I long to leave
this world behind.
I am a stranger here
without your hand.
A shade now walks —
Where once
there was a man.
This roar has been stifled.
Now mute,
Heartless and frail.
There is no pity for the loveless.
There is no time.
There is no rest.
There is no hope.
I see the indifference
in their eyes.
The distance between us.
It is unbearable.

I never felt more alone
than at a party —
Amidst the revelry.
The laughter and merrymaking,
Like an unfamiliar song.
Confirming my rank,
Outsider.
Fiend.
Ne'er-do-well.
Chasing the moon
in the gutter.
Far from the strange libretto of joy.
Far from the jubilation.
With your ghost —
All dark hair and poison kisses.
You left me out in the cold...
Where I belong.

All we have left are diversions,
To pass the time.
A pantomime reality,
Without function.
Without meaning.
Those jokes we shared,
Cutting the world down to size.
They aren't funny anymore.
That forgotten t-shirt —
The stray intimacies of lovers —
The lacerations in my skin —
The blood that I spill —
The ambulance ride —
The last face I'll ever see —
You.
My favourite girl,
My favourite hell.
Io fei gibetto a me de le mie case.
QUIT TORTURING YOURSELF.
QUIT TORTURING YOURSELF.
QUIT
TORTURING YOURSELF.
Quit torturing yourself.
Quit ******* trturing yrself.
Quit trtrng urslf.
Quit.
Quit.
...

I don't know how it happened.
This leviathan,
Dismissed so casually.
All glory —
Now fading and unknown.
Promises emptily rescinded,
Without consequence.
Without care.
The woman only known in my arms.
Now happy without this tender embrace.
One of us in ruins.
One of us reborn.
All passion and fury denied...
Rendered in pity,
Shameful and frail.
Once a lion,
Once a titan,
Once a myth!
Now a fool.
You are the hunger I never knew.
The night rain.
The stars.
What is left without you?
Only disgrace,
Only mourning.
Empty breath.

I regret nothing.

What we knew
As love,
Now only sickens
Our hearts.
Our memory.
We are fallen,
Graceless.
Sacrificial lambs —
Hungry
For
Our
Fate.

Bereavement
Means
"seize by violence".
As you were torn
away
So violently —
It left a wound.

712

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—’tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity—