leaf through the
pages of our skinny love lost:
tender—all that was bitter for
ideal, sweet almond ink and
a cinnamon paper oeuvre
of the warmth-starved half-life

calcify the war in our art
fashion it into mountains—
unyielding, monolithic
salted retrospect brings answers
but never closure,
broaching possibilities
suspended, stalactites birthed
upside down from the gritty
seepage of premature confession
in some subterranean depth

natural succession is patient and kind:
i think of the enshrined fossil relics of
a holy pain i'll learn to value when
thistle and thorn, lichenous growth
start reclaiming the barren alpine knolls
a holy pain i'll proudly unearth, brandish
when wildflowers and hares show me life and
faith can be coaxed from salt-tainted gardens

leaf through the
pages of our skinny love lost:
and you will know that ours
began with the end always in mind:
in the middle of things, in medias
restitution for the things unforgiven

the penance of the emaciated lover
is flesh for flesh, and the rituals that
once nourished now take, keep, (p)reserve

seek meaning in the tea leaves at the
bottom of the thrift store china teacup
in the spidery tea egg cracks in the
veneer, hot and caustic with blood
and you will know that our story
was always meant to be read backwards
with perhaps a little too much allusion
to cicero and caesar, consonance
bellicose, brash, and bracing—
spitfire-like, similes and pandora's box
metaphors fragmented with asyndeton,
paradox, oxymoron, pun, ellipsis...
all bookending the great
irony of the self-aware narcissist
wanting for someone other than himself:

"utter but one word and i will come running,
chasing stimulus before reward like pavlov's dog:
i'll be your motley fool, your painted mime
i'll be your idiot, your deer caught in the headlights"

there is no consoling him.
he misses wanting to be wanted,
the free climbing thrill of being
strung up with good intentions
and not much else...
who will fight?
who will fall far behind?