Is it not strange,
how every time,
I utter your name,
I forget mine?

I think of us beside each other,
our hands weaved carelessly,
or how you hug my arm near,
and bury your face and inhale heavily.

The crowded paths through the mall
gave our feet room to be sprightly,
or the small frame you adorn
lugging my weight through the alleys.

Our hectic workdays pressure high,
but topple by our grit for the weekends.
For in those few hours that slip by,
we recall again our source of strength.

I remember how your lips purse,
how your arms reach past my face -
how your nose seeks and finds mine,
and how your voice holds my gaze.

And how our arms latch like vines,
as we stretch on sheets with minds undressed,
while we bask in each and every line,
and take to realms our words suggest.

You asked,
"What if my Sunday has passed?
That the week was all I had,
and I messed it up so bad."

And in cognition,
I ungripped my neck.
I saw a counterpart — I was not the only one.

I knew how it was, to dangle by the jagged pier.
And you knew how it was to choke by disregard,
that floating was impossible with a punctured heart.

When each door meant nothing —
used and crossed out in your likeness.
Where I waited for the Sun,
but my windows stay boarded up.

You scraped bottom until my first word fell.

I said,
"I am a prisoner. And I am the prison."
You said,
"I am a cage, with nothing breathing inside."

I was alone. And you were alone.
And then we were alone together.

You unpicked my fearful lips,
for my throated echoes.
And I reminded you that you
are the reason that beauty exists.

Of the endless books we read,
Auster, Hesse, McCullers, Graves,
we still found ourselves
written on the same page.

Our tattoos were marked like scars —
another hopeless attempt
to speak with ink.
Why not mar the skin,
if we lose only grace?
I used to believe perfection was false,
for I had never seen your face.

You pointed out
my large feminine hands.
Then with your modest fingers,
you screened the chuckles.
And all I pictured from that endearing sight —
my effeminate hands, sheltering yours that frigid night.

No longer living in a future that was all talk.
No longer imperfect — for our scars sat perfect with.

We found Sunday.

I am not alone. And you are not alone.
And we are never alone together.

Cower and kiss the bent knees.
Hug them close, find reprieve —
the closest inkling of warmth
by the cold sulfur springs.

Clench the keys to guard the soul
as the skin hardens with stone.
The wafts of fumes asphyxiate;
and sobbing turned to coal.

The temples throb in rhythm,
pictures a mere stiff necktie.
I lull and sigh in compliance,
as I bleed out and dry.

An indication.
Cotton mouth and a binding knot to the temple.
Warm exhales give reason to suspect
my tenure over this body fetal.

A reminder.
Halation and smothering darkness in the enclosure.
Crusted squints summon the gall to beg
my limbs to remember their master.

A disturbance.
Musky stench and fingers webbed to slime and yarn.
An arduous tug suggests a young female
gone for hours by the heat of her tongue.

The appeasement.
Correlation and tracing mind maps to its chorus.
A restful sigh confirms my furtive habit
of decapitating the women I love.

Littered with gravel —
a path diminished.
A draft depriving
my nature as such.

Barked giants shadowing,
luring out doubt.
No difference distinct since
I never look up.

But lo, a lark,
staring back at me.
Any bid to steal glances
were met by peeps.

We amused and laughed,
flattered in bursts.
If this is truly a trick, then
God deserves my curse.

Her hair sweeps the gravel.
Her voice shoos the shadows.
Her light dries my eyes
along with the puddle
in which she resides.