***** and giggles.
Thrills without frills.
My god, the things you consider
mantra.

How have you become this
sad, blind, pathetic person?
Where is your animal force?
Your keenly tuned force of nature smile?
You never had a chance.
Never.

You scream in shades of
burning gasoline.
You cry in tuneless guitar strumming.
You move with mechanical imprecision .
The very soul of you is the very sole of you.
Was it always so?

You were never so repulsive as when
you begged me to stay.
You couldn’t keep the dawn lit,
and I refused to be your book of matches.
The things you said, the things you did.
Phone line regrets paid in full.

I know you have the strength, if only you
would bend without breaking.
If only you would dream without
having to borrow.
If only you could remove the sepia
tone from your expectations.

We were only children.
Kids playing pretend at happily ever after.
Now you’re gone.
I never told you that...

“If only” right?

There is sky stretched almost to break,
a countless number of stars breaking through
the ink of this soft night.
The moon, a lost child in a wood, his mother
long gone and him alone, is absent from
the sky. Absent from your eyes.
A streak of still white clouds glaze
through the iris to end in the pupil.
Your head so far back, taking it all in
with that senseless wonder of yours,
that your mouth hangs open.
As you tilt your head down to earth,
down to me and us and all that means
and all that once meant,
your gaze falls on me.
The same gaze that could behold the
entirety of the moonless sky.
A slow smile spreads your cheeks,
makes them gently touch your amazing eyes.
With a nod we leave.
Leave the night, leave the city, leave the state.
It is only us now.
Lost and alone like the moon.
Forever searching, forever leaving,
to find new distractions.

Black and white judgment,
cherry colored lips and creme colored eyes.
I saw you bathing. I didn’t mean to.
The door was open a crack.
I was so young, I didn’t fully understand
why I was frozen on the spot.

Habits pulled tight against the
driving rain. A world where the
nuns stood in closed circles, their
hands wrapped around the glowing,
almost living embers of their cigarettes.
Protected from the water. From the skyward
vengeance, no irony felt at all in any part of it.
Dignity, among all things, maintained.

Bruised knuckles were my badge of honor.
Arguments heard from three doors down.
Dare me to question the one thing you
won’t allow anyone to question.
Dare.
Deny all things, young man, but do not
deny the truth of the Holy Spirit.
Do not ask me why!

The water, so unlike the rain all over
your black and white, this time with
a purpose, almost a mind of it’s own.
It forms a train, a pattern of clean skin
between your shoulder blades, your *******.
I knew that those things were there.
I’m sure I did.
So tell me, why am I so surprised to see them?

Every Empire falls.
Every reign ends.
Every time.
Every Time.

So tell me, whisper into
my ear if it makes you more
comfortable, my god the things
we do for comfort,
tell me, my friend:
How will this Empire end?

Will it be in fire?
A large bang, followed in course
by smaller ones into a
rubble and tear filled
oblivion?

I think it’ll be a whimper.
I think it will fall apart inside itself,
so slowly and so quietly
that when it’s over we’ll
wonder if it ever was to
begin with.

I’d like it to be a fire.
I’d like it to be a boom or a bang.
I’d like it to end in glory,
if possible.
I’d like it to end with you.

There is something in the breeze.
Something about your scent.
Some secret thing that passes,
from you to me, like telepathy.
It catches in the wind,
blows back like sand in our eyes.
I can feel it even now, miles apart
in distance and certainty apart
in moral high grounds.

I loved you when we were children.
I loved you in a way I didn’t understand,
in a way I still struggle to understand.
The electricity of breathing in the same air.
You moved, not like water or silk in
a light wind, but with the calm purpose
of sports figures and politicians.
I always had to fake the confidence you
were born with.
I loved you for it.

If the rain gets any harder, I fear that
we’ll be swept to sea.
You and me crashing against the waves.
Borrow my strength, it is all I have to
give, it is all I know to give.
Float next to me, I will do the swimming.
When we are awash on our own island,
I will build for you the life you always wanted.
I want you to understand,
to feel from me what I feel for you.
Returning that feeling has always
been for you to decide.

My limbs ache in captivity.
I stretch in these shallow confines
and feel hard wall and harder resolve.
Freedom will be mine.
If only for these minutes
or that hour,
My god, if only for today!

I have watched you spend
time.
I have seen you preform these
great labors.
I have noticed the effort,
the struggle
the care
with which you constructed
the perfect cage to keep me.
I think you proud of these
walls and this narrow slat
that light can trickle through.

But there are so many things,
so many things, friend,
which you have left unconsidered.
Yes, you have left me no key
and yes, one would be useless
were I to have it.
Yes, you have forced me to
stay. Yes, you have created in
your trap a mechanism which I need.

You must sleep. In those dark hours
I may yet steal away.
You never thought I could learn to
need less and want only one thing.
You built this cage to keep who I was.
You didn’t consider who I am.

I will be free.
I will be whole.
I will feel the wind against my back.
I will not look back,
I will never try to find you again.

You keep me for now,
because I don’t know how to
be anything but kept.
I’m learning.
I’ve had a good teacher.

You are a crucible,
within you are the ingredients
that will coalesce into such
wonderful shape and form.
I am an unlit pyre aching to burn

Find the spark that will
push me to ignite.
Feel for the pressure that
will force your contents to unite.

You will make forever in your own shape.
A fine thing it will be.
People will look on your
achievement and inundate
you with deserved praise.
You are more than a glorified stain.
You are permanent. You will last.

I am almost nothing.
I will blaze for such a short time.
Ash and dust and nothing.
But, my god,
my friend,
my love,
I have such a gift for you.

Watch as I burn.