There is shadow in the corner.
The barest hint of a shape.
Another boy.
So much pain, so much
cruelty. So much...
His eyes flicker with danger.
A silver glint reflects from his hand.
His left hand.
Odd, I think.

There is a shadow, a boy, and
a bullet meant for me.
When he issues his charge the
sound roars through the small
alley.
He drops the weapon,
I shout to bleed out the noise.
Next to me there is no noise.
The projectile moved so quickly,
I didn’t even understand what had
happened until after the shadow boy
had run off, until after I held you.

There were no last minute confessionals.
There was no kissing your forehead
no shouting vengeance to the heavens.
I wish there was.
I wish it had all been different.

I don't know if it was the sound,
how unbearably loud it was,
or if it was the inexperience of the
shadow boy, or some magical combination
of all of these things.
I never will.

There was only a boy
and what was left of the other one.

Muscles strain with the effort, each one
fit to burst from this skin in protest of the
things I do for you.
When I saw you falling by I couldn’t
help but to throw out my arm for you
to grab. I will anchor you to safety.
Sometimes I think that this act,
rescuing you, is all I know.

A toast!
To those buildings from our lives
which at times meant so much,
and how we saw them torn down.
To those people, who we loved and
hated and ignored and couldn’t be
away from, and to how we stood
by to see them torn apart.
A toast to the rips and tears.

When I’m not around, and this dark world
looms like death about your aspect,
how do you go on?
Do you have a bevy of pretenders,
waiting in the wings to assume the mantle
of hero for you, at your beck and call?
I think not.
No, the state that I always find you in.
Teetering on oblivion. Breathing in your
own acrid impending ruin.

A toast!
To the victimless crimes that always
find themselves a victim.
To the altruist with ulterior motives.
To the new car with seven hundred miles on it.
A toast to the rut I find you in.

How could I do anything other than rebuild you?
I sit and cobble you from the heart break
you discovered on your path to forget or forgo.
With delicate hands and loose calculations
I will rend you into a form that resembles
yourself, and when I am done I will
walk away.
You have never once thanked me.

A toast!
To the victimless victim of
self inflicted crime.
To those torn down and made whole
again.
To buildings wrecked and replaced.
To the occasional altruist with
understandable ulterior motives.

Seven words that are better left unsaid.
Steps descend from here to
the farther room, and within
there is the chained box,
a demon soul inside.

There is no way to win this.
No chance to come out on top.
Stand still, and line up,
better to be dropped on the spot.
For all the effort, and so much
of our precious time, and here we
stand, our empty hands a
reminder of what we haven’t got.

Gift me with this silver tongue.
So I may sing for you the dirge
of our day. Explain it with the timbre
and the fire that it has not just earned,
but perhaps even deserves.

Find me, just please god, find me.
There’s a distance between us.
I know it wasn’t always there.
The day in, day out daytime fuss.
The hard won raking against our coals.
I wonder if it will ever be enough.

***** 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.