These emotions run free, words released
As tears against my cheek,
Lips stretched against teeth.
Unrestrained my heart beats, bleeding-
Staining the sheets, that cover your cold shoulders
As you turn away from me. My hands pulling towards
Our infinity. With open arms I move forward
To embrace this closed world.
Only to be rejected, left
In the freezing cold.

-SLuR

450

Dreams—are well—but Waking’s better,
If One wake at morn—
If One wake at Midnight—better—
Dreaming—of the Dawn—

Sweeter—the Surmising Robins—
Never gladdened Tree—
Than a Solid Dawn—confronting—
Leading to no Day—

Somewhere, amongst the debris
of cigarettes after ***,
chemicals to induce sleep,
I forgot what it means to love.

I forgot what it means to breathe,
to sit still, and just be.

Somewhere, beneath these hooded seams
of solitude and well-versed grief,
beats a heart less cynical,
less tamed by vague distraction.

My nervous ticks and bad habits,
line of best fit for a near-hit
of satisfaction:

This is not enough, I know.
This is not nearly enough
to cool the bray of life
that still rattles meaning in my bones.

I forgot what it means to love,
what separates a house from a home.

Somewhere beyond this thirst
for brand-new words
is a gratitude for all that has been.
Every cliché holds a truth.

Every sentiment, a cocoon,
that I should lie so still inside

until I am wholesome,
until I am new.

Clasped a coffin handle, cold and bronze,
Felt the weight of earth's return to land,
Solemnity a clammy sweat upon my palms.

Six quiet men, prepped to stand and bear
The loaded cask, our passenger unaware,
Unheeding lids held tight her sightless stare,
While I, her nephew, stood wondering there.

Scarce breathing in my fear and grief, I strained,
Unwilling soldier forced to march in train
Toward a punctual station beside a mound of earth,
The period ending to a sentence spun from birth.