I

I still exist in your symmetry,
In your crystals, in your lines
There is a secret history;
A passing of marble and bronze
I leave my room and here I am,
Surrounded by the fake daylight
Memory still exists on the most
Aged asphalt and white plaster
Weighed by a sadness older than age itself
As time sags their wooden frames

Then there the fire begins
It burns with fury and rage;
My artificial paradise departs from me
As I gather what I can from ash
They remain unamended and raw
In their original, solid state
I begin to mark each line of sweat
The strands on my head now aflame;
Fiery hands remove all of me minus heart
Left with my frail bones that rattle, alone

As my spirit departs the scorched crust
I dust away at my improvised grave;
I carry myself to the edge of time
Vanished, no longer to be found.


II

The quietness after a harsh panic
Paints the ordinated New Age
There regrows the willows where
We are off to sleep;
I mix the soil with our love
It grows and grows and grows;
Their strands a brilliant green
It comes and joins me
My hair becomes the willow
Where I still hear you, asleep

There I flee to the ocean
Your memory amongst the particles of salt
The water’s ephemeral substance
Their fluidity draws me in
I am drawn in by the cool water
My skin slowly becomes blue;
My eyes replaced with worn, ancient shells
My hair a bundle of slippery kelp
I molt in the clear, wide expanse
As you consume me

And now in the darkness
You rejoin me again on the sea floor;
Again, grows the willow
The marker of our joint grave.

Paradise, 2018