through dawn i stumble,
singing to bustling streets through
clenched teeth, through
wavering eyelids i
am the sum
of the sleep
i haven't got. i
  was lost,
and couldn't
and can't tell if this day
pervades, but;
  lost like this, lost
undercurrent, while caverns of cloud subsume,
i can take this.

in an instant,
lucid life is a dream i
carve whilst awake. i'd
never seen vanishing
as perfectly as this
platanus leaf beneath
rain, beneath me.

the sky dissolves as i breathe,
choking on city air.

at the end of everything,
i draw out short
straws. indisciplined, the
spaces between my heartbeats
become,
to curl up and writhe and
scream aloud your name,
to take down
the whole **** coast
on the single point we
intersect,

   with hope;

to fall into your life, like
slow leaves to footpaths.

does a lion lie                                                                     do lies settle here,
beneath these sheets                                                             in these nested enclosures,
i've found myself strewn upon?                                      or corridors, from i to places
                                                                                                   never invented?
or just clusters of stars,
too distant                                                                               seven things
from wherever i found myself,                                        burnt oceans into sand;
or what breathing was,                                                         two glimmering points.
or emptiness?
                      there you were,                              a sign of rehearsal,
pulling life down, on trails hung                               or omen, or,
in perfect lines from                               just kind of nothing
each &every; spark in the sky                                         at
                                                                                 all.
nine. sharp.
am i
always just
this unmotivated?

do i truly perceive
the embedding nothingness                                                      does this get
from life, or just in dream still?                                                          any easier?

    
                                                                                                         i'd rather find
                                                                                                               myself at
                                                                                          the bottom of the ocean,
                                                                    some
                                                                             days,
                                                                      i guess.                                   sorry.

curling up into all sweet confusions
that trickle down from
your touch,
we become the sky, as birds fall
from above. i lose
a tactician's leverage throughout
this fog; a descension
if you were the moon,
an aberrance,
if you were a single leaf,
dripping from this
tree coiling up to
the lights hung on
netted strings set under
the darkness of the sky,
where-ever you have been.
where-ever you are.

   so,
   do the stars still shine solely for you,
   the nights you most need them?

perhaps i have
gone blind,
just when i need to see you,
more now than ever.
perhaps i've just
been sleeping
a little
too long, inside this cave.

   does the sky still divide the sea?

but, undoing the buttons on your grip,
you build declensions on foundations
of realisation: with full authorship of
your motions, you know you could
go anywhere, love. you now know
away from i is any road, every treadmark
save this single one.
                             and mine is hardly treacherous,
but you'll still only find me in mountaintops,
so i could barely blame you if the path gets
too narrow, or too long-wound.

   do the clouds still turn images
   in full colour, late afternoon, to
   remind you of shapes i imitate
   in all fractured disappearances?

i've seen retreat from so
many sides now, the addition of
yours could
hardly make a dent. not that i
would not lament a loss like you,
more than anything.

   yet, don't
   worry, never
   worry, i can still stay in motion.

still, if you see fit to
collect all broken pieces of me,
and build up this cottage, or nest, you can keep
your heart here long as
you like, darling.

starlight,
i won't forgive you,
for you haven't done a single thing wrong.

and you don't have to say
anything, i can hear
your heartbeat through the sheaves
of grass that grow back in
small increments:
i know you're there,
no matter how invisible you may
find yourself feeling, late at
nights you can't sleep to
be more like my consistencies, you never knew.

so show me a freckle on your arm,
or the breadth of the world,
or nothing at all. you've
already collected my insides.

love, life is meaningless, but perhaps
with some time and another place,
we could still find purpose. my hopes
are wearing thin, but i'm hardly dead
yet.

so, don't cry. it's okay to hurt,
like i understand you do. i'm
hurt too, but i can lick clean
all your wounds. i could be
yours
if you wanted
me to.

in dreams, i
hear the sea on your
mind, once again, and build
catamarans we'll sail out of this
disjoint union of townships and countrysides
on; and i'll gouge my heart out and pour it into the
ocean, so with each swell and retreat of the waves you can
hear how many of its contractions are dedicated to the lights in your eyes.