We were both writers.
You with a fountain pen and moleskin notebook  
I with anything I could scrawl on -tears always just at the edges of me
and in this way we began to author our life together.
We put pen to paper that first night
drunk on gas station liquor and on not feeling so alone.
Our hungry bodies filled page after page
with what I would come to believe
would be my magnum opus.

In your wedding vows you said that we would
“work together to fill the pages with
conflict, desire, pain and all that makes life real
so that we can appreciate all that makes life good”
You were not much of a co-author though
preferring instead to write alone at night while I slept
How many times did I revisit a previous chapter
only to find that you had introduced a new character
or a dark and bizarre plot twist without my knowledge?
Eventually these discoveries would become as predictable
as the indignant denials
eventual apologies
and promises that would always follow them

lather, rinse, repeat

Over years these edits and additions
would knock the air from my lungs
completely shaking my confidence as a writer.
With cramping hands I would try to rewrite the bad parts
though my scribble marks did little to mask the words beneath.
Words that once had flowed as easily and copiously as I had for you
now came only in fits and starts
each new chapter torn from the bones of my bones.
How many times did the ten eyes we wrote in
watch as writers block turned to writers rage
producing furious missives that would tear holes in pages without warning?
Still even as my teeth-torn hands turned arthritic
I couldn’t seem to just put down the ******* pen
Because it was our story
and because I loved it
and because I loved us
and because I loved you.

I ended our story with a semicolon
Its already faded form staring up from my ring finger
a reminder that I could have chosen to end my story but didn’t.
You once told me that a good author always employs irony
and I have always been a better writer than you’ve given me credit

                                                   ;

acid
dripping
bodies
writhing
worms
crawling
in my lungs
bones
breaking
eyes
shaking
nails
scratching
my flesh

O, shapeshifter reveal your truths which have no shape.

O, beast of all beasts: soaring swimming running hopping,
feathered furred scaled shrouded,
naked.
Claws reach for a submerged feast. Tail wriggling, caught by the sky.
Smooth skin hidden by design gracefully opens. Extending,
snatches a meal mid-flight.
Muscle meeting by chance, tooth taking sustenance. Ragged breathe torn
from one body to be worn by the next.
Highly sophisticated eyes become a snack.
Division ceases.

O, reveler!
O, peace in chaos!
O, pleasant reminder of romp!
O, devourer of the devoid,
shaping reality by way of playful lovers!

Take me to the altar and do as you please.
Even on my knees
I can love you as the man I am.
If you alter my person plan to pay fees.
Blood lines down my back
each a token of luck.
The purpose of this poem
is ruckus and ****
but whenever I get close
I think of the people I've ******
up.
My past closes in faster
to the brim of sin.
I can't last as a pastor.
Casting my eyes while preaching some line.
It's culture's downfall as I bind and entwine.
We are powerless to escape our nature in kind.
Pray to a fate blurred
then unearth what we find.