-- when I have the tenderness of a writhing dragon,
he will paint flowers across my throat

as though to remind me that fires are indelicate,
and that I writhe in a prison made of open space.
-- this man will not smother me with his skin
when we sleep.
-- this man will unhinge the door of my mouth,
and kiss out the bullets stuck under my tongue.
                                                                ­               ---
whatever thousandth day I awaken beside this man,
realizing I have become the flowers he painted
across my throat, by braving my throat,

I will, unchaining myself from the draconic worry,
bring him his coffee in bed, with a smile.

I often wish I were a gentler man,
pruning flowers from thorns
in the garden of words;

but what a small nuisance
as clouds eat the days
undulating cathedral
of red and blue sky

I devour my life to the bone,
is enough to not covet
much more than the dawn child of sunset.

loneliness sits like an island of cold feet;
loneliness stirs like a maelstrom
of hot knives;
when I am touched
either gently,
or forcefully,
all of my ‘heart’
flees the blanket of intimacy.

It is much easier
being alone.
It gets much harder
most every day;

but today
a stranger
with a face like an alabaster rose
walked past me, smiling coyly,

and I wept,

unraveled

to be ravaged,
to be loved.

something is wrong with the pendulum
above; my chest has been carved
into new designs;
I am awake with a claw in my head;
I am asleep with nutrient-rich vision;

last night I dreamt
that gnats clouded out from my mouth
as though they were seeding the earth

and I was stupefied; when I awoke,
cold sweat in both hands, I recognized

that apocalyptic mornings
with magma-like light
dripping new over dew,
and the cold stone of night

are a separate entity
from the splinter inside of me

give me that space between
hunter and hunted
where even in mastic war
one can chew stillness.