Like love, these words
are just a means to an end.
Writing cryptic phrases
beneath the guise
of beautiful colors
and sun-stroked flesh.

These words are just
dark matter, from
an empty head.
Senseless chatter
in a poet's bed.

I watch you turn away,
as if you can't remember
how we got here.
I watch your hands
for a sign- there is
nothing but godless regret
and cold fingers
stroking my ego.

These words are not
what I meant to say.
Blue smoke curls and folds
and it is more than me;
More than this winter note,
I wrote for you.
My hands shake
and the walls murmur
with disapproval.

There is love in these words
but they come from a place
that transcends darkness,
where sorrow bleeds crystalline
and fills up every groove and sulcus.
These words are no good,
and my lips tremble
as apologetic syllables
go tumbling across the threshold.

These words are finite,
the end of an era.