why are you there
and not by my side
sharing my bed
slide inside
my head
and make yourself at home
pick me apart
dissect, and use my tendons
your marionette man

We weren’t supposed
To come across one another
It was a November breeze
That made us crash into
Each other’s arms
Just to leave us
Shattered in pieces

ice is sharp and cold and you don’t wanna get frostbite during the winter months
i never wanted to step on the cracks
i never wanted to fall in so deep
painfully sobbing and at the very edge of drowning
i never wanted to get hypothermia from my fatal accident
i only wanted to step over the cracks
and return safely to the promised land of warm beds and train tracks

Crisp air; the burn of Winter
Can be felt deep within
My lungs

A hazy sky keeps me grey
Keeps me melancholy
The sun out of sight
Keeps me stagnant

I yearn to be lit up again

If only I could find
The fire inside me…

…But I’ve yet to learn how

Please Pogo music, wake me up. The night, now reduced to warm laptop light, is inching toward dawn. I pray to the patron saints of writers - is it Neri or Ávila? Whichever is on call I suppose.

“I’ve indulged in reprobation,” I confess, openly to the fuzzy, waxing, crescent moon. “I need that alchemy that turns coffee and a rough outline into an actual paper.”

I yank off my hoodie, fling my window open wide and hang myself out like wet laundry. Have you ever tasted *****? Vile stuff really.
The forty degree breeze feels like heaven and my eyes begin to focus. I peel off my leggings to let my entire skin tingle with cold.

My Keurig beeps confidently. I found a couple of peanut energy bars in my bookbag and rip them open like a ****** who’s discovered a forgotten stash. I devour them so quickly it’s like a magic trick - then I brush my teeth.

I take several slow deep breaths. I can DO this, I assure myself, but my outline looks adequate at best. I need this done so I can relax with a super bowl party pizza Sunday.

The song “Data & Picard,” sets me to dancing, “It’s better to have loved and lost..” Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard pronounces, perfectly auto-tuned to the music.

I love this song. I love the night. I love the challenge.
I set myself to the task and finish, three hours later, as the sun breaks into morning.

Somewhere along the line, you changed.
You built walls all around you
and wore armor against the world,
You guarded your heart so well you could behave as though you didn't have one at all,
Even now, it's a shabby broken thing
but you still have it.
Not a heart of stone nor of ice,
But a fragile heart of glass
Sharpened through all its edges to stop anyone from getting in,
To stop the pain from getting out,

I understand why you wear armour,
That's why I wear it too.

Who is it that comes?
A crunch from the pathway heard
Icy frozen steps

twitchy sniffly noses
silky bracelets woven
a sennight of whispers
and soft rains fallen
bones strident ringing
skins slow submerging
bloodshot eyes and
star-shot skies and
cheekbones shrouded
in staling chlorine

sneaking syrup smiles
under honey gold
four tonics drowned
to fight off the cold
and fast fortune-telling
for finites foretold
trace the lines and
face the folds, please
hold both palms closer
but leave them closed

twitchy ditzy fingers
***** rings unspooled
a sennight of stories
and sinking in pools
bones washed in phenol
skins slick like ferrule
bloodshot minds and
star-shot why’s and
wisteria lips speckled in
the warmest shade of cool.