i want to be held the way our galaxy holds the earth
there once was a boy that held me how the sky holds a sunset orange
beautifully
but temporarily
i painted his edges in soft watercolors, wrote his mistakes in gentle calligraphy, made something hurtful turn into something healing
he loved her more
and let me go
and now i find myself looking at someone else from the corner of my eyes, wondering if a tiny, flickering feeling can be valid at all among the fire of my others
i hear a requiem for a dream and my heart flutters like it did two years ago
two years
i want to be held like the galaxy holds the sun, the stars, the earth,
in a delicate orbit
a bright light in dark space

I burnt the tip of my cigarette into my
Tumbler to **** two habits with one stone.
Though the **** coughed its last sigh and polluted a decently-priced
Rye, I don't trust that the addiction died.

Tipped my finger to the 'tender to fill a new glass,
Struck the flint to the tinder, a tobacco mask.
They poison slow, but the effects are fast.

You, like these habits, are in the past,
Waiting for me at the bottom of a flask, swearing always
"It'll be the last."

you set again the boundary i thought was gone already

17 feb: offbeat

I couldn't stop thinking about
grey tartan and gin
and soft pink skin.
Cigarettes and typewriters,
drops of ink on the paper
leading away from the word
"desperation."

But there it was.
"I'm leaving for the afternoon.
Your choice is to prune
the bushes or to water them."
What was I to do?
I liked them full and so did you.

You were frantic.
As though you'd misplaced something
when really you were just searching
for a fishing net.
"Look at the sunset."
Oh but it's gone, it's over, I'm sorry.

[Friend, friend
do not cower or back down
from this but know
that I am listening for you,
to you, always.]

Left to rot,
built to spill,
one of us was always ill.
I was waiting for you to come home--
I have not touched the bushes yet.