I’d trace your spine until you felt the love from my fingertips burn hotter than the pain shrieking in your bones.

I’d fiddle with your lamp until it was the perfect shade of indigo.
I’d keep watch for you in the dark and shield you in the blinding light.
I’d run you baths that made you feel pure.

you’d never sleep alone,
unless you wanted to.
even then,
I’d be sitting against your door
with a glass of tea,
fruit,
and your pills.

I’d write you pathetic sonnets.
I’d sing you off-key songs.
I’d read you poetry that brought us both to tears.
I’d draw you stupid doodles and try to make you laugh.

you’d never be alone
on the miserable floor.
those *******,
with all their relentless,
maddening buzz
wouldn’t be heard over me.
louder,
or more demanding.

I’d feed you Nutella: my very last spoonful.
I’d clean your room as often as you wanted, or never.
I’d take you to bookshops and cafés and nowhere at all.
I’d sit with you and play with your piercings.

you wouldn’t be alone,
staring awake at dawn.
the dark,
it wouldn’t be spent so restlessly.

I wouldn’t quieten my desire.
no.
not this time.

I’d say I’m sorry when I laughed so hard I spit.

I’d love you when you couldn’t love yourself.
I’d care for you when all you saw was waste.
I’d carry you wherever we went and tell everyone you’re mine.

It all started so long ago
that even time cannot recall
where or how it all began
and I was not there
but somehow in part I was
and you as well
though we don’t remember
in the traditional way of remembering
yet we can see in the ways
that leave our eyes blind
that we all were there
in some small
yet infinitely important way
a thread pulled from the nothing
that turned into everything
a spool of love unfurling in waves
of sound and dance
and life and death
and Vincent yellow stars
and pastel ballerina Degas
and time melting into pools of Dali
and sounds trapped
in in the silent world of Beethoven
and the drum beat of Kerouac
and the flowers of Baudelaire
and the drunk truth of Bukowski
and something lost
in the shape of memory
betrayed by what would become ego
was the simplicity of joy
before we had flesh to cover our bones
and bones to move our flesh
and our hearts where stars
that dreamt against the emptiness
in the space between what was
and what could be
and in the pulse of becoming
and into the flow of being
and with the birth of want and need
we gave ego sharp tooth and claw
and drew lines across the night
and dived eternities horizon
into heaven and hell
and pulled the gods and devils
from a hat that we found
upon a corpse that was once
a man made out of snow
from a land where winter
was not cold and bitter
but had a gently warmth
and easy fire that was calm and clean
and things of all sort knew
that the need to be loved
was no more or less important
than the need to love
for time was a waste of all
when absent of the art of love
and now what are we
if we are not allowed to dream endlessly
if we are not allowed to love infinitely
if we fail to live kindly
if we ever forget
the art of love
then the beginning may as well
have been the end

I feel melt
           concentrated in the chest, legs, brain, it is most hinderous.
           For instance, upon entering small enough rooms, thinking
           too hard, or looking too closely at my skin, some sort of ladle
           is at once ****** down my throat and grates forgotten
           membranes in the dark. It works up a soup, it does, and all
           the while I totter. My, what a dance!, though I can't say I'm
           glad to have taken to the floor. In fact!, the step of liquids
           flushing every which way inside drives one quite to the edge!
           Bonkers! I'd rather It'd just quit it's game, this soup.              
           I'd rather it just
spill.