Imagine a single breath,
left alone in a hollow chest.

Grey seeping into white
Color bleeding out like a pen,

Violating the marrow of my bones.
The blue-black of my veins,
Lost against my feathery skin.

The union of so many memories,
Real and imagined.

Black blazers shrouding me,
with prayers and tears.

Convinced in the everlasting,
As much as I was for awakenings,
I close my eyes (and dream).

I have left my soul unfed
I stare at 1's and 0's all alone
I live within my phone.

I have no words but empty ones.
I speak the same script as everyone.

Who sees me?
If I don't speak.
Who loves me?
If I am not here.

Everything is fine.
Is what I say all the time.

When cliff sides erode
it is nature changing, becoming new.
What will happen as I lose myself, bit by bit.
What is hiding behind my soul?

Red pools sitting in the light
Your hand on my wrist
Sticky fingers.

Screaming in my ear,
Paradise.

Perhaps in time, I will understand love,
How our separate bodies are to become one,
Perhaps in time, I will understand
How I never could love you,
While loving you.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.

And it was in the midst of white daffodils that I fell in love.
Love for him and love for me, love outspoken and overpouring.
Love in the gentlest light that illuminates no flaws, and leaves only the warm glow of beauty.
Love.

You call me lover
for the first time
and I sigh,

You think that's charming
that my pupils are roses
Blooming with equal affection.

I push you then,
And you think I am coy,
Shy by the strength of your feeling.

I take a breath,
and taste the rejection
pooling in my mouth.

I want to tell you,
that I don't love you.
That you don't love me.

That we don't love each other,
or ourselves,
That there are empty spaces.

Holes within ourselves,
Caverns deep inside of me,
That I can't even begin to understand.

I want you to say that I am stranger,
Just another lost girl in your bed,
That I don't even know my own name.

But you would just call me,
"your rambling lover"
and so I close my mouth.

And kiss you.

I wish you look into my eyes,
And hear me when I say:
Oh my love,
Tell me that you love me
Even if you don’t mean it.

My heart feels so full,
Sometimes
I can taste it on my tongue.

Like I could burst
Into a violent explosion.

My anxiety and dread
Released into the air.

Suspended pollens.

The taste of madness in my mouth,
The heat of it within my mind-
roaring still despite your absence.

Tempered in time
they tell me
Heavy phantoms may leave you still.

But I am still whirling for you,
And I  feel so twisted for it,


god.

          please.
                            help.

me.

I

              still

love

                   him.

More and more I understand
Feeling the warmth of your hands on my face, my back.

The fog of your breath on my glasses, the imprints of you.
The expansion of your chest is so alien to me.

I watch as I slip into your stories.
Your hot lips pouring unimaginable intimacies into me.

I can't help but feel I know you,
Know the flesh of your mind as well as the contours of your body.

Coupled with you feels filling as if I can escape into your openings.
Seep into your welcoming embraces and be unbothered, free.

And yet, sometimes you stutter or twitch,
Break up the carefully chosen rhythm of us.

And I am reminded of our confounding and complete separateness.

Your soul shines so brightly sometimes as if to scare my own.
I try not to shrink from you, oh how I love your shrouded glances.

But, I can't help the splash I make, as I slip away.

Bashed in the pavement
Between the spidering cracks
Are the steps of millions.

Millions of sweet lovers
Soft whistles floating in the air.

Millions of ******* brothers
Crackling with little care.

Poor folk and rick alike,
Shoes a bit worse for wear
Heels on some.
While others go with feet bare.

I saw you being swallowed
Your tiny black head turned up towards me.

And you saw me "free"
Against the yellow backdrop of our world.

Both waiting and waiting,
for the inevitable dirt-filled end.

What is fear?
When your feelings are gone,
And all that is left are thoughts.

What can it be?
But a burnt-out match.
When it is dark and you have lost your way.