I am the shell of a cathedral,
my ribs stripped bare,
dust grinds against my marrow.
Smoke coils, ghost-thin,
a lover's last exhalation,
its fingers press against
the hollows of my throat.

Stained glass eyes—
shattered saints, shattered demons.
Their colors bleed across my skin,
an abstract of wars long silenced,
their screams etched in my spine.
I house their echoes
like a mausoleum,
their whispers scraping my eardrums.

The earth betrayed me once—
a trembling, violent lover.
Its hands split me open,
toppled my crown.
Now I wear my wounds like jewels,
a monument to collapse.

Sleep eludes me.
What lullaby holds the dead?
Their songs thread the air,
soft as ash, sharp as shards.
I lie beneath their melody,
each note a needle in my sternum.

And yet, I do not crumble.
Something fierce and hollow in me
clings to this ruin—
a hymn for no one,
a prayer to nothing.

Fly to the brightness
Say the spider to the moths
Snack bars now open

You - paltry. Pleasant to stretch
To limits in thought. The thought
In turn warps
To accommodate. The
Accommodation
Barely manages itself.
It winds its thin long arms
All around you. I steal
Your simple presence
And hold, hold. I drink
To the gentle hum of nerve
I invite everything.

The night stoops low
With a curious face
Its crooked movement disturbs the wind
The wind rolls its eyes, continues
On to wherever, whoever
Would bother to follow and see.
Stay

Or don't. I will entangle you
In my wrong constellations
My joy is perfect. My adoration
Correct. My brittle focus
Breaks on word and sifts
Through through to wherever,
Whoever would dare
To tame me. Come

Or don't. We wait -
Your ambiguity
Fools no one. Not me,
No one. It whirls
Into itself, pretty with wit, and
In a moment's shift,
When dizzy it falls,
You know where
It will fall.