Your soul it merges into me
The air we breath as one
In hopes we live in infamy
A future brighter than the sun

What was up is down
Clouded mind spirals away
Grasping at sanity as if it were a sound
Hoping to clutch but a word
When there's nothing left to say

How can there be so much pain
From feeling nothing at all
What once we placed upon pedestal
Now passes judgment becoming petty and small

You vowed to be eternal
So I succumb without a fear
How'd forever come so quickly?
You stand stoic, shedding not a tear

My soul had become mine again
What was cloudy is now clear
The vale of treachery has lifted
The healing had begun
Now that your finished,
I've been reborn
My future is brighter than the sun

(for Terry McMillan)

I was a *****
glacier cold solid ice

claws for fingernails
man killing eyes

not myself, not someone else
thirsty for the wild hunt

self-loathing eating away
the way aphids eat the orange tree

no more empathy
where’d that go?

probably jumped off the same cliff
as romance and joy

at the bottom of a cold canyon
swirling in roaring deep water

caught in the current
beneath the surface, far beneath

carried away for three years
no lifejacket, no life

behind reinforced steel
behind the *****

I was a ***** for three years
until the ***** took a scraper to the icebox

climbed over the edge of the canyon
breaking clawed nails on orange clay

****** at the bottom, ****** but alive
swam to the bottom of freezing waters

found my groove
got it back

shot up from the icy foam
exhaled

picked ripe fruit from the tree
cut it into four pieces

one for romance, one for joy
one for empathy, one for me

no more aphids on the orange tree
no more glacier, no more hunt

oh yes, the ***** is still here
nourishing my soul with the fruit of knowledge

reminding me don’t let go
don’t let me be all they see


[Notes:  This poem was published by Cadence Collective: https://cadencecollective.net/2015/01/17/for-3-years/

First published in Men’s Heartbreak Anthology.]

The day she came
The girl with the stars in her eyes
She brought him back to life
The boy who died many years before

She carried with her
The wisdom of a thousand lifetimes
Yet he carried the key
To unlock her soul

They were bound
To each other long before
They knew of the existence
Of one another

A love greater than
That of death
A need greater than
That of life itself

They were forever bound
The boy who had died
A thousand deaths and
The girl with the stars in her eyes

We are the first generation truly
free - free to create and destroy.
Living on borrowed time, we are
either the end or another beginning.

I just want to be set on fire.
I'm not asking for a funeral pyre,
or to burn like the sun, and light up the day,
or to shine like a fireworks display.

Just let me roast 'til I'm charred a deep black.
Let the smoke rise up in billowing stacks,
and once I'm burnt through, take hold of my ashes,
and toss me across wild vegetable patches.

Let me take root in the summertime haze.
Let me find peace in the cool autumn days.
Let me take shelter from winter's contempt.
Let me sprout new leaves as spring is redeem't.

I ask no forgiveness, no charity, mercy.
I don't wish for anything granted. Conversely,
I ask for two items, and if you're so keen;
A matchbox, and one gallon of gasoline.

darling, i know they will tell you
your body is a temple
but they will forget that this temple has
sapphire roads
leading to incessant pounding of a fist
on iron gates of your heart
your marble columns and ivory floors will crumble
t h u m p  t h u m p  t h u m p
through the kudzu constricting your lungs
do not force yourself to breathe thorns
when you feel inadequate

darling, i know your body is a temple
but they will forget that this temple has
splintery bridges spanning the deepest chasms
of a mind carved from gold
it is easy for the slightest bit of heat to melt
your thoughts until they pour as thick as molasses
into your ivy misshapen lungs
it is okay to have your fruits plucked from you
and roots destroyed
when you can rebuild
again

darling, i know they will tell you
your body is a temple
but they will forget that this temple has been mined
from replenished caverns and forged
by a deadlier inferno still raging within
your flames will be fanned by the winds of change
because you finally
learned to breathe air
after you have cleared the garden
growing deadly in your lungs
do not be afraid of those who have destroyed you
when you have a fire in your eyes and oxygen in your veins

I just had an inkling...
Never felt the pulse losing,
But then I kept lying,
While it kept dying.

A slow, painful death.

Of the flower losing its petals,
Slowly, parting ways from its sepals...
Sometimes in a very vast garden, you do miss a flower or two.
Don't tend to it as you must do.
Those that now lie on the earth,
What are all they worth?
And what when the flower was in the bloom,
Bathed in warm sun, and caressed by the moon,
Mere remembrances of the life that once was,
Just another dead flower to remind all good must pass.
Now only a soft fragrance in memories,
Hoping that one little bud will again grace the nursery.

muffled melody
symphony of crystalline angel screams
glorious crescendo
inhale
as the world is soundproofed
and sanitized
by powdered eiderdown