Beware
the traveling soul
It will leave you
feeling beautiful
but it will eventually leave you

you can probably tell by the way this body trembles before your lips, the way these hands shake at your hips, the sound of my staggering breath that i, this body, is still yours. kind of like how i can tell by the way you pour out into my hand, the way your body drips from my chin, the way your muscles tense, that you, this body, is still mine.

And I, a lonely poet, find that even words cannot bring a joy that outweighs the sting of loneliness felt when all that accompanies me is a memory of something that once was and a dream of how it ought to be. Woe is the lonely poet. Woe is the man so tranquilized by anguish that he offers himself no other option but to relish in it. Woe is the soul trapped inside a body controlled by a tempered mind. Woe is the tempered mind ready to rid itself of a soul. Ode to the art they will both produce.

I envy the artist
who can draw himself
from nothing more than his reflection
Words don't so easily curve
like lips
to capture the image I see
when I reflect

I wonder how many parents did not believe
in their child's afflictions
until they buried them.
I hope, for your sake,
Mother,
that I do not make a believer out of you.