Two candles, side by side,
Arms of thread—their aid—
Wrapped around as they hug,
Gracious flames of burning shrug.

Two candles, side by side,
They burned and radiated light.
Hesitance grew as they stood;
They burned their thread—passionate mood.

One cried, the other raged.
Flames engulfed the fabric red.
Two candles, side by side—
A burning heart, in between, laid.

Smaller the candles grew,
Glory to the light they drew.
One burning, the other hides—
Two candles, held side by side.

This moment is just a dream,
An illusion of a greater being
And once the cold death
Gave us it's warm embrace
We will fall into silence
As we wake up to see the reality.

If so, then why plague your mind with worry?
If this is just a dream, then why are you experiencing it in tragedy
When you can easily make it into comedy.

She wakes up every morning
with a frown on her face
as he stumbles from his bed
and into a chair that
he will never get out of-
there is tension in the air
as she downs another
exclaiming, "bottoms up"
when it makes her glass world
shatter
at the rise of a cup

All he can do is watch the pieces
as they become pronounced
while the shift of retreating cats
induces a pitter-patter
and more pictures fade out;
the happy memories
now stained
from her cigarette smoke
to ensure they'll die together,
yet somehow alone

He is cursed with a disease
that has rendered him pitiful
but alcohol doesn't care,
she drinks another swig,
becoming more cyclical
and deems the man’s hindrance
as sinful

Stuttering, he can't escape
a liquid she's drowned him with
by pouring it into her own veins-
maybe it's better this way,
to watch the walls as they cave in

What else can he do
as he slowly degrades
from Parkinson's?

I wish i could open up a bottle
and bring myself right back into the times
when i saw you as God, and myself a prophet,
and crawled to your house on the broken glass
of the bottles I'd had, so often, before.

It's such a novelty -
not dragging my bleeding self across the floor,
not seeing, in that trail of red, the springing stems
of hemlock breaking ground, to prove my loyalty
to yet another God who has abandoned men.

/in the jacket of evening mist
i hear vagabonds eating rats.
I remember when being missed
felt like getting a dose of crack./

When choosing to live loved or be dismissed,
i now think that i should have picked the latter,

/there's no misfortune when it comes to fate/

for love is just another form of cancer
that you would only find when it's too late.

how we broke
how we broke
how we broke
we were

we were made
no

we were born
we were born made
made
for each other
like the flower
blooms
made
blooms
made
blooms, made, to bloom
from its seed
the formula of life was written
and you were my blooming
you opened my eyes to the light
to the aridness of the dark
but
I saw you
linger
even as you taught me hope
how you toed the shadows
thumbed the seams
of life
to give death
a peek

and I shuddered
for I know it then
how I loved you
that's why
I learned to love goodness
for I remembered how
every time
the darkness spat you out
the blood
was too much to clean
it had to be burned
prayed away
commanded
warred with
your blood or his, as well...

I learned to love the light
but in time
I would learn
I loved the light
so much
for saving you
that I
learned you into forgetfulness
into regret
I learned you into spite
as, despite how I loved the light
because of you
I learned, I only loved the light
in the end
the darkness ate all that made you
visible
to my heart
visible

but I still knew you
knew you
I still knew
you were all I ever wanted
dreamed of

even in loneliness
abandonment
even in the arms of a thousand lovers
fragrances beyond aroma
beyond memory
beyond touch, I felt them
and in the midst
of the tumult
the waves of their sating
the kaleidoscope of *******
a thousand sighs
a thousand hot, sopping shivers
a thousand moans, all whispering,
tenderly, my name,
all in your voice
your voice
in your voice they chorused
and I was abloom
with the hearing of you
in their thousand harmonies of one you,
I loved you, all over again
and realized how,
though I love the light
the darkness in it,
what brings contrast
meaning to all the joys of life
what brings purpose
is how you, in your darkness
are my darkness - that you do not complete me,
you empower my reason to live
and I see you, unliving,
never knowing love
as it is the curse of your being
when you are with me,
you forget the dark
you forget the pain of what awaits in it
and you cling to me,
like breath in the lungs
like blood in the veins
our clinging is,
       what IS

and you become the light
you become it, as I
become the dark
to give you breath
to give you force in your heart
that it may be again
that it
your heart
may beat again
I become the dark
I lose the light
that you may see me
beyond the glare,
catch a glimpse of me, again
for when my light is lost
I know you will abandon me
call me cursed,
unholy, for what need a man
a thousand holy ululations of wives enthralled
to hear his wife
scream in the dark
that she has lost herself to dark princes
who ever would be princes
for kings they never became
and never would become
patricide of the light, they earned their keep
as princes
fallen, with you they played,
in your womb, and your blood they drank
that's why,
a thousand was plenty enough, to drown out
the sense of loss of you, from the abandon of me
that you purchased your pleasures
I made love, made marriage, made home,
with a thousand women, as still, you were never lost to me

still you were what bloomed again
with every peace found
I kept a part for you
every new light I loved
I loved you greater
I love you still
I love you as the time of day loves itself
right in the moment
in the present
where, when we first met
first kissed
first made our way, across the altar
made love, in those presents
I am present
with you, your presence is with me
I know you
love you, in the midst of our present
our every present
you are the gift of living
in my heart, my soul
my spirit,
the morning birds are your laughter
your touch
your will to love me, despite all we've suffered
you are eternal
and I am nothing
if not faithful
to a woman who has never been
what anything is worth
giving up on
for
or to, when you are that weight, on the scale
I am the balance that never tips against you
I am that one flesh, weighted with you
for to abandon you, would be to not love myself
and so, that that I love myself, has me loving you,
I wait for when you, yourself, will love you, too,
for maybe, if I'm lucky, for the first time, you will
finally, begin to love me back, for the first time...

... maybe

What makes a tragedy?
A hero in the wrong story
A child in the wrong household
A man in the wrong marriage
A woman in the wrong family

a chipped porcelain doll
on a velvet swing
(one eye staring blankly
at the chandelier dust)

a whispered promise
in a room full of smoke
and cheap perfume
(a hand clutching a wilted rose)

chalk outlines of angels
on a dance floor sticky
with spilled champagne
(laughter echoing hollowly
like a broken metronome)

a bride in black lace
a groom with eyes like ice
(a ceremony performed
by a marionette priest)

the ***** wheezes a dirge
masquerading as a love song
(a chorus of whispers:
"cut the cake, cut the ties,
cut the cord to reality")

confetti of regrets
falling like ash
on a forgotten dream
(a photograph torn in half,
one piece smoldering)

a masquerade ball
where everyone wears
the same mask of happiness
(a single tear escapes,
tracing a path through the paint)

the clinking of glasses
a symphony of unspoken lies
(a toast to the future,
built on foundations of sand)

a heart-shaped box
filled with broken promises
and moth-eaten memories
(a child's drawing of a sun
hidden beneath the debris)

a silent scream
trapped in a gilded cage
(a bird beating its wings
against the bars of expectation)

a love story rewritten
with ink that bleeds
and words that twist
(a fairytale turned nightmare,
a happily ever after
left on the cutting room floor)

the scent of decay
mingling with the sweetness
of artificial flowers
(a wedding cake left to rot,
a symbol of love gone sour)

a chorus of disapproval
humming beneath the surface
of polite conversation
(a family portrait fractured,
the pieces scattered like leaves)

a single spotlight
illuminating the emptiness
of a hollow victory
(a crown of thorns,
a throne of lies)

a Whisper in the Dark:
"I write sins, not tragedies"
(but the ink stains the soul,
and the tragedies unfold
in the silence that follows).

A dead, flat cricket
Under bright fluorescent lights
In a bathroom stall.