Considering me a talented, aspiring shill
My muse loaned me a feathery quill
Brokering her wisdom, leasing her skill
With embroidered frills each barb with beauty did distill
Lithographer's vision, a graceful dividend to reveal 
Depreciating vane my artistic license to  bill
Hollow shaft gilded so her availing light could the vacuum fill
Inky reservoir with inspiration did instill
A deep well with literary devices did rill
Ideas streaming from strained cavity to the mind's tip with zeal  
Burnished hues, sharp tones aesthetic notions to congeal
A precision valve appended vagaries to swill
An automated inkblot defibrillating patterns to spill

Considering me a talented, aspiring shill
My muse loaned me a feathery quill
Brokering her wisdom, leasing her skill
With embroidered frills each barb with beauty did distill
Lithographer's vision, a graceful dividend to reveal 
Depreciating vane my artistic license to  bill
Hollow shaft gilded so her availing light can the vacuum fill
Inky reservoir with inspiration did instill
A deep well with literary devices did rill
Ideas streaming from strained cavity to the mind's tip with zeal  
Burnished hues, sharp tones aesthetic notions to congeal
A precision valve appended vagaries to swill
An automated inkblot defibrillating patterns to spill

I erased your voice-mail today--
     the only remaining evidence
     that we ever loved each other.

     Notes I could part with--
       penmanship doesn't encapsulate you.

       E-mails jettison into cyberspace
         without fanfare.

         Pictures were trashed
             before you left the parking lot.

Flames of rage
         consume indiscriminately.
     Like a bruise,
         black will fade to blue
     until it looks worse than it feels.



       Strangely,
       the voice-mail gave me pause.



Your voice exited that ear-piece
     like a sucker-punch to a glass jaw.

             It took me twenty minutes to punch 7
                 and put the defibrillating pads to my amnesia.


Whoever coined the phrase
     easy as the push of a button
never used one to erase the only
                 "I love you"
      that ever sounded genuine.

I don't slam well on love
It slams on me
A drumming thrumming arrhythmia
Ba-bump ba-bump ba--- bump-ba-bump
A little loss here is a little gain there
Only, it doesn't work that way
My stopwatch heart hiccups then echoes
Like odd flats and sharps
Seemingly out of place among the expected
A beat that needs to be acquired over several listenings
Like a new food that needs to be tasted up to 12 times
Before you can truly decide if you like it.
It take more than 3 licks and a bite to get to my center
One, two three, you're not for me
Four, five, six, a few more licks
Seven, eight, nine, out to dine
Ten, eleven, twelve, you can delve
And yet... Here it sits in my chest with its arrhythmia
Patiently waiting for that defibrillating current
That shock that will set it right
Or perhaps it's never meant to be that way
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps
It's perfect in it's imperfection

My heart's a stereo,
and we can dance if you want to,
because the rhythm is gonna get you,
on re-pe-pe-pe-pe-peat.

The incessant calm
the roaring silence.

A mystic bell tolls its portent,
and the world uncoils like a spring
and collapses like thunder on a summer day
The shock of cold strikes my muscles,
defibrillating my comatose brain into a primal state
as I feel the water suspend me, if only for a moment

The rushing adrenaline breaks its mental dam and seizes control
My legs a motor in the tides,
my body an arrow from Apollo's bow arcing towards the crystalline surface

I break the barrier into air, it shatters like glass.
And then, I fight, clawing like a crazed animal.

The primal struggle to survive, to battle my existence
to take on the entire world...
collides with my thinking mind at once, as I shrug off the weight of breathlessness

The primal and the intelligent forcing me forward
threatening to rend my body in two!
My world inverts, and does a tipsy dance

The struggle between our dreams and our reality
Our fight and how tired we truly are
Hits me with a wall of realization

I fight on, my fury a mad race to break myself
to surpass the limits I set for myself
and truly see the world

The moment hits, a single tap on the wall an explosion that sends my body reeling
and my mind blinks and returns to its natural state
I breathe new air and clear my head,
yet search as if trying to remember the dream I just awoke from

And the world is a clutter
And the roars are silent