It’s been three weeks, and
I’ve ******* more about
the agony of losing you
than you ever did
about the agony
of actually
dying.

On a scale of one to ten,
how much does it hurt?

Guess you had the higher pain threshold, after all.
Then again, you had better drugs, too.

The roses you planted don't know
that you're dead.  
Dumb vegetation can't comprehend
the perversity of its
outliving you, how its
simple act of being
when you are not
is an affront to everything
decent and sane and just.  
A senseless vitality of
petals flash their idiot colours
through a shroud of needling frost.
It's not their fault.
The flowers cannot understand
that the one who gave them life
has died.
Whereas I pretend I do.

And so it turns out that
what you thought was the moon
is in fact just the lamp in an
old lady's window,
and the universe shrinks down
to that one dim square,
where some stranger
is brewing tea, or
thumbing a photograph album, or
tidying imaginary mess, or
getting ready to
go to bed, alone.
It's November, and it feels
later than it is.
You don't know the lady
in the window with
the lamp you mistook for
the moon.  Your orbits
never bring you closer than
this: each one in their
respective window, their
respective light burning low,
and the street between
seeming very dark.
Yet some part of you dreads the moment
when she turns out
that lamp, and no part of you
can explain why.
It's November.
And it's November forever.

My heart was buried with you that day
I was left numb
Holding the weight of the emptiness
That space were you were not
That space where joy had left

I walked around on autopilot
A faint outline of me
Just visible on the surface
With a burning, crippling pit inside

I was beyond the muddy puddle
I was face down
At the bottom of the murky river
Cold
Stuck
Surrounded by darkness
Slowly sinking into the mud
With the weight of my tears
Like a fallen tree holding me down
I was not trying to get up
Because I had no strength to
No will power
No heart  
If I never came back up
I would only see you sooner
And that
Was the only comfort I could see

And then
You spoke to me
Clear as day
And you used that serious voice
Only used for serious things
And you said
And I will never forget
You said
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. There are good things to come.”
And like a bolt of lightening
Shot into my chest
I pushed my head out of the water
With a breath of life
And you offered me back the empty jar that was my heart

when all the birds have broken their wings
i will find comfort in the warmth of your blood on my hands.
time tells nothing
i reminisce about torn seams
and ***** dreams
as i scrape out remnants of the
purity trapped in the mildew under your floorboards

O Hearken! the lilies are singing to us!
(forever entranced by the acacia with the broken branches)
i have swallowed the frail bodies of the nightingales
and i have promised to protect them with my own flesh;
put your hands within me and you'll know the breaking of their hollow bones

Our God sees everything! how could anyone have a mother?
your ivory rib cage shatters under the weight of a thousand Saviors
as the unforeseen expanses of the universe
blot out what was left of your conscience
(snapped like a toothpick in His holy fingers)
just like those bitter nights when i hear
cassiopeia screaming to be freed of heaven’s chokehold.

O Hearken! kneel for The Great Reprieve!
when all the birds have broken their wings—
oh mercy you, oh mercy me

in the light of life,
we hold hands
and we
close our eyes
and we
feel the blade
of the reaper ;
and we
say
"goodbye."

why is it so hard to be happy?
we look at the ashes of our triumphs
and then smell the gasoline on our hands
and realise we were the ones with the matches
and we were the ones that tied
cinder blocks to our legs
and decided to go swimming.
why do we have to look at the cemetery,
read each name on the stones,
just to realise we're holding shovels.
no matter how warm it gets,
the nights are always the coldest-
we're sunshine by day and the moon by night,
hiding our tears behind the dark veil of fabricated facades.