The surface level of a liquid,
In a tube or water glass,
Has an illusory crescent zone
Known as the meniscus,
Where light is scattered
In such a way
That it throws the eye off
Just a little,
The way a good poem
Can throw off the coherent mind,
While revealing a deeper truth.

I dare to feel,
with searching fingers,
a bifurcated wish
to take the path to you
or the one that leads to me.

I dare to feel,
asking only
from you, my sweet,
your thoughtful understanding.

My naked vulnerability
to your alluring charms,
that I,
that we,
could be washed with rain,
As if lust and sin
Could be so easily entertained.

I dare to feel,
I dare to feel,
the disappointment
I know will come,
will come,
as our bridge decays
with the vanity that is your way.
Or is it MY WAY?

I had a dream, which must have been all a dream.
Because we two never parted
and we two never cried,
we were neither living nor dead,
but we were happy.

There was a world made of needles
but our skin was too hard to get stung.
As we walked arm in arm through
the faceless crowd, we smiled.
It felt nice.

The Sirens sounded
The world fell apart and landed on our souls.
Even then, no pain was found.
And that was nice, too.

We walked in a stiff waltz
the music was a death rattle.
I found a wilted flower
and hung it on your arm.
You found the knife in my side
that I keep hidden from others.
The blood was so beautiful,
a glorious fountain.
So I wore it on my lapel.
We looked nice.

For a blurry split-second
the world was real,
and oblivion made sense.
Which was nice.

The word interminable
is more than just a word.

Interminable is watching the sunrise
from a sleepless bed.
Interminable is staring at the ceiling
for hours searching for answers
in off-white oblivion.
When your life is just begun
but cannot seem to end quick enough.
When you're happier surrounded
by smoke and strangers
than you are alone.

Do you know interminable?
I think you do
It's when you wander the streets
going to work
going to school
going to live
and the air screams
the sun flickers
and no one is saying anything
but no one will stop talking.

Interminable is the sadness
the confusion
the overwhelming yearning for silence or something graver.
And you know that that too shall pass
that you're not always so sad.
That you've got a laugh able to warm hearts,
but what does it matter?

Why does it matter at all?

Days weeks years of happiness
are but fleeting moment.

But every second of sadness
is as interminable
as the weary days and weary ways
of the burning stars which supercede time itself.

What a burning, broken universe—
incalculable, devastating,
things we can't imagine.
We attach names familiar to us
                    Titan, Europa, Calypso
but they are still mighty and immeasurable, terrifying—

but don't think of all that.
It's too big.
It's too sad.

Think of this:

It's sublime and impossible that we even exist
with our
soft flesh and our wet eyes,
our music, our sins, 
our jealous lovers,
our moments of bliss, 
and love— god, love…
more immeasurable
more incalculable
than the universe, 
than whatever it is
that the universe wonders about.

Our smallness shouldn't humble us.
We are tiny demigods
watching the universe expand
from our lawn chairs
while we eat ripe peaches
with sticky hands and smiling mouths.

I learned early
that to speak too soon
or too often
of love

gave words
and weight to
my little prophecy
of loss—

so I stopped speaking.
I carved and polished
my heart into
a Japanese puzzle box

that both discouraged
and excited
with a precise
sequence of 

sliding parts
half twists
secret drawers
and dead ends

so that

by the time 
hands trembled
with the imminence
of conquest

and before the 
contents
could disappoint,

I could be a safe
distance away

saying

*you must have broken it.

When you said
what we have is magic
I didn't think it meant
you'd disappear.

I'm not good for you.

I'm better at seduction 

than love; love is hard.

Little more than listless guests,
we play the game I-need-you-less.


Discord, missed turn, second guess;
things are different. Bitter? Yes.


Weary, naked– I'll confess;
you drew your hooked line through my chest


so meet me in your battledress
and if your blade finds  tender flesh,


I swear that with my dying breath
I'll say * "I won. I need you less."

The moon only wants everything,
her net always cast;
greed versus gravity.

The only things Earth cannot
hold fast to
are oceans and imagination.