you
are turpentine
when the world gets too thick
your eyes are oil paint
that watch me
smile
watch me cry
watch me laugh
and die
you are the sacrifices
made for me
you are what i chose
to make me happy
you've made a home
inside my lungs
and i drink in your scent
every square inch
you don't like breakfast very much
but you make me eggs over easy
and you like the way i rub together my
feet when i'm asleep;
you said that way you'll always know
it's me.
you don't like yourself very much
and that's why i wrote this poem
because i know these things-
your a garden of different seeds
i'll love the way you grow forever
and i know you'd never stop
loving me

pastel drawings hanging on faded floral wallpaper in broken picture frames
this used to be a lovely scene before you left with
all of your secrets and lies swept under the carpet
these floorboards hold more skeletons underneath them than you could even count
I ask myself often how it was so easy for you to walk out
you didn't even lace up your shoes or
straighten up your hair
but before you try to step back into my life
don't forget to wipe your shoes on the doormat
for only God knows where those soles have taken you
muddy puddles, cracked concrete, and graveyard grass
but darling, one more thing
while you're out there on your own
be careful not to trust so fast
for I have more places to go in a game of hide-and-seek
more places that you never knew existed

this heart is like
smoke hanging
in the air
when the ashes crumble
into living things
and it's all
illusions
pressing the clock hands
waiting for your breaths
to come raspy.
who could love what's never been alive?
but he did
he did
"you never had a funeral",
he said
and "when i looked into your eyes
i knew something like that;
those soul windows-
could never be dead."

Turquoise is the brine, deep as ever.
Godheads sink under, to which the void rejects-
all; here is nothing; there, there has been no more-
this is all.

These are outsiders, always. These stars—
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before
our pain did; they are, they have always been
outside history.
They keep their distance. Under them remains
a place where you found
you were human, and
a landscape in which you know you are mortal.
And a time to choose between them.
I have chosen:
out of myth in history I move to be
part of that ordeal
who darkness is
only now reaching me from those fields,
those rivers, those roads clotted as
firmaments with the dead.
How slowly they die
as we kneel beside them, whisper in their ear.
And we are too late. We are always too late.

I often forget who I am
        or at least who I’d like to be
I often can’t see straight
        and figments of symbols become me
I feel the night’s baroque intention,
        I lay wasted in the kitchen
           Asking the gods for forgiveness

On warm days I’m a traveler
        betrothed to the road of existence
Leather-tramping for purpose with
        Time as my mistress
She allows me passage into the night,
        and all she requires is patience

I manage a smile during this trial by fire,
        ashes blacken my palms with a vengeance
Soot covered eyelashes flicker
        faster than the flame that birthed them
And when I’m finally judged as guilty,
        I won’t be surprised
   I knew this moment was coming.