he is half my soul
as the poets say -
what *******

i am a whole soul
old soil
and you are the roots
that take hold in me
shifting and growing and
digging ancient cavities
in my chest

do you think
if i had met you
just a little later
waited a little longer

would we have lasted
instead of falling apart
in the way we did -

quickly
painfully

like blowing out a candle

my hands tremble
with the needing of it all
with the dark angry teeth
eating away at the cavity in my chest
like a starved animal
     one- one- one- one- one-
i count the ticking of the clock
in static numbers
the red needle skipping
like a record scratch
there and back and there and back
and there and back again

my hands tremble
with the needing of it all
and the hate and the hurt and the hunger
and the empty empty empty
before the slumber
i do not sink into sleep
unless, that is to say
like a shipwreck
fighting and howling and breaking apart
these days i feel too much
or not enough
and i miss the liminal spaces
so much that one would think
they were never there at all

and my hands

- my hands -

my hands tremble
with the needing of it all

i fall far too fast
a tidal wave of emotion drowning me
filling my lungs until i cannot breathe
under the weight of your sheets
i think
i am destined to be a fatality
seeking comfort in bulletproof arms
that tighten around my neck like a noose
you tell me
you love me you love me you love me
then throw me off the pier to sink
stones in my pockets
i fall far too fast
as the blue light turns to black light turns to nothing
i come to land within a shipwreck
the ruins of my past loves back to haunt me
telling me
i will always be this way
because i gather kisses like pebbles
and fill my heart with them
and tell myself that it is love
so when i am cast out
i have nothing left to do
but drown

i feel the weight of the universe
expanding in my lungs
pushing outward until it fills
the cracks and the spaces
between my ribs
i collapse outward in a scream
formed of stardust
bursting from me in a flood of emotion

i am too full for this hollow body
i am too old for this frame
i am too vast and ancient
to be contained
in a form that is not the sprawling forest
branching out at the roots
a living organism spanning miles
i stretch my arms wide
and touch the edges of
my feeble human consciousness
i **** at the heavy fabric
of the stage curtain
i rip it from its hooks
and stare at the vast nothingness beyond
and i feel infinite infinite infinite

i stare past the stars and the galaxies
and the thick clouds
birthing life from nothing
and i feel myself
unmade
the universe at home in my chest
spreading and pushing and ripping
until my skin
separates from my flesh
separates from my bones
and i am three incomplete lives
on the cold tile floor

i have lived through ages
i have lived through empires
i have lived through
the fabric of the universe
ripping at the seams and
bursting in a flash of light
to create life and vast nature
and love love love

your name rips its way
past my lips in a scream
and i am forced
to face my shortcomings
in the echo of words and
lips on lips on lips
feeling fading but never fast enough
to forget

i curse the day i ever saw your face
and found it kind enough
to smile at
i curse the moment i ever realized
you were worth the wait
because you may be worth the wait
and the pain
and the heartbreak
but i am worth stars
and galaxies

i am worth the creation of worlds
and endless life
and places too real and
immensely powerful
to be contained in a word
i am alive
i am alive

and i intend to stay that way

when people are in love
they often say
they simply fell
tripped over their own two feet
face forward
and into the arms of their beloved

i did more than simply fall
onto the ground of your love

you, for me
were an ocean
and i dived
headfirst
roughly
harshly
almost painfully
into the waters of “you”

i knew i could not swim
but i did so anyway
i was drowning
entangled in you
surrounded by this being of “you”
engulfed in this feeling of “you”

and i did not know what came over me
but i let myself drown
i did not try to swim back up
because if i went back to land,
releasing myself from your grasp
that would mean losing the feeling of “you”

and after
submerging into the depth
the love
the passion
of “you”

how could i ever leave?

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"