1

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die—Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you—There is no escape for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you—you just feel it,
I do not argue—I bend my head close, and half envelope it,
I sit quietly by—I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, ******—that is eternal—you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

2

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!
Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile!
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I am with you,
I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated,
I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.

Your eyes were laced
with fatigue induced red lines
that were not unlike
the red lines that laced the world maps I used to obsess over
before I realised
that the world that existed beneath
your fatigue laced eyes
was worth travelling too.

You think that she is fragile
                                                  Innocent
Becau­se you can see her every
                                                    Action
­You see through her every
                                                       Lie
Into what you think is the
                                                    True
girl.
So you
                                                   Shield
her from lies and horror,
Because she is too
                                                Breakable
Becaus­e she is too thin
Because she is            
            Glass

But you have no idea how she started out.
She has
                                                  Battled
more than you
And tasted her share of
                                                        Fire
She­ burned and got
                                                   Burned
In a blazing fire of lies
She turned from soft sand
Into hardened
            Glass

You think that she is breakable
And
                                                          Clear
to you
Because you can see through her
But if you don't know
The pain and price it
                                                      Cost
To become what she is
Then it doesn't matter
That you can see through
Since you can't see in.

You may think you are
                                                Invincible
But that girl is
                       Glass

I want to understand the steep thing
that climbs ladders in your throat.
I can't make sense of you.
Everywhere I look you're there--
a vast landmark, a volcano
poking its head through the clouds,
Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput.

I climb into your eyes, looking.
The pupils are black painted stage flats.
They can be pulled down like window shades.
I switch on a light in your iris.
Your brain ticks like a bomb.

In your offhand, mocking way
you've invited me into your chest.
Inside: the blur that poses as your heart.
I'm supposed to go in with a torch
or maybe hot water bottles
& defrost it by hand
as one defrosts an old refrigerator.
It will shudder & sigh
(the icebox to the insomniac).

Oh there's nothing like love between us.
You're the mountain, I am climbing you.
If I fall, you won't be all to blame,
but you'll wait years maybe
for the next doomed expedition.

It feels as if I am drowning,
Drowning so deep in my own thoughts
I can't get up and grasp the help that I need, I don't seem to want it anymore, I can't have it, what's the point? I'm going to fail,
fail in life,
Fail in what everyone expects me to be,
Fail in myself,
Fail in others,
and fail in trying.
Everyone says I have the potential, but do I really? Potential, what even is that word anymore? The only potential I have is to just lie down, and drown.