early grays choke me uncertain
numb daybreak, phantom sheets
dipping into the cool crevices
your body used to fill

your breath once tasted sweet on my lips
but in morning fog it bleeds ice
dancing transient across my tongue   
it breaks against this raw, hollow mouth

i curl into the shirt i never gave to you
frosted with empty memories --
                    stolen nights
                                           sanguine skin
     swirls of smoke escaping your fingertips
and your voice in my dream last night

someday it won't hurt but
                this morning it is chilly sharp

i. you will miss him in drizzles and monsoons, in swells and tsunamis. you will listen to his favorite song for hours; it will hit you every unexpected moment. it will hurt, stab, ache, and you will suppress constant screams with strained lips.

ii. you will collect everything he gave to you and wonder if it is dimensionally real. you will sleep in his shirts, retaste saltwater kisses, and reread conversations as if there's something you missed the previous thirty times. absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it rips it apart and you cannot stitch the ragged halves with no thread.

iii. you will feel his touch presently in everything you do. it will be soft and cruelly comforting. it will constantly and inescapably linger. it will haunt you in early rainy mornings and dark lonely evenings.

iv. you will read endless musings on love and philosophy. you will entirely understand foucault's prison. you will live in steinbeck's tide pools and stars, and relate to simon bolivar trapped in his labyrinth. you will wonder why everything is like this, ugly and broken (and also if you are becoming delusional).

v. you will drink tea that scalds your tongue and stand outside on freezing nights, numb and overfeeling at the same time. you will ask the silent moon a thousand questions. you will see him and blink, head swimming, heart pounding in surges. the stars will wink and the wind will mock you.

vi. you will have blissful afternoons you forget and sorrowful nights you remember. it will still consume you in bouts, devour you in spells. nighttime will become both your enemy and remedy: it will wickedly remind you, yet help you heal.

vii. you will try and fail to make sense of him (and the universe in general). you will grapple with reality and yourself. perhaps you will never know why he stopped loving you: you will keep wondering how some things can just be left broken.

iix. slowly, slowly, you will sprout on your own; you will be tender and nearly whole. most importantly, you will realize his love brought you an entirely different kind of happiness.

ix. you will stop worrying and trying to piece together an empty puzzle. even the deepest scars find their way of fading. your mom was right: stop picking at the scab and your wound will heal.

x. you will learn to love yourself in ways he never could have loved you.

this bruised ballerina forgot how to dance.
            her lithe body a marionette
artfully conducted by threads in her back
   at the nimble fingertips of some perverse desolation
       she moves mechanically
   to its twisted touch.

she is told to somehow turn scars to flight --
    mend wounded wings
             and glide, carelessly soar
      through painted skies and fairy clouds
sweet as a songbird's melody
    reborn, a fresh starling

(listen: she weakly sings)

i lose myself in the titter of your raindrops tonight
who listen to me more intimately
than any being ever could

for your dark a.m. streets breathe
a musky scent exactly like my broken love's lips
and a sip of you is fresh as your wry scarlet sunrise
which whispers secrets of espresso and brick
and aged thrice-thrifted books and the dim glow
of ***** neon signs who call to no one in particular;

during lonely nights when you drink me in, i melt
into a solace of wet pave and unlit alleys
and emerge among sinuous swirls of painted walls
and hazy lights, a blur of chilly comfort and
being perfectly lost between
you and the moon

lashes kissing, i dissolve
            into these crumpled sheets
     which smell all too much
like your winter touch
           carved into my body
      sprinkled with sea salt and
minutes turn into falling petals
   now quick sips of burning scotch
are flames licking at my throat
                        a ceaseless dream

i still taste you on
the tip of my tongue,
sharp and silky and starry
even my neck remembers
your lazy lips and naughty violet imprint
i still see myself
fragile in your moonlit eyes
between soft blinks
and gentle crinkles

unwillingly slipping
into melting amnesias
and hazy evasion forces its way
down my throat
it dances fractals in my lungs
taunting me,
discarnate and disbodied
drifting ethereals turned ghostly fog
staining my crooked memories

escape with me, starry-eyed
a smoky shadowland
where sin is infinite
hell warmly embraced
and lust a syrupy *****.

desire is so crookedly pristine
when untouched by
the ugly delusion you call love

luring, seducing
the inky ebony of eve
coaxes us sweetly, chillingly
to join its empty prisoners --

passion aches
inject me with your raven smoke;
crave me,
consume me

come and dip with me in the night
where our veiled vices can find relief;
its venom will feed my impure nocturne
and your wicked clutches can snake into
the perverse piths of my phantasm and person.

i.

those velvet hands curled around my glass throat
but i laughed at the pretty little splinters
that would pierce your delicate fingers
while my fractured shards scattered
across your marble floor
sparkling
shattered -- fragmented --
broken

ii.

my ashen core melted into your blazing sorry
and crept up into the narrow
crevices of your collarbone -- an exodus
for this bloodless being
and this cold coffee has never before tasted
so empty
so tired
so gone
so much like

iii.

this galaxy -- you should try it, maybe
i escape instantly into
an astral tenderness and silly little
constellations like the ones you used to trace
on my starlit waist while we smiled about
nothing & everything & skin
                                       & skin
                                       & skin

but does the serpentine smoke that escapes your lips
still entangle and curl around unspoken words
that dance and linger on your tongue
like my hungry kisses used to?