One feels different after a fall from grace.
I say "fall", but I know
that I peered over the cliffside
knowing what I was to leave behind
and took the deadly plunge.

The haze of temptation cleared
I felt nothing
Knew everything
Wanted more
God, why have I abandoned You?
Why do I know so much
yet feel so little
when I know where You are?

I'm falling
I'm failing
I'm thirsty

"I thirst for you."

Even in the depths I hear You
Even in the darkness I see You
You who defeated Death for me
You who could not bear to be apart from me
You who are still on the cross
until the end of time.

"I thirst for you."

I thirst for You.
I've reached for filler after filler
Only leaving myself empty
Rendering new cracks in the already broken vessel that I am
Yet You who suffered wounds for me
still desire my heart.
Why do You want this broken sparrow?
Why do You want this sickly fawn?
Why is my love-
broken and imperfect
-the very thing You crave?

"I thirst for you."

Drink, then, from my tears
of repentance
of regret
for they are all I can offer
as I continue to fall.
Drink from this broken vessel
from whom graces seep out
for I have marred my soul
and have broken Your Heart.

Drink from my sin
and my shame
and repair what I have broken
Help me, for I am alone
and have no one but You
Even though I've abandoned You
You are all I crave
You are all I need
And I thirst for You.

even now
rain soaked roots are withering
reminiscence

Do you remember the questions
you used to ask about dying?
About grief and then pain
that wash over you in freezing pales of regret?
Are you supposed to remember every minuscule detail
before you completely forget?

You choke on your own verses
to convince yourself
and then everyone else
about acceptance--
the magic that should lead to recovery
yet, knowing that
most poems
are just lengthy epitaphs
for all the people
we refuse to bury alive;
that most poets die
as they try to relive
faded images,
wishing they could
turn back time.

There is love in lamentation--
in how the living die with the dead;
how years of November air
become the oxygen
that slowly suffocates them,
how the things they love most
create consuming black holes
they still succumb to
long after
their beloved's faux passing.

What I'd give to see that one weekend all over again
In a film
or perhaps read it in a novel
ㅡa year's worth of tears to feel the warmth of that riverlike stream again and a half-year's worth of winter in his eyes

a half year's worth of anguish to have him watch me fall asleep in a cold rainy night again and tuck me in for a month's worth of his familiar warmth.

a month's worth of thrown up food to get a taste of the liquor in his lips once more, to get intoxicated by his touches' week's worth of sweet summer in September.

a week's worth of disappointments just to have him light up a day's worth of my cigarettes again.

anything.

or maybe a few more sticks will do.

-1-
how often come the slowed beatings
of time

unleashed by knowing
these devilish ifs
whens and buts

of roads half-built
and half-burnt

yet water still flows beneath
these eggshells of circumstance
widening to the same sea of chance

-2-
when have
the dust of men
received ear
if not by word or doing

when have stars lost light
even as the multitude of years pass
the dead shine just as bright

-3-
grateful hearts receive no ill
as unjust souls receive no heart

the head and the tail
do not mourn the body
for how fat or lean it was

how sweetly the fruit tastes
and sorely it rots

You.
Who ARE you?
You, who I have dreamed of many a night,
who has always given flight to my imaginations
and fancies.
My aspirations of an angel...
but you are lost down the wishing well.

Evanescent in form,
but always representing the same thing.
What are you?
You
are perfect.
The woman in/of my dreams,
who it seems I have never met
(...and never will).

Still... You haunt me
and taunt me with what I can never have.
So haunt me,
for I will never complain
about seeing your visage,
seared in boiled tears,
behind the lid of this eye...
...and the other.