It took
an elevator ride
to realize
and notice
the ups and downs
of regular days
and that's a good thing
for my darling
you have not
stagnated
yet

Is it the things we do or those we don't?
the memories we cherish or ones that haunt?
the roads we took or those we feared?
Is it the mistakes we made when we veered?
the books we read and smiled, or chapters left untouched?
forgiveness or thousand grudges piled?Is it open doors or the latched?
Is it flowers which bloomed or those whilst tender fell?
Is it the Friends we made or those we lost, the beloved or the loathed
the milestones or the failures, the laugh or the rivers of tears
is it the reality or the Alias, our maturity or the years
is it Comedy or tragedy?
Is it unity we deserve or the drifting apart?
Is it healing or breaking millions a heart?
Is it transformation or stagnation while time goes?
Is it the peace that once was or the Wars?
*what's humanity?

Taken, this only route to the back of something blacker.
I left my fingernails to protest in the floorboard,
stuck, sticking still
white headstones for things I cannot remember.
Pale ghosts of my
tenacity
before it strode cross the threshold into a gentle night.

I piled like garbage in the corner,
an anthill
phenomenally empty.
This, my house of skin,
ice dispensers and salt,
brewing something foul,
I inflate, churning charcoal

in the corner,
out the door,
heaving hell.

The wizen winds whispered
Let him go
So you can grow
Let your roots settle as they may
Or tare up the earth so
You can stray to find a new way

So slowly she seized upon the pain
Clawed at the ground
Hands bloodied and bruised
Nails push backed to the point
Of unbearable pain
She ripped her roots
Out of the earth
Ready to move on

And he came back
With just a glimmer up hope
She replanted her seed
Bent down on her knees
Begging him please
Promising she would change
Contorting herself to his demands
While he stayed the same
What a shame
She was a lovely tree
Free as the wind
And ready to be
Something better
A new butterfly
Now the butterfly dies

If she reads this
She will despise me
Say, I do not understand
I’d say that the person
Woven in to the pattern
Cannot see the design
Cannot cut fates golden line
When they do not know
How the story goes
Oh, well it’s not my hell to bare

All is same, sudden, and fast

Life is taken

I don't want something that can be taken

Love is life
*** is life

Life is irresistible because it's not death

Death is always
Death is unchanging

A blanket soaked in chloroform that you may
wrap about your body to suffocate in stale comfort

Throw it off to ****
Throw it off to lose yourself in burning
clarity in the flesh of another

But that can be taken

in a heat like this you forget you have a stomach, patina’d as it is with shame. the junction of thigh and hip is a bear-trap. what do you and bears have in common? a bracelet of red dents at the wrist and no escape. anyways, keep trying. the four-by-four cube of yourself gives slowly, like a mattress or lung, something to be punctured. there, the air is water-soft. the walls are cream, not pink, but still you wait for threshold to meet threshold, for the mandala-fold of ribs to fall away. come winter this womb of cream will expel you a reborn thing, with fur.