Tightest knots swallow the air,
winter begging for recompense
Surrender the envelopes addressed
to you, give them up to the fire
Begin again

-c.j.

Her mind and mouth reveal:
It was he who threw the rocks,
It was he who initiated our little balcony scene,
It was he who changed my eyes from
blind to seeing

-c.j.

Cathedrals still speak of you-
Photographs yell our names
in every language
We occur so frequently,
and when we do,
oceans applaud

-c.j.

The thing is,
when you tremble,
your art
won't shake

-c.j.

Perhaps we were too young
to understand the implications,
but too old to ignore them

Oh, infatuation-
how it smothers us in violet flame

Soft is the sound of me leaving,
yet within these walls echoes
something loud and wicked;
it inspires blood

Your endless holiday will not leave, however,
nor will you miss the allure you possess
You undressed the concealed beauty of me
I had thought plain

I had no idea what I was getting into-
mania with fainting spells
at just the wrong intervals,
and unrequited love,
and all the ire therein

Despite this, I hear, always,
"Entire cities shook for your sake, darling;
the least you can do is smile"

-c.j.

I fell asleep whispering your name
and woke doing the same
Have you choked on the sun?
I am sketching needy hearts into my hands
and rescuing dreams with tea leaves
Hopeful, wanting, hoping, wantful
Mountains converge
and our lips are
so far apart
Perhaps, this time, they are real wounds
disguised as fleshy hyperboles
Written about restlessly, melted candles
with congealed memory resting on the desk
The spinning cups on the table;
that is us, dear, that is us

-c.j.

The arrow pointed west,
the heart aimed east
The body went up, down, north, south,
pacing in the corridors

Adolescent wolves chase the myth,
it is this they run endlessly for
Blocked in prisms of light,
pounding on walls for heartless dark

Under the moon they cry, and she shows
no mercy
She refuses to acknowledge her dimness
compared to her competitor

With little gleamings she tells them,
This entanglement takes place after dark-
when the sun cannot feed you

-c.j.