What can I hold of you?

Of a fleeing cloud ‬
making good its escape ‬
‪from its wanton lodgings ‬
‪in the sea looking to empty itself  ‬
‪and in the sky seeking closure ‬

‪Of a lightning cowering‬
‪in its fleeting existence‬
‪waiting to be consoled and told, ‬
‪it’s magically alive‬
‪as a sliver of hope in the dark ‬

‪Of the bountiful waves ‬
‪retreating every time ‬
‪with a handful of sand,‬
‪clutching on to the earth ‬
‪it has made a promise of return‬

‪Of the godly Sun ‬
‪drowning in the horizon ‬
‪every day in a Spartan death‬
‪to see the moon rise ‬
‪and bask in its borrowed love‬

‪Of a cursed fate ‬
‪mooring me to the abyss‬
‪refusing to unchain me, ‬
‪to feel what it is to sail in waters ‬
‪which treasure the idea of you‬

‪What do I hold of you?

She's this insatiable urge
gaining on me,
like a herd of horses
galloping in the treachery of the wild,
their muscles brushed to a shine
rippling down their calves
to embrace the ground
beneath their ironed hooves
shaking it up, tormenting its calm,
whipping up tremors
that know no chains and travel far.

When she's around
dust and sweat break free
with muscles aching in symphony
the heart is all worked up
like a boiler room in heat
pummeling all of its adrenaline
in one fleeting indulgence
which the universe with all its hatcheries
is itching to contain
before the raging tides in
and floods my world.

She's the elusive horizon
used to passionate chases
and the sly azure lunging at it
for one sweet glimpse of the cleavage where it conjoins with the earth
looking for Elysium that never is.
Ah! But that is what it is
for the tamed to think of love
is an impossibility
for it grows in the wild
separated by a hundred chasms
and a million mazes
waiting for a fool to cross over.

When she isn't around
the rumpled sheets tell our story
for it has seen the storms
that raged in the cavernous nights
and filled up balmy noons
with the savagery of love
still crackling like embers of fire
which have seen better days,
and, light up still, with a death wish
to tell of our smouldering lives
that thrived in spasms of our last breath.

If any little word of mine
may make some heart the lighter,
If any simple song of mine
may make some life the brighter,
God, let me speak that little word
and take my bit of singing.
Then plant it in some desolate vale
to keep the echoes ringing...

Her thoughts and I,
we stay awake
waiting for someone,
hoping for somethings
for the heart in pain
needs no tending
just a pinch of the divine
and that silver lining.

I think of the moments
we gently stole
from the curious eyes
of tired souls
our driving the distance
to escape our own
and finding the universe
in our palms, unfold.

There in the coffee shop
she stares at me
from the helpless tea bag
in scalding water.
In the bottle she would get
to quench her thirst
I find her asking if
my need's greater than hers.

The empty seat of car,
in front
is taken in her absence
by her memories warm
The gear shaft
without our fingers twined
is stripped bare
of our naked thoughts

The rains when they come,
they flood my heart
for a stormy noon
is still parked within
when the highway was lost
behind a sheet of rain
and in lights all turned on,
our tongues were mating.

Her breath is all over
this gluttony of a glass
half filled with wine,
half consumed by need
Now, the dam opens,
blood rising to the lips
flooding me with her thoughts
she can never read...

I begged you to come in
to read me like a book
to feel the touch of my skin
to taste the promises on my lips
and whisper them back to me.

You did.
and more.

You cut me open.
Did everything I asked of you.
Read the pumping blood in heart
like the code of my DNA.
Looked to the blue and red twisting of my veins
traveled those lines to find me
like following a road map to the place
Where you could burrow deep down into my mind. My heart.

And keep that space.

I branded your name there.
The image of you.
Your back.
The outline of your shoulder blades through your t-shirt.
The way you look with your eyes closed.
Like you're trying to shut out the world.

and me.

Wishing I could be a part of it.

Wishing I could take up the space in you that you took in me.

Wishing you counted on me
like I counted your heartbeats as you slept.

That our hearts molded together like I so dearly believe they should.
That those words I wrote on that empty
Lined page

That they were wrong.

He doesn't love me.

I don't know what I did.

I asked you to cut me open.

Now I'm trying not to bleed out.

We cannot write silence.
The beats.
The pause.
The breath.
The way it aches
and persists

and begs that,

if only for a moment,

our consciousness is only a whisper.
our bodies,
our lips,
the air that passes through falling chests
and stillness.

A melody of emotion.
Sleeping in the quiet of a heartbeat skipped
a word lost to the wind.

The wickedness of reticence
Encapsulated in air and time.

The moment stretched too long.
Hesitation perpetuated in the grip of fingernails
pressed into palms.

We cannot write silence,
but we can try.

to find a way to immortalize emotion
to create space
in the ceaseless drone of words that speak and spin.

I cannot write silence. But I can write
tears and years
and the burn of long-stretched lies.

I can write goodbyes and hellos
And dozen ways to say
I love to hate you
Or
I hate to love you
and sometimes
I cannot tell the difference.
Silence.
The space I have upheld for myself.

I love to hate you
Heart.

I hate to love you too.

I cannot write silence.
But I know it.
and I have held it in my hand.

Like a clockwork's rhyme
they grow on him,
the soft moan of her heels.
Here she comes, they tell him
as they gently pry loose
of her tender feet.

A quiver is set into motion
like strings of a cello
consumed by touch
every time her voice breaks free
like a fugitive
from its own abode.

The visiting breeze crosses by
the slow hum
of her breathing,
and carries the gasps
in hurried echoes
to remind him she's checked in.

A mischief rolled into smile
escapes her lips
to touch a heart so shy,
only to leave it
and **** with pain
while making it a willing alibi.