With a blown-out candle
that started our doubts,
I've been drinking in
the white, the immaculacy
of a streak of hope.

I've been drunk on
whatever comes next,
with the future in chains,
with the past
put to its blame.

I've been leaving sand
for time to be told,
for faces to be revealed
in sudden recognition.
For I want to see
who I've kept it from.

I want them to be
circling in better thoughts.

I wanted to do more
than to blanket your form
in a cloak, to surround
your marble shape.

I've bled dry
a heart, I've resigned
to the leech of love,
while rinsing my hands
in your charity.

If I could go
into that hole,
with you, to be unified
in the safety of what
is forever petrified,
I'll be red, again,
I'll be whole, again.

I'll be what I cannot be
without you,
to accompany me.

Nothing rose from
a garden, as bleak as
the weather that never
melted our skin,
without permission.

We just lifted our agony
to the wind that cut
our flesh, into ribbons.

A celebration, in pain,
savoring those moments
we kissed in the rain.

We've been waiting
while giving each other
much-needed space,
disclosing secrets
in rooms full of dust.

We've been spilling
what's left in our eyes
onto floors that turned red,
bloodshot with our sight
that burns, that stares.

This will get better,
for us to bloom under
all we've been crowding
in our heads, to keep
wondering when.

Living in reverse,
rewriting our love
in careless verse,
denying all that died
in between sacred seconds
we were able to cry.

I want us to crawl
back to that hole
all our shadows
ever put us.

Even if all we do
is lie to the sun,
become blind to light,
perhaps the darkness,
just the darkness
understands us.

A space had opened,
as your feet were brought
down into an expanse,
of murderous, cold water.

What can I do
other than watch
your form, going under
both rapids and wilderness?
I had begun to bury
a heart into a plot
of protected earth.

I had begun to conceal
painful memories,
drawn beautifully.

I had begun to flee
where our storms
were gathering.

You were always wanting
to pull that plug
to recreate the darkness,
all while we might
seek a different source
of mystical light.

To feathers, inside of
pillows with their
depressions, from heads
worrying on the next
flawed second,
even in dreams.

To a lightness, I may
find a place where peace
rides on a horse,
towards a sunrise.

Love tore me open
to those sounds,
emitted from her throat.
Love cleaned wounds,
though left scars
as countless as stars.

I just wanted her to breathe.

I just wanted her to see
that such a weight needn't be
what she needs to
drag to another sunset.

If she could ever
raise her gentle head,
she would have seen
it was instead a sunrise.