Even the sun burns out

I’m going to plaster my words on the walls of life
Like paper
That way you cannot avoid me
Or the memory of mine

Just as a heart will not be cheap
Or doted upon everywhere
Or rolled out with ease

But plastered meticulously
That’s me

I'm not going anywhere
We can work things out
We always do
This only makes us stronger

You had not joined me
My totem-journey to the wellspring of the Colorado
to seek the source of things uncontained

the stars washed over me with asphyxiation
the breathless gasp of space



--In the deserts;
Rocklands--
the emerald barrel cactus
is watered as the earth
and the passerby
Cheyenne
cut into the crust
to sip the wine-flesh
to be drunk
and exhume the inhibitions of living

Forbidden berries
in the garden of quills, spear thistles
trust upon the air to protect her children

a good, silent mother
does not refuse
the gift of deflowering
as she is stripped
of her sharpness
and laundered
bestowed in salted bison skin of a war-chief's pouch.

It’s been awhile
Dead light
And
I

Have you been watching
Little me?—
In all my corruption;
Has your sentient ablution—
So tried—
Decided to set me aside
In my hiding?

I grovel here;
Blind.
While You glisten—
You listen—and weave
Serene discomfort
Into a little-soul
Like mine.    

Supine and slight—
I trace Your patterns in the
Night and try to name them
As others have
Before me:
Dipper. Orion. Northern-light:
Compass bright.

Are they suppose to
Mean Something?
I cling to their instruction
And move nowhere.  
Your pictures do not wear the weight
That answers
Do.

Can I sough purpose
In their Recitation?
—For I have wanted for comfort.
I repeat the names—
Cardinal ghosts in dotted-frame—
But their direction
Alludes me.

Oh, You Pin-******—
You Old-Flames—
You Astute Celestial Hosts.  
Have You hung silent
—In all Your knowing
Just waiting
For me to let go?

Do You know the cold of war waged
Alone?——
Blueprints of rage have rewrote the
Geography of my limbs:
I am not my arms my legs I am not
My breaking
Heart.

My hands aren’t mine, anymore.
I have never been so
Stolen.

Hey, Heaven’s map of decussation:
Do You see me down here
at all?
Praying for Your mum
Eureka call——
To pull me past
My boxing halls?

You are all l have left—
to follow.
Tired of feeling lost.
Tired of letting go.

But it could be awhile
      Dead light.
Hopelessness is a heavy might:
But I thought—just maybe,  
you might—
Wait
For me.

I face you
In the night.
—Until I get there.
Me: the tiny nightmare.
At the edge of sleep’s reprieve
Before I face the mourning,
Bare.

here we find a girl reversed -
a girl who comes alive at night
and is afraid of the lonely day
    "you need to sleep," they'll say
    "i need to rest," she'll say
and they won't understand the difference.

here we find a girl inside-out -
a girl who can handle the whole world
but is terrified of handling herself
    her mind her worst enemy
    her people her safe haven
and she'll forever be searching for a home that isn't haunted by her own reflection.

here we find the girl
    the open ended question
    the heart with the vacancy sign in neon
    the bouquet of optimism put out for everyone to see

here we found the girl
and here we lost her
    right here, i think

................. maybe....................   
I'm                                    out
       but   you   popped
                  into my
                     heart.

It wasn't supposed to be like this
I wasn't supposed to get attached
I was gonna close myself off
But my defenses got brutally attacked

One by one they poured in
An angel who was different
Shined through the lot of them
But I already knew how it was gonna end

Then came the desire
To want someone else
Someone thought to be impure
I had to juggle my many selves

I was too afraid to admit it
Haven't even said it out loud
It tries to break through
Every time I open my mouth

I need to let it out
But the angel holds me back
lives up to the name I awarded
I always knew it was a trap

A trap for me
To bury myself in
And now I can't get out
For the angel sends in

All the love
And hugs and kisses
And I too have to shove
Out all the things I listed

The devil can't help me
I'm in this situation
If I get out of this alive
I'll have a celebration
Full of awkward conversations
But it will be my own creation

An award on the shelf
That I held out for so long
In a version of myself
That felt so wrong.

When the night bottoms out
painting in a chiaroscuro.
See the world in the painted glow
before it’s toned down
back into the shadow!