you know who i am
you have seen her
dancing in flickering candlelight
heady breath wafting the
sickly sweet smell of
too many consumed beers
drowning my inhibitions
inundating my irises and
letting my eyes betray my
carefully constructed façade
the grenade you throw yourself upon

but you haven't asked the right question

have you never wondered
what i am?

i am the tolling of
bells echoing through
deserted streets
cobbles screaming for
footfalls and bustling crowds
the only witnesses to the
belfry's solemn song
reverberating off the
business fronts boarded up
to ward off the reality of sobriety
and Death's march through the streets
sending the inhabitants running
disturbed dust blinding their
frenzied eyes
who search for a sacrificial lamb
as if a swathe of blood
across the door could
keep away such an
inevitability

i am the stars
but don't confuse that with
a confession
or profession of some sort
that i'm something infinite
for you to probe
with hyper-drives and
deep suspended animation
there is no alien microbial life
lurking below my frozen
absolute zero surface
i'm only the stars that
you lose track of as
you leave the blackness of
open space and enter
a deafening city where
skyscrapers obscure
and the pollution of
a million lovers' ecstasy
drowns out the light
wrought in the deepest parts of me
and catapulted through
the lightyears of black vacuum
only to be lost
choked out by incessant
revelry

i am the heaviness that
yolks itself around your shoulders
and the night black that
wraps itself around you in
its vicious velvet embrace to
***** out your breath and
envelop you
swallow you
pinch the flame
asphyxiate your existence

i am the tunnel under
the Pont de l'Alma
a loss of control and the
echoing reverb of
skidding rubber
tires whose
black smoke chokes out
the screams which constitute
the end and last breath of
a goddess among men who
never could understand her
and in her end
found culpability

i am the petrichor haze
that settles
nestles itself into every
corner of the barren graveyard
wherein lies my comfort
and my greatest hope
my fear of names and dates
and chiseled stone
and finality that means
a peaceful nothingness
that welcomes the most
effervescent
ebullient
peace
that comes with the
cessation of neural firings
and the end of all things.