. (or: the night I vanished while still in the room) .

He stopped coming home late—
not out of guilt, but because
there was nothing left to hide.

I watched him re-enter
like a man returning to a house he built
on land that was only technically¹ mine.

My scent had faded from the sheets.
His cologne now lingered longer than my voice.

He called me darling
in the same tone I used to use
when I meant goodbye.

I touched his back one night,
the way I used to trace stars across it,
and he flinched—
not like it hurt,
but like it meant nothing.

The watch on my wrist had stopped ticking.
I hadn’t noticed in days.

Over dinner,
he quoted my own stories back to me,
trimmed for elegance,
rearranged for effect.

“I don’t remember it like that,” I said.
“You weren’t meant to,” he replied,
not cruelly—just… correctly.

The eclipse doesn’t apologize for the sun.

In the mirror,
I saw only one of us
reflected clearly.

And it wasn’t me.

I asked him what he wanted.
He said,
“Everything you’ve ever had.”

And smiled like he already did.

I laughed.
He didn’t laugh back.

I told him I loved him.

He said,
“I know.
That’s why this had to happen.”

And somewhere in that moment,
between my mouth opening
and his walking away,
I became myth—
the kind they misremember
on purpose.

The Gordian Knot?
¹ The mesh of civilization.

To untie it is to understand it,
To know it.
This is to TIGHTEN it.

To cleave it is to try to conquer it;
It all comes undone,
Never to be re-strung.

You can be Prometheus,
Who was actually always celebrated,
Or you can be Aeneas -
The one who was really ChAINhed to the rock.

What matters is learning,
² All else is for naught.

"And it is I
Deciding where & when, if,
¹ You shall go."

"And it is I
Who rows from shore to shore
² Ferrying each passenger."

My nests you lay,
Learning to create before you are even created.
Protected by my daughters,
Medusa & Pythia.
Likewise, neither shall you truly sink before you swim.

My waters you wade,
Learning to swim before you even walk.
Protected by my sons,
Castor & Pollux.
Similarly, provided for & cared for.

To conquer is to make a new companion.
² We are stronger together.

No companion can be had from a conqueror .
All must be equal.

For the inherent difference of each mentioned is too vast.
Such gaps can never be bridged.

¹ And the river swells
So that one can not ford it
Without some assistance.

. (or: when I heard my voice come from his mouth) .

At first, it was flattery—
the way he wore his collar the same way I do,
the way he started lighting my brand of cigarettes,
the way his laugh hit the same register
I used to throw like a knife across rooms.

I caught him reading my journal once—
not with guilt, but reverence.
“I like the way your thoughts bleed,”
he said, closing the leather cover like scripture.

He stopped asking me questions.
He already knew the answers.

My shirts disappeared one by one.
Then my habits.
Then my silences.

I watched him pour bourbon
with the same three-count I perfected in 1994.
Watched him cross his legs just so,
quote my warnings back to me
as if they were lessons he taught himself.

He ****** me like a rehearsal.
And I let him—God help me—
because some part of me believed
that to be repeated is to be remembered.

But memory is a shallow grave.

One night,
he answered the phone with my cadence.

“This is he,” he said—
voice dry as an autumn branch.
And for a second,
even I believed him.

I didn’t confront him.
I just started talking less.

He filled the air like a flood.
My presence became parentheses.

In bed,
he started calling me old man—
not as a kink,
but as a countdown.

I smiled.
But it tasted like rust.

The boy I devoured
was digesting me back.

And prophecy, that silent ******,
licked its lips
and kept watching.

. (or: how I taught him to ruin me properly) .

His mouth was a chalice filled with thunder—
I drank from it like a man who’s forgotten
how to refuse ceremony.

He said my name like it was a title he meant to inherit.
Not whispered. Not begged.
Claimed.

I took him the way ruins take ivy—
slowly, wholly, letting him crawl through my cracks
and make green what should have stayed dead.

He undressed like it was a coup:
first the belt, then the silence,
then the smirk that knew it had already won.

I touched him like I’d memorized him in a past life
and forgot I was the one meant to teach.

My hands shook.
He steadied them with his teeth.

Skin against skin,
I forgot which of us was ancient.
His body: a question I answered with every bruise.
Mine: a confession disguised as architecture.

I marked him with softness.
He returned it with hunger.

“Slower,” I breathed.
“Why?” he replied.
And there was no answer
that didn't sound like surrender.

We moved like two wolves trying not to pray.
Every gasp a liturgy.
Every ****** a reformation.

I let him trace my scars like roads on a forgotten map.
He said, “You’ve been here before.”
I said, “And I never left.”

Later, he wore my shirt.
Not out of affection—
but to study the shape of power
from the inside.

. (or: the god who called me “sir”) .

He entered like a prophecy mispronounced—
storm-soaked, sky-buttoned,
his coat dragging dusk across the floorboards,
eyes lit like stolen copper.

My drink was a cathedral of neglect—
neat bourbon, no ice,
echoing the taste of promises embalmed in dust.
I drank the same way I pray:
sparingly, and to a god I no longer trust.

He didn’t sit; he disrupted.
Barstools shifted like tectonics,
shadows coiled around his boots,
and the jukebox skipped a beat to watch him move.

“You look like someone who’s been patient too long,”
he said, voice lacquered in soft thunder,
vowels curling like smoke from a burnt vow.

I gave him my laugh—
a cracked heirloom I no longer polish.
He wore it like cologne
and leaned in as if to inhale the ruin.

His hands were myths retold badly—
trembling between gentleness and guillotine.
He touched the rim of my glass
like it was my mouth,
and drank it wrong—
reckless, like he’d never been told no
and didn’t believe in scarcity.

The night flexed around us.
My watch stopped ticking.
Time, the faithful beast I’d trained
to lie at my feet,
lifted its head and whimpered.

Part I — Divine
The Mortal Speaks

Her rosy cheeks, her auburn hair,
Enchant the breeze with sweetness rare.
Apples and peaches, ripe on the vine,
Voluptuous grace in soft moonshine.
Evenings, like wine, drip from her lips,
Nectar no god or man dare sip.

Seldom does a star descend,
Eclipsed by longing none could mend.
Nearer she draws—divine, undone,
Tonight, I burn, one with the sun.

Part II — Carnal
The Goddess Speaks

How strange, this ache no god should feel,
Each glance from you—so raw, so real.
Love was a myth I sang in jest,
Lust, now a flame I can't contest.

Beneath my skin, a storm that calls,
Over my throne, temptation sprawls.
Untouched by fate, you bent the law—
Never to rise from passion’s thrall,
Deeper into hell’s flames I fall.