I thought you loved me.

I had so many things planned for us.
I still had so much left to give.

But you left anyway.
Now what am I to do
With these plans
All this love
But to fling them out
To be trampled by pigs
And eaten by birds

You lied to me.
You're cruel.
And why would I want to remain friends
With someone that selfish?

I tried to show you
That I wasn't like him
Blind to the fact
That you're just like her.

I've done nothing wrong
Except give my heart
And love wholly -
Something I will never do again

When I departed
Who knew
It was for the final time.
Perhaps it was for the best.
That's what I tell myself
In an attempt
To ease the sting
Of your abandonment.

A star is a star, after all
Meant to roam the frigid emptiness of space
To blaze and shine
Through the barren loneliness
And inspire bards and priests and murderers
Here on my patch of dirt

And this neanderthal
Was meant to walk this humble rock.
To vie for the heavens
Is blasphemy.
This simple-minded caveman
Can do nothing else in his grief
But perhaps
To find something more worthy
For which to paint his crude smudges
On the walls of his hovel.

The girl who captured my heart
And held my hand
And kissed my cheek so sweetly
Died back there
With my final vestiges of hope
In The Land of the Morning Calm.

Explore my mind
I beg of you
Walk the landscape of my psyche
Until your feet are nothing
But a bleeding pile of blisters

I'll expose you to all the truly inane **** I can dwell on
I'll show you the ugliness of my soul
The depths of depravity
To which I am willing to sink

I open myself to you for examination
For your scrutiny
Know me inside and out

And then tell me
If I still interest you
If you can still call my mind beautiful

I'll bare everything
In a desperate bid to drive you off
See if you can handle
The crushing depths of the boredom I can inflict

Because if you're just going to tire of me eventually
Get bored and walk off
To find the next stimulation
For your mind and soul
Then I'd rather you do it to me sooner
Than later
Even though I will never be the first
To leave.

A few more days
And we'll find ourselves
Sharing laughs once again
Lighting each other's cigarettes
Flipping each other the bird
Exchanging stupid grins
And holding hands
As we pontificate
And argue
And muse
On both the metaphysical and the mundane.

Looking at the same moon
Smoking when you smoke
Subsisting on digital hugs and kisses
(A sad parody of the real thing)
Pictures and memories

This is what we've been reduced to.
It's maddeningly frustrating
But I must endure.
(Something this old man is getting better at.)

It's not so bad
Anticipating your calls
To hear about the adventures of your day
About who you met up with
How many guys checked you out or hit on you
How many shots you polished off
And just to hear
The sound of your hello
Your *******, dude's
And your refreshingly innocent giggles.
Not bad at all.

It's better than nothing
While I'm counting the days
I stretch my hours
And inch sleep back
With Sylvia Plath and writing these little poems
To meet you in those tiny windows
Crowded in
By our time zones and sleeping habits

Succumbing to slumber
Only to be prodded awake
By the wailing of the phone
And finally
Plucking it out of the darkness

Just to hear
A voice
Your voice
Mellowed by sleep
Your inhibitions crippled by alcohol
Whispering little morsels of affection
And singing out trembling yawns
Moments before sleep claimed you from me

And I'm alone again in the dark

But smiling this time.

Virtual hugs ****,
You said.
This ******* distance
The longing
And all the
I miss you's
And image files
And sound bites
That mean the best
But don't do jack ****
To bring us an inch closer

I know.

Patience, my love.
Just a few more days.

Her hands told me everything
More than her piercing eyes
More than her articulate words
Ever could

They sang
Of realms crisscrossing
This ancient earth

Every crease
And there were many
Whispering forgotten lores

She is a portal
To different worlds
Strange dimensions
Where the fae dwell
And demons lurk

I don't know how
To dispel the legion
Shadowing her
Or how
To drive off her demons
But to be there
To listen
To love
To hold
As she searches
For answers
For meaning
To the colossal questions
That slipped through the
Cold balance sheet of life
Too deep to fit
Into its little cubicles
And neat labels

Torn between desire and fear
Do I advance?
Do I flee?

If I stay
And she tires of me
What then?

If I run
And wound her
What then?

You're stupid
They told me
For hesitating.
Go
They said.

You're a fool
They told me
For making the wrong choice.
Turn back
They said.

You're crazy
They told me
She's a free spirit.
You need to tame her
They said.

One does not harness a star
One does not subjugate a heavenly body

I may have grown roots
And she, wings
Nevertheless
I wait for her
To make her nest in me.

For even birds seek a perch
And foxes seek refuge

Now
As normalcy resumes
And our time slowly unreels
Inside my head
Crowding out all else
All that occupies me
Are her hands
Rough, calloused, and scalding
And beautiful with an unspoken tenderness
And millennial wisdom
Locked with mine.

She said
I like your mind

What I should have replied with was
I like you.
You are the night sky to my mind's cavemen
An enduring thing of wonder
Inspiring tales and legends and worship
And all that jazz.

Should have.
I would be mad to bare myself
Just to wither under her gaze of supreme boredom.
A man cannot embrace a star
To dance in her purifying flames
To cavort in pure energy
And live to tell the tale.

All mortals can hope for
Are those dark interludes of breathless awe
At the fearful display of the heavens

I was never meant to walk on her surface
And explore her depths
To foster such ambitions
Is to court death
To plunge into immolation

After a night of slack-jawed gazing
I have to do nothing else but retreat back into my cave
And paint on the walls.

After you left
My cigarettes tasted dull
The electricity in the air vanished
And my thoughts lost their luster
How could I frolic in the playground of my mind
When your voice still echoes
Bouncing around
From dank nook to dusty corner
And stirs and disturbs
Tired emotions
Long meant to be put to rest.

******* on my **** stick
On the abandoned sidewalk
I can still see us
Five feet away
Breathing each other's smoke
Beaming smiles at passing cars
Exchanging inanities
While I gorged
On lies of grins and fraternal love.

At the hazy bottom of the bottle
Later that night
Is when I realize
I only exist
In between our hellos and goodbyes.

When she sings
Celestials dance

Her voice summons sprites
Automatons ignited by a single utterance
Writhing and shimmering
Even in the shadows

The fae emerge from beneath oak leaves
Coaxed out of hiding
By what was taken
For a druidess' song

When she sings
I weep

At what could have been
At what is

She tosses a glance down at me
And juxtaposes elation with despair

My skin revolts
In an eruption of goosebumps
Not even whiskey can suppress

Each melody
Revealing
Unspoken depths
Nourishing her unassailable spirit
Flawless in her imperfection
Tempered in her brokenness

Her breath fills my soul
With effervescent aether

All my meticulous machinations
My impenetrable nonchalance
Those incorrigible wisecracks
The implacable facade
Methodically pieced together over time

Shattered

Undone by the whisper of a seraph