So that you may
Feed.
So that you may feed
Off my fallen tears
And the contaminated blood
That peaks your arousal.
And when you are full,
Toss my body aside
With no “thank you”
On your tongue
And move on
To the next.
But before you go,
Know,
That I would do it
All over again.

"On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever."
-  Bai Juyi - A Song of Unending Sorrow - 300 Tang Poems

+++++

The first day they met he gave her the poems
he'd carried all the way from China, a young boy
with a dream and 300 poems a thousand years old

...on the seventh day of the seventh month...

How could she not fall in love with him?

And his sculpture... carved with fire,
the strong, bronze back now frozen,
arms raised in wild and sensual supplication.

Were they his arms reaching for her?

He'd kept it hidden for twenty years,
waiting for someone, the right woman to give it to
And he'd told her,"I knew it was meant for you."

How could she not fall in love with him?

Each night before she sleeps
she reads a poem and traces her fingertips down
the cold beauty of that graceful spine

Wish he were here
wish this was his back
curving around me
curving around me in my bed...
whispering the poems of his ancestors

She knits her loneliness into scarves,
soft pink wools like clouds of candy cotton,
rough mountain wools that smell of heather and winter solitude.
Years from now, she'll wrap them round her neck to remember
how he once kissed her.

Didn't she write a poem about it?

and this is her dream:
they meet when they are young,
they fall in love,
they fall in love and marry,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children and grow old together,
they grow old and blind and deaf, and still in love, they fall into the final sleep together
and their children's children's children will remember their love for a thousand years.

It's just a dream.
He will have children
but not hers.
She'll die alone,
she wrote that poem, too,
thirty years ago.

karma, karma, karma
stealing heaven

she writes:
what does this world mean to me without you?*

utter loneliness

I was with you last night.
Do you remember?
I flew to you
as you stood waiting,
turned towards the horizon,
with my gaze in your eyes.

The ocean parted for us
and we walked in together
under arches of coral
and mazes of rock.

What are you looking for?
It’s not hidden in a bed of seawood.
It’s ahead of us, tu sais,
we haven’t found it yet.
So don’t give up.

The desires of thousands of miles are floating out of reach.

*Love me here again.

The rain set early in tonight,
      The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
      And did its worst to vex the lake:
      I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
      She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
      Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
      Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
      And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
      And, last, she sat down by my side
      And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
      And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
      And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
      And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
      Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
      From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
      And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
      Nor could tonight’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
      For love of her, and all in vain:
      So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
      Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
      Made my heart swell, and still it grew
      While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
      Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
      In one long yellow string I wound
      Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
      I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
      I warily oped her lids: again
      Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
      About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
      I propped her head up as before
      Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
      The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
      That all it scorned at once is fled,
      And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
      Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
      And all night long we have not stirred,
      And yet God has not said a word!