I am tired of having a broken back
Dragged down by deadweights
Arms sore,
Trembling at the touch of an empty room
Bruised legs,
From a brief brushing of a desire.
All making the house of my very being
Built on top of that same broken back
Constructed with these very sore arms
The floors in this home creak,
No foundation
After the flood that wiped it all away.
Now that winter has settled in, it is all frozen.
I have burned the walls of my soul in the process of hope,
And while building this home,
I have been choked by the hands of trust
Strangled by the notion that we can live in the rooms of people,
Safe from the wind on a January night.
I wish I could say I have never broken my own heart,
That I have not wandered the halls of those who have left,
Searching for some secret key that would magically open some hidden corridor,
Bringing me back.
I will not pretend that I have not taken a spill on frozen glass,
And been engulfed by the warmth of a fireplace,
So mesmerized that I could not see the home around me disintegrating.
I have been held by the arms of those flames,
Caressed by a fall on ice,
That seemed like water at the time.
Making me blind to the fact that you can not have soothing water,
On a freezing day.
Drowning my rooms with empty words,
The same blindness that allowed the fire to swallow all that I was
I always assumed this fire could melt the ice.
But I kept them in separate closets,
Breaking the locks on the doors that my tired fingers placed on hinges.
Separating any possibility of a marriage of the two.
Because in these barren halls,
I am either burning hot, scorching passion of marked desire.
Or I am solid, dry-ice, painful to the touch
Sending out warning signs to leave,
Because why stay when the closest you can get is an arms length away.
I can not be both fire and ice.
But I will try.

i used to be as peaceful as the sky
much clearer than crystalized ice
but when you came into my life
i was blinded by great light.

Union of fire and Ice
Divinely of beautiful mystery
Complimenting their vibes
Explore dark to get light
Inside wrong there is some right

Honesty is imperfection
Like a life of Yin and Yang
White soul of dark community, and
Dark soul of white community
With every answer,a question begins
Fire and Ice
Water quenches a life
Fire purifies
Touching our lives

Check in impatiently
hauling light luggage -
downturned eyes,
bundled fifties,
skull packed with sickly
sugarplum notions

Stiff key-card door and
three hanger closet -
leave your mittens, jacket,
and conscience dangling

Towels
cotton-knit sandpaper
no softer than well-trafficked
threadbare tawny-port carpet and
your hands and feet pretend
not to feel it

nervously,
a bit numbly,
you notice her standing
with glacial stillness
moments away from
the foot of the bed

Two crooked lampshades and
dim headboard lights
close their eyes when
the mattress springs
first compress,
the air tingling
with dustbunny snowflakes

This room is too dark now,
something like snowblind,
but you don't really want to see
do you?

Frostbite when she touches you
and somehow this bed
is more welcoming
than your own

you'll remember her
february fingertips
and hailstone hair,
a sensation of northerly winds
strange how heavy the comforter feels
sprawled across your skin

you envision an ice slab,
see it suffocate
a slow-flowing river,
and your breath quickens
if only because your lungs
have been crushed

then, just before hypothermia,
she leaves,
lights off,
wallet lighter,
you stay whiteknuckled, lightheaded,
half-consumed by a snowdrift,
beneath the duvet -
dazed

your tongue sits confused,
having asked for peppermints
and been given ice cubes instead

and when you finally rise,
and thaw your limbs
and try not the slip
on the black ice
she always leaves
by the door,

Try to forget
you paid
hourly rates
and shed your clothes
that you might find warmpth
in a blizzard