i follow pain everywhere she wants to take me
she reveals a cosmos in a tear,
the layers of time kept together by the vitality of light.
silences rest in between our dreams
the clouds are enough for the wind
branches enough for the birds
love is holding its antonyms with gentleness
i follow pain into the camera obscura of hope
wars are trapped in the flash of words without flesh.
the lament in the loops of time, so much

sometimes you sit in the dark all alone
and it's not a guiding light that you want,
but for someone to be there with you,
to know that they know the dark, too,
to have them keep you company.
for the light can become a trap, you see,
like a constant pressure to push through,
so you'd rather have someone stay with you
to practice counting each other's breaths.
there's a sense of hope to mutual setbacks,
tethered by the unseen hand you're holding
as you co-write a step-by-step guide to coping.

depression feels like heartbreak at sixteen  
perhaps that’s why I always think of you  
when that unyielding squeeze starts to roll  
around my stomach like a rotting stone  

it's strange to think that of all my stories  
yours is the one that always wants to be read  
we were just sketches and outlines and isn’t  
time supposed to be the great physician

it seems timing is everything Once Love and  
ours was always perfect in the worst way  
just right to wedge you between my newborn
ribs like a thistle that sticks to my bones  
  
so I chase you like salvation  
knowing you have none to give  
and I’m always running  
in dreams

I open my ribs.  
peeling back the sinews and  
capillaries with precision.  
The crack of spreading bones,  
my chambered apparatus laid  
delicately on the table.  
  
My implement extracts its pound
onto the slab with intention,  
pulled and pressed till it's paper  
thin and bled out. Soulspeak scrawled  
in the crackling veins of my parchment.  
  
I put my machinations on display  
for onlookers, merchants  
and collectors  
but none seem to gather any interest.  
Skinpull another page  
but nothing sells  
or charms or foments.  

I pack my wares and  
toss them onto the pile of  
my dried out corpse scattered  
on the floor.  
Failure.  
Another procedure.  
Relent, repeat, cut deeper.  
And hope to find a reader.

Ruminating failures
a blender inside my head  

My mind drips down  
into my hands and  
I feel the grit of regrets  
between my fingers;  
slick like oil  
with flecks of sand and glass  
the greasy residue of every moment  
grimy and sharp.  

The ineffable instant  
pooling on my fingertips;  
when fate’s trajectory skews
and twists along my intestines.
Because I know-
that what I’ve done    
cannot be reversed  
or erased.    

That I have created an apex around which  
history will revolve. A fixed point    
in the vastness of eons from which  
every other thing will spin out.  
A collapsing star- whose dying light  
will shine in the black memory of the sky  
for a million  
million  
years.  

So I sit under a sky full of blown out suns  
and feel the glint of dead lights  
between my fingers.

Fire has to burn.  
I wish I could hold it.  
Feel its flicker – blue flame  
luster spiraling along my lips.  
Have it dance on my fingertips,  
sweep across my longing skin
in streams of copper gold.  
Tuck it between my ribs  
and tame it.  
But fire has to burn.

A sixth sense for cruelty,  
Like you could smell the paper-thin scent of recovery-  
Waiting for me to stand at the world's edge  
Let the tide slide over my toes  
And imagine myself becoming whole  

Cruel - like it was gifted by the gods  
Like you could sense the feeble first-steps of recovery-  
Waiting for me to stand at the world's edge  
Let the tide slide over my toes  
And imagine myself becoming whole  

You look at me like a Greek myth  
Full of serpent-stone, sirens and Aphrodite  
Remind me how easily you twist me  
Around your wicked finger  
Stake me down in your palm like a sacrifice  

Maligned and mangled at the foot of Olympus  
The spent offering, the naive fool-  
I'll stitch myself together in a practiced ritual,  
And wait for you to shatter me  
On your altar again

What is it like to be a prophet?
To bleed visions the world calls madness,
to carry the storm in your lungs
and still be asked to speak sweetly.

I ran.
Through temples, through time, through the mouths of sleeping gods.
I ran, hoping to outrun the fire,
only to find my shadow already waiting-
etched into every horizon by hands not my own.

The gods marked me with knowing,
then stripped me of the right to be believed.
They call it a gift.
But it is a wound that sings.

Let the sky tremble at my silence now.
Let the earth remember what it means
to be cursed with truth.